Hi chaps,
I'm new here, so go easy on me!
Let me first explain my situation.
At the start of the year, I purchased a brand new Dell XPS 8100. This is running 64bit Windows 7, i7 860 (2.8Mhz) non-over clocked. I wanted a down to earth, 'stable' box that could handle most games comfortably, which this machine does, along with many other things.
However, I have had some issues with it. I have been experiencing the dreaded problem that many other users have reported (not just on here, but also on tomshardware) where the card is causing 'ATI drivers stop responding' messages, screen blanks/resets, screen corruption (blocks on screen) and sometimes, complete system lock-ups (num-lock unresponsive). This was caused when running 10.1 and 10.2 of the ATI CCC.
As I found out, by reading various forums, the way to alleviate this issue was to create a profile and then edit the XML file to up the card's idle clock speeds. I did this while running 10.2 and this seemed to make the card much more stable (far less crashes) though I am still experiencing the occasional system freeze when playing games (GTA IV) which is highly annoying.
A few days ago, I upgraded to 10.3 CCC and removed my 'overclocked' XML profile. So far so good, except this morning, I powered on the box and left Windows 7 at the desktop while I went out to do some shopping. I came back again to find the system had frozen up, and again I had to do a power off/on.
I have now been looking at updating the BIOS for the card, and was wondering if you think this is a good idea. I have some queries about doing this, which you can maybe help with:
1) The available BIOSes for my card are here: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...cturer=ATI&model=HD+5770&interface=&memSize=0
2) I appear to have the BIOS dated 2009-10-07 (which according to that page, is 'old') - but here is the issue. If I use RBE to extract the BIOS that's actually currrently on my card, and I md5sum the file, I get a different checksum to the BIOS file for the same date on the above link. Also, RBE is reporting that the BIOS I have 'has been pre-modified by RBE' (that check box is checked when I load my current BIOS into RBE).
3) Given 2 above, would there be any reason why Dell would install a pre-modified ATI card into a system? What is the reason for pre-modding the card?
4) Would it be advisable to flash the BIOS on my card with the one dated 2009-12-16 ? I have tried to do this but RBE reports something about 'Checksum mismatch! Did you select the proper adapter for this BIOS?'
Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!
I'm new here, so go easy on me!
Let me first explain my situation.At the start of the year, I purchased a brand new Dell XPS 8100. This is running 64bit Windows 7, i7 860 (2.8Mhz) non-over clocked. I wanted a down to earth, 'stable' box that could handle most games comfortably, which this machine does, along with many other things.
However, I have had some issues with it. I have been experiencing the dreaded problem that many other users have reported (not just on here, but also on tomshardware) where the card is causing 'ATI drivers stop responding' messages, screen blanks/resets, screen corruption (blocks on screen) and sometimes, complete system lock-ups (num-lock unresponsive). This was caused when running 10.1 and 10.2 of the ATI CCC.
As I found out, by reading various forums, the way to alleviate this issue was to create a profile and then edit the XML file to up the card's idle clock speeds. I did this while running 10.2 and this seemed to make the card much more stable (far less crashes) though I am still experiencing the occasional system freeze when playing games (GTA IV) which is highly annoying.
A few days ago, I upgraded to 10.3 CCC and removed my 'overclocked' XML profile. So far so good, except this morning, I powered on the box and left Windows 7 at the desktop while I went out to do some shopping. I came back again to find the system had frozen up, and again I had to do a power off/on.
I have now been looking at updating the BIOS for the card, and was wondering if you think this is a good idea. I have some queries about doing this, which you can maybe help with:
1) The available BIOSes for my card are here: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...cturer=ATI&model=HD+5770&interface=&memSize=0
2) I appear to have the BIOS dated 2009-10-07 (which according to that page, is 'old') - but here is the issue. If I use RBE to extract the BIOS that's actually currrently on my card, and I md5sum the file, I get a different checksum to the BIOS file for the same date on the above link. Also, RBE is reporting that the BIOS I have 'has been pre-modified by RBE' (that check box is checked when I load my current BIOS into RBE).
3) Given 2 above, would there be any reason why Dell would install a pre-modified ATI card into a system? What is the reason for pre-modding the card?
4) Would it be advisable to flash the BIOS on my card with the one dated 2009-12-16 ? I have tried to do this but RBE reports something about 'Checksum mismatch! Did you select the proper adapter for this BIOS?'
Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!
