duorb hsf on 3870's

[purecain]

no need for pm's.... i've just finished testing and there is no improvement in any of the OC bios's. the fixed dll bios which ati released first reached the max stable clocks even if certain games would need lower clocks set.
the oc card bios's were all terrible and all crashed when trying to bench over 870..... so for all my trouble i'm no better off.
at least i can stop anyone else from making the same mistake and whatever you do DONT buy an OC model.....
trog has made my favourite(and the one i'm now using) version with 830mhz core 1200mem set as default.... heres the link http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=578618
this one also improves the stock fan settings so jump on it.... thanks trog...
i can bench at 900mhz core 1311mhz mem with this bios with no artifacts.... used surface deformer bench and 3dmark 05 to test stability....

[newls1]

thanks purecain

[xMrBunglex]

Purecain for President. thanks a lot for doing all the footwork for us. you made it into my will

[Lu523]

I just used the HD3870_PLLVCO_v010.071 bios. I let CCC run auto-tune, and it set the card to 872,1376. I can run 3D Mark 06 and Aqua mark with no problems. I may try the bios you linked to and see what it does.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

so cain, what are your idle/load temps at those settings with the duorb? I am (still) anxiously awaiting that arrival of my 3870 !

[purecain]

my temps reach 53c load and idle around 31c.... i've only ever seen it @55c after hours of crysis. these duorbs really do the trick and load is usually between 38-49c...
how about all those OC bios's being poor... i felt wounded when they all turned out to be crap. imagine paying extra for an oc card and it just being exactly the same as a stock card apart from a higher stock clock with no work at all being put into the bios...
anyway heres hoping atitool gets voltage support for the 3870's as these cards will be benching monsters....
more volts and 900mhz would be stable in every game.... cant wait...

[bacon612]

Hey Cain, what settings are u using in Crysis?

Resolution, Med, High, Very High?

DX10, DX9?

32bit or 64 mode?

also, how much ram does crysis chew of your 4 gigs during gameplay?

[Garrett]

Cain, how did you flash the bios? in DOS or Windows?
And of course with what program...
A last question, what can I use to adjust the fan speeds?

I have 2 Asus HD3870 cards right now but I'm afraid they're spinning @ around 20%... sux pretty hard imho

If anyone could answer my questions... I would really appreciate it

[newls1]

Cain, how did you flash the bios? in DOS or Windows?
And of course with what program...
A last question, what can I use to adjust the fan speeds?

I have 2 Asus HD3870 cards right now but I'm afraid they're spinning @ around 20%... sux pretty hard imho

If anyone could answer my questions... I would really appreciate it

I can 1000000% understand your fan speed concern. I just went thru this hell and total game stability was in the er due to 90+c temps on my GPU's. Download a program called Rivatuner 2.06 (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163) by using this program, you can manually adjust the fan speed and it work AWESOME . I have both of my cards using the 75% fan setting 100% of the time, I have both my 3870's @ 860c 2.54GHz ram. My idle temps are 25-28c, load temps are 45-52c My games all run perfectly, no freezes, hiccups, nothing, just pure gaming fun now. If you have a crossfire setup, make sure you set *BOTH* cards fan speeds, cause adjusting 1 card, will not adjust the *OTHER* card. In the first screen you see when Rivatuner starts, click the drop down arrow, and select the OTHER card, and repeat the same process you did for setting the fan speed for your first card. Make Sense? Let me know if you need more help. Good Luck

[purecain]

@bacon i used dx10 64bit code path and very high settings aside from a medium setting here and there.
in other words i played the game with all the bells and whistles at 1680x1050 and averaged 35fps(which was oddly sufficient) and played very smooth.
as far as my ram usage its hard to say with vista as it has a tendancy to use all my ram whenever possible, so even though 3.5gb were being used i'm not sure how much of that was being used by crysis... i should of checked in processes. i will next time i play it...
i'm playing cod4 on the the hardest setting which has made the game almost unbeatable, i screamed out loud in frustration a good few times last night aswell.... lol

@Garret flashing the bios on your hd3870 is easy.... make a bootable dos disc or bootable flash drive. google for the instructions on this part, you wont have any trouble....

once you have a bootable disc add the latest copy of ati flash. you can dll this from techpowerup forum's dll section.... easy...

copy ati flash to the bootable disc with this bios http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=578618
name it newbios.bin

thats the disc ready.... all you have to do now is restart your pc.
go into the bios and change the boot order so that you boot into dos from your flash drive...
restart....

now your in dos with a black screen... type atiflash and press enter...

you now have to press any key you like four times to go through all the commands available. youll see what i mean when you do it.

now you are able to type the command which will flash your bios....

type....
atiflash -f -p 0 newbios.bin
press enter this will flash the first card... if you have another type...
atiflash -f -p 1 newbios.bin
the flash takes place now and you have to restart to finish.

go back into the bios to change the boot order back to your drive with windows.... your done.... congrats

sometimes atiflash says it cant find the file and if it does this make a few more copies and rename them newbios1.bin newbios2.bin and so on. one of them will work.
i have no idea why it does this.....

as far as the fan speeds, they will of been improved with this bios but i recommend getting yourself a 20 quid duorb.....
good luck m8....

[Garrett]

Well newls1, I have used Rivatuner for ages, and I mean 4 years or so, but since enabling CF it won't do that anymore, you see I had 1 card running 50%, just nicely but the other at... what is it, like 20%?
It simply cannot be done anymore neither card can

And purecain, that will leave me with 1 card flashed... I have CF so 2 cards
atiflash -f -p 1 bios.bin will that flash the second? (0 to 1)

See picture of rivatuner for my problem, I think it will be very clear

-edit- I may use this thing and hook the fcking fans on my rheobus
http://www.microcenter.com/image.pht...360&sku=685289

[purecain]

edited for you pal................
by the way... atitool will be the best for controlling fan speeds on both cards. i am unsure if 3870's are compatible with atitool to this extent yet....

[Garrett]

nope... been there done that... damn I'm not feeling too good about buying these cards... gotta search everywhere to get them working as they should... I'm really pissed now, bit scared to flash the card, how many times does it go wrong in DOS mode?
and this ati winflash looks a bit fishy to me too... bah wish I had tri SLI lol... but I don't have 1500 euros left for pure overkill...hahaha damn I gotta stop making myself nervous

edit:
PS I see you have the P5E board, that doesn't include the Voltage Damper option in your bios or does it?
Mine has, I love it
1.35v in bios is 1.32v idle and 1.31v under quad load... very nice indeed, my former Asus (the P5N-E SLI) used to drooooooop over 0.1v (bios set voltage and then to dual load)

[purecain]

it does have the voltage damper and with the pencil mod i can set 1.425 and get 1.410-1.420... cant ask for much more than that....
the p5e is easily the best board i've ever worked with.... highly recomended...

[Garrett]

OK so I've flashed both cards, never seen flashing go so fast but the speeds say 830/1200 so it's all good.
However the fans still spin very slow, I reinstalled Rivatuner 2.06 which allows me to adjust 1 card, the top one... not the bottom one so it's not really what I want... any suggestions?

[xMrBunglex]

Garrett, are you stable in games with that BIOS and the stock cooler? it seems to me like the fan runs just as fast as it has to to keep the GPU from going over 90°C.

[Garrett]

No problems here
I'd rather have a tri SLI setup but that's a bit more expensive though

[roadie]

I installed the BIOS mentioned in purecain's post (51) on my 3870 yesterday. I used Winflash 2.0.0.2 to do it and it worked perfectly.

The fan speed does seem to pick up more quickly than the stock BIOS, and obviously the standard clocks of the card are now faster. However, the card still hit over 90 degrees when using the Fur stress test so I force fan speed to 70% using Rivatuner when gaming. This is very loud but I drown it out with my speakers.

I'm at my parents house until the New Year now so can't test the card any further but I should have an Accelero S1 by then to help curb temps

[purecain]

i'm glad people are finding that bios useful... i spent a good four hours looking at the hex file trying to figure out why the voltage wont go any higher. next step is to try a bios with higher voltage set and the over voltage protection removed.... just got to find where that is on ther card and how to remove it safely.... any info on this would be greatly appreciated....

[Unbornchild]

I am only using a single Sapphire 3870. Not modded the Bios and just with the stock cooler (doing as it pleases), using Overdrive i run the card @ 860/1301. Tested in real gaming. I leave it at what it's now, think it's just fine without hassle.
Yes the temp goes up to 89c at 99% GPU load (crysis bench in windowed mode), so i think i'll try to force the fanspeed then.

EDIT. No! 70 ~75% fanspeed makes too much bloody noise! Uninstalled RivaTuner again... Leaving things as they are right now.

[newls1]

I am only using a single Sapphire 3870. Not modded the Bios and just with the stock cooler (doing as it pleases), using Overdrive i run the card @ 860/1301. Tested in real gaming. I leave it at what it's now, think it's just fine without hassle.
Yes the temp goes up to 89c at 99% GPU load (crysis bench in windowed mode), so i think i'll try to force the fanspeed then.

EDIT. No! 70 ~75% fanspeed makes too much bloody noise! Uninstalled RivaTuner again... Leaving things as they are right now.

im telling you right now, that if you run your GPU at those temps, it will suffer from a loss of life sooner then you think. Install Rivatuner again and force it to 60%. If you find that loud, then WOW! That is almost dead silent SIR. Forcing at least 60% will drop your load temps by a HUGE number.

[xMrBunglex]

im telling you right now, that if you run your GPU at those temps, it will suffer from a loss of life sooner then you think.

the longest i ever owned a video card was one year. it was a Radeon 1900XTX and the thing ran hotter than the devil himself. maybe it would have only lasted five years, but i'd never stick around long enough to find out anyway.

[Unbornchild]

im telling you right now, that if you run your GPU at those temps, it will suffer from a loss of life sooner then you think. Install Rivatuner again and force it to 60%. If you find that loud, then WOW! That is almost dead silent SIR. Forcing at least 60% will drop your load temps by a HUGE number.

I did as you advised. 60%. Man you are so right. The 89c peak has sunken 33 degrees! celcius and has not surpassed 56c at full ("99%") load. Very effective, while at the same time the noise at 60% stays very acceptable. Thanks!

[purecain]

new pencil mod available.... say hello to 1.41v ...... i just tried pencilling the r1222 resister and it didnt work so i have one more to go.... will post in a couple of days when i pull my machine apart to redo it.... anyone else has any luck let us know how you do... heres a link to the thread... http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=166623&page=9

[newls1]

I did as you advised. 60%. Man you are so right. The 89c peak has sunken 33 degrees! celcius and has not surpassed 56c at full ("99%") load. Very effective, while at the same time the noise at 60% stays very acceptable. Thanks!

Glad to have been of service