Sapphire X800 GTO AGP pipe unlock

[ReggieMC]

I was upgrading from a 9600 Pro, so pretty much anything would be a step up. After about a week considering what card to purchase i decided on the Sapphire X800 GTO 100131L Blue mainly from finding this forum and seeing it could reach x850 Pro speeds with ease. When reading reviews of this card and its tendency to get really hot i decided beforehand to purchase a Zalman ZM80D-HP Dual Heatpipe Noiseless VGA Cooler and bought the optional Zalman ZM-OP1 fan to go with it. After i received it, i was curious about the other reviews I'd read about this card and so I installed it for 30 minutes just seeing for myself how bad the stock cooler is. Using Lavalys' Everest Home Edition to monitor the temps, it ran 65c idle for 15 minutes, then i loaded up a game that still had my low settings from my 9600 pro and i was shocked that it hit 80c after gaming for 5 minutes.

After that, i removed the stock cooler and installed the Zalman ZM80D-HP and the fan on the videocard, which was kind of a pain (could've been because it was 1:00am when i started the project) but well worth it as it dropped the GPU temp 21c and never went over 50c under 100% load before flashing and overclocking it. I used the FlashCD_X800GTO_AGP_R480 file from the Flash Utilities.zip found on this site and i was able to unlock the 4 pixelpipelines and used the 520/540 modded BIOS and i still have room to OC if i ever feel the need to. Idle GPU temp is 48c and under 100% load gaming for over an hour it stays around 65c. Clock speeds went from 400/490 to 520/540 without a problem.

The one problem i had is i had to move my hard drives up because the heatpipes stuck out too much and i had to take out my floppy drive, which was useless anyway. So i guess it really wasn't a problem, just more or less gave me an excuse to get rid of the floppy.

If you do buy a x800 GTO, strongly consider getting a aftermarket cooler

Oh yeah, and i would also like to thank Dolf

 

[Pavlos3]

guys i dont know how hot can my core go during games, cause i dont have any games to install - play - and check temps.

I am seeing all this load at AtiTool ( find max core, find max mem ) where if u leave them running the temps after a while will go to 90c...

I just dont know how to measure temps on load ...?

Sorry i have install artistic silver ( ceramic ) on it and my temps drop 4c-6c ( on idle ).

 

[p-jack]

ok, when you use the "find max core/find max mem" in ATITool (you see the fuzzy dice left to the main window) your core temp reaches 90°C.... this is way too hot. mine never goes above 65°C.

I just dont know how to measure temps on load ...?

ATITools fuzzy dice puts more load on both your cpu and gpu than most games will, so you CAN monitor temps on load.

 

[ReggieMC]

what i did to check my temps was to leave Everest Home Edition up, started my game, played for an hour and closed it down and the temps are right there

 

[Taz100420]

does it have to be sapphire to unlock the extra pipes? cause what is the difference? the stock cooling?

 

[dolf]

does it have to be sapphire to unlock the extra pipes? cause what is the difference? the stock cooling?

The difference is that Sapphire has the advantage to be one of the most "reliable" ATI partners and usually gets the best cores (most of the 16 pipe cores). When they finish the stock of the "bad" (lower than 16 pipes) cores they begin to install the available one (understand 16 pipe R430 and R480 mainly) on the low budget cards. The other companies has only the needed 16 pipe cores for the high-end. The rest cores (4, 8 and 12 pipes) are installed on different PCB's with reduced number of elements (power supply elements) which make the final product cheaper.
Hope that the above will be interesting for you and will answer to the question.

 

[Taz100420]

The difference is that Sapphire has the advantage to be one of the most "reliable" ATI partners and usually gets the best cores (most of the 16 pipe cores). When they finish the stock of the "bad" (lower than 16 pipes) cores they begin to install the available one (understand 16 pipe R430 and R480 mainly) on the low budget cards. The other companies has only the needed 16 pipe cores for the high-end. The rest cores (4, 8 and 12 pipes) are installed on different PCB's with reduced number of elements (power supply elements) which make the final product cheaper.
Hope that the above will be interesting for you and will answer to the question.

Oh thanks that has explained alot to me, really.

 

[abie72]

please help me unlocking my x800gto agp

hi to all guru's out there im new member and ive been reading here around for few weeks now and finally i decided x800gto agp a try coz i also have agp system,i already installed the card to my system and it scored 4430 at 3dmark 2005 @ stock speed i want some juice from this card to last a year or more for gaming, i purchase this card at ubid.com as an open box but the website says that this is only ATI RADEON X800GTO AGP i dont know if this is a SAPPHRE OR NOT there is no logo of any manufacturer on the board except ATI , If this is not sapphire can i still flash this to 16pipes? and what bios will i use?.... please help me, here's the pic....

 

[dolf]

It will unlock. Post here the original BIOS and the PCB Part Number (board's number) - top front part of the board (something like PN 109-xxxxxxx-xx).

 

[abie72]

HI dolf.. thank you for you kind reply....which bios should i use?
PART NO. is P/N 102A4900500 000001
heres my original bios , while youre in the download page wait 15 sec,
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1197812/abie12pbios.zip.html

 

[dolf]

HI dolf.. thank you for you kind reply....which bios should i use?
PART NO. is P/N 102A4900500 000001
heres my original bios , while youre in the download page wait 15 sec,
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1197812/abie12pbios.zip.html

Just to be on the safe side use your own BIOS moded to 16 pipes. Use atiflash in DOS mode with the following command line:

atiflash -f -p -newbios 0 16pbios.bin

 

[abie72]

Just to be on the safe side use your own BIOS moded to 16 pipes. Use atiflash in DOS mode with the following command line:

atiflash -f -p -newbios 0 16pbios.bin

Wow! thanks dolf i have now 16pipes! it works...it gives me 400pts improvement in 3dmark05@ stock speed,my temp didnt change 64-66c on load with 3dmark05 also i didnt change the cooler of the card.. do i need to upgrade my cooler at this temp? im not planning to overclock it now it can play all my games flawlessly, thanks again man!
heres my atitool pic @16pipes.

 

[dunnleed08]

sapphire x800gto

hey....i have a sapphire x800gto and it came out of the box with 16 pipes...but it can only overclock to about...430/545....is it worth flashing the bios and voiding the warranty for the performance boost????....oh yeah r430 core with vantec iceberg cooler

 

[dolf]

hey....i have a sapphire x800gto and it came out of the box with 16 pipes...but it can only overclock to about...430/545....is it worth flashing the bios and voiding the warranty for the performance boost????....oh yeah r430 core with vantec iceberg cooler

No sense to flash it.

 

[dunnleed08]

that's what i thought...thanks

i just thought i might be able to get higher clocks out of it......but..prob. not enough to lose warranty

 

[dolf]

i just thought i might be able to get higher clocks out of it......but..prob. not enough to lose warranty

To overclock it to the max. - YES but no sence to flash it

 

[Ruckerduck]

After reading the posts in this board and paying close attention to what Dolf and other gurus wrote, I tried to mod the x800GTO Sapphire I have from 12 to 16 pipes ... the fuse and substrate strings on my card matched the cards in which it was recommended to use ATIFlash to unlock the additonal 4 pipes. After making a boot disk, I loaded it with ATIFLASH, the old bios (bios.bin, saved after dumping from ATITools), and 16pbios.bin ... rebooted, then I entered "atiflash -f -p 0 16pbios.bin <E>" ... the screen then reported

OLD SSID 1600
New SSID 0302
Old P/N 11X-006600SA-003
New P/N 113-A49002-101
Flash Type M25P05/C
10000/10000h bytes programmed
10000/10000h bytes verified

and wouldn't you know it, there is nothing but a blank screen now! I reinstalled the old 9600 to get the computer back in operation - is there a way I can reinstall the old bios (bios.bin) onto the x800GTO to use it again? It was a nice card, for the 3 weeks I had it ... thanks.

 

[abie72]

from where did you got that 16pbios you used? you should post your ati tool reading and your original bios so others (like dolf) can check it and make suggestion how to do it... maybe you have the wrong bios... in my case , dolf modified my original bios to 16pipes.

 

[dolf]

After reading the posts in this board and paying close attention to what Dolf and other gurus wrote, I tried to mod the x800GTO Sapphire I have from 12 to 16 pipes ... the fuse and substrate strings on my card matched the cards in which it was recommended to use ATIFlash to unlock the additonal 4 pipes. After making a boot disk, I loaded it with ATIFLASH, the old bios (bios.bin, saved after dumping from ATITools), and 16pbios.bin ... rebooted, then I entered "atiflash -f -p 0 16pbios.bin <E>" ... the screen then reported

OLD SSID 1600
New SSID 0302
Old P/N 11X-006600SA-003
New P/N 113-A49002-101
Flash Type M25P05/C
10000/10000h bytes programmed
10000/10000h bytes verified

and wouldn't you know it, there is nothing but a blank screen now! I reinstalled the old 9600 to get the computer back in operation - is there a way I can reinstall the old bios (bios.bin) onto the x800GTO to use it again? It was a nice card, for the 3 weeks I had it ... thanks.

Looking the SSID's and the BIOS P/N you have flashed wrong BIOS (probably wrong type - PCI-E instead AGP or vice versa). Now card could be repared but it will be dificult.

You can find someone to unsolder the EEPROM and to re-prodramm it on external programmer or to try the hot swap trick. (Look the forum for that procedure because it has described from a member).

Good luck

 

[pandadandan]

Hi there, another newb with the same age-old questions.

I seem to have the exact same card as abie72 (the ATI-only branded x800gto),
which carries most of the same readings save for the "catalyst version" which on mine reads as 6.11
With that in mind I'm definitely not going to wade in without some advice, so here I am.
I (think) I've posted up a real lo-fi screengrab of my atitool readout and a bios dump from the card (hex editing terrifies me).

The card PCB no is as follows:
PN 109-A49001-00

So (fingers crossed) some kind person will be able to help me unlock the card. Then I can overheat it and cry at a later date

Many thanks in advance!

 

[pandadandan]

Oh yeah........the atitool readout......
silly me

 

[dolf]

Hi there, another newb with the same age-old questions.

I seem to have the exact same card as abie72 (the ATI-only branded x800gto),
which carries most of the same readings save for the "catalyst version" which on mine reads as 6.11
With that in mind I'm definitely not going to wade in without some advice, so here I am.
I (think) I've posted up a real lo-fi screengrab of my atitool readout and a bios dump from the card (hex editing terrifies me).

The card PCB no is as follows:
PN 109-A49001-00

So (fingers crossed) some kind person will be able to help me unlock the card. Then I can overheat it and cry at a later date

Many thanks in advance!

The fuses are OK and you will unlock it to 16 pipes. Looking the PCB PN and the BIOS it should be X800XL VIVO AGP board which mean that you can use X800XL VIVOAGP BIOS. I will attach moded to 16 pipes BIOS and also X800XL VIVO AGP.

Flash one of them using atiflash in DOS mode with the following command line:

atiflash -f -p -newbios 0 bios16.bin

or

atiflash -f -p -newbios 0 X800XL.bin

 

[mboggs]

Sapphire X800 GTO w/ R430 core

Hi dolf,

I'm trying to mod my Sapphire X800 GTO AGP (R430 chip) to have 16 pipes. I've browsed through this forum, but I'm still not certain what I should do. As I understand it, you have created a CD image which others have had success with. Could you send me this image? I'm attaching a screenshot of the ATITool. I'm also attaching a dump of my card's bios.

I appreciate any help!

 

[mboggs]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the part number for my card is:

11X-CC6600SA-004

Thanks again!

 

[stevorob]

The image is in the package that can be downloaded from this page.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/332

All the directions are in there as well. Good luck