Fixing a Bad BIOS Flash on the 4870

[Marvin_The_Martian]

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

[GoldenTiger]

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 = . 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.

[Marvin_The_Martian]

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?

[W1zzard]

short article how to fix here.

[Papu]

short article how to fix here.

very nice work

[GoldenTiger]

/cheer!

[derschlambi]

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?

[Kensek]

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.

[Ral3l3it]

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

[Unbornchild]

Ummm... and thanks very much Dave Baumann for the essential information? I think that deserves applause.

[NKD]

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.

[eleeter]

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'm curious about this too, especially the 4 that apparently died and were not modified or overclocked.


And everyone that helped sort this out and make the proper tools available to revive the cards, pat yourself on the back!

[jimmyz]

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!!

[DemonEyez]

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!

And a big thanx for Dave for clearing things up

[GoldenTiger]

Ummm... and thanks very much Dave Baumann for the essential information? I think that deserves applause.

Quoted for truth as well.

[W1zzard]

the cards were flashed correctly from the factory. the problem was that the flashing tools & gpuz did not read the whole bios

[NKD]

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.

[DemonEyez]

the cards were flashed correctly from the factory. the problem was that the flashing tools & gpuz did not read the whole bios

I meant flashing by end-users themselves

[Marvin_The_Martian]

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!

And a big thanx for Dave for clearing things up

QFT +1

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.

You did indeed, but some other did not and I think some action might be in order.

[eleeter]

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.

[wiak]

ATi GOD is watching over us

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.

or hold your peace
didnt some dude's cards have diffrent bioses? i swear some dude with two of them had 2 diffrent bios revisions

[SimBy]

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'm not sure there were many I only know of one or two cases:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...0&postcount=84

[Marvin_The_Martian]

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.

Some advice, don't hold your breath...

[Ral3l3it]

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?

[NKD]

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.