Guide to Radeon X800/X850 bios modding

[xvi]

And by the way, thanks Dolf. Sorry to be such a nuisance, but I like doing things the hard (and custom) way. I tend to learn more that way. I'm giving one last shot at editing the BIOS and if that doesn't work, I'll go for the automatic CD.

Edit: Corrupted my BIOS. I tried doing a blind write, but I just got a bunch of spinning garble and my system rebooted after about 5 seconds. I threw in a PCI card and was able to flash back to the original BIOS. Going to try to keep it simple this time.

Another edit: The flash worked this time, but I somehow flashed it down to an X800 with 8 pipelines (by modifying the original BIOS). I entered "4B4C" into RaBiT, but ATITool reports "4A4C". Dolf wins. I guess I'll just go with the CD.

3rd edit: After flashing with the CD (choosing the first option), ATI tool only reported 12 pipelines, but managed to get better FPS on the fuzzy cube demo. After restarting once, ATITool reports 16 pipelines. Thank you, Dolf. You are my lord and master. *hangs head in shame*

4th edit: Before enabling the extra pipelines, I could overclock to 545/620@65c and pass the artifact test on stock cooling. After enabling the extra pipelines, I can do 530/615@66c and pass the artifact test on stock cooling. Overclocking will give me about 290 FPS on the cube demo. If you route air from the outside directly to your stock HSF, I personally think you could get XT PE speeds on the stock heatsync. I've had an idea where you just take a gutted out slot blower and place it one slot below your Radeon. Maybe do a little ducting, too.

 

[Absolute_Zero]

Is there a better BIOS than the stock BIOS?

Maybe I asked too many question for my 1st post on the forums, for that I apologize! If someone could just offer their opinion regarding the best BIOS for my card, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks again!

Hi All,

After reading through most of the related threads, I have determined that I cannot unlock any extra pipelines. That being said, I would like your opinions as to the best course of action for my card. Is there a better BIOS for my card? (I have not been able to use ATIWinflash with any success which is a good thing since I am not really sure which BIOS to use anyway, heh) What is a stable OC for my card? (I am guessing that I will just have to play around with that and see what I can get). What are the preferred drivers? (ATI drivers, Sapphire drivers, etc)

Oh and just for the record, I have visually checked that I have the R480 core.

Thanks in advance!!

Here are my system specs:

Current Drivers: Sapphire Catalyst drivers 6.10
Video Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO Blue (R480)
CPU: P4 2.4GHz
MainBoard: MSI 865PE Neo2
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel 333Mhz
Drives:80GB 7.200RPM w/ 8mb Cache WD
200GB 7,200RPM w/ 8mb Cache Maxtor
Monitor: 19" CRT Samtron 98BDF
Case: Antec (Bronze)
Sound Card: Audigy 2ZS
PSU: Antec SmartPower 300W (SL300S)

Here are my ATITools settings:

 

[Hayt121]

OK, so after some digging, and downloading like 3 different diagnostic tools I found out that my BFG 6800 GT OC actually has 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex shaders! The main reason I wanted to upgrade to the X850 Pro was for the 16pp... but what about the clock speeds? My 6800 GT OC clock speeds are core 385/mem 534(real) 1069(effective) @56C with my fans at 53%. I know the X850 clock speeds are core 500/mem 500. Now my questions:

Is X850's memory speed of 500 real, or effective?
IF Im able to OC my 6800 to a core speed near 500, do you think it will beable to compare to the performance of a stock X850 with 16pp?

Thanks

 

[dolf]

OK, so after some digging, and downloading like 3 different diagnostic tools I found out that my BFG 6800 GT OC actually has 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex shaders! The main reason I wanted to upgrade to the X850 Pro was for the 16pp... but what about the clock speeds? My 6800 GT OC clock speeds are core 385/mem 534(real) 1069(effective) @56C with my fans at 53%. I know the X850 clock speeds are core 500/mem 500. Now my questions:

Is X850's memory speed of 500 real, or effective?
IF Im able to OC my 6800 to a core speed near 500, do you think it will beable to compare to the performance of a stock X850 with 16pp?

Thanks

If you are lucky (the chance is 80%) to get X850PRO VIVO AGP car which can be unlocked to 16 pipes the clocks could be 500/500 with PRO BIOS and 16 pipes; 520/540 with XT BIOS or 540/590MHz with XT PE BIOS (of course the DDR memory has effective speed x2). With 16 pipes the X850 will be considerably faster than 6800 GT. With 12 pipes and XT PE speeds probably equal or even better.

 

[xvi]

Maybe I asked too many question for my 1st post on the forums, for that I apologize! If someone could just offer their opinion regarding the best BIOS for my card, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks again!

Stick with Sapphire. Maybe ATI. I don't know of any difference between the manufacturer's BIOS' programming. Some will have higher clock speeds, but that's nothing special.

 

[Frogger]

Maybe I asked too many question for my 1st post on the forums, for that I apologize! If someone could just offer their opinion regarding the best BIOS for my card, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks again!

http://www.savefile.com/projects/738578 dolf's iso image.. read the pdf ,,,, should work fine with your 800 agp after flash will appear as a 850...again read the pdf

 

[Absolute_Zero]

Thanks, xvi and Frogger, for your responses. I appreciate the help!

I didn't think I could use dolf's boot cd since I do not have an unlockable card. I just assumed (I know, bad thing to do, heh) that it was only for flashing a BIOS on a card that was unlockable.

I will download it tonight when I get home.

Thanks again!

 

[Frogger]

Please post back results F

 

[Absolute_Zero]

will do

 

[Absolute_Zero]

I don't want to be an annoyance but....

I was reading through the pdf during lunch and noticed that this link is for the x850pro vivo.

http://www.savefile.com/projects/738578

Frogger, I know that you said it should work fine with my 800 but I just want to be sure since my card is NOT a vivo card.

I have noticed in numerous posts where dolf has asked someone if the card is a vivo card or not, so it must be an important distinction. So I just want to be sure that this is the right one.

I also did some more digging through this thread and found a link to the X800GTO (and X800GTO2) non-vivo image but it is for PCI-E, mine is AGP.

http://www.savefile.com/projects/841504

and I recall dolf telling somebody that they should not use (or shouldn't have used) a PCI-E BIOS for an AGP card, so I am pretty sure I don't want to use that one.

So I guess I just want to double check and make sure that this is the correct image? or is there an iso specifically for an x800gto agp non-vivo (r480)?

Pardon me if I sound like I am second guessing you Frogger, because that is not my intention!!! I just want to be sure, that's all.

Thanks again!

 

[xvi]

I don't want to be an annoyance but....

I was reading through the pdf during lunch and noticed that this link is for the x850pro vivo.

http://www.savefile.com/projects/738578

Frogger, I know that you said it should work fine with my 800 but I just want to be sure since my card is NOT a vivo card.

I have noticed in numerous posts where dolf has asked someone if the card is a vivo card or not, so it must be an important distinction. So I just want to be sure that this is the right one.

I also did some more digging through this thread and found a link to the X800GTO (and X800GTO2) non-vivo image but it is for PCI-E, mine is AGP.

http://www.savefile.com/projects/841504

and I recall dolf telling somebody that they should not use (or shouldn't have used) a PCI-E BIOS for an AGP card, so I am pretty sure I don't want to use that one.

So I guess I just want to double check and make sure that this is the correct image? or is there an iso specifically for an x800gto agp non-vivo (r480)?

Pardon me if I sound like I am second guessing you Frogger, because that is not my intention!!! I just want to be sure, that's all.

Thanks again!

Dolf's CD is for Vivo cards only. If you really want to flash to a different BIOS, you can try using RaBiT to edit your current BIOS or modify a downloaded BIOS. I wouldn't really bother, though. If you can't unlock pipelines, then there probably isn't much you can do with a BIOS that you couldn't do with ATITool.

I haven't had much luck with RaBiT on my machine, but I've seen it work.

 

[Absolute_Zero]

Thanks xvi,

If there is no benefit to flashing the BIOS other than unlocking the pipes (which I can't do anyway) then I won't even mess around with it.

Again, thank you all for the information and assistance, it is appreciated!

 

[Frogger]

ok no vivo try this...Overclocking the Card
I used the provided Overclocking utility from Sapphire in order to overclock the cord. Sapphire calls this utility TriXX. When opening up the utility, it shows real-time details about the temperatures and current clock speeds the video card is at. The card defaulted to a fan speed to about 65%. The default clock of this card is 490Mhz for the Memory and 400Mhz for the Core. I was able to successfully overclock the card easily to speeds of 500Mhz for the core and 500Mhz for the memory, effectively being X850 speeds, a much more expensive card.
I was able to push the card even further to a maximum clock speed of 530 Mhz and memory speeds of 565. I ran 3DMark03 for a while as a benchmark and was able to reach a 3DMark score of 10748 under 1024 x 768 resolution and a score of 10164 in 1280 x 1024 resolution. I compared these values to a X800XT in a previous review and it could not reach the speeds even though the core and memory speeds were the same. This is where we reach the limitation of the architecture of the X800 GTO since it has only 12 pipelines as opposed to the blazing 16 pipelines on an X800XT.

Even though the card was relatively stable, It wasn't exactly comforting knowing that the GPU has a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius and a board temperature of 50 degrees Celsius. Because of this, I would recommend that Sapphire putting some heatsinks on the back of the board where the RAM is.


your best bet F

 

[infrared]

Or even easier to use... ATITool

and btw, W1zzard (God-like creature that lives on these lands; and Creator of ATITool, Systool, etc etc) also helped Sapphire develop Trixx

 

[dolf]

Here you are link to Automated flash utility for X800GTO AGP with R480 (blu PCB) without VIVO. The utility includes also overclocked BIOSes (500/500 and 520/540MHz).

http://www.savefile.com/projects/733218

 

[Munkul]

hi everyone, can someone tell me what to do please:

when i first got my x800gto2 i flashed it with a bios that unlocked 16 pipelines, but the bios was for a r480 core and my card has a r430 core. is it a good idea to find another bios that is for an r430 core and flash it, or should i stay with what ive got?
currently, with watercooling and 1.6v overvolt, i can get it to run games and 3dmark05 at 485mhz with no artifacts in atitool, but the computer crashes randomly every few hours, or whenever it feels like anoying me, since i overvolted it.
i want to know if it would help stability and overclocking to flash it with a better bios.

 

[dolf]

hi everyone, can someone tell me what to do please:

when i first got my x800gto2 i flashed it with a bios that unlocked 16 pipelines, but the bios was for a r480 core and my card has a r430 core. is it a good idea to find another bios that is for an r430 core and flash it, or should i stay with what ive got?
currently, with watercooling and 1.6v overvolt, i can get it to run games and 3dmark05 at 485mhz with no artifacts in atitool, but the computer crashes randomly every few hours, or whenever it feels like anoying me, since i overvolted it.
i want to know if it would help stability and overclocking to flash it with a better bios.

Most probably you won't avoid such random crashes with R430 and 485MHz whatever the BIOS is. It is better to reduce the clocks to max. 450-460MHz and the voltage to 1.5-1.55V max.

 

[matzoi]

Is it a Sapphire X800 GTO2 Limited Edition?

I bought a card on ebay from a seller who claimed it was a Sapphire card that worked just like an X850PE. It has a sticker on the back that reads...
Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 V/D/VO
PN 102-A47487-10-AT
SKU# 21067-00

The seller claimed he modded this card, which I assume meant he flashed the BIOS and overclocked it on his machine. He claimed it would run at 560mHz core frequency, but I only got it to 513/699 without artifacts. AtiTool reported that the core was an R480 with 16 pipes

I'd appreciate any advice on identifying the model and recommendations on flashing the BIOS.

 

[xvi]

I bought a card on ebay from a seller who claimed it was a Sapphire card that worked just like an X850PE. It has a sticker on the back that reads...
Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 V/D/VO
PN 102-A47487-10-AT
SKU# 21067-00

The seller claimed he modded this card, which I assume meant he flashed the BIOS and overclocked it on his machine. He claimed it would run at 560mHz core frequency, but I only got it to 513/699 without artifacts. AtiTool reported that the core was an R480 with 16 pipes

I'd appreciate any advice on identifying the model and recommendations on flashing the BIOS.

I wouldn't bother flashing the BIOS or anything. From your memory clock, I'd guess you have the 1.6ns memory (which is good). When you overclock and get artifacts, do you get artifacts right away? or does it take a few seconds. If it takes a few seconds, then the air inside your case is probably too hot. I'd open up the side of your computer, take a big house fan, and point it at it at the inside of your case. Try overclocking now. If you can't get any higher, then open a few windows in your house and try again. If you still can't get higher, he might of lied (not as likely) or your motherboard isn't liking the new video card.

How much did you buy it for? (out of curiosity?)

 

[matzoi]

Is it a Sapphire X800 GTO2 Limited Edition?

I wouldn't bother flashing the BIOS or anything. From your memory clock, I'd guess you have the 1.6ns memory (which is good). When you overclock and get artifacts, do you get artifacts right away? or does it take a few seconds. If it takes a few seconds, then the air inside your case is probably too hot. I'd open up the side of your computer, take a big house fan, and point it at it at the inside of your case. Try overclocking now. If you can't get any higher, then open a few windows in your house and try again. If you still can't get higher, he might of lied (not as likely) or your motherboard isn't liking the new video card.

How much did you buy it for? (out of curiosity?)

My figure on the max mem speed is wrong. It gets up to 616 or so. Not sure if that makes a difference.

The card has an ATI Silencer 5 cooler installed so I'm assuming that it's doing its job 'cause the core never exceeds 70.

I've installed it in my new computer tonight and it seems like it's hitting 520mHz, 55deg, 100% fan without a glitch. My fear is that the previous owner fried the core with his aggressive timings.

I bought it for $110 on eBay. It was not represented as a x800 in the auction title. I filed a claim on paypal and recently got a partial refund.

Catalyst Version 5.5+
Device ID 5D4F
Chip Type R480
Memory Size 256 MB
Memory Bus Width 256 bit
Active Pipelines 16
Default GPU Clock 400.00 MHz
Default Mem Clock 490.00 MHz
CONFIG_DIE FUSES 0XFFFFFFFF
CONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES 0xFFFFFF9F
CONFIG_ROM_FUSES 0x260
GB_PIPE_SELECT 0x3FE4

 

[dolf]

If it can reach 500 and more MHz on the core then it should be R480. You can visually inspect it removing the cooler. Check the Vcore and decide what to do further.

 

[matzoi]

Is it a Sapphire X800 GTO2 Limited Edition?

If it can reach 500 and more MHz on the core then it should be R480. You can visually inspect it removing the cooler. Check the Vcore and decide what to do further.

I apologize for my lack of knowledge in this area, but I'm not sure how to check to Vcore. One volt mod guide on this site says to use a multimeter to check to voltage between the mounting screw and capacitor c60. However I can't seem to find C60 on my board.

Can you advise me on the easiest way to check this voltage. Also, how can I use this info to decide on how best to flash the bios? I do not plan to volt mod this card.

Thanks in advance...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update...

I'm a smart boy 'cause I found c60 all by myself. I looked at the blue pcb pic in Radeon X800 Non-Pro/X800 XL/X850 Voltmods article which showed me where to look (even though my pcb is red.) The meter read 1.4V.

Is this useful in modifying the bios?

 

[Munkul]

Most probably you won't avoid such random crashes with R430 and 485MHz whatever the BIOS is. It is better to reduce the clocks to max. 450-460MHz and the voltage to 1.5-1.55V max.

well, i set up a hotkey system, so whenever it usually crashes it is running defaults of 400mhz.
i THINK its the voltage alone thats crashing it, so im gonna wire some switches in to control the voltages.

 

[matzoi]

Is it a Sapphire X800 GTO2 Limited Edition?

Last night I flashed the card with Sapphire.X800GTO2_16P.Samsung16.bin. There seems to be no real change in performance.

Googling my part number revealed a similar product on NCIX.com...
"Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 PCI-E VGA DVI TV-OUT Video Card Lite Retail Box"

I dumped the old bios which is attached to this message if anyone is able and willing to id it.

Took some time to review the volt mod guides too. It doesn't look hard to perform the pencil mods. However, I intend to resell this card and I assume buyers would prefer the card in a condition without novice mods.

Clocks of 516/607 are stable for at least an hour on full fan, temp at 55. This card crashes sometimes even without artifacts. Does that imply some damage to the core? Can someone explain why a card might crash under load after some time without defects (like an hour or more?)

Any suggestions to softmod this card to higher clocks would be appreciated.

Thanks again for all those who contribute to this board for the benefit of noobies like myself.

 

[NFITC1]

What am I doing wrong?

Let me say, first, that I'm new to this whole procedure. So I followed almost every instruction on this topic and still can't get this to work. I'm using an X850 PRO (R481) and I can't get ATIflash to work. It keeps giving me the 0FL01 error.
When I used atiflash I typed this:
"H:\ATITool\>atiflash -p -f -newbios 0 mbios.bin"
And it gave me that error I mentioned above.

The values in ATITool are showing:

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

What are these other fuses and how do I change them? I don't really want to search through 90 pages, but I already searched through the first 30 or so. Is there something I'm missing.