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I flashed my 5970 wrong!

Zigu

Zigu

New Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2011
Messages
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Hi,


Fixing a completely gone wrong ATI BIOS flash.

The other day I was trying to recover a Radeon 4890 which was flashed with the wrong BIOS.
To do that I put an 5970 (first card I had handy) into the primary PCI-E slot and the 4890 into the secondary slot.
As always I was in a hurry so I ran: atiflash -f -newbios -p 0 4890.bin

Heart Attack!! Realize what just happened?
The 0 stands for adapter 0 which is the PRIMARY card, so my 5970 now had an 4890 BIOS on it.
So I thought, I'll just flash it back... Problem: the 5970 PCI device ID changed. ATI's flashing
programs query the device ID to know which GPU to expect, so the software can use the right flashing method.
Unfortunately a device with wrond ID doesn't exist at all so ATIFlash didn't even show the card as installed.
The only way I could imagine how to fix this is by disconnecting the flash memory somehow so that the device ID does
not get changed (all ATI GPUs have a default value which can be overwritten by the ROM.)

So i had to find those serial flashmemory ROMS from my card. I found two ROMS (serial flashmemory) and they are Pm25LV010, AE1011, M19926LG and Pm25LV010, AE1011, M19927LG. I try connect 1 and 8 pin together from those ROMS, but that didn´t had luck. I got same error from ATIflash --> no adapter.

I complete fixing my 4890. I connect flashmemory 1 and 8 pin together and WOLAA, when restarting computer ATIflash found my 4890 in adapter.


So, i think the problem is now something with connects those two flashmemorys together, or something like that.

Please help me recover my 5970, THANKS.
 
Last edited:
You could try plugging in an Nvidia card, and then flash your 5970 bck to its original self.
 
Irony said:
You could try plugging in an Nvidia card, and then flash your 5970 bck to its original self.
Click to expand...

I must try it. But i feard at it not work, because 5970 has wrong ID.
 
Since you have fixed the Radeon 4890, have you tried to fix the 5970 card by doing what you did with the 4890. I mean did you put 4890 as primary and 5970 as secondary and try to flash bad 5970 as 4890 back to good 5970?

I assume you followed the techpowerup guide for fixing a bad 4870 flash right?
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/152

Have you tried putting the bad 5970 in secondary slot and using RBE - Radeon BIOS editor from techpowerup to flash in windows?
http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/

Since I know you can change vendor ids in the bios file and then flash it using the RBE, you will need a working primary slot graphics card and have the bad 5970 in the secondary slot.
http://tpucdn.com/rbe/RBE_Info.png

The techpowerup RBE tutorial can be found here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/154

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
slowpokex4 said:
Since you have fixed the Radeon 4890, have you tried to fix the 5970 card by doing what you did with the 4890. I mean did you put 4890 as primary and 5970 as secondary and try to flash bad 5970 as 4890 back to good 5970?

I assume you followed the techpowerup guide for fixing a bad 4870 flash right?
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/152

Have you tried putting the bad 5970 in secondary slot and using RBE - Radeon BIOS editor from techpowerup to flash in windows?
http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/

Since I know you can change vendor ids in the bios file and then flash it using the RBE, you will need a working primary slot graphics card and have the bad 5970 in the secondary slot.
http://tpucdn.com/rbe/RBE_Info.png

The techpowerup RBE tutorial can be found here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/154

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Yes i have tried to do that. I got same error, adapter not found.

I have also followed the techpowerup guide for fixing a bad 4870 flash. I got also same error adapter not found. Problem is that at 4870 has only one flash ROM. 5970 got two flash-ROM:s. I have tried also connect both flash-ROM:s pins 1 & 8 together, but i got again error adapter not found :banghead:


With RBE i got same error when trying flash 5970, adapter not found.
 
there was a thread on here somewhere, where someone did the same thing..... tried to find it but failed.


it was about4 - 10 months ago...
 
oy veh when will people ever learn...

Look if you want to flash a video card ensure you have a secondary and ensure you are flashing the right card. In event flash fails you still have a means of being able to reflash the card with the right bios/firmware and parameters.
 
Next time you try to resurrect any gfx card from a BIOS fuckup, use a PCI graphics card from the scrap pile.

I always do those gfx card flashes with a S3 Virge 4MB PCI as the primary card (the one you connect your monitor to). There's simply no way any Ati/AMD or nvidia flashtool is gonna use that instead of the card I'm trying to flash.

If you use 2 Ati/AMD or nvidia cards, that's just crying for flashing the wrong card by accident.
 
Bambooz said:
Next time you try to resurrect any gfx card from a BIOS fuckup, use a PCI graphics card from the scrap pile.
Click to expand...

I think at i remember that next time when i´m planning to flash any BIOS :laugh:
 
Did You Uninstall ALL Your Graphics Card Drivers, Before Flashing The BIOS..??

If You Haven't.. Remove Them & See If It's Recognises The GC..

The Drivers, Would Have Cached The Old ID & If It Was Master Or Slave etc..
 
trickson said:
I see this time and time again and I still have yet to understand why the hell people want to RISK killing there card(s) , Such a nice card too! What a shame. :shadedshu
Sorry there is nothing at all I can do.
Click to expand...

Then do everyone a favor and not post. If someone needs help, they don't need some sermon from someone who states they can't help.
 
How great.. my previous post was deleted, yet the BS post I was referring to (13) still stands, despite not being of any value whatsoever (actually just confusing).

@OP: like H82LUZ73 said, you need to reset (and flash) both BIOS chips.
As for the resetting, it'll probably be best to do both at the same time, not one after the other or something like that.
 
Thanks all for help. I try next uninstall all drivers from ati and try then again.

So next:

1. uninstall all drivers from ati
2. connect 1 & 8 pin together in flashROM:s
3 turn computer on with those connections
4. hope best in ATIFLASH :respect:
 
So nothing new happened when i uninstalled drivers. I got again error message ADAPTER NOT FOUND. :banghead:
 
Zigu said:
So nothing new happened when i uninstalled drivers. I got again error message ADAPTER NOT FOUND. :banghead:
Click to expand...

Yeah, you should uninstall all drivers, Before Flashing GC BIOS' etc..

Try installing Catalyst drivers again & see if the drivers detect anything..

Found This On XtremeSystems Forums too, linking back here etc..

How to erase the BIOS on ATI graphic cards?

Answer:
1. Download modified flashrom. (http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/100/images/flashrom16p.zip)
2. Download Bios from here. (http://bios.techpowerup.com/)
A little sidenote: Many people complain that they get a "file not found" error when trying to flash the bios under DOS. The problem is that DOS does not know long filenames, so all files are truncated to some funky names like Powerco~1.bin. Either use the dir command, when in DOS, to find out the short filename or rename the file to something shorter while still in Windows.
3. Use modified flashrom to flash the empty.bin (http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/100/images/empty.bin) BIOS to your video card, write "flashrom -p -f 0 empty.bin" then flash the new, "flashrom -p -f 0 xxx.xxx" Bios without rebooting. Be careful - if you don't flash a real Bios after flashing the empty Bios, your card will not work properly.

You can read more about this here (http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/100)
Special thanks to Minnyboy
 
I tryed flash that empty.bin with FLASROM, no with ATIFlash. I´t gives me same results, adapter not found and error 0FL01.

And reinstalling drivers don´t help detect anything new. :banghead:

So i´m still in dead end.
 
Is the card actually getting initialized by the motherboard? Are IRQs being allocated to the card or is it getting completely ignored? I guess it might be hard to figure it out this way since you don't appear to have anything that shows it in your system.

Do no devices show up, not even an "unknown device" in the device manager? Also have you tried pairing it with something other than your 4000-series card? Do you have another card you could use with it to see if that makes a difference?
 
so after you bridge the pins on the bios chips, does atiflash see the adapter?

and do you have to physically unbridge the chips while the computer is running!?!? rofl. wtf?
 
Aquinus said:
Is the card actually getting initialized by the motherboard? Are IRQs being allocated to the card or is it getting completely ignored? I guess it might be hard to figure it out this way since you don't appear to have anything that shows it in your system.

Do no devices show up, not even an "unknown device" in the device manager? Also have you tried pairing it with something other than your 4000-series card? Do you have another card you could use with it to see if that makes a difference?
Click to expand...

No, i see only second card in device manager, not 5970 even in unknown mode.

Yes i have tried use old NVIDIA-card, but that doesn´t make difference.
 
jaredpace said:
so after you bridge the pins on the bios chips, does atiflash see the adapter?

and do you have to physically unbridge the chips while the computer is running!?!? rofl. wtf?
Click to expand...

When both bios-ROM 1 & 8 pins were bridged, i get again ADAPTER NOT FOUND.

I fix my 4890 same way, but ATIFLASH found card when i start computer with same connections. Then i cut soldered bridgewire (computer is running) and flash original BIOS back.

I don´t know why ATIFlash doesn`t find the card now, even though i use same technique.
 
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