X800 Pro VIVO to XT PE Bios Mod

[k800]

Hi,

bobyjo, does the size of the bios really matter? all the bioses I flashed varied in size with my original bios..

thanks, k800

 

[Unregistered]

Run ATI Flash -i this will download a copy of your present bios to the floppy disk.
Then look at the file and write down the size of the bios file.
Say if it is 54kb, then go to SapphireTech and find a new bios file that is 54kb and is a XT PE bios.
That bios will work with your card.

The reason I am suggesting Sapphire Tech, they make most of all the ATI Radeon cards out there. You may get an error about the ID does not match, if that happens then run atiflash biosfile -f.

If you are wondering what I ment by "biosfile", this is where you would type in the exact name of the bios file you are wanting to flash your card with.

This f forces the flash to finish on your card.

Thanks for the advice, bobyjo.

The flash did work, thanks w1zzard for that input!

Thow I have a strange problem...

When scanning for artifacts it ATITool says "Delta...bla bla... No Errors" and I got some yellow dot flickering around. This wont go away on any clockspeed, core or mem.

I have stock cooler, but I guess it doesnt have to do with temperature, as it shows up at around 40
C.

Now, playing Battlefield 2 is a boost. No artifacts whatsoever, but with 1600-1200 and all on high I get the normal FPS-tango.

Any idea about those yellow dots? Voltmod needed? My AGP is boosted up to 1.7, but it didnt make a diff.

And 3DMark05 did start up, and after the ballon escape from the monster, it froze. Cant use that. Will try the 03 instead.


Great work, man.

 

[Zoors]

Well the abov msg was from me...

 

[Unregistered]

Hey MillerDuck! What about the board? Is it R480 w/ 256MB DDR3??

I need to know if it is possible to activate those pipes, cause I might get one of those from PowerColor tomorrow...

Please try to make it work!

 

[djbbenn]

Thanks for the advice, bobyjo.

The flash did work, thanks w1zzard for that input!

Thow I have a strange problem...

When scanning for artifacts it ATITool says "Delta...bla bla... No Errors" and I got some yellow dot flickering around. This wont go away on any clockspeed, core or mem.

I have stock cooler, but I guess it doesnt have to do with temperature, as it shows up at around 40
C.

Now, playing Battlefield 2 is a boost. No artifacts whatsoever, but with 1600-1200 and all on high I get the normal FPS-tango.

Any idea about those yellow dots? Voltmod needed? My AGP is boosted up to 1.7, but it didnt make a diff.

And 3DMark05 did start up, and after the ballon escape from the monster, it froze. Cant use that. Will try the 03 instead.


Great work, man.

The yellow dots are showing you artifacts...but you say you don'y get any in BF2? Try changing the scanning method of Atitool, to more compatible/old method. Its under artifact scanning in settings. You may have defective pipes, but its weird you don't see any problems in BF2. Myabe try the Pro vivo 16P bios and see if that clears it up.

-Dan

 

[Tawton_Pro.uk]

im buying a x800pro tommorow ..... i wos wondering what is better a pro or XL ???

 

[djbbenn]

Well if your not overclocking and not going to do the mod, the XL...if you want to makesure you have the 16p, the XL. If you want to overclock, the PRO, cause a good overclocked pro will beat a Xl even with 12p. And if you get a AGP PRO Vivo, you can try to mod it to a XT PE.

-Dan

 

[Unregistered]

Hey MillerDuck! What about the board? Is it R480 w/ 256MB DDR3??

I need to know if it is possible to activate those pipes, cause I might get one of those from PowerColor tomorrow...

Please try to make it work!

 

[djbbenn]

What is the card? More than one card uses that core and mem.

-Dan

 

[Zoors]

Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4 OR Zalmans Fatal1ty FS-V7?

The yellow dots are showing you artifacts...but you say you don'y get any in BF2? Try changing the scanning method of Atitool, to more compatible/old method. Its under artifact scanning in settings. You may have defective pipes, but its weird you don't see any problems in BF2. Myabe try the Pro vivo 16P bios and see if that clears it up.

-Dan

Thanks for the reply, djbbenn

Yes it was much less of "Delta" errors with the old scanning mode. Now it can run for up to ten seconds b4 ne artys detected. And when it does, its 1 or 3 pixels. Seem to be like the BF2 experience. Not noticable. BTW BF2 runs in 1280x1024 2xAA half high half medium.. @ 100 fps !
Couldnt do that with unmodded x800PRO. W1zzard... ur my idol.

Now the clocks r 520/560 and idle temp on GPU is 43C with stock fan. (tempchip 36C)
But after a couple of minutes with the 2D artifacts scan, the computer freezes. Allthou BF2 can run forever at above resolution.

I see no need to do a voltmod, but I see a need to buy a aftermarket cooler. My current idea is either the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4 OR Zalmans Fatal1ty FS-V7...

Any hint on whats the best one?


Update! : As I played around with AGP latency, and resetted it from 128 to 250, suddenly I have no artifacts at all.... Gone. They are history. Not even at XTPE default speeds.
But when I reset latency to initial 128... still no artifacts. The card appear to have bin muture in the process... No idea why.

And another thing. When running BF2 in X800PRO default clocks, the temp just goes down 2 or 3 degrees. Its high, around 70 - 75, but the difference is minor. Fan at 100%.
So with a ATI Silencer 4 I oughta bring the card to cousy bedwarmer temp... with dynamite power fps. This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

 

[MillerDuck]

So I guess that's that =/:

256-bit R423 (12x1) with 256MB DDR3 memory
Reg 00000990: eff37fff
Reg 00000994: fffff71e
Reg 0000099c: 00000660
Reg 0000402c: 000227a4

laser locked & an on-die lock according to Unwinder..

k800

I get:
256-bit R423 (12x1) with 256MB DDR3 memory
Reg 00000990: eff3efff
Reg 00000994: fffff71e
Reg 0000099c: 00000861
Reg 0000402c: 00006e48

So according to unwinder's data, I'm hosed huh? Has anyone ever successfully completed this mod on a 990: xxxxexxx card?

Thanks,
MD

 

[bobyjo]

I am not on top of what you have done. Did you make your card unusable?
Did you save your original bios before you flashed the upgrade?
If you did, you can go back to the original bios very easy.

 

[k800]

afaik no

 

[Zoors]

would having used Flashrom instead of ATIFlash caused any problems? I can't see how as your merely just changing the bios file, Have tried a number of Bios files and to no evail, the fan still wont come back on, I have read somewhere that you can get problems with voltage peaks on the board fans, and that the motors can go, to save the hassle of returning the card, I have ordered a Zalman VF700CU and will go that route, was going to get an Arctic Cooling ATI V5 Rev2 Silencer, but it attaches to the cards fan socket, so thought I better not risk it, Thanks tho bobyjo for the advice etc. Kudos

Hey iZonus,

Isnt the 5 version of Arctic for another GPU?
My card seem to need the 4 version as I have the R420 GPU. Correct?

And I also wonder if it is impossible to use the old VGA Silencer of my unemplyed 9800PRO on this x800pro...

 

[iZonus]

Zoors, there are two lines of Arctic cooling solutions, one is the NV line (for nVidia GPUs) and the other is the ATI line (for ATI GPUs), according to their site (http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=61) the ATI Silencer 5 rev. 2 is compatible with the R420 (X800pro) but also yeah the 4 version is compatible with the R420, just not stated as compatible with the R480s. I would advise against using the 9800 Pro solution with your X800Pro, as it will likely not be effective enough, especially when overclocking, that's if your able to fit it atall. From my reading the best route to go is either with one of the Zalman solutions, or as you suggested the Arctic cooling ATI 4 (rev.2), to give better than stock cooling. Hope this has helped a bit, any more Qs just post.
iZonus

 

[iZonus]

Bobyjo, yeah I backed up my bios, and tried to restore it, seemed to work fine, but as I said think I have a dead fan, strange I know, but ah well, what can I do. The card is functioning fine, runs 3D fine, no artifacts but gets very hot very quickly, I have a pretty good cooling system in the system, so Iv got all the fans on max to keep it from dying on me, idles around 63degs. which isn't ideal, but shouldnt do any damage. Note for everyone though, when I hadn't noticed I had a problem with the fan, I presumed ATI Tool was reporting incorrectly, I hit temps over 110 degs. and had no artifacts or problems running 3dMark 05, although I wouldn't recommend running this hot for any period of time. Also X850PRO (PCI/e) softmodding does not seem to work, well not for me anyhow, stuck with 12pipes all the way no matter which bios Iv tried. Hope some of this infos handy to some of you guys.

 

[MillerDuck]

Bobyjo, yeah I backed up my bios, and tried to restore it, seemed to work fine, but as I said think I have a dead fan, strange I know, but ah well, what can I do. The card is functioning fine, runs 3D fine, no artifacts but gets very hot very quickly, I have a pretty good cooling system in the system, so Iv got all the fans on max to keep it from dying on me, idles around 63degs. which isn't ideal, but shouldnt do any damage. Note for everyone though, when I hadn't noticed I had a problem with the fan, I presumed ATI Tool was reporting incorrectly, I hit temps over 110 degs. and had no artifacts or problems running 3dMark 05, although I wouldn't recommend running this hot for any period of time. Also X850PRO (PCI/e) softmodding does not seem to work, well not for me anyhow, stuck with 12pipes all the way no matter which bios Iv tried. Hope some of this infos handy to some of you guys.

Check out this post in another thread, he claims his fan stopped too, but was able to get it going agian:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=33055&postcount=221

MD

 

[bobyjo]

You could purchase a new UGA cooler, and connect the fan header to a 12v lead from the powersupply.
I think the VGA Silencer that uses the 120mm fan actually uses this connection default.

 

[Zoors]

Zoors, there are two lines of Arctic cooling solutions, one is the NV line (for nVidia GPUs) and the other is the ATI line (for ATI GPUs), according to their site (http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=61) the ATI Silencer 5 rev. 2 is compatible with the R420 (X800pro) but also yeah the 4 version is compatible with the R420, just not stated as compatible with the R480s. I would advise against using the 9800 Pro solution with your X800Pro, as it will likely not be effective enough, especially when overclocking, that's if your able to fit it atall. From my reading the best route to go is either with one of the Zalman solutions, or as you suggested the Arctic cooling ATI 4 (rev.2), to give better than stock cooling. Hope this has helped a bit, any more Qs just post.
iZonus

Yeah, I noticed that version 5 was only for X800Pros with R430's (see this one: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=61&data=7&disc= )

And, well if the 9800 does attach to the GPU it indded would be enuff as 9800 is way hotter than the X800. fain.

Thanks for reply anyway!


Anybody that has Zalmans fan-solution and a modded X800Pro that can report temperatures?
(That is the ATITool 3d image temperature vs idle.)
And those who have Arctic 4 or 5?


Club3D X800PRO (only flashmodded to Sapphire X800XTPE)

Idle at X800PRO clocks 475/450 (no 3D view): 42/35 degrees with stockfan at 80%

and running at X800PRO clocks 475/450 with
3D View and 277fpsAVG after about 5 minutes 77/48 degrees with stockfan at 100%

and running at X800XTPE clocks 520/560 with
3D View and 329 fpsAVG after about 5 minutes 84/51 degrees with stockfan at 100%

 

[Unregistered]

I have a powercolor X850 Pro VIVO it matches all the stats required for this mod, but i dont know how to make a back up of my bios, i am just getting into this stuff, and i realy want the extra pipelines because i bought this card to make it into a xt pe but im starting to feel real uncomferable doing this becasue i dont want to mess up. ive already over clocked my card to 540/560 and its running nice a cool (around 65-75 degrees while playing games in the 50's not playing games). will this mod work on the x850 pros? and is it pritty easy to do?

 

[dolf]

AGP or PCIx?

 

[Unregistered]

Pci

 

[Unregistered]

Pci

PCI Express 16x

 

[BigD6997]

I have a powercolor X850 Pro VIVO it matches all the stats required for this mod, but i dont know how to make a back up of my bios, i am just getting into this stuff, and i realy want the extra pipelines because i bought this card to make it into a xt pe but im starting to feel real uncomferable doing this becasue i dont want to mess up. ive already over clocked my card to 540/560 and its running nice a cool (around 65-75 degrees while playing games in the 50's not playing games). will this mod work on the x850 pros? and is it pritty easy to do?

i just became a member so i can get updates on this thread, it is a PCI x. it handles the xt pe 's clock speeds 540/590 it could go higher just i have a very badly ventiated case and dont want it to get to hot, put i am getting a power color heatblaster pci fan that should help. ive read the Guide to Video BIOS flashing, but the Boot Sector Image Link does not work for my usb card, and im not sure hot to make a back up of my cards bios. Will the flash work on the x850 pro to give it the extra pipelines and flash it to the x850 xt pe. the manufactuer is Powercolor

thanks

 

[dolf]

About BIOS save you can choose between flashrom, atiflash or ATITool (I think that it is easier to use the last). Install ATITool and start it. Go to "settings", chose "MISCELLANEOUS" from the fall-down menue on the top. Press "BIOS dump" button. You will have the BIOS dump in the ATITool's directory. Save it on few other places just in case.

At present you will probably not succeed to unlock the last 4 pipes but you can try. (If your card accidentally is dual DVI PRO you will have much much higher chance ).

Please stay online because I am working on something and probably I will need some information related with R480 cards.

Success and post whatever the results you obtain.