9800 Pro / XT stopped working

[Neil]

My ATI card has stopped working, with it in the slot I can't get my
machine to even begin to boot. It's diagnostics tell me that it sticks
at the point of "checking the VGA BIOS". Someone has free-cycled* me an
old AGP TNT2 card so as to get the machine going again, and with this
card inserted I can boot just fine.

Is it worth my while trying to find a PCI card to boot with so as to be
able to re-flash the 9800 BIOS, or is the card beyond hope?

The 9800 was fitted with an Arctic Cooling cooler and I noticed, when I
took it out, that the clip which is screwed across the back of the card
had cracked. That would mean that the heat-sink may not have been
properly clamped down onto the core since that happened. I've replaced
the original cooler now, but still no luck. I can't see any signs of
heat damage. Would I expect to if the heat-sink had slipped?

Neil

*Try it, you might like it. It's dead easy to get rid of any old
computer parts, or pretty much anything else. (http://www.free-cycle.org).

 

[flexy]

did you try a blind flash ?

go on techpowerup.com and look for a a bios and make a bootable CD/floppy
with the right bios.

You might wanna google aroudn a bit. Then "blind flash" by booting with the
defective card..on the bootabe CD/floppy...and it would auto-flash your card
with a new bios and POSSIBLY fix it.

Georg

 

[Neil]

did you try a blind flash ?

Problem is the computer doesn't even get around to looking for a boot
device. It just sits there saying, "This video card BIOS doesn't look
right to me - better stop."

I already have a bootable floppy with the original BIOS on it. (And one
with the XT BIOS I replaced it with). But at the moment they're not a
lot of help.

Neil

 

[Georg]

can you both with two cards in it ?

You said you have AGP..so you should have a PCI slot...somehow get it
bootable w/ a card in PCI slot,
and then try to flash the other/ defective card with the right parameters.

 

[Neil]

can you both with two cards in it ?

You said you have AGP..so you should have a PCI slot...somehow get it
bootable w/ a card in PCI slot,
and then try to flash the other/ defective card with the right parameters.

That was my original question more-or-less: "Do you think it's worth my
while scraping around for a PCI card to try the flash, or is it much
more likely that the card is completely broken?"

 

[First of One]

Nope, not worth your while. The "smoking gun" is the Arctic Cooler with a
cracked brace. Either the card died from overheating, or the GPU or some PCB
component got squished because the cooler wasn't clamped down properly.