HD 2900 Pro 256bit Version by Sapphire 512mb OVERCLOCKING

[Robert Jordan]

I have to only use ATITool V.27 or it wont detect my overclock and will crash. Dont know what is the reason but I have to make sure I only use that version. I know, I checked "update" from withing ATITool the other day and it updated to v.24 and wouldnt work. I also tried v.26 and it didnt work.
Also after I flashed my bios with v.85/v1.15@std, now unless my ATItool is loaded my desktop screen (on monitor 2) is fuzzy on 1/2 of the screen!! Immediately as it gets through loading, the fuzziness goes away. Strange but it sure is sweat getting the HD2900Pro 256bit to overclock to 725/909 @ extremely stable status. Isnt life sweet when you get something for nothing...
Thanks to the original poster for highlighting the techniques to flash the bios.

Robert in Mesquite,Tx

 

[Crazyhorse]

Did you try out Riva Tuner yet ? Lately i prefer Riva Tuner over ATi Tool.

 

[Robert Jordan]

I have used RivaTuner in the past, I guess I will try it again if YOU suggest it.. Thanks, I'll keep ya posted on how it worked.....

Rob in Mesquite,Tx

 

[low351]

Update:

I now have my card OC'd to 750/1000 using Riva tuner and it appears stable. I've been gaming a few nights with it, Counter Strike Source, and it's behaving. I've also run 3dMark06 on it repeatedly.

I didn't change the bios so it's running the regular voltages.

I did have to uninstall Catalyst 8.2 and then reinstall specifying only the video card drivers. With catalyst installed the card would run at the Riva settings only one time then it would go to the ATI overdrive settings, that was frustrating me during the 3Dmark06 because only the first test would run at full OC.

I couldn't get ATI tool to work for me but then I was trying before I reinstalled drivers only. I will probably install it again just to run the fuzzy cube test and check for artifacts.

I probably won't push the card higher until I get a thermalright HR-03 R600 or the new Arctic Xtreme 2900...

 

[Robert Jordan]

I'd say by your overclock without bios mod that you have a very good card! Is it a R600 chip?
Without the bios mod, Id be lucky with a 600/700 OC. Maybe yours is a 512bit version instead of a 256bit version.. not sure but you got really good OC speeds....

Rob in Mesquite,Tx

 

[MarcusTaz]

I have the pro 512mb 256 bit running at 790 / 1000 stable @ 1.2 volts with my own custom bios mod. My only issue is RBE is yet to have the ability to mod the bios to adjust fan steppings. I have no room for a water block or after market cooler. I have to run the fan @ 70% to keep her @ 70c during gaming COD4 @ 1920x1080p... The card kicks ass and for the money it is a great buy. The only issue is the fan stepping. It takes to 90c before it goes up over 30% and that is too long to late. By that time my card is to hat and starts acting up.

The creator of RBE flash jus needs to know where the code is to put fan steppings editing in his tool. I wish someone knew and could provide it to him...

 

[Robert Jordan]

I use ATITool v.27 (only one that works right) and i have it set to adjust the fan settings depending on the temp. Every 10C I go up another 10% on the fan (ie:70c=70%,etc).
It keeps mine around 74 in COD4.

 

[MarcusTaz]

I use ATITool v.27 (only one that works right) and i have it set to adjust the fan settings depending on the temp. Every 10C I go up another 10% on the fan (ie:70c=70%,etc).
It keeps mine around 74 in COD4.

So ATI tool will make the fan step up as temp increases? I run vista and I know ATI tool has not been as stable under Vista but I wilkl certainly give it another try..

Thanks!

 

[MarcusTaz]

Update:

I now have my card OC'd to 750/1000 using Riva tuner and it appears stable. I've been gaming a few nights with it, Counter Strike Source, and it's behaving. I've also run 3dMark06 on it repeatedly.

I didn't change the bios so it's running the regular voltages.

I did have to uninstall Catalyst 8.2 and then reinstall specifying only the video card drivers. With catalyst installed the card would run at the Riva settings only one time then it would go to the ATI overdrive settings, that was frustrating me during the 3Dmark06 because only the first test would run at full OC.

I couldn't get ATI tool to work for me but then I was trying before I reinstalled drivers only. I will probably install it again just to run the fuzzy cube test and check for artifacts.

I probably won't push the card higher until I get a thermalright HR-03 R600 or the new Arctic Xtreme 2900...

I had the same issue with ATI overdrive taking over my OC settings. Just disable the CCC control center from booting up and your custom clocks will run just fine.

 

[Jaybee]

How high have most people been able to get these cards to go on the stock bios?

I think I've got myself a really good one, as it clocks at 770 GPU and 1096 ram with no artifacts with the stock bios.

I think that I might even be able to get a little more If I had a better power supply, for all gaming and benching I have the fan set to 50% and I can hear (and see with the Riva Tuner hardware monitor) my Fan RPM drop a few hundred RPM under load. Is this normal, or a sign that I should spend more than 50 bucks on my power supply?

 

[Crazyhorse]

How high have most people been able to get these cards to go on the stock bios?

I think I've got myself a really good one, as it clocks at 770 GPU and 1096 ram with no artifacts with the stock bios.

I think that I might even be able to get a little more If I had a better power supply, for all gaming and benching I have the fan set to 50% and I can hear (and see with the Riva Tuner hardware monitor) my Fan RPM drop a few hundred RPM under load. Is this normal, or a sign that I should spend more than 50 bucks on my power supply?

I think stock bios i can do 750 / 1150 with 1.15V bios i can do 840 / 1150

 

[MarcusTaz]

I think stock bios i can do 750 / 1150 with 1.15V bios i can do 840 / 1150

Well then you got yourself one heck of a card. The best I can do is 790 and 1100 on mem and playing COD4 my fan will jump to minimum 65% to keep it cool...

 

[Crazyhorse]

Well then you got yourself one heck of a card. The best I can do is 790 and 1100 on mem and playing COD4 my fan will jump to minimum 65% to keep it cool...

Its an ok card, I used to have a second but that burned up lol....

Considering you get a Geforce 8800GS for $90 after Rebate or 8800GT for like $150AR...

 

[Deusxmachina]

I think I've got myself a really good one, as it clocks at 770 GPU and 1096 ram with no artifacts with the stock bios.

I think that I might even be able to get a little more If I had a better power supply, for all gaming and benching I have the fan set to 50% and I can hear (and see with the Riva Tuner hardware monitor) my Fan RPM drop a few hundred RPM under load. Is this normal, or a sign that I should spend more than 50 bucks on my power supply?

I would guess it's normal. If the power supply is in question I think you'd have far worse problems than a small fan slowing down. My friend recently got a 500-ish watt Corsair I think for like $45, and my 750/900peak was $60. Definitely some deals out there at times. Power supply buying, like most things, mainly sucks when you need one right away and can't wait a bit for a great deal to pop up.

Real-world clock speed example on my 256bit: Was playing Crysis on modded Very High XP settings. I was messing around with different settings on the main beach area about 20 minutes into the game. Was getting generally 21fps just standing there or walking around at 1600x1200 and 650/700. Upped the core to 750 and got 24, maybe 25, doing the same thing.

Before Crysis, I had no need to up the voltage. Heck, I was playing everything at 650 core. Now I'm about to look up bios mods to hopefully get 850-ish. ATITool maxed core at like 815, so figure at least 800 stable on more volts is doable. If 650 to 750 got three maybe four fps from 20fps range, and if 850 can get another 3fps out of it, going from 650 to 850 and from 21fps to 27.5fps on these cards is a big deal. Then again, maybe it's not surprising since people say how well the core scales. Pretty good considering an 8800GT was around $100 more at the time and still haven't hit $140.

For fan control, ATITool 27 works fine on mine. I still get a kick out of forcing it to 100% once in awhile to see the cat jump.

Crazyhorse, what did it take to kill the card?

 

[mahdiy85]

Hey guys,
I have been busy and never got the chance to play around with this since getting my video card.
How is it that you can set the clock frequency high for 3d, and low for normal operation? When overclocking with Ati tool for example, that clock setting is going to run all the time, or only when you run a 3d app?
Also, what's a good program to flash the bios with?

 

[ZenEffect]

Hey guys,
I have been busy and never got the chance to play around with this since getting my video card.
How is it that you can set the clock frequency high for 3d, and low for normal operation? When overclocking with Ati tool for example, that clock setting is going to run all the time, or only when you run a 3d app?
Also, what's a good program to flash the bios with?

i use atiwinflash... found on this website. you can underclock/undervolt 2d states then overclock/overvolt 3d. from personal experience, undervolting 2d below .875 volts will result in a unrecoverable black screen when switching from 3d to 2d (i.e. exiting cod4)

the bios has various "states" of which it switches between. plugging in just 2 6pin power cables disables ati overdrive, and thus will allow you to clock higher w/o any additional mods or steps... just install the drivers with ccc and you are good to go. if you are on a single video card, it wont matter, but when you are running crossfire, and need ccc to enable crossfire.. then this step is very important as it will not switch to 3d states when the clocks of memory or core are above what the slider allows. this occurs on 7.12 drivers and later. there is an inf fix that i implemented that im sure some of you guys use here, but it gets annoying modding the inf every driver release. you should really just mod the bios for overclocking as rbe allows you to set your fan profiles, clocks, and volts. after the bios is flashed there is no need for tools like atitool or riva tuner. just use gpu-z to monitor your temps and you are set.

 

[Deusxmachina]

For anyone that's used RBE to edit the bios, did your vendor box come up as 2900xt instead of pro? Loading one of the German bioses into RBE, the box shows as 2900xt. I don't know whether to leave it alone or to change it to a pro. GPU-Z does show my card as a pro, as it should.

 

[MarcusTaz]

For anyone that's used RBE to edit the bios, did your vendor box come up as 2900xt instead of pro? Loading one of the German bioses into RBE, the box shows as 2900xt. I don't know whether to leave it alone or to change it to a pro. GPU-Z does show my card as a pro, as it should.

First off mod your own bios with RBE... Use ATI Winflash (get it in the download section here) and take the stock bios out of your card and just tweak the voltage to 1.15 for starts and try 750 and 900 mem for starts...


My card is a Sapphire and it comes up as vendor unknown. If I force it to a manufacture the card gives me a CODE 10 failure in Vista, so I just leave that alone

 

[Deusxmachina]

What a mess flashing turned out to be. I wasn't going to bother except AITool would no longer work even after multiple installs, so figured may as well flash it finally and lower the 2d volts and up the 3d volts. Only a few modded bios from that German site can be downloaded anymore. The stock bios shows as a 2900xt, as do the few German ones I grabbed. Just didn't want to brick it.

Flashed a couple German ones in there, and all was well except the clock numbers, but it gave me 1.15v to test with. After finding a comfortable max clock, used RBE on the stock bios and then upon reboot got "no video driver found" and "driver service error" errors. Reinstalled the video drivers with no change. Flashed to a known working German bios, no change. To the original bios, no change. Looked up what other people have been saying about "driver service errors" for years, which turns out to be people including ATI basically having no idea how to fix it.

I did try saving a bios as "2900 pro." GPU-Z wouldn't recognize the card as anything. So, that's not good.

Hours and umpteen reboots and flashes and driver installs later, I could suddenly right-click to open up Catalyst and all looked well. Too bad I was using a bios I didn't really want. Flashed to what I wanted, and repeat the "driver service error" cycle again. Kept flashing and rebooting and reinstalling video drivers until it magically worked. I have yet to reboot again to see if it will keep working.

 

[MarcusTaz]

What a mess flashing turned out to be. I wasn't going to bother except AITool would no longer work even after multiple installs, so figured may as well flash it finally and lower the 2d volts and up the 3d volts. Only a few modded bios from that German site can be downloaded anymore. The stock bios shows as a 2900xt, as do the few German ones I grabbed. Just didn't want to brick it.

Flashed a couple German ones in there, and all was well except the clock numbers, but it gave me 1.15v to test with. After finding a comfortable max clock, used RBE on the stock bios and then upon reboot got "no video driver found" and "driver service error" errors. Reinstalled the video drivers with no change. Flashed to a known working German bios, no change. To the original bios, no change. Looked up what other people have been saying about "driver service errors" for years, which turns out to be people including ATI basically having no idea how to fix it.

I did try saving a bios as "2900 pro." GPU-Z wouldn't recognize the card as anything. So, that's not good.

Hours and umpteen reboots and flashes and driver installs later, I could suddenly right-click to open up Catalyst and all looked well. Too bad I was using a bios I didn't really want. Flashed to what I wanted, and repeat the "driver service error" cycle again. Kept flashing and rebooting and reinstalling video drivers until it magically worked. I have yet to reboot again to see if it will keep working.

If you need the Stock Bios I have it let me know in PM and I will email it. DO NOT change the vendor setting, it does not work as the same thing happen to me.