ATI X1900XTX flash bios help please

[Stinger_005]

Hello Tech Power Ups guys, my ati x1900xtx which i had for going on 3 years started overheating so i decide to take it out for an overdue general cleaning. There was alot of dust, so i took out my handy can of compressed air and got rid of most of it. I took off the fan (3screws) to dust out the heat sink. After i put the card back in im getting this message on my screen.

A52021 X1900XTX BIOS.....

im assuming that something weird obviously happened and now i need to flash my video card bios ?

So i was looking for the correct flash. Im just having some difficulty identifying (confirming) the manufacturer for my card. I purchased it from CRUCIAL. on the cards sink and fan it has ATI RADEON on it.

I might just be confusing myself but i dont want a dead card, so any help / advice anyone here can offer i would appreciate. A point in the right direction please.

 

[qubit]

You do not need to flash your BIOS and trying to is likely to brick it.

You have a hardware fault which is causing this message. The card may or may not be toast already, can't say with the limited info you've given us. Try reseating it in the PCI-E slot, as they can often be a little touchy and cause odd malfunctions like that. Try it at least twice before giving up.

One way or another, I guarantee that flashing it will not fix it and is likely to kill it for good.

 

[Stinger_005]

ive reset it atleast 5 times now. how do you confirm that it doesnt need to be flashed ?
what other info can i give to help ?

 

[Stinger_005]

im not sure if there is more to the message that comes on the screen (usb keyboard FTL) trying to get my hands on a ps2 keyboard now and another graphics card to test the machine.

 

[qubit]

It doesn't need to be flashed, because the fault didn't appear after you tried to flash it. You removed the cooler and the card went bad, so it's totally unrelated.

You said you "reset it". Do you mean physically unplugged the card fully from the PCI-E slot and put it back in (ensure it's located fully and not tilted at an angle) or just pressed reset on the front panel? Trust me, I've had all sorts of weird glitches and instability because the card wasn't seated quite right - my Gigabyte motherboard (see specs) is more prone to this than other mobos I've had. If you haven't tried this yet, do it now, before anything else.

What other info? I can't say exactly unfortunately, because I'm not sat in front of it and haven't seen this before. Do you see any weird power-up glitches perhaps? Power-up beep missing or different to normal, perhaps? Heck, smoke or funny smells like it's burning up?! This is a definite possibility, because you removed the cooler. These little chips will heat up to burning point within a couple seconds, if the heatsink isn't on properly and with thermal paste applied.

Do you see anything other than what you posted, even if flashed up for a moment?

Just be ready for the card to be toast already. Unfortunately, shit like this happens when you least expect it.

Put down everything anything you can think of and it might just help us to help you.

 

[Stinger_005]

The fan on the card was replaced ( sorry if i gave the impression that it was left off)
also ive done multipled resets and RESEATING.

here is some other info.



The pc hangs, with the displayed message on the screen.

Some other info if it might help.

The pc is quite old, A Dell Demension 8400.

The 1st time i replaced the card. There were diagnosic beeps and LEDs indicating memory not installed correctly etc.

I fixed that by reseating my memory.



Now there are no beeps, but the LEDs do indicate a problem.

A, B, and C are green. D is amber. according to the manual

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8400/SM/adtshoot.htm



that is for "Another failure has occurred." they ask me to ensure cables are properly connected to the system board from the hard drive, CD and DVD. If there is an error message on the screen.



The only thing on the screen is A52021 X1900XTX BIOS....



There are no weird smells, no smoke. ive triple checked connections to the board and secured cards.



On the card as soon as i turn on the system i see 2 red lights near the socket to plug in the power for the card, they flash red once. i dunno if that means anything special.



Again any help is appreciated.

 

[Stinger_005]

I upgraded the PSU when i got the GPU. To a 450W silencer designed to fit Dells pc structure

after hours of reading last night i got tired at staring at this screen so i decided to fully clean the pc. I gutted and dusted everything, processor, ram, PSU, other cards HDDs, Roms. i started reassembling piece by piece. MOBO, PSU, 1 stick of ram and GPU. at first nothing came up no beeps no leds. i reseated those pieces again and low an behold i didnt get the A52021 X1900XTX BIOS... message. instead i actually got the PCs bios. which was great. i put all the other parts back in 1 at a time checking to make sure i was still getting the bios and now the pc is up and running.

The graphics card idle temp was down drastically from 75C before cleaning to now 44C after cleaning. I ran COD4 to test it out, played for about 20mins and the temp was only hitting 72C which is great i think. Maybe with the additional thermal paste it will be even better. What best of all the pc is back up and running just in time for CODMW2.

Thanks for the help that you have provided.

Kevin.

 

[qubit]

Fantastic! I thought it might have been crap in the connectors. You can imagine what would have happened had you tried to flash it...

Also, I must apologise - as you can see, your detailed post to me got a thanks, which means I read it. I then started drafting quite a long, detailed reply to you from work, when I got interrupted, by that pesky thing called work. lol

Unfortunately, I completely forgot about my pending post to you until I saw your reply, hence you never saw it.

Anyway, well done for troubleshooting it on your own; you have now formally joined the club of PC enthusiasts!

You'll be glad to know that your post was very helpful in giving me enough info to make helpful suggestions to you and is the way these sorts of troubleshooting posts should be written.