X850 PRO VIVO Unlocking Pipelines Help (Tutorials not helping)

[RaGeSet]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure you get this a lot but I need help unlocking the last four pipes on my ATI Radeon X850 PRO video card. I've flashed numerous bios to card and none of them unlock the last four pipes. I'm sure my card is a "VIVO" card because it has the yellow "thingy" on it.

I make a Boot DVD using Nero (Nero installs the necessary DOS files) and I load on the bios files, flashrom AND Atiflash programs as well. I keep getting the message Preserve 40** ROM crap. When I use the command -L, it tells me the ROM is locked. So I guess I need to know how to unlock the ROM, or know how to flash the bios without that Preserve message showing.

I'm using the ATI x850 PRO VIVO 16p bios I found on one of the threads. Because I don't want to overclock my card yet, just enable the last four pipes.

I'm using the most recent versions of the Flashrom and Atiflash DOS programs...nothing is working. This is actually my first major video card purchase (I'm switching from being a console gamer to a PC gamer mainly...even sold my Xbox 360 I waited 8 hours inline to get, hehehe) so I don't know much about modding video cards.

FYI, I did read the tutorials found on this website and followed them step by step, command by command and still those damn pipes won't enable...

Thank you in advance for your help and advice.

Frank aka RaGeSet

EDIT: This is the AGP version

[RaGeSet]

UPDATE: I have learned from another website that the newer ATI X850 PRO VIVO AGP video cards have been laser cut starting from serial numbers starting with 180530. That means my card is stuck with 12 pipes. If your X850 PRO VIVO card's serial number starts with 180529 or below, you can flash your bios, if it starts with 180530, then like me you are stuck with a great card that could have been a lot better.

RaGeSet