Probelems overclocking Sapphire 9550 AGP Card

[william wallace]

Problems overclocking Sapphire 9550 AGP Card

Hi

UPDATE! After trying several times, I still get the same error message.

I have just run through the available Sapphire BIOS's and with regard to the "mis-matched P/N" in my error message below, I have found that the so-called "Old P/N 113-PC2050-09" is shown for a Sapphire 9550 256MB card but according to the information given when you choose the "advanced option" on the right-hand side of the required BIOS file, the above P/N is shown but the memory is "HYNIX 5.0" and for my card, that is not correct. I have Samsung (5.0 I think) memory installed, so how can my 'old p/n' be "113-PC2050-09" when I have Samsung memory?

Also, with reference to the P/N for the BIOS and for the flashing to be successful, does the "old BIOS P/N have to match the "new BIOS P/N"? If so, I can't see how it will ever do that, if I'm choosing a Sapphire Radeon 9600PRO 256MB BIOS to overclock my Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MB card.

Can anyone please HELP with this problem?

After trying to 'overclock' my Sapphire Radeon 9550 to a 9600Pro using the
flash upgrade from your website, the upgrade did not go as planned and I was
looking for a technical support email address so that I could ask their
advice.

Device ID: 4153
Chip type: RV350
Memory: 256MB

Basically, after downloading the Sapphire Radeon 9600Pro BIOS update for my
card and specific memory, I also downloaded the ati flash utility and
created a bootdisk and then copied all to that disk.

Bios download was compiled on August 26th 2004 at 8:49PM and was added on October 21st 2004 at 5:09PM. The core memory was shown as 400/227.5/Samsung 4.0 (I'm sure my memory is Samsung 5.0 - this is waht is shown when I click on Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MB card in the BIOS downloads).

I rebooted and then saved my oldbios which went well. I then applied the
new bios and everything seemed to be going ok but at the end of the
flashing, there was no message saying the update had been successful. I
did get the following:

Old mem setting: 7180
New mem setting: 7180
Old SSID: 0200
New SSID: 0200
Old P/N: 113-PC2050-09
New P/N: 113-PC2040-79
P/N Mismatched
ERROR 0FL01 : Press '1' to continue

When I pressed '1', I was back at A:\

I shutdown the computer and removed the card and then inserted it back in
again and booted into Windows. Upon checking Device Manager, I found that
there were now two entry's under 'Display', as follows:

Radeon 9550
Radeon 9550 Secondary

When I ran the ATI Tool Utility, it still showed the card as a Radeon 9550.

Can anyone help and explain to me what has gone wrong and if I can still get my Radeon 9550 card overclocked to 9600PRO?

Regards

Dave

 

[W1zzard]

did you try /f to force flashing of the bios? the pn does mismatch but the memory config is the same .. so it should work .. in case something goes wrong with the flash you can use a pci card to flash back

 

[william wallace]

Hi W1zzard

UPDATE! I used the -f switch as in A:\atiflash.exe -f -p 0 9600.bin and it worked just fine this time and I now have a 9600 series card but, the only problem is that I still have two (2) entry's in Device Manager but instead of RADEON 9550 and RADEON 9500 - SECONDARY, I now see RADEON 9600 SERIES and RADEON 9600 SERIES - SECONDARY.

The second entry appeared after the first failed attempt and has been there ever since.

Is this second entry normal after overclocking through updating the BIOS and if not, do you know why this has happened and how I can get rid of it from Device Manager without causing display problems? I've tried uninstalling the "RADEON 9600 SERIES - SECONDARY" entry from Device Manager but when I reboot, Windows XP just finds it again and installs it.

I'm pleased that the update went ok this time and I'm not really into gaming so I've just left the Core and Memeory setings at their default of 399.13 and 226.57 but, what could the settings be 'safely' raised to without causing problems or overheating?

With regard to the Memory Timings, again, I've just left them alone because I don't know much about these settings.

Thanks for your reply.

Dave

No I did not try to force the update but I'm willing to give it a go.

A:\atiflash.exe -f -p 0 9600.bin

Is that about right?

Regards

Dave

 

[turbopsi]

Having the secondary thing is normal for ATI cards.

 

[william wallace]

Hi Turbopsi

Thanks for your response regarding the overclocking of my Sapphire RADEON 9550 256MB AGP Card to a RADEON 9600 SERIES 256MB AGP Card.

Point of interest: When I first installed the Sapphire RADEON 9550 256MB AGP Card and latest ATI 5.7 Catalyst drivers, their was only one RADEON 9550 device shown in Device Manager, but after attempting to flash the card for the first time and without using the -f switch, I got the error shown at the start of my thread and at that point, after rebooting, I noticed that there was now two RADEON devices shown in Device Manager. RADEON 9550 and RADEON 9550 - SECONDARY, an so consequently, when I successfully flashed the card using the -f switch, two 9600 devices for the same card appeared in Device Manager. RADEON 9600 SERIES & RADEON 9600 SERIES - SECONDARY

Q: When you say that; "Having the secondary thing is normal for ATI cards", do you mean that when you flash the BIOS on an ATI card to overclock it, a "SECONDARY" device for the same card always appears in Device Manager??

I.e. As in:

Display Adapters:

RADEON 9600 SERIES
RADEON 9600 SERIES - SECONDARY

I really need to know from you and anyone else who has flashed their ATI card to overclock it using the 'flashing' method and who now also has two (2) ATI devices for the same card in Device Manager after flashing.

I'd appreciate some responses this evening (Tuesday 9th August).

Regards

Dave

 

[Rambotnic]

nonono...secondary--this is the s-video dude , and why dont you use atitool, instead of flashing and stuff....worked on my card well!!!

 

[william wallace]

Hi Rambotnic

Many thanks for your input.

I'm quite happy updating the card BIOS providing that it can actually be done. I.e. Overclocking through BIOS update and known to work on particular cards and this was the case with not only my RADEON 9550 card but every other RADEON 9550.

The BIOS update was successful and I now have a 9600 series card which is faster.

Now with reference to my query regarding the "secondary device" in device manager for the same card after flashing, I was asking if this was the 'norm' or not.

I'm no expert but as already stated, when I installed the 9550 from the box, there was only one device shown and that's what I would have expected but, I now have two devices as stated above and I would like to know if this is correct?

Regards

Dave

 

[Rambotnic]

my guess is, that it is normal, if you mean the stuff they say in the device manager, then it is normal, at least with the cards that have S-Video out....i have had no experiences with flashing bios cuz i havent installed any floppy drives.....so

 

[william wallace]

Hi again Rambotnic

Thanks for your reply.

You say that it's normal but why would flashing a card to overclock it, add another device (secondary) to device manager for the same card?

Regards

 

[Rambotnic]

oh? so you didnt have it before flashing? sry, my bad...in that case i dont have a clue

 

[turbopsi]

Dude, every ATI card I have ever owned has the secondary display adapter(flashed, OC'd or not), its for dual monitors.

My last card was even a 9550. It had that stock as well.

Now I have an ATI Radeon 9800pro @ 430core/390mem flashed to XT. Here's a screenshot.

Maybe you didn't have your drivers installed before, when you noticed that there was no secondary adapter. It's completely normal.

 

[Rambotnic]

well, thats what i was trying to explain, but all that talk about flashing got me confused mate....

 

[william wallace]

Hi Guys

Many thanks for your response to my concerns regarding the 'secondary device'.

Yes I understand what your saying and when I have had a dual monitor supporting graphics card installed, I have always seen that image showing the primary and secondary display adapters in Display Properties/Settings, but I have never, and I do mean never, seen two devices listed in Device Manager for the same device, and this is the point I was making.

My previous RADEON 9200 Series AGP card with 'dual monitor support', was installed right up until two days ago and that only ever showed one device in Device Manager. The 9200 card was from Connect3D but I don't see what difference that should make. Go figure that one out.

So, I presume that both of you also have two devices listed in Device Manager? I.e.

RADEON 9600 SERIES
RADEON 9600 SERIES - SECONDARY

Ok guys, now I wonder if you would be kind enough to help me with a few queries regarding the ATI Tool? I've flashed my 9550 to a 9600Pro and I have used the ATI Tool v0.24 to check the Core and Memory clock settings. After flashing, the default settings are shown as Core 391.50MHz and Memory Clock 222.75MHz. Now am I quite happy to leave them at default but I just thought I would to see what the max would be so I increased them to 400.00MHz and 227.50MHz (not a great increase but in line with what was shown in the Advanced section for the BIOS download) window, and I then clicked on "Set Clock".

I rebooted the computer and found that the higher settings had been reverted back to the lower default settings. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but flashing the BIOS to the 9600Pro automatically removes the Radeon Clock Lock, so why have the settings gone back to default?

I also found in one or two cases that when I increased the settings to 400.00MHz/227.50MHz and then rebooted the computer, I found that when I launched the ATI Tool, I got a message saying that there was no Radeon card installed (but of course there was) and the fields were blank. The only way out of this was to uninstall ATI Tool and reinstall it.

Regards

Dave

 

[turbopsi]

Yup, it's normal for both display adapters to be in the device manager.

And when you use ATITool to overclock your card, then reset your system, the overclock will be reset to the BIOS defaults, unless you save that OC as a profile.

What I do... is I use ATI tool for finding my max overclocks, then I use Radclocker to keep those settings everytime I restart.

You can do it with ATI tool as well, I just like radclocker better.

Pictures are worth a thousand words.

 

[william wallace]

Hi turbopsi

Thanks again for reply to my post.

I think something weird is going on here and I can't figure out what it is.

I changed the core clock to 400.00 and the memory clock to 227.25 and clicked on "Set Clock" and rebooted my computer but when I got back into windows xp and launched ATITOOL, the defaults of 391.50 and 222.75 were now sjown as the core and mem clock speeds.

I rebooted the computer again and launched ATITOOL and this time, the core and mem fields were clear (at 0) and then my mouse pointer froze. I had to reset the computer and when i was back in windows, the feilds were back to 391.50 and 222.75.

I clicked on "Settings" and then used the 'drop-down' arrow to go to 'miscellaneous' and I clicked on "show log file". I flashed the BIOS of my Sapphire 9550 256MB AGP with the BIOS of the correct Sapphire RADEON 9600PRO and the BIOS was "the original unmodified BIOS", which I assume is the ATI BIOS for my chip. This was shown in the "log file":

2005-08-12 16:29:18 Application terminated.
2005-08-12 16:31:40 ATITool v0.24 started.
2005-08-12 16:31:40 Detected GPU Chip: RV360 (4152), 4 Pipelines, 256 MB
2005-08-12 16:31:40 Temperature monitoring: chip not detected
2005-08-12 16:31:40 Could not locate ATI BIOS - assuming 27.000 Mhz Ref. clock
2005-08-12 16:32:52 Application terminated.
2005-08-12 16:42:10 ATITool v0.24 started.
2005-08-12 16:42:10 Detected GPU Chip: RV360 (4152), 4 Pipelines, 256 MB
2005-08-12 16:42:10 Temperature monitoring: chip not detected
2005-08-12 16:42:10 Could not locate ATI BIOS - assuming 27.000 Mhz Ref. clock

Please note the part were it says:

ATITool v0.24 started.
2005-08-12 15:44:05 Detected GPU Chip: RV360 (4152), 4 Pipelines, 256 MB
2005-08-12 15:44:05 Temperature monitoring: chip not detected
2005-08-12 15:44:05 Could not locate ATI BIOS - assuming 27.000 Mhz Ref. clock

It shows "Temperature monitoring: chip not detected" and "could not locate ATI BIOS". What's going on? Do I have a faulty card?

Even though the 'log file' states that the "chip is not detected" and "could not locate ATI BIOS", the card is still shown in Device Manager and appears to be working correctly.

If I have flashed with the "original unmodified (ATI) BIOS", then the chip and the ATI BIOS should have been detected. Any ideas on what's going on here?

Maybe I ought to take the card back for a refund and try a different make like Connect3D?

Regards

Dave

 

[turbopsi]

Yet again... you are worried for nothing..

ATI tool doesnt keep your overclocked settings, unless you specifically SAVE them to a PROFILE from within the program.

If you can't figure out how to keep your card clocked up when windows reboots, then live with overclocking it every restart.

Does it play games fine? Then I wouldn't worry about it.

And the 9550's and 9600's dont have the temperature monitoring chip, only 9600XT....

If you have problems with ATI tool, then completely remove it from your computer, and reinstall it. Then stop messing with stuff, clock your card up, and save your max stable OC as a profile so you can leave it alone.

If you don't like ATI Tool, then use Radclocker(google it...) it's similar to coolbits for Nvidia(except it's made for ATI cards).

Hope this helps...

(if your card did not have a BIOS, you wouldn't be using it right now.. reguardless of what that program says)

 

[JaS]

try opening the bios (with a proggy called RaBit - google for it ) you flashed your 9550 up with and uncheck the aiw or vivo feature in the bios then save it and reflash your card.... the secondary display will be gone then