Fixing a Bad BIOS Flash on the 4870

[wiak]

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 think this thread good helpers should get the credit not only one dude
after all it was teamwork

have a nice week guys
and keep your 4870s safe for now

will get mine tomorrow wohoo!

[W1zzard]

added thanks to the article

[Edin]

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...

[MadDias]

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?

[W1zzard]

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?

[Marvin_The_Martian]

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? ).

[Edin]

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?

I'll try it...

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?

[GoldenTiger]

I'll try it...

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 .

[W1zzard]

new gpu-z out which fixes several rv770 bugs, including the 128K ROM problem

[Gleason]

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.

I think there was only one case in this entire thread.

[Edin]

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 .

where did you download it from?

[GoldenTiger]

where did you download it from?

The techpowerup.com site , RBE in the utilities downloads, BIOS fresh from the fix article.

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.

[Edin]

The techpowerup.com site , RBE in the utilities downloads, BIOS fresh from the fix article...

strange, I got it from there also

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)

[GoldenTiger]

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.

[Kensek]

Cross Fire Works! Both Cards have been Resurrected.



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.

[eleeter]

I think there was only one case in this entire thread.

I think there are two, SNiiPE_DoGG I think said he had 2 bad cards, I didn't find that post just this one.

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

[twwen2]

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

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 .

But i should end on a happy note

[SimBy]

Cross Fire Works! Both Cards have been Resurrected.



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.

Quite sure CPU is holding it back at default res.

[Marvin_The_Martian]

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

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 .

But i should end on a happy note

You did? Lol what do you think I been doing

If they lied I say ban em.

[zerazax]

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!

[Calmatory]

So, it is confirmed that all the people who claim they didn't flash the BIOS, were lying?

[twohype]

I read an article saying that atiflash and winflash have caused crashed on the 4XXX series because of inproper bios coding for gddr5 try the one that is in the bios mod forum on this site, flashrom I heard there have been no problems with it yet and you can force flash the cards back to stock if needed.

Finally words of wisdom, to help people who have flashed thier new 48XX's into lala land

[eleeter]

So, it is confirmed that all the people who claim they didn't flash the BIOS, were lying?

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.

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.

[Mechromancer]

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).

[SimBy]

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.

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.

You mean Kensek?! Go back one page and you will see his cards are OK now

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.