X800 Pro VIVO to XT PE Bios Mod

[zOaib]

Are we talking about even the AGP cards?? If so, this is a bummer.

yes sir , my friends is stuck with one , he then purchased the pci express which was also laser cut , all original ati products are made sure they cannot be softmodded they are hardlocked ..............

 

[zOaib]

The BBATi x850pro vivo can be unlucked, did 3 in the last 2 months

check the production date it has to be an earlier release , the new ones arent , friend bought it from bestbuy and couldnt do it !

 

[sniviler]

check the production date it has to be an earlier release , the new ones arent , friend bought it from bestbuy and couldnt do it !

can only tell you that all the cards I unlocked were bios dated 2/18/05

 

[zOaib]

can only tell you that all the cards I unlocked were bios dated 2/18/05

asked my friend what bios date he had , and he says his is 08/20/05 ............ so makes sense !

 

[flapjack]

Well, I guess we'll see. I just picked up my card from CompUSA about 30 minutes ago. I have to work tonight, so I won't be able to mess with it until tomorrow afternoon.

How do I tell which BIOS revision I have? What else should I look for on the card? I'll take it to work with me so I can look it over.

 

[flapjack]

Ok, I opened up the card and was a little dismayed to see half of these 8 little chips on the board were soldered differently. DeR on the Rage3d forums though that was an indicator of "unlockability" because his wouldn't unlock. He exchanged it, and got one with an older serial. It had the funny soldering, but unlocked just fine! I compared my serial with his, and it was the same series!

I also have the 1.6ns memory chips. 1000 / 1.6 = 625mhz! Has anyone actually bought an X850 Pro with the 2.0ns chips (1000 / 2 = 500mhz.... )

 

[flapjack]

Oh yeah... here's the thread where he posted the serial numbers. Definitely worth the read if you're looking into getting one of these.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1334015306#post1334015306

 

[zOaib]

Well, I guess we'll see. I just picked up my card from CompUSA about 30 minutes ago. I have to work tonight, so I won't be able to mess with it until tomorrow afternoon.

How do I tell which BIOS revision I have? What else should I look for on the card? I'll take it to work with me so I can look it over.

i am glad u got a good one , cheers

 

[flapjack]

I hope I did! I'll post my results tomorrow.

 

[flapjack]

Ok, after screwing with the card and almost giving up, I finally got it unlocked. The funniest thing is, I couldn't get it unlocked with flashrom. I had to use atiflash. Now I have all 16 pipes and I flashed to the Pro BIOS for fan control.

Now, this is what worries me. Before I flashed it, I tried seeing what it would OC to. The chips are 1.6ns Samsung, so they should theoretically be good for 625mhz (1000 / 1.6 = 625). To be safe, I tried 590, the XT PE speed. I ran ATITool, and it detected artifacts immediately. I lowered it 5 at a time until I could go a minute w/o artifacts. My result on the memory was 575, which seems really low to me.

Next, I decided to tackle the core. I started with 540, the XT PE speed just to see if it would do it. Ran the artifact tester in ATITool and got an immediate hard lock. I kept going down by 5 until I got to 510mhz. Still, as soon as it gets to 74C, it locks up. I definitely made sure the fan was running.

I'm starting to worry that I have a bum card. My computer is put together well, and the inside temps never go above 40C.

The scariest part of all this, I have the clocks at 500/500, and I got a lock up after 15 minutes of playing F.E.A.R. at 1280x960 resolution. There's no way in hell I should get that w/o even overclocking, right????

What do you all think?

 

[zOaib]

Ok, after screwing with the card and almost giving up, I finally got it unlocked. The funniest thing is, I couldn't get it unlocked with flashrom. I had to use atiflash. Now I have all 16 pipes and I flashed to the Pro BIOS for fan control.

Now, this is what worries me. Before I flashed it, I tried seeing what it would OC to. The chips are 1.6ns Samsung, so they should theoretically be good for 625mhz (1000 / 1.6 = 625). To be safe, I tried 590, the XT PE speed. I ran ATITool, and it detected artifacts immediately. I lowered it 5 at a time until I could go a minute w/o artifacts. My result on the memory was 575, which seems really low to me.

Next, I decided to tackle the core. I started with 540, the XT PE speed just to see if it would do it. Ran the artifact tester in ATITool and got an immediate hard lock. I kept going down by 5 until I got to 510mhz. Still, as soon as it gets to 74C, it locks up. I definitely made sure the fan was running.

I'm starting to worry that I have a bum card. My computer is put together well, and the inside temps never go above 40C.

The scariest part of all this, I have the clocks at 500/500, and I got a lock up after 15 minutes of playing F.E.A.R. at 1280x960 resolution. There's no way in hell I should get that w/o even overclocking, right????

What do you all think?

did u flash your card with a ati x850 xt pe bios yet or , just unlocked the 16 pipes only ???

 

[flapjack]

did u flash your card with a ati x850 xt pe bios yet or , just unlocked the 16 pipes only ???

Well, you need to use either the XT or the XT PE BIOS to unlock the pipes. At first, I was using the plain XT BIOS with flashrom, but had no luck. Then, I tried atiflash with the XT PE BIOS, but kept getting a "part number not matching" error. After looking it up, I found I could use the -f switch to force the XT PE BIOS on it.

Without rebooting, I flashed the X850 Pro BIOS back on without the -newbios switch, so it'd keep the pipes.

 

[zOaib]

Well, you need to use either the XT or the XT PE BIOS to unlock the pipes. At first, I was using the plain XT BIOS with flashrom, but had no luck. Then, I tried atiflash with the XT PE BIOS, but kept getting a "part number not matching" error. After looking it up, I found I could use the -f switch to force the XT PE BIOS on it.

Without rebooting, I flashed the X850 Pro BIOS back on without the -newbios switch, so it'd keep the pipes.

my bad i was thinking about the x800 pro vivio flashing bios which has only a bios which unlocks to 16p without changing core clock speeds and mem .............. okay then now looking at your situation u may have a bad card ! i recommed flashing it to original bios and try returning or sell it on ebay if u live in USA ............. and then get a GTO2 saphire , which is a very ncie card to unlock to x850 xt pe .......... but thats pci express , i think u have agp right ?

 

[sniviler]

flapjack, overclocking is just luck of the draw, some cards are better then others.

I had stability issues at first my games kept crashing, freezing............ after 2 weeks found out just lowering my FRONT SIDE BUS from 200 to 198 fixed it.

I also had to replace for 400 watt power supply with an Antec smart power 500watt.

did you set your fan manually to 100% using atitool ?

 

[slaney30]

Help - x850pro flashed to x850xt bios and not showing 16 pipelines

I did the mod to my x850pro and flashed it with an x850xt bios which appeared to have run successfully.

I ran ATItool and it did in fact increase my core clock speeds to 520/540.

I looked at the number of pipelines and its still stuck at 12. I tried uninstalling drivers and redownloading them through ati and reinstalling only to find the same thing happening. I then proceeded to reflash it, and still no luck.

I also reinstalled ati tool and i still get the same results.

ANY IDEAS?

I used the modified flash device from the article and downloaded the correct bios from their listings.

Thanks,

Jesse

 

[sniviler]

I did the mod to my x850pro and flashed it with an x850xt bios which appeared to have run successfully.

I ran ATItool and it did in fact increase my core clock speeds to 520/540.

I looked at the number of pipelines and its still stuck at 12. I tried uninstalling drivers and redownloading them through ati and reinstalling only to find the same thing happening. I then proceeded to reflash it, and still no luck.

I also reinstalled ati tool and i still get the same results.

ANY IDEAS?

I used the modified flash device from the article and downloaded the correct bios from their listings.

Thanks,

Jesse

use the ATIFLASH rom....... like this ATIFLASH -F -P -NEWBIOS 0 XXX.BIN

 

[slaney30]

still no luck...

I tried that, but when it reprograms the bios it only reads a 10000 kbytes instead of the 58000.

It's also strange that ati tool actually shows it running the xt's bios clock speeds, but the pipelines are just not enabled.

I am wondering if the new batch of cards are locked... There are a few others out there that have just bought the cards having problems.

I've tried the XT PE bios also , and it doesn't work. Im running out of things to try here...

I've heard that I should try using Gigabyte's flash utility, however im unable to find it online at all.

Any ideas I'd appreciate it.


Thanks.

 

[sniviler]

TYPE atiflash -i before you flash and see how many bytes, pretty sure it is 10000 normaly

 

[slaney30]

No its normally 65338 or something like that...
Looking at the size of the bins they are much larger than that.

I will try that....I can return the card if it gets hosed...

Any thing else to try?

Thanks

 

[slaney30]

I tried exactly as you said, and still only 12 pipelines. This is driving me crazy....

 

[slaney30]

Some of the newer ati radeon x850pro cards wont unlock

I returned my card to Best Buy for the oldest x850pro on the shelves and retried the bios flash to make it an xt to open up the pipelines.

Everything worked! Pipelines are now at 16. I believe the newer x850pro cards are not unlockable as I have talked to others that have not been able to open up the pipelines...

I can't be 100% positive but exchanging for one with a little older serial number seems to have done the trick.

 

[Racer X]

Slaney,
Just out of curiosity, what is the serial number on the box? The reason I ask is that I bought an X850 Pro from Best Buy 4 or 5 weeks ago. I tried for an entire evening to flash and unlock the 4 remaining pipes but was unable to do so. I found out about a week or so later that the card I had purchased was indeed locked another way besides just a BIOS lock. So I went and bought a brand new X800XL off of eBay for less than I paid for the 850. Of course when I benched the X800XL it was slower in every benchmark I threw at it. Not by much, but enough to annoy me. I read all of the reviews where the XL beat the Pro by a few frames, sometimes quite a few. Anyway, I had reflashed the X850 back to its original BIOS and it was running perfectly, just with 12 pipes active.
So one day I brought it with me to work and at lunch I went to the Best Buy up the road and looked to see if they had any more on the shelf. They had two left and I looked at the serial numbers just for kicks and they were 1805299XXXXX and 1805309XXXXX. Now the serial number on mine was 1805360XXXXX. I figured I would try the one with the oldest S/N and try to unlock it. I told them I was having temperature problems with mine and they offered to refund or replace the card. I took the latter option. Sure enough it unlocked with the BIOS flash and has been running with 16 pipes enabled for 2 weeks now. I reflashed my original BIOS back after I unlocked the 4 pipes to regain dynamic fan control because the XT and XT/PE BIOS's change the way the fan works and the card gets real hot real quick. It runs at 500/500 16 pipes and by opening all of the pipes my benchmarks went up. 400+ points in 3DM05, almost 900 points in 3DM03 and 250 points on 3DM01. Aquamark went up about 2000 points also.
Anyway, if you can return it for an older serial number you might find one that unlocks. Be sure to check out the sticky at the top of the video card forum pertaining to using ATI Tool to check the fuses of your card before you throw in the towel. You need to see both "F"'s in the first and second fuses in the right places or the card cannot be BIOS flashed to unlock. My first card had a "B" in the first fuse and an "E" at the end of the second. By comparison, the new card has both F's in the right place and the BIOS flash took first try.
Sorry for the long reply. But I figured I would chime in here 'cuz I went through this recently and maybe the info might help. Good luck in finding one to mod. It's a pretty decent card when it's unlocked.

edit: well I posted this exactly 10 minutes after you posted that you did what I was suggesting to do. Glad to hear it worked out for you.

 

[slaney30]

The serial number of my old one was 18053061xxxx, I exchanged for 180529902737-01 and the pipes unlocked. ATI definitely got smart.... they realized what was going on and changed the newer radeons... I think if you get a PRO with a serail number starting with 1805299 you'll get one of the last unlockable items... Of course I cant be sure, but with what you are saying and with what I encountered its a good bet.

 

[Schwarz]

I have a little question about ATItools that i will post later on but i will explain my case.

I just got a x850 PRO from Ati.
Flashed it to a x850 XT PE but as soon as i started a game it crashed on me.
I then flashed it to a x850 XT (clocked at 520 560)
Everything runs fine so far except that i get artifacts in ATI tools.
I then used a ATI Bios tuner (RaBit)
and modified a XT to run at 500/580.(Do not get nothing with mem running at XTPE speeds)
Even got it up to close 599 but after 600 i get crap appearing all over...)
The problem then was that the fan on the card would never spin.
Quickly fixed that though i just pluged the video card's fan straight to my power suply at 12 VOLTS to run it 100%(Makes a nice little humming sound.)
I did not like the fact that my system would boot up without the fan spinning.
And had to wait for ATItools to get it to spin...

My question though is when i ran it at 520/560
I did not get any artifacts in any games but only in ATItools...
Should i keep running it at 500/580+ or get it up to XT speed round 520 ...
(I know 540 hangs me up)
The highest i can get with ATItools is 504 then 505 gives me artifacts...
My temps in 3dmark 2005 is normal at 520 (50) 60 is the highest I got.

 

[BigTommy]

hey guys im getting a connect3d x850 pro vivo agp and im wondering if another manufactuers x850 xtpe bios will work on my card + will the vivo thingy will still work coz i didnt see at the bios page any xtpe bios with "vivo"