Guide to Radeon X800/X850 bios modding

[Gooser55]

So is there something wrong with the bios i edited, i have flashed with the one i edited and it still has only 12 pipelines.

I opened my original bios in hex editor, changed the row labelled 00000070: changed the 61 to 60
I opened rabit(got the error) and saved it, reopend it no error . I flashed using ATIFlash and it flashed ok, but there is still only 12 pipelines. Now i just save the new BIOS AFTER THE FLASH, and viewed it in hex editor and the the row labelled 00000070:is still at 61 (12 pipelines). I tried flashing the bios that had the 60 in the row and atiflash said the flash was already programmed.

did i edit the right row and it is wierd that the 661 would still be there

I am still searching the forum and found another bios opened in Hex Editor and row 00000070: is at 60, flash it to my card using ATIFlash and then take a bios dump and look at 00000070:it is at 61????
Wierd
Thanks

 

[infrared]

ah, i see what's happened.

When you flash the new bios, the card will try to "preserve" some rom settings (it should say this after/during flashing). So i think you have to add another tag on the command line.

I think it's this:

atiflash.exe -p -f -newbios 0 [bios name].bin

well, it's worth a shot, but i think that's whats happening.

 

[Gooser55]

Active Pipeline now set at 16

Hey Infrared
Great job man... I now have 16 active pipes...

You were correct the other atiflash's were Preserving the ROM settings...

I used my own original Bios that was modded in Hex editor (listed above).

Thanks ShadowFlare for the instructions on modding with Hex editor and thanks Infrared for the different command line to load the flash...

Great stuff

 

[infrared]

Hey Infrared
Great job man... I now have 16 active pipes...

You were correct the other atiflash's were Preserving the ROM settings...

I used my own original Bios that was modded in Hex editor (listed above).

Thanks ShadowFlare for the instructions on modding with Hex editor and thanks Infrared for the different command line to load the flash...

Great stuff

No problem, glad to hear it worked!

Now go and play with those 16 lovely pipelines!

 

[infrared]

ok, I hope you saved the original bios.

make sure your old bios is on the floppy disk that you used, call it 'original.bin'.

Your going to have to do a blind flash.

1. insert boot disk with atiflash and your old bios on it.
2. wait for it to start loading from floppy disk, and carefully type:

"atiflash.exe -p -f -newbios 0 original.bin" (without "")

3. wait for the floppy drive to stop loading, restart computer, and you should be back in business.

 

[dominator2]

ok, I hope you saved the original bios.

make sure your old bios is on the floppy disk that you used, call it 'original.bin'.

Your going to have to do a blind flash.

1. insert boot disk with atiflash and your old bios on it.
2. wait for it to start loading from floppy disk, and carefully type:

"atiflash.exe -p -f -newbios 0 original.bin" (without "")

3. wait for the floppy drive to stop loading, restart computer, and you should be back in business.

GREAT!!! THANKS INFRARED that did work and my X850 is back up and running. What do you think happened?? All I did was modify the 61 at 00000070 to 60. That should have turned on the xtra 4 pipelines. Right. The BBA X50 AGP Pro VIVA (Has Yellow audio connector.) should be able to be flashed to work. Need some input here please

 

[infrared]

It could be the ram on the card. If possible could you tell me the serial number on the memory chips, and i'll dig you out a bios that'll work. I just need to find out whether they're 2.0ns or 1.6ns chips. At the end of the number, you should see either 20 or 16.

Glad to hear it's working again.

 

[dominator2]

It could be the ram on the card. If possible could you tell me the serial number on the memory chips, and i'll dig you out a bios that'll work. I just need to find out whether they're 2.0ns or 1.6ns chips. At the end of the number, you should see either 20 or 16.

Glad to hear it's working again.

I flashed another bios that shadowflare setup for a guy with the same card that I have. It booted and changed the value to 60 but still shows 12 pipes. Now I seem to remember seeing something on fuses, and if the Config_Die_Fuses isn't (all F's (0xFFFFFFFF) it's not unlockable. Heres mine


CONFIG_DIE_FUSES 0xFFFFBFFF
CONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES 0xFFFFFF9E
CONFIG_ROM_FUSES 0x861
GB_PIPE_SELECT 0x12B84


the last part of the chip # is GC-16 ....................................................... Says SAMSUNG 516 on top of chip

 

[infrared]

unfortunatly, it looks like your card is locked at a hardware level. Sorry

Still a great card though. That samsung 1.6ns memory's great for overclocking!

 

[Bela27]

This work on X800 non pro R430 core or not?

 

[infrared]

umm, it doesn't usually work, but if you post your fuse data from atitool, we'll soon see if you can unlock the last quad or not.

Open ATITool, and hold shift while you click 'settings', then scroll down and take a screenshot for us to look at

 

[dominator2]

unfortunatly, it looks like your card is locked at a hardware level. Sorry

Still a great card though. That samsung 1.6ns memory's great for overclocking!

I was looking in the corner of the GPU on the videocard where the laser cut is. Is that a trace that they cut like on the earlier AMD cpus, or is there supposed to be a resistor between the 2 dots over the laser cut. Wonder if there is a hardware hack to enable the other 4 pipes ??. Nobody really cared until now, but you will see alot of these newer "not unlockable" cards showing up. Mine was made in the middle of 2005 and I bought it at Best Buy. Wish I had tried this right after I bought it I could have taken it back......Phooey

 

[infrared]

if you reconnect the lazer cut with some conductive compound (local electronics store should sell this. It's for repairing traces) then you might be able to unlock the last quad. It's worth giving it a shot.

It doesn't look like a resistor is meant to go across the laser cut, as the contact points are too close togeter. Below is a link, which shows a card with, and one without the laser cut, just so you can see better where the traces are going.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/100

If your fuse data changes to F's, give it another shot with the bios flashing, and you should get those 16 pipes.

Good luck!

 

[Bela27]

umm, it doesn't usually work, but if you post your fuse data from atitool, we'll soon see if you can unlock the last quad or not.

Open ATITool, and hold shift while you click 'settings', then scroll down and take a screenshot for us to look at

look i see this R430 X800 NON PRO:

CONFIG_DIE_FUSES 0xFFFFBFFF
CONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES 0xFFFFFF9E
CONFIG_ROM_FUSES 0xA61
GB_PIPE_SELECT 0x12B84

 

[infrared]

look i see this R430 X800 NON PRO:

CONFIG_DIE_FUSES 0xFFFFBFFF
CONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES 0xFFFFFF9E
CONFIG_ROM_FUSES 0xA61
GB_PIPE_SELECT 0x12B84

Sorry bela27, your last 4 pipes are locked at a hardware level. Looks like your stuck at 12. :shadedshu

can i make my x800xl > x800xt???

Ok, i gave it a go today. I had to modify the clocks in the bios with RaBiT, because even with my new ati silencer the core can only go up to 470mhz.

At first i thought it had worked. My pc booted into windows with no problems, prompted me to install the new drivers for the x800xt etc etc... Restarted and saw some noise on the login screen. Opened ATITool, and the whole thing went yellow in artifact scanning.

So, no... unfortunatly the x800xt bios will not work in the x800xl

However, i did find that the x800xl with the 1.6ns memory works fine if you have 2.0ns memory

 

[Bela27]

Sorry bela27, your last 4 pipes are locked at a hardware level. Looks like your stuck at 12. :shadedshu



Ok, i gave it a go today. I had to modify the clocks in the bios with RaBiT, because even with my new ati silencer the core can only go up to 470mhz.

At first i thought it had worked. My pc booted into windows with no problems, prompted me to install the new drivers for the x800xt etc etc... Restarted and saw some noise on the login screen. Opened ATITool, and the whole thing went yellow in artifact scanning.

So, no... unfortunatly the x800xt bios will not work in the x800xl

However, i did find that the x800xl with the 1.6ns memory works fine if you have 2.0ns memory

Thx ...

 

[hill]

Is there anyway to change the default refresh rate values?

 

[infrared]

What drivers are you using? You can force a different refresh rate in the Catalyst Control Center.

 

[ShadowFlare]

Is there anyway to change the default refresh rate values?

The default refresh rate in Windows I think is solely determined by the driver (or possibly Windows itself).

 

[hill]

Ya i know it can be changed in Windows, but is there a way to force refresh rates by editing the bios? So that any OS , example linux will use the forced refresh rate.

 

[ShadowFlare]

Ya i know it can be changed in Windows, but is there a way to force refresh rates by editing the bios? So that any OS , example linux will use the forced refresh rate.

It's not a simple setting in the bios. To change it, you would have to use a disassembler to get the assembly language code, figure out where to change the code that sets up the video modes, and then run that through an assembler to get a new binary file for the bios. When modifying it you would have to make sure it still fits on the bios chip plus certain values in the bios would have to be found and updated. It's a very complicated process that probably no one is going to even attempt.

 

[killadude]

Ok guys. Got a made by ATI x850 PRO AGP, its an R481. i tried flashing with ATIflash using the -newbios option, still only 12 pipes. heres a screen shot of the fuse info, can anyone tell me what im doing wrong? prehaps im using the incorrect bios? if so could someone send me the correct bios? i was hoping to flash it up to an x850 XT PE, with adequate cooling, but whatever unlocks my 4 extra pipes would be great, thanks

~Shane

 

[dolf]

Your fuses show - NO more pipes whatever the BIOS is flashed .

Sorry

 

[killadude]

:'( even though its a VIVO and samsung 1.6 like everyone else has?

 

[ChrisMansion]

Waiting for my HIS X850PRO ViVo AGP to arrive, and just have one question regarding flashing the bios-thing (already have backup of the original bios):

First you flash the new 850XT bios using the -p -f 0 **.bin ...Do u then have to restart the computer and then flash the backup.bin file to regain fan control, or can u do both the flashing of the newbios and the backup.bin after each other without rebooting?

Sorry if this has been asked before somewhere else on this forum.