Major problem after GPU BIOS Flash

Detection · Nov 9, 2012

qubit said:
So, new posters come on TPU looking for help to fix a mistake they made and shibby boy is right there to stick the boot in! Way to go dude!

I agree with the other posters, this is totally uncalled for. It's just plain bullying and yes, many of his posts are similar to this one. I'm dismayed that members like this are allowed to continue on TPU. :shadedshu They'd soon be gone from my forum, I can tell you.

@detection

I'm sorry that I can't help with your card problem; it looks like the other posters may have been right about the wrong bios having damaged the card.

Anyway, shit happens and it's really frustrating, I know. However, there's a small upside to this: you now have the perfect excuse to upgrade your card to something better!

If you have the money and the PC/PSU, then I personally recommend a GTX 680.

Thanks, and yep I was thinking the same thing, I've actually had my eye on the Sapphire 7870 2GB GHz Edition £199

£145 saved so far so might not be too long until I'm back up and running properly

<<< Rest of PC specs

TC-man · Nov 9, 2012

Detection said:
Yea I was using MSI AB to OC, the reason for the flash was in the hope to do away with software OCing

I've tried the majority of Sapphire BIOS's from the database all with the same results, either bricked or bluescreen when I install the drivers, no variations

Currently I have the saved BIOS from the other 6850 I had, and the card works without drivers but again BSOD when I install them

Thanks for the tip on Sapphire, which details would I need to give them in order to get the correct BIOS sent to me? I've posted the numbers I can find on the card a couple posts up

EDIT --
PN 288-1E174-000SA
SKU# 11180-00

Perhaps those two are enough, but Sapphire may ask you what ram chips are used (Elpida/Hynix/Samsung).

Anyway, I overlooked what other posters have said about the possibility that your HD 6850 may have broken something because of the HD 6850-to-6870 bios flash; some of the video memory chips may be fried due to the memory voltage differences between the HD 6850 and HD 6870 cards. So you still may need to send back your HD 6850 if the bios from Sapphire does not solve the problem for you.

As for what Qubit said about the small upside to all of this, yeah, a nice excuse to upgrade to a better videocard. I can recommend you to buy a HD 7950 because you can get 3 new games for free: Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs, and 20% off for Medal of Honor: Warfighter via the AMD "Never Settle Game Bundle" promotion (terms and conditions).

qubit · Nov 9, 2012

Detection said:
Thanks, and yep I was thinking the same thing, I've actually had my eye on the Sapphire 7870 2GB GHz Edition £199

£145 saved so far so might not be too long until I'm back up and running properly

<<< Rest of PC specs

For another £40 you can get a 7950, or another £100-£120 a 7970. I'd recommend either one of these two, as performance is quite a bit better. The 7950 is much better value though, since performance is close to a 7970, but much cheaper.

Also, I've found nvidia to work better overall and tends to have less driver glitches, judging by forum posts, hence I recommend nvidia nowadays, if you're up for switching.

Certainly my GTX 580 has been near flawless in the year or so that I've had it.

Detection · Nov 9, 2012

TC-man said:
Perhaps those two are enough, but Sapphire may ask you what ram chips are used (Elpida/Hynix/Samsung).

Anyway, I overlooked what other posters have said about the possibility that your HD 6850 may have broken something because of the HD 6850-to-6870 bios flash; some of the video memory chips may be fried due to the memory voltage differences between the HD 6850 and HD 6870 cards. So you still may need to send back your HD 6850 if the bios from Sapphire does not solve the problem for you.

As for what Qubit said about the small upside to all of this, yeah, a nice excuse to upgrade to a better videocard. I can recommend you to buy a HD 7950 because you can get 3 new games for free: Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs, and 20% off for Medal of Honor: Warfighter via the AMD "Never Settle Game Bundle" promotion (terms and conditions).

qubit said:
For another £40 you can get a 7950, or another £100-£120 a 7970. I'd recommend either one of these two, as performance is quite a bit better. The 7950 is much better value though, since performance is close to a 7970, but much cheaper.

Also, I've found nvidia to work better overall and tends to have less driver glitches, judging by forum posts, hence I recommend nvidia nowadays, if you're up for switching. Certainly my GTX 580 has been near flawless in the year or so that I've had it.

Thanks for the tips

7950 does look tempting, might stick the 6850 on ebay as faulty and explain what I did to it, someone might want it for parts, could bring me ever closer to my new GPU

qubit · Nov 9, 2012

Oh, forgot to recommend checking out the graphics card reviews here on TPU. They're all covered and you can see exactly what you're getting for your money!

Detection · Nov 9, 2012

qubit said:
Oh, forgot to recommend checking out the graphics card reviews here on TPU. They're all covered and you can see exactly what you're getting for your money!

Ah great, thanks, will do

Mussels · Nov 9, 2012

thread cleaned up. please keep the name calling off the forum.

drdeathx · Nov 9, 2012

Find another computer and put the card in it. BSOD, card bad. Pretty simple.

Detection · Nov 9, 2012

drdeathx said:
Find another computer and put the card in it. BSOD, card bad. Pretty simple.

Yea, the cards definitely bad, I have a 5450 in the same machine atm and its working fine

Anyway, good news, I found the extra few £ for the 7870 and all being well can pick one up tomorrow, the 6850 can sit on my desk until I remember to stick it on ebay for spares/repairs

Thanks for all the replies everyone (except the troll)

qubit · Nov 9, 2012

Enjoy your new card! :toast:

Detection · Nov 9, 2012

qubit said:
Enjoy your new card!

I will, thanks!

drdeathx · Nov 9, 2012

Detection said:
Yea, the cards definitely bad, I have a 5450 in the same machine atm and its working fine

Anyway, good news, I found the extra few £ for the 7870 and all being well can pick one up tomorrow, the 6850 can sit on my desk until I remember to stick it on ebay for spares/repairs

Thanks for all the replies everyone (except the troll)

Nom try the 6850 in another machine.

Detection · Nov 9, 2012

drdeathx said:
Nom try the 6850 in another machine.

I don't have another machine atm, well.. not with a PCI-e slot anyway

unixtreme · Oct 1, 2013

I actually survived this mistake!

First of all sorry for the necro, but this is the first page that pops out when googling the issue and might come in handy for someone in the future. I actually was naive enough to believe this could be done (the same way it can be done from 6950 to 6970) and since I got a new GPU decided to try...

Both of my 6850 bricked (yeah I thought: "lets flash just one and see what happens" but in the end flashed both), after reboot I could hear the windows welcome sound but there was no display on any of my screens so...

I shutdown my PC immediately to avoid HW damage and followed this procedure:

- download 6850 (sapphire) rom file (using a different computer).
- save it on the usb stick used before as "6850.rom".
- boot up with the usb stick.
- run: "ATIFLASH -f -p 0 6850.ROM" (no quotations)
- wait 20 seconds.
- run: "ATIFLASH -f -p 1 6850.ROM"
- wait 20 seconds.
- reboot

Both GPUS are fine, probably because I was fast enough realizing I could be breaking my cards, I hope this helps someone in the future.

Ja.KooLit · Oct 1, 2013

unixtreme said:
First of all sorry for the necro, but this is the first page that pops out when googling the issue and might come in handy for someone in the future. I actually was naive enough to believe this could be done (the same way it can be done from 6950 to 6970) and since I got a new GPU decided to try...

Both of my 6850 bricked (yeah I thought: "lets flash just one and see what happens" but in the end flashed both), after reboot I could hear the windows welcome sound but there was no display on any of my screens so...

I shutdown my PC immediately to avoid HW damage and followed this procedure:

- download 6850 (sapphire) rom file (using a different computer).
- save it on the usb stick used before as "6850.rom".
- boot up with the usb stick.
- run: "ATIFLASH -f -p 0 6850.ROM" (no quotations)
- wait 20 seconds.
- run: "ATIFLASH -f -p 1 6850.ROM"
- wait 20 seconds.
- reboot

Both GPUS are fine, probably because I was fast enough realizing I could be breaking my cards, I hope this helps someone in the future.

thanks for sharing. Learn from your mistake indeed :nutkick:

but I dont think even you let it run long time will damage. But who knows, its better to fix right away than make the problem longer :toast:

System Name	OAP
Processor	AMD FX-8350 - 4.6GHz
Motherboard	ASUS Crosshair V Formula
Cooling	Corsair H100i
Memory	8GB G-Skill RipjawsX - 2133MHz
Video Card(s)	ROG Strix GeForce® GTX 1080 OC edition 8GB
Storage	2 x 240GB SSD in RAID 0 / 2TB Seagate HDD
Display(s)	Samsung Odyssey G5 32" 144Hz 1440p
Case	Coolermaster HAF 922
Audio Device(s)	SupremeFX X-Fi 2
Power Supply	Corsair RM1000
Mouse	Mad Catz R.A.T 4+
Keyboard	ROG Strix Flare
Software	Windows 10 Enterprise 21H1

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Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 SLI \\ Asus P5K Deluxe
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Memory	Crucial Ballistix Sport 2x 4GB \\ Corsair XMS2 2x 2 GB
Video Card(s)	GIGABYTE GTX 970 G1 Gaming v1.1 (Hynix) \\ Sapphire HD 6850
Storage	Kingston SV200, 3 TB Seagate 7200.14 \\ 2x 320 GB WD Blue
Display(s)	LG 24MP56HQ
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Software	Windows 10 Pro x64 \\ Windows 7 Ultimate x64

System Name	Quantumville™
Processor	Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling	Noctua NH-D14
Memory	16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz)
Video Card(s)	MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio
Storage	Samsung 850 Pro 256GB \| WD Black 4TB \| WD Blue 6TB
Display(s)	ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) \| Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible)
Case	Cooler Master HAF 922
Audio Device(s)	Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe
Power Supply	Corsair AX1600i
Mouse	Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow
Keyboard	Yes
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

System Name	OAP
Processor	AMD FX-8350 - 4.6GHz
Motherboard	ASUS Crosshair V Formula
Cooling	Corsair H100i
Memory	8GB G-Skill RipjawsX - 2133MHz
Video Card(s)	ROG Strix GeForce® GTX 1080 OC edition 8GB
Storage	2 x 240GB SSD in RAID 0 / 2TB Seagate HDD
Display(s)	Samsung Odyssey G5 32" 144Hz 1440p
Case	Coolermaster HAF 922
Audio Device(s)	SupremeFX X-Fi 2
Power Supply	Corsair RM1000
Mouse	Mad Catz R.A.T 4+
Keyboard	ROG Strix Flare
Software	Windows 10 Enterprise 21H1

System Name	Quantumville™
Processor	Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz
Motherboard	Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling	Noctua NH-D14
Memory	16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz)
Video Card(s)	MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio
Storage	Samsung 850 Pro 256GB \| WD Black 4TB \| WD Blue 6TB
Display(s)	ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) \| Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible)
Case	Cooler Master HAF 922
Audio Device(s)	Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe
Power Supply	Corsair AX1600i
Mouse	Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow
Keyboard	Yes
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Major problem after GPU BIOS Flash

Detection

TC-man

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

Detection

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

Detection

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

drdeathx

Detection

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

Detection

drdeathx

Detection

unixtreme

New Member

Ja.KooLit

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Video Card(s)	3 x Radeon 7970
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Video Card(s)	Sapphire RX 6900 XT Nitro+
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