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9800 non-pro w/3.3ns Samsung memory - flash to pro?

MichaelD

MichaelD

Lifer
I know this is an old topic, but any help or guidance would be appreciated. 🙂

I have a Sapphire 9800 non-pro with 3.3ns Samsung memory.

With overclocking (RivaTuner) I cannot hit Pro speeds. I get within 5MHz on the core, but only to within 20MHz on the memory, then I get artifacts. It's been running stably at 370/330 for months now, no probs.

Being that I couldn't hit Pro speeds by OCing, I decided not to flash to 9800 pro.

In another thread, someone mentioned to go ahead and flash, it'll be fine. I'm a bit skittish about that.

Anyone been in this same situation? What were the results, please?
 
If its struggling to do it with RivaTuner, I wouldnt even try a BIOS update unless it really does increase core voltage and memory voltage. Although I dont think it would.
 
Heard flashing it could change the memory timings of the memory which I guess might relax the timings and allow the ram to hit higher frequencies, dunno if there's any proof to that though. I haven't personally had this happen to me but there's a possibility that flashing it to Pro frequencies and having the card fail @ those speeds may cause the graphics card to fail during BIOS/DOS screen post which would mean you'd have to blind flash or use a PCI card to see what your doing to flash it back. Lastly this is hearsay but I also heard that ppl who had Samsung memory on a 9800NP which couldn't reach Pro speeds by regular overclocking means were successful in achieving 9800 Pro frequencies by flashing it.

On a related note, I did attempt to flash my old 9800NP knowing beforehand that my GPU could surpass 380MHz although my Infineon ram's limit was 320MHz. Unfortunately the flashed failed and in the worse case I had artifacts in Windows a few moments after boot. Seeing that my card couldn't handle it, I flashed it back to it's original BIOS. @ the time I used a 9800 Pro Samsung BIOS so it's possible that the reason that my attempt failed was due to the BIOS which was meant for Samsung memory and not mine or simply put, my memory couldn't reach 337-338MHz ~340 to begin with.
 
I would try it, I had the exact card you did and once I flashed it I was able to overclock it to 440/375...awesome card!
 
I flashed my Sapphire 9800NP with Samsung 3.3ns about 7-8 months ago. All is well. I got a pretty large increase in performance based on 3DMark2003. 4600 ---> 5500. I do get a few artifacts when I run 3DMark2k3 with full AF and AA, (just on the Pixel shader test, I could probably use some better cooling) but since I don't play games much with it on, I don't worry about it. I didn't test many games on it since I had just got it, and didn't have many installed yet. At the time I did it, HL2 was suppose to be out soon....oh well. But all is well here. I'd go for it if I were you.
 
Well, that didn't work out too well. 🙁

The flash went excellently; no probs at all!

Reboot. System reports 9800 PRO. Rivatuner, the same. Desktop got all rearranged like it does when you reinstall drivers...had to resize it etc. Reboot. All is good!

Run 3DM2003: All is not good. Right off the bat, it looked like I was tripping on really bad acid. The planes were actually flying triangles. You could see the insides of the planes and the sky was green. Real bad sh1t, man. 😉

Anyway, I reflashed back to the old bios and all is well. Already ran it thru 3DM2003; it's fine.

*whew!* :Q

Moral of the story: There's a reason my card was not sold as a Pro. That reason is: My card sucks. 🙁

*shrug* I have 95% the performance of a pro, so I'll be OK for awhile. 🙂
 
Bump to see if MichaelD pulled off a free performance boost! :beer:

Damn! Ihit reply, get past the jscript crap, submit and Mike has an update! Sorry to hear it brudda! but 95% is good enough for goverment work! 🙂
 
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Bump to see if MichaelD pulled off a free performance boost! :beer:

Damn! Ihit reply, get past the jscript crap, submit and Mike has an update! Sorry to hear it brudda! but 95% is good enough for goverment work! 🙂
Click to expand...

😉 Hey, I gave it a shot. When it first rebooted and I got a pristine desktop, I was like:

[Neo] Whoa. [/Neo]

When I saw 3DM, I was like:

Oh $hit.
Click to expand...

When I was able to flash back, I simply said THANK YOU. 😀
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Bump to see if MichaelD pulled off a free performance boost! :beer:

Damn! Ihit reply, get past the jscript crap, submit and Mike has an update! Sorry to hear it brudda! but 95% is good enough for goverment work! 🙂
Click to expand...

😉 Hey, I gave it a shot. When it first rebooted and I got a pristine desktop, I was like:

[Neo] Whoa. [/Neo]

When I saw 3DM, I was like:

Oh $hit.
Click to expand...

When I was able to flash back, I simply said THANK YOU. 😀
Click to expand...
LMAO! :beer: Your day will come my friend, your day will come! 🙂
 
Got my 9800NP to 425/365 stable. Got four of them 8 months ago from a guy at HardOCP forums for $200 each, tested them and kept the best one for myself and sold the rest on eBay with $100 profit each 🙂 These came from Dell, BTW. And came with Samsung 2.86ns RAM.
 
Originally posted by: LukFilm
Got my 9800NP to 425/365 stable. Got four of them 8 months ago from a guy at HardOCP forums for $200 each, tested them and kept the best one for myself and sold the rest on eBay with $100 profit each 🙂 These came from Dell, BTW. And came with Samsung 2.86ns RAM.
Click to expand...
You rule...no wait! you suck! Dammit I can't even make up my mind about your post other than that I'm envious you got such a rightous deal so long ago! bastage! :laugh:
 
Originally posted by: LukFilm
Got my 9800NP to 425/365 stable. Got four of them 8 months ago from a guy at HardOCP forums for $200 each, tested them and kept the best one for myself and sold the rest on eBay with $100 profit each 🙂 These came from Dell, BTW. And came with Samsung 2.86ns RAM.
Click to expand...

You suck massive donkey nads. 😉

Everyone gets lucky but me. 🙁
 
MichaelD, I'm sorry the flash didn't workout for you. Yours is the first I've read that failed with the Samsung ram. Well at least you did the right thing and backed up your old bios. Good to hear you were able to flash it back without any problem.

This goes to show that nothing is guaranteed in overclocking. I thought the Samsung ram was guaranteed. I was wrong.

I'm glad no harm was done to your card.
 
Originally posted by: Naustica
MichaelD, I'm sorry the flash didn't workout for you. Yours is the first I've read that failed with the Samsung ram. Well at least you did the right thing and backed up your old bios. Good to hear you were able to flash it back without any problem.

This goes to show that nothing is guaranteed in overclocking. I thought the Samsung ram was guaranteed. I was wrong.

I'm glad no harm was done to your card.
Click to expand...

Me too! 🙂

I have to thank you though;you gave me the impetus to actually flash the card, which I previously did not have the balls to do. 😱 At least now I know. 😉
 
My 3.3ns Samsung flashed just fine.

I can safely OC to 399/372 without artifacts. As verified by ATiTool.

I couldn't reach pro speeds on my memory pre-flash, but well exceeded them post-flash. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
My 3.3ns Samsung flashed just fine.

I can safely OC to 399/372 without artifacts. As verified by ATiTool.

I couldn't reach pro speeds on my memory pre-flash, but well exceeded them post-flash. 🙂
Click to expand...

*sigh* Can I touch you for good luck? Sometimes you win (my Rev1.0 8RDA+ does 200MHz w/o any issues at all) and sometimes you lose. This thread would be my loose. 🙁
 
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