flashing bios
 

I'm trying to flash my vid card bios using atiflash but when I enter the command atiflash -i to get the adapter number it says adapter not found. What am I doing wrong?

I tried using winflash and it said it could not find a "dscrete" video card. What does that mean?

its better flash it using the bootable disc(flashrom) from this website where the bios file are burn together into the cd.it is more safe when the card not working from a bad flash.

you know the risk of bad flash right?
prepare a pci graphic card before u flash bios...
hope this can help u.

I don't have a pci card but my mobo has an integreated unit.

then u better dont flash it. a built in display will automatically be disable after ur agp card slot into it.
if u still want to proceed then it depends on your luck

So the only way to protect myself from a bad flash is to buy another graphics card to use in the event that the flash fails?

if the flash fail then u must prepare a pci graphic card(without this u cant see the screen to flash back).
even if the flash fail, ur agp/pci express card will still working(coz its only the bios missing only)
my advice,
if u flash,try find the bios that close to ur card like gpu and rams type.
before flash the card REMEMBER to backup your current bios and save it in safe place.
well,good luck...

Thanks for the warnings. Will any PIC video card work? Does Win XP Pro have a minimum requirement (according to Microsoft all you need is a SVGA card capable of 800x600 resolution) or can I just go buy some old 8Mb ATI RAGE XL card for $5 on eBay?

for online shopping,i dont know much..
for the pci card,any type also can,as long as i get into dos mode(for flush the bios)
as i know,normal pci card may work.
mine one is from s3 trio64+
mine is a second hand one from my friends.

Ok, too bad you force your motherboard to use its integrated chipset. It would make things a lot easier.

You can always do a blind flash if your BIOS gets screwed up. Just use all the commands like you normally would; everything is still there you just can't see it. You are using an ATI card aren't you?

Yes, an x850 Pro.

How do I go about doing a blind flash?

a blind flash?
last time i fail to flash the bios.my pc just wont boot at all.
my pc didnt looks like going to load into windows,the board wont beep a code also.
maybe is just my board,your board maybe is ok.
just ask the other guy how to blind flash.
my board is abit nf7-s.

You blind flash the same way you would normally flash. Only you can't see the screen so its blind.

Hey Netskimmer,
Are you sure that your card can be unlocked to 16 pipes? If not please post your fuses to see. If it is moddable I can send you "bootable automated flash CD". If you can't flash the card on your computer just use other PC (friend's for instance) to flash it. It will take you not more that few seconds.
One last thing - what exactly card do you have AGP or PCIX (I suppose AGP)? Correct me if I am wrong.

If you want post your original BIOS and I will include it into the automated flash CD compilation ;) .

Hi dolf,

I have an ATI built 256Mb ATI X850 Pro AGP video card. Not sure if this is what you meant by posting fuses… CONFIG_ROM_FUSES: 0x861. Attached a bios dump from ATITool. Is there anything other than enabling the pipes that I can do to increase my cards performance?

The inharent problem is the BIOS will wait for the card to become ready, and never try to use the onboard graphics. The card will never send the OK signal so it sits.


You will need a PCI video card and to reset the BIOS.

My PCI video card is in the mail. If I decide to flash the bios using the ones on this website is their a reason I would want to use the X850 XT bois instead of the X850 XT PE bios? ATITool says I have an R481 chipset.

Yes mine says R481 to for some reason tho mine is now modded and giving me XT speeds. I think its safe to say you have the exact same card as mine , ( ATI agp brand ). Its very much capable of 16 pipelines and ive got it safe to 530 /580 from its stock 500/500.

Ive tried both XT and XT PE bios and both seem to give me default clocks of 540/580, so I used Rabit2.0 to modify the bios so that it gave me default clocks of 500/500. You can use either tbh. Then I use ATI tool to manually OClock the card to 530/580 when gaming or benching with a ATI Silencer 5.

just a question? is it damaging or unsafe to increase clocks in ATI tool everytime you boot up as appose to having them just load up as bios defaults, because I know OClocking does reduce lifespan of a card but sometimes I use my PC for work so I only need stock speeds hence why I only up it in ATI tool

If I’m going to reset the clocks back to default like you are doing wouldn’t it just be easier dump my bios, unlock the pipes, then flash the modified bios? Or is there something else that I am getting with the XT PE bios.

Its possible I think , but I think just do it the way everyone else has done it using a X850XT PE Bios and just underclock back to pro speeds if your still using a Stock Fan.

I wonder if the enhanced performance from OC would be worth the time and money to upgrade the heatsink and fan. Not sure how difficult it would be to swap them out either.

Well I just did that today. I had stock fan and my temps were :
37 C at rest -> 65 at load. This was with stock 500/500 speeds

I bought a ATI Silencer 5 Cooler for around 25$ . I got for 13 uk pounds.

The cooler took me about 30 mins to install. Using a screwdriver, was pretty easy to take off the stock fan. I used a dry hankerchief to wipe off the paste on the actual chip itself... (Im not sure on the proper procedure but im still alive :P ). I added the silencer 5 cooler over, its own paste comes already attached onto the cooler. Did up the screws, made sure everything was tight together , pluged the fan wire into the 3 pin socket.

Now my temps are

29 C at rest -> 45 at load. This is with OC 530/580 speeds.

At stock speed I was actually only getting 5690 on 3dmark 05

Where? The cheapest I could find one, once I factored in shipping, was $40.