What does Flashing BIOS on Video Card do exactly?

[CurtCold]

I'm working on a mod for my 8500, I have a Aftermarket fan ordered, and am putting ram sinks on the board, so hopefully it will run stable about 300/300 or so. I've heard about flashing the card bios, but how do you flash the bios? and why?

If this will allow for a higher overclock I'm all about it.

 

[spanky]

well... in the case of the 8500... it just makes the croe/mem speed faster by default... so u do not need to overclock via software in the OS. for instrustions, i would probably look over in the forums at rage3d.com

 

[merlocka]

The BIOS is basically a small chunk of firmware stored on the card which contains information about the device, configuration data for the IC, and other stuff about the card. It stands for "Basic Input Output System".

Flashing the BIOS allows you to change these setting, which can allow you to alter default clock speeds, chip ID's (which can make an OEM card "look" like a retail card) etc...

Of course, flashing a BIOS comes with some risk. Make sure you understand what your doing (and the associated risk) before you attempt to flash. A failed flashing can render a card useless.

Edit - As far as I know, flashing the BIOS will not allow a "faster" overclock. In some cases, it may be possible to adjust memory timing settings which may allow for a "higher" overclock but the net effect may not be a faster card. In general, flashing the BIOS does nothing more that most tweaker programs do.

 

[spanky]

yeah, what ^ said

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: merlocka
The BIOS is basically a small chunk of firmware stored on the card which contains information about the device, configuration data for the IC, and other stuff about the card. It stands for "Basic Input Output System".

Flashing the BIOS allows you to change these setting, which can allow you to alter default clock speeds, chip ID's (which can make an OEM card "look" like a retail card) etc...

Of course, flashing a BIOS comes with some risk. Make sure you understand what your doing (and the associated risk) before you attempt to flash. A failed flashing can render a card useless.

Edit - As far as I know, flashing the BIOS will not allow a "faster" overclock. In some cases, it may be possible to adjust memory timing settings which may allow for a "higher" overclock but the net effect may not be a faster card. In general, flashing the BIOS does nothing more that most tweaker programs do.

^ this is all good stuff. I've never heard of flashing a video card increasing an overclock, unless you get a new bios version from the manufacturer where they ironed out problems or changed something. Usually you just flash it so you don't need any utilities to overclock - it just keeps the same settings all the time, ie flashing a Radeon LE to run at 275/275 instead of the default 250/250.