Fixing a Bad BIOS Flash on the 4870

[zerazax]

Yeah if 870 was stable for you earlier, these puppies probably have a lot more headroom. Slap on an HR-03GT and we might see 900+ on air...

THANK YOU all for the fix, thanks wizzard and all the great xs users who helped him with the fix (i believe dave realized the file size issue )

I take it the issue was fixed?

[GoldenTiger]

Yeah if 870 was stable for you earlier, these puppies probably have a lot more headroom. Slap on an HR-03GT and we might see 900+ on air...

Wouldn't surprise me greatly... .

[ripken204]

Yeah if 870 was stable for you earlier, these puppies probably have a lot more headroom. Slap on an HR-03GT and we might see 900+ on air...



I take it the issue was fixed?

slap water on there
one a water block comes out, its mine

[Solus Corvus]

If I end up getting 900~1000 on water with my 4870 I will be completely ecstatic. Even at stock clocks it should be plenty fast for the games I play (Quake Wars is my main one) at 1920x1200 with 4xAA, judging from the reviews. At 1000 it should have plenty of power for 8xAA + every graphical option I can tweak set to max. <-dark matter cannon impacting my brain

[Big.Wayne]

Solus Corvus: I can almost see the drool coming from your mouth!

[Solus Corvus]

I just hope the stock 4870 cooler clears one of my southbridge coolers until EK blocks become available.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=192970
Second picture shows clearance on G92 GTS, but I have an SLI TR cooler if that one interferes.

[xMrBunglex]

a stock 4870 cooler will definitely hit that monster SB heatsink.

[Solus Corvus]

Ok, I have the SLI (offset) version of the same cooler around here somewhere...

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

OK guys update:

my 1 card that died from flashing is now running perfectly with a new fan profile using a modded 128k BIOS, idles at 45, loads at 56 (20 minutes ATItool tested) i could get into windows so i used the DOS method and it went without a hitch

unfortunately i do have a card with defective ram that needs RMA so my crossfire wont be happening for quite a bit :\

[zerazax]

good to hear you got one of them back up!

at least you'll have something to play with until your 2nd one comes back

[GoldenTiger]

Sorry to hear one of them is dead for you ... but still, on the bright side at least the other one works for you, so you'll have your system in the meantime just not quite as powerful. Here's hoping for a speedy RMA process for you .

[ElAguila]

I tried atiWinflash but it won't even start like it would before (I am on vista 64, used 2.0.0.7 and it was starting/flashing fine, after this issue it no longer will start for some reason, just opens and closes after a split-second in task manager). Any ideas? I only have another PCI-E video card (nvidia), no PCI one, but my rig has 3 PCI-E slots... that's how I was booting to DOS. Is it possible ATIwinflash stopped loading because of an nVidia card in the system?

I had this same issue with atiwinflash when I tried to flash my 3870 X2. I don't know if you got it fixed but this was my solution. If you have a PE disc that was created from XP instead of vista, atiwinflash will work in PE.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

thanks zerazax and goldentiger for the well wishes

im still seeing about 140fps average in cod 4 at max settings, 4xAA @ 1920x1200 card is at 790/1000

[eleeter]

im still seeing about 140fps average in cod 4 at max settings

you better go tri-fire that's a slide show

[xMrBunglex]

yeah, these cards make short work of CoD4. i love a well-optimized game. Infinity Ward rocks.

[shakey]

I have flashed mine quite a few times already (4870), no problems flashing in dos everytime with atiflash. I have a flash memory stick I keep just for booting to dos and flashing.

[halo112358]

I just checked the dumped original bios from my sapphire card, it is indeed truncated. I'll track down a pci video card tomorrow and flash the 4870.bin back onto the board, hopefully that will fix it ^^.

Thanks a ton W1zzard.

To everyone who's up in arms about the thread title ask yourself this, if you modded a bios with a trusted graphics tool to change fan profiles - not to overvolt, not to overclock - and the board worked for a day before crapping out randomly what would your first reaction be? What would your reaction be after you heard that people were having the board die without flashing a bios in? I'm perfectly happy to admit my own mistakes, but I'm not going to take a bunch of for an honest one. I think at this point the title could probably change to reflect the fact that we're talking about fixing a bad bios flash, but the bashing and whining isn't necessary.

[NKD]

same here I have a bootable flash drive and it makes thinks easier than hell, and now my card is working back up thanks to everyone's effort, it all happened for a good reason, lol. bye the way I am getting 40frames average in crysis at 1920x1200 at high settings with my card running at 790/1100 and my e8400 at 4.2, all on air. and with the profile fan speed hack my card idles at 50c running at 43&#37; and stays below 65c under load.

[zerazax]

I just checked the dumped original bios from my sapphire card, it is indeed truncated. I'll track down a pci video card tomorrow and flash the 4870.bin back onto the board, hopefully that will fix it ^^.

Thanks a ton W1zzard.

To everyone who's up in arms about the thread title ask yourself this, if you modded a bios with a trusted graphics tool to change fan profiles - not to overvolt, not to overclock - and the board worked for a day before crapping out randomly what would your first reaction be? What would your reaction be after you heard that people were having the board die without flashing a bios in? I'm perfectly happy to admit my own mistakes, but I'm not going to take a bunch of for an honest one. I think at this point the title could probably change to reflect the fact that we're talking about fixing a bad bios flash, but the bashing and whining isn't necessary.

Well good to hear that your card can probably be saved. If done, let us know and change the title so people know a solution is found.

And that newegg review could use an update too

Good to hear as well NKD that things are working. Looks like most of the problems are fixed and it was probably an honest mistake for most people. Flashing is never a guarantee first week but at least we solved the issue.

Now let's get some Xtreme overclocking going!

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Why isn't this thread locked and removed yet? There were no random deads warranting a thread like this.

[halo112358]

Well good to hear that your card can probably be saved. If done, let us know and change the title so people know a solution is found.

And that newegg review could use an update too

Good to hear as well NKD that things are working. Looks like most of the problems are fixed and it was probably an honest mistake for most people. Flashing is never a guarantee first week but at least we solved the issue.

Now let's get some Xtreme overclocking going!

Hmm, newegg won't let me edit or remove the review. I'll have to write another I guess.

Why isn't this thread locked and removed yet? There were no random deads warranting a thread like this.

I wasn't aware you made policy here, please don't try to be a mini-moderator.

[zerazax]

You can probably email em about it if you feel inclined or write another one as a follow up i'm sure

[Marvin_The_Martian]

I wasn't aware you made policy here, please don't try to be a mini-moderator.

I don't, I just like the XS spirit, and this thread is NOT part of it period. Take it how you want, report me for being rude for saying this I don't care what you do. I already reported my own post asking why it hasn't been closed yet, and you're lucky I'm not a mod because I would have given you some time off to think about how you go about asking help if you messed something up.

One hint, it's not by making it seem like a random accident. The truth will come out eventually.

[halo112358]

You can probably email em about it if you feel inclined or write another one as a follow up i'm sure

Yeah, I'll check with them and see what they can do. After I get the card back up and running I'll give a proper review

I don't, I just like the XS spirit, and this thread is NOT part of it period. Take it how you want, report me for being rude for saying this I don't care what you do. I already reported my own post asking why it hasn't been closed yet, and you're lucky I'm not a mod because I would have given you some time off to think about how you go about asking help if you messed something up.

One hint, it's not by making it seem like a random accident. The truth will come out eventually.

Uh, I think you've made a mistake. I never tried to hide anything about what I did to the card, I've repeated a couple of times that I flashed the bios to modify the fan timing and run the card louder/cooler - I never said "I ran the card stock and it died" - what I did say was "it died randomly in about 24 hours." You can take that as you will, if there was any error it was an honest error of omission, not of malice.

If I hadn't started the thread 5 or 6 people wouldn't have been able to repair their cards - so I ask you this, is it better to report something and try to gather information on it (in the XS spirit) or is it better to just let everyone think that the cards died and RMA them? As a result of sharing information we've got better support in RBE and GPU-Z, and a proper fix tutorial online. I think we've done something constructive here, whether you agree with it or not.

I suggest you stop attacking me personally, I'm not going to participate and I don't much care for your opinion. I am not a moderator, there is nothing I can do to change the thread title - I've already requested that it be changed, what more would you like?

[Marvin_The_Martian]

what I did say was "it died randomly in about 24 hours.

/End converstion right here ok? It's not about who eventually got helped, it's about creating a thread with a misleading subject. Also you might have just edited your first post, no where in there did you admit it could be an user error. You crawled back after you got the attention you needed to ensure someone would figure out what to do and now you're trying to act like you didn't mislead this whole forum?

Edit: but ok you're absolutly right I don't need to act like a mod, that's why I asked them to look at it. If you convinced them I got no problem with them deciding otherwise.