If I had a dead card that died without a flashed bios, I wouldn't flash it and risk losing the ability RMA it.
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If I had a dead card that died without a flashed bios, I wouldn't flash it and risk losing the ability RMA it.
I've read about HIS having issues on OCF too. Also I think I saw a post about a guy having problems with a Visiontek too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Theta
I would like to know what motherboard you tested these cards in. The make & model of the board may have an affect too (just a guess).
Can you provide OP with the batch number so if other come in with the same issue he will be able to check if it's indeed a batch issue and get the proper responce going as quick as possible? Just a thought.
same with my card, when it worked all foru leds flashed, now the D601 is the only one that does not flash, and yea they never stayed on when it was working either, they would only flash once when you turn on the system. As I said I can't rma the card even if I had a chance to do it I would not, but it is none of my business on what others do, because it is their card. I would most likely buy one next month again if I can't get it to work.
can someone please save a 4870 bios from a working card using winflash and post it?
I have my original sapphire HD4870 BIOS but it was saved with AtiFlash 3.59.
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=660440&da=y
I removed the file since it has been determined that AtiFlash and WinFlash are truncating the BIOS file.
thats fine, link please
I have my original Powercolor bios saved with GPUZ if that works let me know I can send that to you.
for this test save with winflash / atiflash only, so we can see if there is some kind of issue between gpu-z bios reading and ati's software
I edited my earlier post with the link in it W1zzard.
another dead card by not flashing bios
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115579
oh ok, I really didn't save with winflash, so I guess that is out of question, thanks to all of you for your help.
ok looks like the bios images are NOT 1 mbit as a poster on rage3d claims, so thats not the reason for the problems
can anyone with a borked card measure the voltages on the board? i marked the test spots for you
http://img.techpowerup.org/080629/Capture389785.jpg
on your dmm put the black probe to ground (like case metal or the metal piece on the graphics card) and the red one to what you want to measure
yellow area and green area should be either mvddc and mvddq memory voltage (dont know which is one because i have no board). any of the pads in one color will work fine, it is safe to short between same colored pads
the blue area is vddc (gpu core voltage). as you can see two solder pads go together (white boxes on the pcb), one is ground, the other one will be vddc. test both, the one with the 0 volt reading is the gnd one. dont create shorts between those pads.
if you have questions ask before causing more damage
card is not dead, read the thread again, user has solved his problem :DQuote:
Originally Posted by spajdr
gogo XSers check your cables. lol. afk football, hope the great german nation pwns the spanishQuote:
Originally Posted by Logos4
that is right, his issue was totally different, it was wasn't a good idea to call it a dead card, now back to topic, cheers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Logos4
LOL, I tried everyway I can imagine, the D601 led never turns on.Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
his card is not dead, that's a fact, period. Who said a particular found cable issue would give a solution to others, who? :rolleyes: It just did matter to mention that it was not a new case of HD48xx failure, that's all.Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
fortunately I go with 4850 first
anyway after I have collected my money, I'll go with X38 and a 4870 of necessary :D if there is no more dead 4870 anymore, or I'll grab another safer 4850
The ROMs on these boards are 1Mb ROM's, used for the first time used on AMD/ATI PC desktop boards.Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
W1zzard, I have my HIS 4870 original BIOS saved (unmodified, from before my card died). I'll upload it somewhere in a minute and edit with link.
EDIT: http://files.filefront.com/his4870st.../fileinfo.html
EDIT2: File removed as it is truncated per this thread.
The 8800 GTS also had Qimoda chips, and I don't see anyone complaining about them. The 8800 GT was plagued by an inadequate VRM for its given specifications.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechromancer
Further; Qimoda supplies GDDR chips for many other cards, all without any issue. That's beside the point that; to even suggest that engineers at either Qimoda or ATI/AMD didn't put the GDDR5 samples through rigorous testing is way off base.
Whatever tool you used to save that with it is not saving to the correct size; the ROM image should be 128K.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenTiger
I've just looked at all the BIOS's collected on W1zzard's download site, and again they are all incorrect sizes and the BIOS is truncated. W1zzard I would urge you to remove those BIOS's
hmmm, if it is indeed the wrong bios size, I am with you o that one DAVE, we should stop it from spreading in any and every way possible.
Yeah I posted in the other thread he should try to get in touch with Wizzard at techpower if he can't reach em here. On the other hand, I would be surprised if Wizzard wasn't certain when he said the bioses were not the problem. Only other thing could be that the download server is truncating the downloads of Dave Baumann?
Dave, the BIOS dump using winflash/atiflash is 62.976 bytes. i thought 1 Mb ROM too. that's why I specifically asked for Winflash/ATIFLASH dumps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Baumann
so far nobody reported if the actual bios chip is 512k or 1M.
No, because I checked those at both TechPowerup and the filefront one GoldenTiger uploaded, referenced in the earlier post; neither of them are the same size at the production BIOS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin_The_Martian
Its 1Mb on all HD 4870's (HD 4850 is still 512Kb).Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
I have no idea how old the versions of WinFlash you are using are. They almost certianly haven't been updated specifically for RV770.
the bios files are 1 Mb indeed. i'm taking the 4870 bioses offline right now
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...h_2.0.1.2.html is the winflash those people used .. no newer version, feel free to check yourself dave
This is good to know. I'm now more concerned with the people that say they simply crossfired their 4870s and experienced a failure. Or were these reports misleading?Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
I feel that if they were misleading those people's accounts should be banned here, they give XS a bad name trying to aquire an easy rma by using a forum to make it look like they didn't do anything wrong themself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechromancer
I still have some hope in the good of people, so I'm not definetly saying they were lying but I would like to have this found out without a doubt.
I guess the question now is if truncated bios indeed caused many of this deaths, can the cards be revived with correct bios or are they fubared.
if a proper bios flashing tool comes out then you would assume so.Quote:
Originally Posted by SimBy
ok football is over, back to work. i need volunteers with a working 4870 and one person with a non-working 4870 .. can be the same person ;)
contant me on instant messenger asap
I used ATIwinflash 2.0.0.7 for it under Vista 64.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Baumann
I fail to see why someone would lie on a forum where they are anonymous about what caused their card's death... if they were going to lie why not lie to the manufacturer or vendor for RMA? I told the situation to my vendor and was offered an RMA for a full refund which was lucky as heck on my part.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin_The_Martian
EDIT: I am taking my truncated BIOS down from filefront now, since I assume those who needed to look at it did and it is clearly not proper.
ATI Tray Tools can dump bioses as well, but dont know if it works on 4850/4870.. doesnt want to work on my X1950XTX.
W1zzard, did anyone with a non-working card contact you yet on messenger? I am installing MSN messenger now.
nope ..
OK, I'll be done with installing in a few minutes... should I pop my 4870 in alongside my current card (working 4850) after it's done?
MSN is the only messenger i use. i just sent you an invite (i think. i don't use it very often). i have two working 4870's and i'd like to help as long as they don't end up dead.Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
Reading a BIOS should never harm anything for you, so don't worry about that... it's only if you write to it that you can have something happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by xMrBunglex
Well some people seem to thing that if their is some forum saying it's not an user problem, it might be easier talking with a retailer/manufacturer about an rma?Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenTiger
I applaud your honesty and you been rewarded for it I see, but not everyone is as honest as you. Again, it's almost like I'm saying I'm certain they lied, I'm not. But to litle cases are known to warrant someone saying that these cards are dying from nothing, that's all I do know for certain. It's been a day since this has been going on here on XS, other forums picked up but I can only see one new case being reported, for me that's pretty conclusive but you seem to think otherwise and again even for your trust I applaud you. I just hope you're right.
if am not mistaking crossfire will make both cards run at same speed unless both are clocked, so here might be the problem?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kensek
got the 128k image now .. testing if it revives the card
What Flash Utility do you use and where is the 128k image file.
I'll dig out my 4870s again
guys, i have a idea
whats the serial numbers, manufacturer and manufacturer dates?
and where did you guys buy them from to?
then we might find out something
the fix works. i'll need another volunteer with a broken card. instant message me :)
Don't have IM - but set to try
Very glad to hear it m8 :clap: :up:
Kensek seems the proper candidate. Well atleast now we can assume the broken cards were either mellons or bad flashed with abit more certainty :)
Edit: lol at 3 posts in the same minute, you had some people anticipating news here Wizzard :)
Yep, my card now POSTs and runs 3D/etc., stressing it now with a game for a few minutes but I tried Crysis a moment with a saved spot I used for trying framerate testing before the bad flashing, and it has the same FPS at that location without any artifacting/anomalies... W1zzard = :up: . Hope the next test goes as well as mine is... don't want to call it too early but the fix he's made does seem to work.
I'm guessing the fix consists or a non broken bios image and nothing more. I mean, your current clocks and fan settings are the same as when your bought the card yes?
short article how to fix here.
very nice work :D:DQuote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
/cheer!
Nice work W1zzard, I think Germany is really ruling on this one, like it didn't do on soccer. I was on my way on working on any Bios modifications on the 4870. You may not know me, but just see the RBE Tool About tab and you may realize ;) I was working on 2900 Pro modifications in german HWLuxx forum. I dont have my 4870 yet but I am going to purchase one next week. My question is, do you guys need any further assistance to get this done? I am really looking forward to get this baby down on 2D clocks and voltages and to raise it on 3D. If thats not gonna work, thats the knockoff for the 4870 for me and I will go for a 4850 and stick my pencil out. So what do u think?
Flashed fixed into 1 of my dead HD4870s and it is revived!
Thanx, W1ZZ, Big Time
Running 3DMark06 on it now.
Will do the other card later and will attempt CFire later.
So the problem with these cards dyeing was a bad bios flash?? What about the other people that did not flash the bios or was that just a bad install from the manufacture?
I was going to get a 4850 over the 4870 because of this problem but if you guys are sure the problem is fixed now that's great news and I will get the 4870
Ummm... and thanks very much Dave Baumann for the essential information? ;) I think that deserves applause. :up:
wow W1zzard, I am on my break right now from work, I am going to give it a shot right away, since I have 30mins left lol. let's see if it works.
I'm curious about this too, especially the 4 that apparently died and were not modified or overclocked.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ral3l3it
And everyone that helped sort this out and make the proper tools available to revive the cards, pat yourself on the back! :up:
W1zzard saves the day, I think everybody feels a little better now, If only the German soccer team had bios's he could fix that too I bet!!
So it was a faulty bios flash by end-users after all. Was the most logical thing. I really can not understand why people were so eager to blame it all on the GDDR5 chips and Qimonda especially.
They got the same crap before with the 8800 GT's, then it turned out to be the poorly vrm's put on the 8800 GT's by nVidia. Yet, here we go again blaming Qimonda... sigh
thumbs up for W!zzard for the quick fix! :up:
And a big thanx for Dave for clearing things up :clap:
Quoted for truth as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unbornchild
the cards were flashed correctly from the factory. the problem was that the flashing tools & gpuz did not read the whole bios
I always admitted that it could very well be a faulty bios flash, good News W1zzard, the led dispay is still the same, but the card is working, I am installing drivers as we speak, and the the card booted right up, now I will be testing when I come back from my break.
Thanks a Ton, you are the GOD Of odds man, and you deserve the credit for your great work.
I meant flashing by end-users themselvesQuote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
QFT +1Quote:
Originally Posted by DemonEyez
Quote:
Originally Posted by NKD
You did indeed, but some other did not and I think some action might be in order.
I hate to beat a nearly dead horse, but what about all the cards that died and were not flashed?
The people that have had this happen, please speak up again.
ATi GOD is watching over us :hump: :woot:
or hold your peace ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by eleeter
didnt some dude's cards have diffrent bioses? i swear some dude with two of them had 2 diffrent bios revisions
I'm not sure there were many I only know of one or two cases:Quote:
Originally Posted by eleeter
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...0&postcount=84
Some advice, don't hold your breath...Quote:
Originally Posted by eleeter
Thx Wizard now I feel more confident in getting one on these but one question comes to mind. What about the people that reported the card dyeing that did not do any thing do them? Could these have just been defective cards?
drivers installed and everything works great, now time to do the driver hack for the fan speed, thanks to whoever came up with that, but W1zzard saved my card, thank you very much, I am sure we have all learned from it, and I certainly have learned one thing, don't flash a card that has been on the market for a week, even if it works for 2 days.
i think this thread good helpers should get the credit not only one dude :)Quote:
Originally Posted by NKD
after all it was teamwork :)
have a nice week guys
and keep your 4870s safe for now :up:
will get mine tomorrow wohoo! :wiggle:
added thanks to the article
I am so happy W1zzard is around :) my card is now working also (haven't flashed the second one yet but surely it should work too). I have only one quiestion for the other guys that had a dead card that is now working again... do you now get all 4 LED's light up on startup? I still get only 3 light up... the D601 is still not working...hm... but the card is working though... weird...
i´m wondering how these cards can work with only half of their bios.
most people that flashed their cards with the wrong sized bios (~62kb) had them working for a few hrs or days till they powered down their system.
anybody tested modding the bios yet? does rbe produce a wrong sized bios too, not only the flash tools from which the smaller sized bioses were dumped?
rbe seems to work. i tried opening a 128k bios, changing things and saving. result is a 128k file with all the info. did not try flashing to a card because i dont have one. any volunteers?
well it seems the part being left out was the part responcible for the start up sequence. Gddr5 needs to adjust itself ( eg frequencies/voltages have to be in perfect allignment ) and this is done at boot by that piece of code which seems to be missing. Maybe the times they rebooted before it stopped working, the downtime wasn't long enough to really shut the card down ( soft reset? ).
I'll try it...Quote:
Originally Posted by W1zzard
EDIT: I just downloaded RBE v1.11 again and upon opening the 4870.bin file you gave up W1zzard RBE says this BIOS has already been modified by RBE? Should I edit it again say, change fan speed, and flash?
I opened it with RBE 1.11 and don't see that message *shrug* maybe download a fresh copy of it? I'm going to test too, now that I know I can flash back :).Quote:
Originally Posted by Edin
new gpu-z out which fixes several rv770 bugs, including the 128K ROM problem
I think there was only one case in this entire thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by eleeter
where did you download it from?Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenTiger
The techpowerup.com site :), RBE in the utilities downloads, BIOS fresh from the fix article.Quote:
Originally Posted by Edin
I flashed an 820/4500 BIOS edited like this and it works fine from a cold boot (128k ROM). However the 4500 RAM part doesn't seem to be good in ATItool's artifact scanner so I set it back to 4400.
strange, I got it from there also :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenTiger
Anyway, I think I'm gonna reinstall windows now... I can't get Catalyst to start any more (tried uninstalling the drivers completely, used Drivercleraner and reinstalled NET Framework 2.0 also... still no go)
OK, I tried a modified 128k BIOS with RBE 1.11 and Atiflash 3.59 in DOS, works like a charm for me... tried clockspeeds only, and clockspeeds + fan adjustment (the default number as minimum changed to 27), boots fine from a cold boot and warm boot. I tried two different clock speeds as well.
EDIT: Flashed back to the stock fixed BIOS (128k) and it still works 100% fine, using CCC Overdrive to overclock, and 32% manual fan speed profile tweak.
Cross Fire Works! Both Cards have been Resurrected.
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/2...2521024yb2.png
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=7284891
Thank you again W1zzard.
I really expected More from CrossFired HD4870's though. My HD3870's gave 19059.
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/5244/19059vp6.png
I think there are two, SNiiPE_DoGG I think said he had 2 bad cards, I didn't find that post just this one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gleason
Theta says he had at least 4 die, no modding done to them.
Read the posts
here
here
here
here
here
STEvil talks about stock cards going dead as well
This is bittersweet. Wizzard ur a genius, congrats to you and all the guys who helped sort this out. I don't have a 4870 yet but now it's on the way:D
To the people who had "unmodified" cards die: Where are you now? I went in to bat for you in the news section where everyone was accusing you of being dishonest and misleading. If you don't show your faces soon i can only assume that you lied :down:.
But i should end on a happy note :yepp::clap:
Quite sure CPU is holding it back at default res.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kensek
You did? Lol what do you think I been doing :clap:Quote:
Originally Posted by twwen2
If they lied I say ban em.
Those who claim to have unmodified BIOSes should try loading it anyways. It really can't hurt and if you get a revived one, thank w1z and the others!
So, it is confirmed that all the people who claim they didn't flash the BIOS, were lying? :rotf:
Finally words of wisdom, to help people who have flashed thier new 48XX's into lala land :yepp:Quote:
Originally Posted by philbrown23
I hope not. Theta goes into quite a bit of detail about having a batch of them and 4 going tits up. He says putting them in crossfire mode seems to have caused the cards to stop working.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calmatory
Hopefully it is just as he says, a bad batch of HIS cards. I don't want to believe anyone would to into that kind of detail just to make AMD look bad.
edit -another user also reported the cards going bad when putting them into crossfire.
Well....I have no reason not to buy a 4870. I can't wait for Newegg to stock the Diamond HD 4870 (xDNA is supposedly on these new cards).
You mean Kensek?! Go back one page and you will see his cards are OK now :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by eleeter
So this leaves us with Thetas 4 dead cards which were supposedly stock. Now even though I have no reason not to believe him it's still kinda weird 4 cards would just die together like in some kind of cult mass suicide.