Fixing a Bad BIOS Flash on the 4870

[jimmyz]

Do you think it might run off of a BartPE boot disk (Win32 XP "live" environment)? I'm thinking that's the next best option for the night...

Could you take the card to the local shop and try on an xp rig, a small shop will most likely lend help, they might be interested in learning a new trick. also think about friends pc's etc. I swear by the winflash method after issues with dos flashes....for mobo's I only flash in dos if possible with cards(ATI anyway) I prefer winflash, If it errors you can load a new one and try again if a dos flash goes bad, you will have to either blindflash or PCI card it.

[Edin]

Hi everyone, I'm new at these forums (by posting) and I just wanna add I apreciate everyone trying to help. I also have bought two of these HD4870 cards (Powercolor brand) and after editing one of the BIOSes with Radeon BIOS Editor and flashing both cards... cards just don't boot any more at all. They were working fine about 1-2h after the BIOS flash and just as I wanted to close the case and wanted to boot again there was just no boot... PC just dead. Fans are working but I get no screen at all.

I have an HD3870X2 running now and 1 of the HD4870 connected, trying to get these cards working again. I don't know where some of you are sugesting to check voltage on the card, all I can say right now is I used the voltmeter and it's showing around 11.99V on the pins on the card where the 6-pin PCI-E power connection is. I don't think it's the PSU, I think it's bad BIOS in the card itself... maybe the flash went corrupted (although unlikely to be the same on both cards the same way) and now it just won't get back to original... I don't know really... I feel regret to doing this right now... but what's done is done...

[erocker]

I'm glad I saw this thread! I'll refrain from flashing with RBE for now, and I suggest everyone experiencing this problem to report it in the RBE thread on www.techpowerup.com. Good luck to you all!

[xMrBunglex]

I used the voltmeter and it's showing around 11.99V on the pins on the card where the 6-pin PCI-E power connection is.

they weren't talking about the power from the PSU. Jimmyz wanted you guys to check your vGPU and vMEM to see how many volts they were getting. i don't know where the contact points are on these cards though. VR-Zone had some pictures a while back but i didn't save them.

[W1zzard]

purecain, whats wrong with your forum account at tpu? i can fix it for you np

if you want to see more 4870 bioses in the tpu bios collection you have to submit them.. takes about 20 seconds using gpu-z. dont submit modded bioses, dont spread the plague

i'll try to get you guys a new winflash/flashrom

[purecain]

just woke up and seen that wizard, dont worry i wont spread the plague... first thing thats made me smile since my cards died.... even my old lady's getting it in the neck... but i cant tell her why i'm being funny with her because she has no idea i've spent more money on hardware....
i would appreciate my account sorting out, that would be brilliant thakyou...

i'll post as much info as you need, just let me know....

supposed to be taking my old lady away tonight so i'm not gonna be around untill monday....
but i can stall herfor a few hours....

edit- new bios tool version for winflash and atiflash for dll @tpu
unfortunatly the bios succeeds in flashing but the cards remain unusable....
got to go now but will keep checking back on my tocco....

[Edin]

edit- new bios tool version for winflash and atiflash for dll @tpu
unfortunatly the bios succeeds in flashing but the cards remain unusable

I tried it also, flashed again to original BIOS in DOS with Atiflash and still no go...

I wonder, after trying to edit original BIOS and chaning to different clock speeds for GPU and RAM the GPU-Z always shows all wrong information, for example:

Shaders: 0 Pixel / 0 Vertex
Pixel Fillrate (grayed out) Unknown
Texture Fillrate (grayed out) Unknown
Memory Type: GDDR5 ............... Bus Width: 512 Bit
Memory Size: 4095 MB .............. Bandwidth: 5497558.1 GB/s
GPU Clock: 2949673 MHz ........... Memory: 2949673 MHz
Default Clock: 750 MHz ............. Memory: 900 MHz

Sensors page shows:
GPU Core Clock: 200.0 MHz
GPU Memory Clock: 6350.0 MHz
GPU Temperature: 255.0C
Fan Speed: 100%
GPU Load: 200%
Fan Speed: 0 RPM

The card pretty much is very cold, the air coming out is like ambient temperature and heatsink is same. I don't know how GPU Load can show 200% or basically all info is pointless, I think the card very likely had some sort of permanent damage which is why even successful flash with original BIOS doesn't do anything but I so hope I am wrong about this

[W1zzard]

try flashing with -newbios (winflash accepts the same command line parameters as atiflash)

the numbers on gpuz are because the card is not initialized, so every register read returns 0xFFFFFFFF which results in those funky numbers. a future version of GPU-Z should detect this properly

[Edin]

Sorry W1zzard, is that to try flashing with Atiflash using this -newbios command (in which format though?) or with AtiWinFlash?

[wanky]

noobs

[W1zzard]

for both? "winflash accepts the same command line parameters as atiflash"

[Edin]

ah right...

[Edin]

Just tried Atiflash from Floppy and I used "atiflash -f -p -newbios 2 biosname.bin" command and it flashed alright but still no change... I wonder if I'm doing something wrong?

[purecain]

noobs

then help the guy, youd rather be a geniuos in idiocy...

@everyone else... right i dont have too much time left but its looking like we really need someone with a working 4870 to flash the card to another working bios. if that card then fails we will know for sure that this problem is with the flashing utilities...

@edin- your doing it right, its very easy and almost impossible to get wrong.... we are going to need some advice from ati.....
i'm still holding a candle for rbe1.12 as hopefully bagzzlash or wizard will gain more insight into the effects of flashing these cards...

ati/amd technical support contact info

United Kingdom
Tel:44 (0) 1276 803299
Monday - Friday: 09:30 - 16:00 GMT

[W1zzard]

Just tried Atiflash from Floppy and I used "atiflash -f -p -newbios 2 biosname.bin" command and it flashed alright but still no change... I wonder if I'm doing something wrong?

that command line doesnt look too valid .. are you sure it flashed?

try: atiflash -newbios -f -p 2 biosname.bin

are you sure your adapter index is 2 ?

the -p and adapter index belong together

[Edin]

Tried also with atiwinflash and same thing... no change

Don't know if this is of any significanse but I'll mention it anyway... there was a difference though with running the atiwinflash.exe as regular aplication and flashing the BIOS like that, compared to typing the commands in RUN window... first case the flashing progress bar goes quickly to about 80% then stays there for about a minute before I get successful flash message... while typing in RUN window using "atiwinflash -f -p -newbios 2 biosname.bin" comand the progress bar indicator would continually go to end and repeat about 5-6 times I think... again I got successful BIOS flash message, rebooted and still the HD4870 is dead.

[Edin]

that command line doesnt look too valid .. are you sure it flashed?

try: atiflash -newbios -f -p 2 biosname.bin

are you sure your adapter index is 2 ?

the -p and adapter index belong together

I'll check again with command sequence, and yes it did say BIOS was successfuly flashed (I'll try again anyway) and yes this card has ID 2 (I have HD3870X2 in system as running card otherwise I can't even boot) and I checked this with "atiflash -i" command... be right back with trying to flash with different (your sugested) command sequence...

EDIT: tried "atiflash-newbios -f -p 2 biosname.bin" and again it said successful flash, rebooted and still no change...

[Sleepyzone]

purecain, whats wrong with your forum account at tpu? i can fix it for you np

if you want to see more 4870 bioses in the tpu bios collection you have to submit them.. takes about 20 seconds using gpu-z. dont submit modded bioses, dont spread the plague

i'll try to get you guys a new winflash/flashrom

Is it posible the bios flash burnt something up on the card? Or maybe AMD put some evil lock on the bios chip.

[Olly_K]

Hi guys, im in the same boat as a lot of you, I've got 2 dead HIS 4870's here.

im about to try a DOS flash......but, do I need a PCI gfx card ? the only other card I have is a 9800GX2, I dont want to mess up the bios on that and have THREE cards borked !

[s1nykuL]

noobs

Very helpful, well done, DUE respect earned

Sorry for interjecting here, I am not part of this thread nor I do not have a 4870, but this kind of contribution makes me angry.

[dehx]

Any luck guys? I read this thread after modding my bios last night, and I went ahead and shut down .. no sense in preventing the inetivitable...

My 4870 is bricked.. and I don't have a PCI card to boot with... the only one I do have is damaged, so I'm screwed.

Wizz.. what is your opinion? Will any of those new flash tools help?

[Dragy2k]

noobs

atleast hes got the right name ^^

good luck guys hopefully you will have it cracked soon.......maybe some1 at ati will read and point something out

[AriciU]

Did anyone's card die without him messing with the bios and stuff? Is there a problem with them as they come or only if you try to OC thru bios update? This is apparently starting to become a trend unfortunately

[wiak]

bah stop bitcing about 4870 going out in less than 24hours when its YOUR own foult that didnt get or read the memo about
"flashing modified bios = asking for truble"

w1zz to teh rescue!

anyway am getting 4870 on monday

[AriciU]

bah stop bitcing about 4870 going out in less than 24hours when its YOUR own foult that didnt get or read the memo about
"flashing modified bios = asking for truble"

w1zz to teh rescue!

anyway am getting 4870 on monday

Unfortunately it seems to be happening out of the blue -> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...7&postcount=17

and

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...postcount=3956

I don't think OC'ing thru software should cause this ing crap. Let's see who else get's "lucky".