Trying to recover a 3870

[Sparky]

I have a HIS IceQ3 3870 that I was told got bricked after a bios flash. So I'm trying to reflash the card with an original bios, figuring the first flash went bad. I downloaded the bios and atiflash, created a boot floppy with atiflash on it, and put it in a system with a spare PCI gfx card so I can see what I'm doing. But when I go to flash it tells me "adapter not found." I tried both PCIe slots on the board.

Any ideas? I'd love to get this card working to give to my brother.

[Sparky]

No ideas? This is XS, surely someone has found a way to recover from a dud flash.

[W1zzard]

atiflash -i to see what adapters you have. if your card doesnt show up, disconnect the CS pin of the flash eeprom chip so the card thinks it has no bios and will come up with some basic defaults that should show it on the bus

[Vatos_locos]

did you try to force flash the card ? then do what w1zzard says is should work

[Sparky]

Well everything ground to a halt because the system I was using has leaky caps in the PSU. This will be fixed after this weekend but until then I can't really do much with it.

atiflash -i tells me no adapter found. I'll try the force flash next. Umm which chip is the flash eeprom chip and which pin is the CS pin? So many little chips on this board I can't tell which is which. But if I have to disconnect the CS pin and it shows up, can I still flash it with that CS pin disconnected though?

[W1zzard]

if atiflash -i shows no adapters then there is nothing you can force the flash on.

the eeprom is usually on the back side of the card, 8 legged ic, google the markings on the chips (also to find the datasheet) and you shall be rewarded

you need to remove the cs pin while it boots and connect it for flashing so it can access the chip

[Sparky]

hmm sounds like this could be fun. Nothing to lose so I'll give it a shot when I get the PSU repaired this weekend. Thanks :up:

[Blazing fire]

How is it?

[cirthix]

curious too, haven't heard of that method (remove CS pin for boot) before

[Sparky]

Sadly I haven't had time. I got the PSU repaired but I haven't been able to get back to this. I had better hurry up if I intend to fix the card in time to give to my bro for Christmas!

[Sparky]

been so long...

I found the IC, disconnected the CS pin, but no display upon boot, so I put another card in with it to see what i was doing and it still said "adapter not found"

Any more thoughts/ideas/help? Christmas is coming and I'd love to get this card working so I can give it to my brother!