Bios flashing 4870s

[F1shF4t]

I just bought a Sapphire 4870 1 gig card for crossfire with my current MSI one and modified the cards bios to fix the annoying fan speed up bug and get a bit better cooling. Unlike my MSI card the mem on this one is rock stable at 1000mhz (4000 effective).

Whenever I change the mem clocks in the vga bios after flashing the card it will stay in 2d clocks even when running 3d apps. Changing the mem clock back to stock and reflashing fixes the issue. Both my original MSI card and the new sapphire one exhibit the same issue.
All the other modifications work (lower volts at idle and new fan profile)

I use RBE v1.17 to modify the card's bios.
Has anyone else found any similar issues?

 

[Hauk]

I had no issues, clocks would switch back and forth for GPU and mem no problem. Are you using RBE correctly, all values changed in the right places?

You may be a pro, if so please forgive the RBE 101, but a couple points:

Be sure to all green, yellow red values read the same. In the highlighted area, left click on values 1 thru 3 to see the highlighted fields.

For working Powerplay and lower temps, I suggest all green and yellow fields be set to 507gpu 500ram and 1.237 voltage. This mimics 4870x2 settings for these these fields; however 4870 X2 voltage was as low as 1.205. For all red (3D) fields, this is where you want your OC's, ie 780cpu 980mem, and 1.263 voltage. I suggest keeping mem under 980, that 1000 is nice but not needed. Both cards should match on all settings!

Now over to the Fan Speed tab, I suggest clicking on the highlighted tab first, this will change Tmin/Tmax values to a good setting, then change the Duty Cycle min to at least 35.

I modded a 4870 X2 and a couple 48701GB cards with these settings and had very low temps as a result. Didn't have any issues with clocks not switching back and forth properly. Hope this helps.

 

[dguy6789]

Kind of off topic and I don't mean to thread jack but I don't think my question deserved it's own thread. Is there a way to completely disable the 2D clocks and have the card run at it's maximum clocks at all times without using an overclocking program and without using profiles? If the only way to do it is with profiles though, I will.

 

[Hauk]

You could do it with a bios mod, not sure about profiles. You'd have to modify bios so all clocks settings are same as full 3D clocks. In the screen I posted, Clock info 00 is the boot clock. Pretty much all settings would be set to match that (or whatever OC values you'd want). I'm sure most would see doing so as unnecessary but it's your call. As long as fan speed is adjusted, card would run fairly cool.

 

[F1shF4t]

SteelSix Thanks for the reply.
I'm not a pro at using RBE, but I'm familiar with the basic settings.

For fan settings I prefer to use the look up table, gives me control of fixed fan speed for a certain temp range. Allows me to keep the fan mostly at constant speed with varying game loads (A lot less annoying cause it doesn't constantly change speeds). I don't know of any issues with it but its been working well for me on 3 cards.

For core clocks and volts I do exactly as you described, except for the voltages where the sapphire card is set to 1.143 on green and yellow fields and 1.263 on red fields. (MSI one is on 1.203 on green and yellow fields) There is 10mhz difference in core clocks but I haven't had any issues with crossfire.

The settings above work fine, but when I start changing mem clocks is where it goes wonky.
If I set the mem clocks to say 950, the card does not switch to 3d clocks under load, CCC reads only idle clocks and the gpu load always some high percentage. (~85%) even when the card is not under load)
BTW: modifying the same bios file to default mem clocks fixes the issue

I have another palit 4870 512 in another comp (this is the card for all test purposes as its is a 2 bios card and I can brick one with no ill effects ) Similar issues except it does switch to 3d clocks but CCC does not pick it up and gpu load is the same stuck at a high number.

At the moment I use default mem clocks of 900mhz. Performance wise it does not make a difference (but is sure nicer to see 4000 instead of 3600 ), but I do want to find out if I'm the one making an error or is it just a bug etc. (Just so I don't accidently kill the cards or something)

 

[dguy6789]

This sounds pretty cool. Is it possible to do all of this within windows?(Vista x64 to be specific) I just want to read my card's bios, adjust the 2D clocks to match the 3D clocks, and then just flash. Maybe increase the 2D fan speed a bit to account for it. I don't have a practical reason for this, I'm just one of those finicky guys. I can't stand speed step or cool and quiet for similar reasons XD

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
This sounds pretty cool. Is it possible to do all of this within windows?(Vista x64 to be specific) I just want to read my card's bios, adjust the 2D clocks to match the 3D clocks, and then just flash. Maybe increase the 2D fan speed a bit to account for it. I don't have a practical reason for this, I'm just one of those finicky guys. I can't stand speed step or cool and quiet for similar reasons XD

Yep you can, You also can flash from within windows using WinFlash. The reason I'm mucking around with idle clocks is to conserve a bit of power when the cards are idling (I started to pay my own power bills ).

BTW: Before using winflash there are a few things you need to know.
1. Its a lot more risk to do it from within windows
2. With vista x64 you need to disable driver signing for it to work (F8 on startup etc)
3. Occasionally the driver will crash. What you will be greeted with is a black screen and a mouse pointer. Vista will be trying to recover so you could get flashes in which you'll see the flashing progress. When this happen for me, when I see in one of those random screen that its finished I just do a hard reset.
4. Alternatively you could get a BSOD and brick your card. (In which case you'll need another video card to recover from the bad flash, or to do it blindly from DOS)

 

[dguy6789]

I've flashed cards in windows before, just never did it with Vista 64 and never did it with a 4870 before. Thanks for the info. Since it's possible for the program to crash while doing the flash, I don't think I will bother with it then. Thanks.

 

[Hauk]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake

Originally posted by: dguy6789
This sounds pretty cool. Is it possible to do all of this within windows?(Vista x64 to be specific) I just want to read my card's bios, adjust the 2D clocks to match the 3D clocks, and then just flash. Maybe increase the 2D fan speed a bit to account for it. I don't have a practical reason for this, I'm just one of those finicky guys. I can't stand speed step or cool and quiet for similar reasons XD

Yep you can, You also can flash from within windows using WinFlash. The reason I'm mucking around with idle clocks is to conserve a bit of power when the cards are idling (I started to pay my own power bills ).

BTW: Before using winflash there are a few things you need to know.
1. Its a lot more risk to do it from within windows
2. With vista x64 you need to disable driver signing for it to work (F8 on startup etc)
3. Occasionally the driver will crash. What you will be greeted with is a black screen and a mouse pointer. Vista will be trying to recover so you could get flashes in which you'll see the flashing progress. When this happen for me, when I see in one of those random screen that its finished I just do a hard reset.
4. Alternatively you could get a BSOD and brick your card. (In which case you'll need another video card to recover from the bad flash, or to do it blindly from DOS)

Learn something new every day, I didn't know that would do it. I was uninstalling drivers prior to flashing. Cool.

Yea dGuy, many will give you the doom and gloom when it comes to flashing, but as long as you have a stable system, flashing is as smooth as flashing a mobo. I much prefer to tune my cards thru bios than third party software.

OP on your problem, I wonder if CCC is reporting wrong on the mem speed. I've seen gpu load when there's nothing happening too, kinda makes me discount CCC readings. Can you run GPU-Z in the background, be sure it's logging, then check it after load?

 

[dguy6789]

My machine is very stable, I just ran 100 passes of linpack yesterday. I am not worried about a hardware crash, but apparently the software hangs sometimes? If not, I'd like to do this, but it isn't worth risking my hardware.

 

[Hauk]

I'd hate to be the one who says go for it and something goes wrong. I'll just say, I've flashed over two dozen cards and have never had an issue. Flashing from a floppy is always best, but with a stable system, all background programs turned off, and drivers uninstalled, Winflash is quite stable. I'd be happy to look at you bios file if you want to save it using GPU-Z and modify it with RBE. Always save an original bios file, in two places..

 

[dguy6789]

I think I'm just gonna forget about it, my machine works perfectly and this wouldn't really benefit anything so I am not going to bother, thanks anyway.

 

[shangshang]

Just a word of caution about BIOS flashing. If possible, do it in DOS! If you have a USB thumb drive laying around, use it to boot to DOS and flash your card with it too. This is probably the safest method. Now here's my personal experience about Winflash. I've flashed a few 4850 for a combined total of about 15 times, all using Winflash (I was trying out different BIOS settings). Well 1 out of 15 times failed for me! What happened was that during one of a flash procedure, Winflash reported a flash failure, but that Windows XP was still working, so I thought ok I'll just reflash the card, but again Winflash reported a failure. At this point I had one of those not-so-good gutural feelings. Anyway, I proceeded to reboot my PC and sure enough, NO VIDEO (black screen, no BIOS posting).

To recover my bricked 4850, I had to use a PCI video card and boot from the PCI card and then use a USB DOS boot disk to reflash the 4850. I also had to reset my BIOS to boot from the PCI card too, because apparently the BIOS still tried to boot from the dead 4850 if it's present in the PCI-E slot (even if dead).

So be preprared to recover! Best to save yourself trouble and flash in Dos using USB. I've certainly learned my lesson!

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I think I'm just gonna forget about it, my machine works perfectly and this wouldn't really benefit anything so I am not going to bother, thanks anyway.

Good call!!

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: SteelSix
I'd hate to be the one who says go for it and something goes wrong. I'll just say, I've flashed over two dozen cards and have never had an issue. Flashing from a floppy is always best, but with a stable system, all background programs turned off, and drivers uninstalled, Winflash is quite stable. I'd be happy to look at you bios file if you want to save it using GPU-Z and modify it with RBE. Always save an original bios file, in two places..

The problem I see with using Winflash is that each guy's system is too varied from another guy, and with Windows and its programs, it's too much to casually assume that a system is "stable". I've flashed a few 4850 on the SAME XP system for 14 consecutive times sucessfully and then faliled on the 15th. This is on the exact same system that has worked on the previous 14 times. So personally I don't trust Winflash anymore. It may worked most of the times, but for that one time that it fails, it will be stressful time for the user. Not every user has a spare PC or spare PCI video card to reflash a bricked card.

DOS present a much more stable and hardware direct path.

So I say go with USB & DOS. The cost of this is almost nil. Just make a USB bootable to DOS and copy the ATIflash and ROM over and run! No need to worry what Windows migh possible be doing while waiting for the flash to complete.

Oh and before this, i also had a 3870 failed on me one time out of about 30 flashes. Apparently I didn't learn my lesson after one 3870 failure. But after a 4850 brick, I think I'm done with using Winflash.

 

[Hauk]

Good points shangshang, sounds like you've had some experience with it. Blind flashing is fun isn't it?? :thumbsup:

Oh wait, I meant :thumbsdown:

 

[F1shF4t]

OP on your problem, I wonder if CCC is reporting wrong on the mem speed. I've seen gpu load when there's nothing happening too, kinda makes me discount CCC readings. Can you run GPU-Z in the background, be sure it's logging, then check it after load?

I use Everest to verify the clocks and it shows the same thing as CCC.
Also run rthbl (or whatever its called). I know that at 750 - 780 clocks the framerate is around 400+, but with 500mhz clocks its more around 340+. That makes me think that everest and CCC are reporting correctly and something is bricked with clocks in the cards bios. Besides that I have no clue why its happening, I guess I might have to just keep the mem at 900.

shangshang good point on not using Winflash. I've had first had experiance with what a bad flash can do in windows, bricked my p5k deluxe a few months ago.
I've been using WinFlash to flash my 4870s, and had the driver crash (Vista recovered long enough to finish the flash) 2 times out of the last 10 flashes, it might be trying to tell me something .

 

[SSChevy2001]

I wouldn't recommend Windows flashing, use only the dos version.

Here's what I did to save power and keep down the heat. I locked my clocks to 550/200 and manual overclock ( via ATi tray tools ) when I need to game. It's give me the best results without having to worry about the clocks switching back and forth when I don't need it. Also I adjusted the auto fan speed to keep the temps at a reasonable level.

Clock settings
Fan settings

Idle results on stock cooler
Load results after overclocking

By the way reducing memory clocks makes the biggest difference in power consumption.

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001
I wouldn't recommend Windows flashing, use only the dos version.

Here's what I did to save power and keep down the heat. I locked my clocks to 550/200 and manual overclock ( via ATi tray tools ) when I need to game. It's give me the best results without having to worry about the clocks switching back and forth when I don't need it. Also I adjusted the auto fan speed to keep the temps at a reasonable level.

Clock settings
Fan settings

Idle results on stock cooler
Load results after overclocking

By the way reducing memory clocks makes the biggest difference in power consumption.

I used to use profiles in CCC to reduce the clocks at idle, but I always forgot to switch to 3d, in the end I just decided to do BIOS mods cause it was fixed to the card no matter the software or rest of system.

By the way nice setup, just not suitable for config I want.

Also regarding the mem clocks, what keeps me from throttling them at idle is the screen flashes associated with it when the clocks change. In your case you'd only get one when switching to game clocks and back in ATi Tray Tools. If i did it in card's bios it would occur a lot more. (As I found out when making profiles in CCC)

I'll post my settings after work.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
I used to use profiles in CCC to reduce the clocks at idle, but I always forgot to switch to 3d, in the end I just decided to do BIOS mods cause it was fixed to the card no matter the software or rest of system.

By the way nice setup, just not suitable for config I want.

Also regarding the mem clocks, what keeps me from throttling them at idle is the screen flashes associated with it when the clocks change. In your case you'd only get one when switching to game clocks and back in ATi Tray Tools. If i did it in card's bios it would occur a lot more. (As I found out when making profiles in CCC)

I'll post my settings after work.

Thanks

Yeah I'm not into using CCC, it's just bloated to hell. Like you said if you have the bios handling everything your going to get constant flashing when it wants to change clock states, it's a limitation of GDDR5. It's one of the reasons the 4870 still has a high idle power.

So I did the next best thing which isn't completely automated, but it's going to say me money down the road and more than likely increase the lifespan of my card.

Here's where I originally found some info on this.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=67928

They saved 38w going from 500/900 @ 1.263v - 550/225 @ 1.263v. I'm running even lower at 550/200 @ 1.083v which I'll guess is about a 45w savings. Going from 550 to 160 is only a 1w savings, so it's not even worth going lower than 550 on the core.

Hope this info helps.

 

[F1shF4t]

Thanks for the info.

I didn't use 1.083v at idle because was unsure if the cards would be stable. (Currently the sapphire one is at 1.143, and the MSI one is 1.203 since it uses an older bios)
SSChevy2001 can you please do a quick test for me if your card is stable at idle clocks with that voltage (5 min or so ATI tool if you use it)

If thats the case I think I will reflash the cards to idle 500/1.083v and 3d of 780/1.263v. I'll have to keep the mem at 900.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Just download ATI Tray Tool. It lets you change voltage and clock speed, without having to flash the bios. Do your test and if you happy change it in the bios.

I'll tell you right now you shouldn't have a problem running 500/900 at low voltages.

I'm over 8min and counting at my 550/200 @ 1.083v.

 

[error8]

Does ATI tray tools let you increase vcore?

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: error8
Does ATI tray tools let you increase vcore?

Only the voltages in the bios are listed and work. Though you can manually put in new voltages, but that doesn't seem to work.

Here's what listed in mine.
1.083 / 1.143 / 1.203 / 1.236

 

[error8]

I added two new voltages ( 1.280 and 1.300) and after applying them, ATi tool started recording artifacts at stock clock, but I got crashes at my previous overclocking value. Something happens, but I don't know if the voltage actually does increase.