• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Blank Screen After X850 Pro Softmodded To XTPE

R

rbinc

New Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2005
Messages
8 (0.00/day)
First off, here's my specs:

P4 3.0E HT
Intel D865GBF (P24 BIOS) Mobo
350W PSU
2x512 Kingston ValuRAM DDR400 (Single Channel)
WD Caviar 80GB 7200RPM PATA
ATI Radeon X850 Pro (499/499) -> XTPE (540/587) w/ ATI Catalyst 5.13 (orig)
Samsung 713v Monitor (1280x1024 70Hz 32Bit)
SB Audigy 2 ZS
XP Pro SP2

I recently (yesterday) installed the Zalman VF700 AlCu VGA Cooler on my card. The installation went pretty well, although I have doubts about my installation prowess. As soon as I got the cooler on, I flashed my BIOS to the ATI AGP XTPE using the modified flashrom. I tried to run 3DMark05 after doing the flash, and during the 2nd Game test the screen went blank and my PC stopped completely, although it was still on. It din't respont to any commands. I reset it, then tried to run ATITool to detect Max core. The same thing happened, ATITool reported an error at 654/587. I reset again, then I tried to use ATITool do an Artifact Scan. In like 2 seconds everything became unresponsive again, with the blank screen.

Here's my idle temps for CPU and GPU

Processor - 50
System Zone 1 - 38
System Zone 2 - 44

GPU/GPU Environment
min - 39.1/35
max - 39.3/36
avg - 1.$/35.8 <-Don't know why [1.$] is coming up in ATITool

I have a generic CPU fan, a front 80mm intake fan, and a rear 80mm exhaust fan.

It could be a power issue. I split the molex going to my card because I needed another molex connector for my VGA cooler. But I'm not sure.

Edit: Nope, sorry. CIV doesn't work. For some reason it din't freeze the first time I played it. Other games don't work either.
 
Last edited:
Don't mean to hijack your thread but I have the same card and have a different problem. My fan does not function without the use of atitool fan aover ride after flashing to the x850xt bios using atiflash in dos. The flash went well and everything works perfectly, although when I turn atitool off the fan does not work at all. Does the 850 not have fan control? The fan will not function at all unless its running at 100% and you all know how loud that can get.

BTW: Try reflashing in dos, I know its a long shot but sometimes its just as simple as that. Also, the 850 seemed a little too unstable when I tried the x850xtpe flash as well, although my temperature readings were similar to yours. If its left idle, it seemed to do well, but as soon as you put it under load it would start doing crazt shiznit. Good luck.:toast:
 
doesnt the ATI Radeon X850 Pro come with 16 pipes open already?
 
Dillinger said:
doesnt the ATI Radeon X850 Pro come with 16 pipes open already?
Click to expand...
No it doesn't. I unlocked it with a XT BIOS previously. Its not physically locked (laser cut), but ATI uses a BIOS setting to lock 4 pipes.

vrdublu said:
Does the 850 not have fan control?
Click to expand...
As far as my experiences go with the X850 Pro/XT/XTPE the fan is controlled by the card. It runs at ~30% and goes to ~99% when the GPU temp goes high (>50). It is always running, even at low idle temps. Did you do a clean flash? Try using the modified flashrom instead of atiflash. And use an ATI BIOS for an ATI card, don't go with other companies.

Edit: Well I changed my BIOS to the XT. Now the stock speeds are 520/540. I've been running the artifact scanning for 13+ minutes, still going, and no sign of artifacts or blank screens. My load temps are at 62-63. I am very dissapointed because I payed $35 (CAD) for the VGA cooler and I can't even overclock it to a decent level. I am still looking for a solution to my blank screen dilemma. In the mean time, I'll run benchmarking tests and do stress tests of my own, and see if I can overclock it from XT stocks. I was hoping to get to 600/600 with my fan.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply, I will try doing what you suggested and keep everyone up to date. Btw, by clean flash you mean the empty.bin file before I flash to the x850xt? If thats what you mean, then no, I just saved my original and flashed to the xt bios. I have read that you can't flash back to the original if you flash with the flashrom, correct me if I'm wrong. This may pose a problem for warranty and such, in case I fry this mofo.
 
Ok I just reflashed the card using flashrom and the empty.bin file to wipe the slate clean sort of speak. Then I reflashed with the 850xt bin and the fan will not function at all unless I use atitool fan over ride control to set the fan speed to 100%, otherwise the fan stops working. So the next logical step is to reflash back to the original where I used flashrom, then empty.bin, then back to my original bios that I saved. The strange thing is, is that I'm back to original exactly. I read that if you use the modified flashrom the 16 pipes will remain even after reflashing to original bios, well in my case everything is back to normal for good and for bad. Has anyone come across this? I need some answers, for this.:toast:
 
Use the modified flashrom to get 16 pipelines (use any ATI XT/PE bios), then revert using the original flashrom to your original bios. This should give you the fan control as well as 16 pipelines.

I'm still looking for a solution to my dilemma. I just played 4hrs of Civilization IV without any problems, but that was on stock XT speeds.
 
Where did you get the 850xt bios? The one from here that I downloaded seems to be the problem for me. I installed the x850 pro with 16 pipes bios and all is well with the fan control again. Now I just need the right bios that won't mess with the fan control on my x850pro vivo. If anyone has a x850xt agp bios that works on a x850 pro vivo, please post it.:toast:
 
Last edited:
This is the one I have, its an Ultra for under $100 CAD and its nice and quiet. No tangled cables as this uses flex core cables and you only use the ones you need.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1273336&Sku=ULT31844

I have an ATI x850 pro vivo agp with stock fan, I had absolutely no problems running xt gpu and memry speeds, then again my fan would run at 100% all the time, lol. No idea what revision, but I will check later.
 
Last edited:
Ok it seems no matter what I do I can't get the xt bios to function properly on my 850 pro. The fan stays off and is not controled properly for some reason. When I looked at the bios discription it says my original and the 850 pro with 16 pipes enabled 113-A47503-103. Both the xt and xtpe bioses end with the numbers 101, so are the last digits that are the difference in the bioses or is there something else that tells the bios to turn the fan on and off at certain times. I'm open to suggestions on how I can view the netire contents of each bios. Also, I seem to be one of the only people with this problem, maybe its the fan control switch on my board thats malfunctioning, in which case I will reflash and take the board back for an exchange.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top