Is there ever a happy ending?

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I just read the title to every thread in this forum back to the new year and read the ones that interested me. Lots of good stuff, very informative.
However.
One thing that struck me was how many people flash their gpu bios and how frequently it ends in failure (often catastrophic).
I have no need or intention to tinker with my gpu,s other than by overclocking but i do like to tinker and have an interest in what other people achieve but surely the risks outweigh the possible benefits?

How about some happy stories?
How much money did you save by flashing your gpu bios and was it worth the risk?

 

[eidairaman1]

Its not worth the risk period. Its costly due to making a card inop/brick. and there is a point of diminishing returns when overclocking video cards, youre better off overclocking the cpu only to gain perf or getting a video card stronger than what you have or running a crossfire/sli setup.

 

[erocker]

How much money did you save by flashing your gpu bios and was it worth the risk?

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

There have been times when you could flash a bios to "upgrade" your card to the next card (GTX 465 to GTX 470 for example). Most of the time people seem to be flashing their cards due to a lack of information or bad information.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

There have been times when you could flash a bios to "upgrade" your card to the next card (GTX 465 to GTX 470 for example). Most of the time people seem to be flashing their cards due to a lack of information or bad information.

Didnt mean to sound sarcastic. Sorry.

Do you mean that people have problems flashing their cards " due to a lack of information or bad information" ?
or that they are flashing them for the wrong reasons ie a cheap "upgrade"

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

And it doesn't always end in tears but those that achieved are not going to mention it on a forum because they are largely for issues and debate.
I have flashed many a card many times and despite nearly bricking a few I always managed to sort it out.
The plus points vary but I have mostly flashed them to increase my max clocks, case point I had two 58## radeons both waterblocked yet the max clocks were limited to 7-800 I think but after a flash I ran them both at 1ghz the rest of their life (they live on with blower refitted in friend's pcs) that included folding for two years with a hefty extra 10-30% performance increase, I certainly was happy I bothered.

 

[m4gicfour]

I've probably done 50+ flashes (for various reasons) not including any hardware I'm working on for someone else. Never once have I had a problem. Sure, I've had misflashes happen *extremely* rarely (say, maybe twice?), but as long as you 1) Know what you're doing, 2) Have a backup card and/or 3) don't panic and restart it before re-flashing successfully...

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Didnt take long for someone to tell me a happy story after all !!

 

[Sasqui]

I've probably done 50+ flashes (for various reasons) not including any hardware I'm working on for someone else. Never once have I had a problem. Sure, I've had misflashes happen *extremely* rarely (say, maybe twice?), but as long as you 1) Know what you're doing, 2) Have a backup card and/or 3) don't panic and restart it before re-flashing successfully...

1) Saving a backup BIOS FIRST!!!

The OP has a good question (or point), it seems there have been more GPU flash failures than any other problem on this forum.

I have seen success stories, such as 290 to 290x.

 

[W1zzard]

Most people for who it works will never post on the forums about their success, but failures will create a thread looking for help.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It's one of those things that is easy to do in principle and by that I mean when you read a guide etc and seams very simple when you are actually doing it until it goes horribly wrong, asus gpu tool has a flasher built in and I accidentally used it once to see what it did , id bet that has killed a few gpus by accident or stupidity as it fecked one of my gpus bios' s right up (fixed easily though I booted off the spare then reflashed the bad one)

 

[m4gicfour]

1) Saving a backup BIOS FIRST!!!

The OP has a good question (or point), it seems there have been more GPU flash failures than any other problem on this forum.

I have seen success stories, such as 290 to 290x.

Like I said: 1) Know what you're doing

Maybe because people see free performance and think they can just jump into it? Hard to say. I do, however, know that flash failures are a *created* problem. If you never flash, you never have a failure. On the other hand, random component failures happen for a myriad number of reasons, but are generally not caused by user error unless that error is extreme (running extreme volts, overloading your PSU, running with clogged fans and overheating for years at a time)

Most people for who it works will never post on the forums about their success, but failures will create a thread looking for help.

Indeed.

It's one of those things that is easy to do in principle and by that I mean when you read a guide etc and seams very simple when you are actually doing it until it goes horribly wrong, asus gpu tool has a flasher built in and I accidentally used it once to see what it did , id bet that has killed a few gpus by accident or stupidity as it fecked one of my gpus bios' s right up (fixed easily though I booted off the spare then reflashed the bad one)

Yeah I'm not a fan of motherboards/GPUs bundled software including flashers. I mean, sure, if they want to make an easy to use tool then by all means, but it's not something that should EVER be installed by default. At minimum, you should have to go to a website to download it or pass a warning page and click to agree to install if provided on a CD

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Interesting stuff. And i am glad i asked the question.

I think m4gicfour sums it up for me

" if you never flash, you never have a failure"