Sapphire 9550 256mb troubles

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

Hi. This is my first post. I had a Sapphire 9550 256 mb card just before Christmas. It had Samsung memory and was great for overclocking. Solid and stable at 400/230*2 with stock cooling.

Then the card developed a fault (Not whilst being overclocked. I only oc when gaming)

Returned it for a replacement and was sent the same card, but with different memory. It now has Hynix memory. This card is now pants in my opinion. It will only overclock to 312/211*2. It struggled to get that high, developing artifacts at 288. With a bit of persuasion, aborting as the clock speed went up and restarting, I eventually got it up to about 313, but nowhere near the 400 on the previous card.

Ironically my temperature in my new case has dropped from 32 down to 26 with my CPU running at 38 loaded. (XP2500 Barton oc to XP 3200, with 512mb Crucial 3200 memory).

The BIOS is the original with stock cooling. I have looked for a BIOS that would suit my card, but am struggling to find a suitable one for 256mb of memory.

Anybody got any suggestion of what to do or am I stuck with a duff card?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

[Dedodido]

man, that's unlucky =/
you using the softmod drivers or the proper ones?

I got one of those exact cards recently, with the hynix mem, but I'm only looking to OC the mem a little bit. I don't see why the different mem should effect the core clock though.

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

I'm using the softmod drivers. I have got an Arctic Cooler. Do you think adding this instead of stock cooling would make a difference?

If not, any other suggestions? Would a BIOS flash help? I have read in the forums that "more aggressive memory timings" could help, but am not entirely sure what this means.

 

[madox]

How much ns got the ram? Maybe the first was faster...
Got here the same problem ..cant overclock the GPU without overclocking the ram :/ I own samsung
5ns ram and those chips are dam shit.

 

[Dedodido]

ThE_DoLpHiNaToR - Installing an Arctic cooler would definately help with the overclocking, most stock cooling is rubbish and isn't designed for overclocking. I'd say install it and give OCing another try.

madox - must be something wrong with your card, or there's too much heat in your case, if you get Samsung RAM then you're lucky, it's some of the best RAM you can get. ESPECIALLY for OCing.

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

This is my memory (Details taken from this site)

Hynix HY5DU561622DT-5 256 MBit 5.0 ns TSOP-II 66

I have asked for an RMA on the card as it is different to the original card. I'll see what happens.

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

Madox

My previous card had Samsung memory and that went up to 230*2. I thought that was ok

 

[madox]

nice my 5ns samsung is destroyed or the whole card heh dunno...its fucking hot and only 221 is possible connect3d 9600 nonpro.

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

Just as an update on my rather poor 9550 256Mb

I contacted Ebuyer who I bought the card from and asked for an RMA as the card was not identical to the one that became faulty. They agreed to refund me, so I am going for a 9600 pro advantage.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr

 

[Dedodido]

good to hear of your good luck in getting a better card. Unfortunatly I won't be able to do so, seeing as I got this card oringinally with the Hynix RAM, and as a consequence while just trying to OC the RAM using ATI Tool at 220Mhz, it was fine for about 10 minutes and then the screen just went black and I had to re-boot.
What I've decided to do is keep the RAM clock at it's default, and just OC the core, with my added cooling that I installed. It's currently at 380Mhz (I'm on my dads PC atm), and still counting. With an other 1hour and 50 mins until I stop it, so it should be good.

 

[Dedodido]

Well, after overclocking I've managed to get the core stable at 400Mhz, strikingly better than your core would do, even though it had the exact same specs, which is interesting.

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

Nice one. You gonna overclock the memory as well?

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

Sorry. Just re-read your earlier reply. 400 is what I got my previous card up to until I broke it. Mine was nice and stable.

 

[Dedodido]

Cool. Btw, how are you going to make sure that you're replacement card has good RAM? Or are they all the same with the card that you're going to get instead?

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

I've no idea, but as it will run at 230 out of the box, I probably won't oc the memory anyway. Might up the core a bit. I've read that it should do around 500, but I don't want to push my luck with Ebuyer if I break another one!!

 

[Dedodido]

haha, yeah, it can get kinda awkward if you keep breaking things. Seeing as I've fitted a new fan on my GPU and it's running at the speeds it was desinged to run at, I should be ok with mine.

 

[JALOOS]

I got the Sapphire 9950 256mb 128 bit verssion of this card and it didn't have sammy rammy or whatever the other stuff you guys mentioned was. I do mind you run it at 420/210 but I do know that the ram will hold 230. Prior to this card I had the 9950 64 mb 64 bit version with sammy rammy and the ram took 250. I know the vpu on both these cards will run just fine at 450 as I have run them there for extended periods of time. I have added a large fan ti the heatsink and made my own ram sinks. Add a good quality thermal paste and lap the heatsink well as stock they are rougher than hell. Also if anyone has this same heatsink setup you will notice that the 2 ram chips that are under the heatsink do not contact the heatsink at all. I thermal pasted shims to the heatsink to make contact with the ram.

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

That's some heatsink and fan you've got there? I presume it is a custom job. Nice work.

 

[JALOOS]

That's some heatsink and fan you've got there? I presume it is a custom job. Nice work.

Only the fan the heatsink is bone stock on the Sapphire 9550 256mb (or at least the one I got)

 

[robzilla]

This is my memory (Details taken from this site)

Hynix HY5DU561622DT-5 256 MBit 5.0 ns TSOP-II 66

I have asked for an RMA on the card as it is different to the original card. I'll see what happens.

I have exactly the same 9550 as you had. I don't suppose you still have the original bios from this card do you? I have tried flashing it with different bios (mostly 9600 Pro) to get a bit more performance from it but I haven't found a reliable one and I want to go back to the original bios. Problem is the floppy that I backed my original bios onto turned out to be bad, I can't read the bios file back so now I'm stuck.. any help would be much appreciated.. Thanks.

 

[NjoelTheMan]

its mean yo got the hynix 5ns chips, just downloaded bios from techpowerup that has same chips. and do the flashing again

 

[robzilla]

Yeah I don't think that partiuclar bios is on techpowerup though..

 

[ThE_DoLpHiNaToR]

Sorry mate. Returned the card and got a 9600 Advantage. Can't help you there.