Unlock ROM and change Device ID of X800GT

[anjula_jt]

I flashed x800GT to x800XT (both BIOS from Sapphire). Functioning is 100% normal but card still recognised as x800gt. I checked and found following:

After flashing SSID & vendorID changed BUT ASIC Device ID did not change.
Old ASIC device ID = 554B
New ASIC ID = 5D52 (what I am trying to flash it with)

Q - WHY AM I AFTER CHANGING "ASIC Device ID"?
A - I WANT TO learn - IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO "UNLOCK SERIAL FLASH ROM" and change device ID.

My GPU Core is R480 and can safely OC 550 core & 600 Mem. Have run Furmark for hours to stress it without error (stock cooling but fan speed set to 100% all time).

After flashing many times with different Bios (XT, GTO etc) I found that irrespective of the BIOS used for flashing, card was always recognised as " X800 GT".
This was puzzling as I had been flashing it with all sorts of BIOS based on R423 & R480 GPU core.
After many (failed) attempts to change Device ID, I learnt that it has locked ROM (I used "flashrom -l 0" and output said "Serial Flash ROM is locked" )

I have tried many vbios flashing utility (old and new) and both DOS and win. Below are some details (can send whole lot as I made good record of it all)

Flashrom (2.17 & 2.4) and modified flashrom (got from one of W1zzard's 2004 link on x800)
Atiflash (3.59 & 3.60) and
Atiwinflash (for ATIwinflash I also tried from "CMD window" as the command can be used just like DOS flash and could use features like -unlock)
Have two PCs one with winXP 32 bit & other win7 64 bit OS and both were used. Goes without say that I have cleaned old drivers etc so that card gets recognised fresh after install.

I did not get GIGABYTE's DOS version of vbios flash tool. The windows one from thie site does not recognize my Sapphire card even after I flash it to Gigabyte X800 (my guess is that it si due to ASIC ID).

If any of you have the Gigabyte's DOS vbios flash utility please email or send "active" link.

Below are combination of commands I tried in DOS and the outputs got


when flashed with
atiflash -f -p 0 biosname.bin or
flashrom -f -p 0 biosname.bin or
flashrom -f -p 0 biosname.bin -newbios (thanks to W1zzard to give this switch)

Output got was

Serial ROM
Bios Device ID = 0x5D52
ASIC Device ID = 0x554B
Existing SSID = 0x0B12
New SSID = 0x0B12
Existing Bios P/N = 113-A47411-100
New Bios P/N = 113-A47411-100
Flash type = ST M25P05/c
65536 of 65536 bytes verified

----

Flashing with
atiflash -f -p 0 biosname.bin -st or
flashrom -f -p 0 biosname.bin -st or
flashrom -f -p 0 biosname.bin -newbios -st

Output got was

Serial ROM
Bios Device ID = 0x5D52
ASIC Device ID = 0x554B
Existing SSID = 0x0B12
New SSID = 0x0B12
Existing Bios P/N = 113-A47411-100
New Bios P/N = 113-A47411-100
Flash type = ST M25P10/c
65536 of 65536 bytes verified

***please note that only chane is "P10/c" compared to "P05/c" in "Flash type"***
--------

Flashing with
atiflash -f -p 0 biosname.bin -sst or
flashrom -f -p 0 biosname.bin -sst or
flashrom -f -p 0 biosname.bin -newbios -sst

Output got was

Serial ROM
Bios Device ID = 0x5D52
ASIC Device ID = 0x554B
Existing SSID = 0x0B12
New SSID = 0x0B12
Existing Bios P/N = 113-A47411-100
New Bios P/N = 113-A47411-100
Flash type = SST25VFxxx/c
Error : data not erased

ERROR 0FL01 : Press '1' to continue

In this case the bios does not get written

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I sent private msg to W1zzard but thought it was useful to post to you all as it might help reaching the goal faster.

Thank you all in advance. Also consider sending Gigabyte's DOS vbios flash utility or an active link if you have.

Anjula