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Successful X1800XL 512mb flashed to XT!

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redbox. If I were you, I would keep the 7800GT for a while. It should handle most today's games except Oblivion. This x1800XL upgrade only good for people like ItsAlive who has a onboard videocard, or me who has a x800gto.

Hey ItsAlive. Are you sure the XL can handle the XT PE bios? 700mhz core/800mhz memory thats a really high overclocking.
 
Originally posted by: zata
redbox. If I were you, I would keep the 7800GT for a while. It should handle most today's games except Oblivion. This x1800XL upgrade only good for people like ItsAlive who has a onboard videocard, or me who has a x800gto.

Hey ItsAlive. Are you sure the XL can handle the XT PE bios? 700mhz core/800mhz memory thats a really high overclocking.
Click to expand...

Can i guarentee it? Of course not, but due to the fact that most of the x1800xt cards can and these are rebadge cards i believe that a very large percentage can. I would definately try flashing to the regular XT bios and overclocking manually to be sure, before attempting the XT PE flash. Also temps might get a tad high for the stock cooler. Make sure to watch the temps as well.

And lordgestle's 700/725 is pretty darn close to PE speeds. Either way its definately worth a shot. Kinda interested to see what the temps are like at those speeds. I read that the stock XT cooler was good to higher speeds tho but i guess YMMV.

As far as the 725mhz limitation, I dont think it is a bios issue and highly doubtful they would take time to physically disable the ram to 750mhz, cause why not just limit it to 600mhz with the 1.4ns ram thereby saving money? It might possibly be that the ram couldnt cut it at that speed and voltage.
 
The 360 has limited DX10 support. However consoles run differently so they would have to re-write code to port to PC. Which takes alot of time and again with the working out of the bugs its really hard to say. I guess wether you would want to wait for DX10 all depends on what you are working with currently. As i have stated im working on the bottom of the GFX food chain at the moment so the upgrade is practically a no brainer for me. I cant even run Oblivion at anything other than lowest settings and frame dips into the teens LMAO. Although, thats pretty good for onboard and its very comparable to my 9600xt 128mb AGP card.
 
can you give us a step by step process for nooobs like me
which program to use to flash
which bios you used.
which commands you did.

blah.
 
I dont have my card yet, but I have used a flash program before so its much the same process.

1) Install card and latest catalyst drivers which you can get here for XP users.

2) Use Overclocker to overclock in small increments while bumping voltages minimally to see if the card can handle stock XT clocks of 625mhz core/750mhz memory. If your card can handle these clocks then its safe to procede with flashing.

3) Download ATITool 0.25 beta 14 here and install.

4) Download desired stock X1800XT 512mb bios and Atiflash v3.09 here.Any stock XT 512mb bios should work, Atiflash is listed at the bottom of the page.

5) Create a bootable Dos Floppy Disk. For XP users Insert a Floppy diskette and navigate to My Computer and right-click the Floppy drive Icon. Click format, click the box that says Create an MS-DOS startup disk and then click start.

6) Create a flash.bat file by opening a new text document and inserting these command lines. Line 1: atiflash -s 0 original.bin Line 2: atiflash -newbios -f -p 0 nameofyourbios.bin . Replace nameofyourbios with the name of your bios 😛 . Save the file as flash.bat

7) Unpack the bios file and Atiflash v3.09 files. Click and drag the bios file, the two Atiflash files, and your flash.bat file to the floppy Icon. There should now be 4 files total on the previously created MS-DOS boot disk.

8) Boot your computer from the floppy drive with the disk in place. When prompted to boot from floppy, accept and type in the command flash.bat and momentarily you should have an X1800XT 512mb card. DO NOT RESTART OR POWER DOWN YOUR COMPUTER WHILE THE FLASH IS IN PROGRESS YOU MAY RUIN YOUR CARD.

9) Clean and reinstall catalyst drivers.
 
Hey LordGestle what XT BIOS did you flash? I've verified that I have the 1.2ns RAM but anything more than 660 is giving me artifacts/crashes in ATITool. I was playing with some BIOSes today and almost wanst able to get the stock back on. None of the ones I tried seemed to help the memory.

Will try (carefully) tomorrow...
 
Try setting core voltage to 1.4 and memory voltage to 2.015. Then try overclocking with AtiTool. If that doesnt work try 1.8 volts on the memory and see if that will get you any higher.
 
Its at 1.8/1.8 right now via OCer. ATITool doesnt change it. I've been up to 2.1/2.1 and the results were much the same as at 1.8/1.8.

Although I havent tried upping the core while testing the mem...
 
Well 1.36v is stock core voltage for the XT. I do know that Overclocker loosens timings on the ram to gain speed. When you flashed to the XT bios did you use the -newbios command and flash using Atiflash v3.09? Also what size power supply are you running, Watts/Amps?
 
Originally posted by: user0001
Hey LordGestle what XT BIOS did you flash? I've verified that I have the 1.2ns RAM but anything more than 660 is giving me artifacts/crashes in ATITool. I was playing with some BIOSes today and almost wanst able to get the stock back on. None of the ones I tried seemed to help the memory.

Will try (carefully) tomorrow...
Click to expand...
I was using the Saphire XT and XT PE Bios listed on the techpowerup. I'm still having issues with memory over 720 regardless of bios and or voltage range from 1.8-2.0v on the memory. I was hoping to get a Stock MSI X1800XT bios just for kicks but I have a feeling it would be the same.
So for simplicity sake I went back to a modified XL bios with the clocks set to 620/720 and GPU voltage set to 1.3. The default XL bios already has the memory at 2.0v. This way I don't need to worry about the different 2d/3d clocks since the XL only has one and I would not need to worry or use any type of 3rd party utility to mess with the clocks in the future.
I'm thinking either 2 scenarios are occurring on the XL's.
1) These are no doubt X1800XT (600/750) cards but I'm wondering if they were only tested as XL cards (500/500). Hence the memory was never tested and therefore could fail at XT speeds. This would explain both of our cases.
2) As mentioned earlier these could be failing to meet the XT mark when they were tested as such cards and therefore sold as XL cards (Speed Binned). This does not make total sense as we already have reports of 2 cards flashing successfully as X1800XT PE cards. It could be possible that some are speed binned and the rest are overstock XT's to push the X1800 products out since they are End of Life. This could explain both scenarios.
What I find odd is that we have 1.2 memory capable of running 750mhz (1500DDR) but they are failing to get to that level. After a few more reports I think we will find out if it's 1 or 2 as listed above or something entirely different.
Either case I figure it's a gamble but for the price point I think it's worth it. As mentioned earlier if you are looking for a guaranteed X1800XT you are better off purchasing a labeled X1800XT. If your are looking for an X1800XL for 199$ that could "possibly" reach X1800XT speeds, then this is the card for you. Just as in overclocking any product nothing is a given. You need to be satisfied with the product for what the stock is running at and consider anything extra a bonus.

Edit:
Spelling
 
I agree with you whole heartedly it is a gamble and if you arent a risk taker its better to just get an extra $100 and go for the XT. I am a risk taker and a budget builder and i needed a good card that was gonna last me, I think i found it in purchasing the XL card. Plus im an enthusiast which means i like to tweak things LOL 😛

Edit: LMAO i have an ATI Clone now......I took off the fugly MSI stickers and underneath is ATI everything. You wouldnt be able to tell the difference cept for the S/N number on the back that says XL next to it.
 
Well, I couldn't resist jumping on this deal as well. I've had extremely good luck with ATI the last few generations. A 9500NP that softmodded into a 9700, an ATI refurb X800XT PE and now this 512mb X1800XL that should mod to an XT or XT PE. And every one of them was right around the $200 price point.

While reading up on the various XL's and XT's I came across an interesting tidbit from an AnandTech article.

ATI supports Radeon X1800 XT overclocking

ATI is also showing that its sanctions about overlocking are more relaxed than ever by even supplying certain board partners with a software utility that will put their Radeon X1800 XT board through tests. Once the board has been determined to be of exceptional quality, the utility will signal a message indicating the board is capable of overlocking. The advisory indicates that at this point, partners are advised to perform application tests before locking the new speeds into BIOS.
Click to expand...

Has this program been leaked into end user hands yet? It seems like it could be a useful little tool.
 
I got my X1800XL on Tuesday and here's what I've found:

Overclocking with ATITool meant that I couldn't take the RAM higher than 666 (scary!) before artifacts appeared. With Overclocker, I could go a bit higher, but still not 750.

I went ahead and flashed it with the Sapphire X1800XT BIOS at the techpowerup.com site listed earlier. Use the older BIOS (I believe its dated Oct) as the newer one is set to PE speeds for 3D mode.

At first, I couldn't get the card to play games at 3D clock speeds, it was always stuck at 2D speeds (600/700). I tried Cat 6.5 and 6.4 and neither one worked. Installed 6.3 CCC Cats, and everything was golden. I can game at 625/750 with no artifacts using the combo of the Sapphire Oct X1800XT bios and the 6.3 Cats. I had originally tried the Nov. Sapphire BIOS, but with mem at 800, I got nasty artifacts pretty quickly after starting a game.

I haven't tried messing with voltages too much to try for a higher clock. If anything, I've dropped the mem voltage to 1.9 from 2.1. The core is at 1.275 which is the stock voltage for the Sapphire BIOS. I've upped my fan speed to 50% and I idle around 55C. After an hour of gaming I was up to 72C. Keep in mind that I'm using this in a QPack case and also I haven't added AS5/ASC to the core yet. Actually I haven't taken the cooler off at all (not even to verify the RAM 🙂 ) because I was unsure how that would affect the contact between the RAM and the cooler (it's just TIM right? will replacing that with AS5/ASC still give good contact with the cooler?).

So, I'm very happy with where I'm at. If I can get PE speeds, great, but I was already very happy with the original XL speeds (upgraded from a X800XL), so going higher than XT speeds isn't really a priority for me right now. If anything, I'd like to cool my card better, but I don't want to change the current cooler as I like the fact that it emits the heat outside of the case (and I don't like Arctic Cooling products as the last cooler I bought from them killed 2 9800Pro's). So if anyone could tell me what they did about the TIM that contacts the RAM, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!

 
Originally posted by: dark79
If anything, I'd like to cool my card better, but I don't want to change the current cooler as I like the fact that it emits the heat outside of the case (and I don't like Arctic Cooling products as the last cooler I bought from them killed 2 9800Pro's). So if anyone could tell me what they did about the TIM that contacts the RAM, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I think that those coolers where faulty...I remember hearing that they had a problem with the 9series ati cards. I have the Arctic Cooling for my 7800gt and I have it at 550/1300. still doing nice. ask around though as I don't know about the ATI cards.
 
Originally posted by: dark79
I got my X1800XL on Tuesday and here's what I've found:

Overclocking with ATITool meant that I couldn't take the RAM higher than 666 (scary!) before artifacts appeared. With Overclocker, I could go a bit higher, but still not 750.

I went ahead and flashed it with the Sapphire X1800XT BIOS at the techpowerup.com site listed earlier. Use the older BIOS (I believe its dated Oct) as the newer one is set to PE speeds for 3D mode.

At first, I couldn't get the card to play games at 3D clock speeds, it was always stuck at 2D speeds (600/700). I tried Cat 6.5 and 6.4 and neither one worked. Installed 6.3 CCC Cats, and everything was golden. I can game at 625/750 with no artifacts using the combo of the Sapphire Oct X1800XT bios and the 6.3 Cats. I had originally tried the Nov. Sapphire BIOS, but with mem at 800, I got nasty artifacts pretty quickly after starting a game.

I haven't tried messing with voltages too much to try for a higher clock. If anything, I've dropped the mem voltage to 1.9 from 2.1. The core is at 1.275 which is the stock voltage for the Sapphire BIOS. I've upped my fan speed to 50% and I idle around 55C. After an hour of gaming I was up to 72C. Keep in mind that I'm using this in a QPack case and also I haven't added AS5/ASC to the core yet. Actually I haven't taken the cooler off at all (not even to verify the RAM 🙂 ) because I was unsure how that would affect the contact between the RAM and the cooler (it's just TIM right? will replacing that with AS5/ASC still give good contact with the cooler?).

So, I'm very happy with where I'm at. If I can get PE speeds, great, but I was already very happy with the original XL speeds (upgraded from a X800XL), so going higher than XT speeds isn't really a priority for me right now. If anything, I'd like to cool my card better, but I don't want to change the current cooler as I like the fact that it emits the heat outside of the case (and I don't like Arctic Cooling products as the last cooler I bought from them killed 2 9800Pro's). So if anyone could tell me what they did about the TIM that contacts the RAM, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

interesting, so with a BIOS flash and a driver change, you were able to go from 670~ to 750 mem clock?
 
I posted the below on the hotdeals but I cut n pasted here. What I found with the other bioses on techpower was I could not get my memory past 725. Once I used the MSI XT bios it was 620/750 stable.
I only used catalyst drivers 6.5. I noticed that all the bioses that I used were dated november. My main concern with the october versions was that I new this card was using the new layout and I was unsure using the older bios was wise. It appears its working great for you so that's new information.
Regarding the memory cooling I noticed when I removed the heatsink that the pads stayed attached to the heatsink. The pads are similar to what is used in the newer AC Silencers. I'm not a thermal expert but I would think the removal/install did not loose me to much.
I'm in the same boat as far as 3rd party cooling. I hate to say it but the OEM one is the only one that will exhaust the heat outside the case. The zalman models look good but no exhaust. Even artic cooling does not have a compatible silencer for the x18(9)00 cards in the retail marked (only for oem).



Post on Hotdeals:

Last piece of the puzzel!!!
You need the MSI X1800XT Bios! On my card no other bios would allow past 700mhz on the memory. I'm happy to report I received the MSI X1800XT Bios from BIGD and I flashed my card to a true MSI X1800XT. No Pending Issues now and my memory is clocked to 620/750 via the default OverDrive.

My CYA: As always flashing, overclocking, and/or modding your card is a risk. If you cannot afford the loss do not proceed above. Someone looking for a guaranteed XT should buy an XT since overclocking is not guaranteed.

Before Proceeding I would make sure your current MSI X1800XL card works at the advertised speed (500\500) with a few loops of aquamark, futuremark, glexcess, and/or combination with ATI Tool artifact tester. You can download ATI Tool here: ATI Tool 0.25 Beta 14 from www.techpowerup.com

This way before flashing you don't add complication if your card is faulty out of the box, can process an RMA if needed since you have not voided the waranty, and/or could troubleshoot driver/system related issues before the flash.

I will also leave it up to others if testing your card at 600/700 with GPU set to 1.3v via ATI Tool is necessary before the flash. I would lean towards this approach since it's very difficult to flash back if you cannot get into windows with those clocks and follow the procedure below for a reflash. The reason being is you cannot set it back to 500\500 via overclocker which makes the flashing process possible (or less difficult). I did not experience an issue getting back to windows but I don't feel comfortable saying everyone will have the same success😉


So here are the complete steps to flash from a MSI X1800XL 512MB card to a MSI X1800XT:
1) Download ATIFLASH. ATI Flash from www.TechPowerup.com
2) Make a bootable disk via DRDFlash: DRDFLash from www.bootdisk.com
3) Copy the extracted (unzipped) ATIFLASH and MSIX1800XT bios from my website to the disk you created in step 2. So you should have ATIFLASH.exe and MSIX18XT.bin (rename if necessary) in the root of your A drive:
MSI X1800XT Bios from Torchedpc.com
4) Reboot your computer
5) When your system boots to the floppy type in this command to save your current bios: atiflash -s 0 oldbios.bin
6) Type in this command to flash the new bios: atiflash -newbios -f -p 0 msix18xt.bin
7) Reboot your computer if successfull
8) Load into windows, install the ATI drivers if not done so previously, launch ATI Catalyst Control Center, Select Advanced View, Select Overdrive and select unlock if you want it to run at 620/750 in 3d mode.

Thanks again to BigD from techpowerup for the bios.

If you have already flashed your bios to an XT Bios and you want to revert back to your saved original bios, or to another XT bios, perform the following:
1) Use oveclocker tool to set 2d GPU/Mem to 500MHZ within Windows. Overclocker from www.techpowerup.com
2) Use winflash to flash back to the original XL bios of 500/500. If you didn't back it up here you go: MSIX1800XL Stock Bios from Torchedpc.com
3) Reboot when prompted and use the ATIflash method above again with the default ( atiflash -newbios -f -p 0 msix18xt.bin or oldbios.bin) or a new XT bios ( atiflash -newbios -f -p 0 newbios.bin.
Not following this order will cause a screen corruption and flash failure. The flash failure locks up your machine but does not bork your card at least in my experience.
 
Originally posted by: dark79
I got my X1800XL on Tuesday and here's what I've found:

Overclocking with ATITool meant that I couldn't take the RAM higher than 666 (scary!) before artifacts appeared. With Overclocker, I could go a bit higher, but still not 750.

I went ahead and flashed it with the Sapphire X1800XT BIOS at the techpowerup.com site listed earlier. Use the older BIOS (I believe its dated Oct) as the newer one is set to PE speeds for 3D mode.

At first, I couldn't get the card to play games at 3D clock speeds, it was always stuck at 2D speeds (600/700). I tried Cat 6.5 and 6.4 and neither one worked. Installed 6.3 CCC Cats, and everything was golden. I can game at 625/750 with no artifacts using the combo of the Sapphire Oct X1800XT bios and the 6.3 Cats. I had originally tried the Nov. Sapphire BIOS, but with mem at 800, I got nasty artifacts pretty quickly after starting a game.

I haven't tried messing with voltages too much to try for a higher clock. If anything, I've dropped the mem voltage to 1.9 from 2.1. The core is at 1.275 which is the stock voltage for the Sapphire BIOS. I've upped my fan speed to 50% and I idle around 55C. After an hour of gaming I was up to 72C. Keep in mind that I'm using this in a QPack case and also I haven't added AS5/ASC to the core yet. Actually I haven't taken the cooler off at all (not even to verify the RAM 🙂 ) because I was unsure how that would affect the contact between the RAM and the cooler (it's just TIM right? will replacing that with AS5/ASC still give good contact with the cooler?).

So, I'm very happy with where I'm at. If I can get PE speeds, great, but I was already very happy with the original XL speeds (upgraded from a X800XL), so going higher than XT speeds isn't really a priority for me right now. If anything, I'd like to cool my card better, but I don't want to change the current cooler as I like the fact that it emits the heat outside of the case (and I don't like Arctic Cooling products as the last cooler I bought from them killed 2 9800Pro's). So if anyone could tell me what they did about the TIM that contacts the RAM, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Dont use that bios use this one, even though it is labed at x1800xt, it is actually PE.
http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/Sapphire.X1800XT.512.Samsung126_051116.bin

Also you should know that the only way to see 3dspeed is to leave rivatuner open, and let the monitoring record for a moment while you open a 3dapp.

Also know that the core voltage at 3d(700mhz) speed is 1.5v.

Also make sure to raise the fan speed above default by using atitool. (like set the fan speed to 50% once is reaches 75-80C)

All this is said as me being the guy with the fastest x1800xl flashed to x1800xtpe in here.(or even the world!)
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2064678
 
Just wondering what type of PSUs everyone is running? Cause im running the one in my sig, 450w 12v1=15amps 12v2=17amps. I noticed that in AtiTool it reads its using 32.7amps. Anything over that an I get artifacts and lock ups. I'm pretty sure this is the reason i cannot reach the XT speeds. The highest clocks I've gotten are 680/747 stable. I ran artifact scanner for like 10min and not even a hint of an artifact was seen. Yet, if i bump the clocks anymore I get tons of artifacts and my PC locks up almost instantly. Hope this helps anyone else having problems. I might try to upgrade my PSU and see if that helps.

btw: I scored 9100 on 3dmark05 with 680/747. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: ItsAlive
Just wondering what type of PSUs everyone is running? Cause im running the one in my sig, 450w 12v1=15amps 12v2=17amps. I noticed that in AtiTool it reads its using 32.7amps. Anything over that an I get artifacts and lock ups. I'm pretty sure this is the reason i cannot reach the XT speeds. The highest clocks I've gotten are 680/747 stable. I ran artifact scanner for like 10min and not even a hint of an artifact was seen. Yet, if i bump the clocks anymore I get tons of artifacts and my PC locks up almost instantly. Hope this helps anyone else having problems. I might try to upgrade my PSU and see if that helps.

btw: I scored 9100 on 3dmark05 with 680/747. 🙂
Click to expand...

Using the same PSU here. I can take the RAM up to about 775 before getting artifacts. Haven't tried the core past 650 but didn't have any issues there. If this DFI Infinity RS482 didn't have so many PSU incompatibilties I'd start looking for a PSU 🙁

EDIT:
Just tested an OCZ Powerstream 600W with my system and tried a higher clock on the card both with the non-PE and the PE BIOS. The results were the same. So, ItsAlive, I wouldn't recommend going out and buying another PSU as it looks like our cards just can't clock to PE speeds. Maybe better cooling on the RAM would help, but I don't want to lose the stock cooler as I like the heat emitted out of the back of the case. Replacing the thermal pads might help, but I wouldn't know where to even look to get them.
 
Thanx for the heads up on the PSU dark. I figured i had enough power but just like to verify with other people to be sure. I may try grabbing a Zalman cooler or something of the sort.
 
Well I have a card but I am confused on the atiflash.
I believe lordGestle and some others said get the tool and some
have specifically said .09 version but the latest is .15
does it matter?
I dl both to be sure 🙂

thanks big time for help
I don't want to screw up anything

================
ps after telling some friends about this ...of course they missed out after waiting for the
page to say sold out. Now they are all saying don't flash it...everyone is dying and going back and zipzoomfly and msi are now saying its not under warranty

ANY truth to this or a bunch of sore heads making up stories
================


Etrin
 
I used the versions linked in the thread so I'm unable to comment on any newer versions. I would tend to stick with what is known.

Regarding all the cards dying and going back to zipzoomfly or MSI I would believe that this is false. On the contrary I believe they are busy enjoying the overclocked XL or 199$ XT🙂 If your card is stable at XT speeds there should be no reason why these would be less reliable as they are the same physical card.

That being said I'm sure the bios mod does void your warranty simply do to the fact that it came stock with an XL bios. Overclocking also voids your warranty with many manufacturers. It's up to a personal choice as well. I don't believe people should rma cards after they cranked some obscene clocks into the card and it failed or if the card was not an overclocking champ. That is my decision.

I was prepared to keep the card if it did not make an XT and I considered it a bonus that it did.

Either case 199$ for a 512MB XL is a great deal and the possibility of it becoming a 199$ XT was a hot deal.

Good luck.
 
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