true that some cards cant be flashed?

[mk_ln]

hi, i am quite new to overclocking and found this forum very informative and helpful, however, whenever i have tried to flash my bios, i have always had a bad flash (totally blank screen) and have had to flash back. the vid card i have is a PowerColor Radeon 9550 256MB. i have read that i am to look at some the numbers on the card and i saw "Samsung K4D551638F_TC50". so i tried to flash to the Samsung PowerColor Radeon 9600Pro 256MB dated Apr 25th 2004 6:06 AM. i have also tried others which i thought would have matched, but to no avail ...so is it possible that some cards just cannot be flashed?...btw, i have also used ATItool to OC it a bit, but i was just wondering if i could flash the bios. Thanks in advance.

 

[mk_ln]

would it also help if i used Omega drivers instead of the official Catalyst drivers? Thanks in advance

 

[Jimmy 2004]

It's true - some cards can't be flashed (i think), they're locked.

Omega drivers won't make any difference when it comes to flashing your GPU - they only affect windows use.

 

[mk_ln]

thanks for the reply...but even tho its locked i was still able to flash it with the "-sst" command, tho the results were not what i wanted, i.e. blank screen. however, others who have had the same problem with the "-f" command not doing anything have used the -sst command successfully, so i was just wondering if it was possible that my card just cannot be flashed successfully. any ideas? Thanks in advance

 

[noneed4me2]

its based on which version 9550 you have no LE or SE are flashable.

 

[mk_ln]

ya...i just have a plain PowerColor 9550...any suggestions?

 

[trents]

Did you use ATiFlash or Flashrom? From what I've read, ATiFlash doesn't work on the 9550's so you need to use Flashrom.

Try this command: flashrom -p -sst 0 bios.bin -f

Got this from a discussion string at: http://www.techimo.com/forum/t161126.html

The guy was also having trouble flashing his Powercolor 256 mb 9550 until he used that command.

 

[mk_ln]

thanks for the reply, but i believe that i already posted above that i've already tried the "-sst" command with no luck . thanks again for the reply tho. the "-sst" command does allow me to flash my card, i.e. no block protect error, however, anytime i flash to another 9600pro bios it seems that my system cannot recognize the vid card...i just get a blank screen . any other suggestions? thanks in advance

 

[trents]

Mk_In, I too just purchased a Powercolor 9550 and plan on flashing it, so I may run into the same problem. Yours had the Samsung ram, huh? Mine has the 5ns Mira ram. There isn't a file for the 9600 pro 256mb Powercolor with Mira ram. Someone on the forum said he would customize a bios flash file for my card and I got him the info about the ram. So, I'm waiting for that.I was alsol thinking about trying another bios flash file for another brand of card that has 256 mb of 5ns ram, even if its not Mira.

By the way, how much were you able to overclock your card?

 

[mk_ln]

well, using ATITool, i got it to 364.5/204.75 w/ no artifacts....Aquamark is around 24500, 3Dmark03 is around 2880...i havent tried 05 yet . although these scores are low compared to the higher-end cards, OCing it made quite a diff. stock speeds gave me around 18500 and 2450 in Aquamark and 3Dmark03, respectively. still tho, i think that being able to flash to 9600pro would give me a better boost, as the mem timings are different. gl w/ the flash or OC...if u do decide to flash make sure to backup the default bios using ATITool...its a lifesaver

 

[trents]

Look at your max core OC core speed. It is considerably less than what the 9600 pro bios flash would give you without any overclock, i.e., 400 mhz. Maybe that's why you got a blank screen after you flashed.

My card was stable and artifact free at 410/220.

If your card won't overclock to 9600 pro core speeds then you really don't want to flash the bios to a 9600 pro. I believe all the 9600 flash upgrade files on the PowerUPTech website are calibrated to around 400/200 speeds.

 

[mk_ln]

ya...i think u're rite about that, ive yet to OC the core and have it stable and artifact free @400...maybe i should just get a new video card