Bad Flash - dead ATI card anyone know how to fix it?

[kony]

Heres one question - has anyone noticed any old PCI cards that just
dont work in a newer motherboard?

Sometimes I wonder if the card went bad, since they'll be
just sitting around for years, and it's not like I handle a
circa '95 PCI card with kid gloves... think I threw them all
in a shoebox somewhere.

I had an ancient PCI ATI which was ANCIENT but that wouldnt work at
all even in two systems I had few years ago.

I have one I'd used on several occasions, worked fine but at
the moment I dont' recall the specific boards I had it in...
looks exactly like this,
http://69.36.189.159/usr_1034/ATI_3D_RageII+DVD_PCI.jpg

It can actually play DVDs ok... I was impressed at the time.
Have a few old CIrrus Logic cards, but the ATI card ended up
on the top layer of the shoebox so I don't dig down deeper
to get to the others anymore.

Ideally Id like to get an ATI 7000-9000 PCI or something like that
cause Im positive those would work but they tend to be bid up to 20-30
on ebay which is insane as usual. I got my 9600 for 38 bucks and the
9600 pro for 38.

Might as well try flashing it with a floppy and autoexec or
blind typing. Card is dead, what can it hurt? At worst the
flash fails and it remains the same- with wrong bios. AT
best, flash works and presuming you had the right bios for
it, card works again.

I think Ill call my PCI backup card the IDIOT CARD for emergencies
when I do flash the wrong bios into some card resulting in a dead
card.

Video cards can be trial and error anyway, especially when
trying to jump a card from one ID to another instead of just
raising clock frequencies a little. I suspect where yours
went bad was that there was too much difference in the
memory speeds between lower and higher end 9600 variants,
but I've never flashed a 9600 so it's just a guess.

 

[john]

Can't you find a graphics card from an old computer at the office or in
a dumpster (apartments are good)?

You should be able to get by with a really old PCI card because my
vintage-1996 S3 Verge and S3 Stealth cards worked with an ECS 755-A2
mobo (socket 754). OTOH my Cirruslogic 5430(?), made a year or two
earlier, showed nothing but a blue cursor, I think even with some
Socket 370 mobos.

I see some on Ebay that are cheap shipping really adds a lot on Ebay
nowadays. One problem is the popularity of built-in graphics for
budget systems which makes PCI cards hard to find unless its ancient.
Even an old VooDoo card was AGP a neighbor had.

Ill look in that forum and check it out.

 

[dannysdailys]

For economic reasons many cards (except the highest en

models) use an underclocked GPU to fill the mid and lowe
end product lines... they artifically limit performance s
these lower priced cards don't devaluate the more expensiv
ones. One of the limitations in such a situation is wha
quality (speed grade and type of) memory was used, as tha
often ends up being a bottleneck

OK, I hear what you're saying, but what gain do you get a what cost

Flashing the bios isn't a question of whether you can do it, it's
question of if it will take and what happens if it doesn't

Another question: Why did the computer reboot when it found the card
It sounds like he never uninstalled his old video drivers. Not tha
it should matter, but I've never had a reboot until the software wa
installed. He sounded like he never got to that point

Anyway, I suspect his card is history and that's the repetitive lesso
concerning flash bios. It's serious..

 

[kony]

OK, I hear what you're saying, but what gain do you get a what cost?

Depends on the use. At stock speeds, usually only a little
gain. If the GPU were overclocked, the memory bottleneck
becomes that much more significant. As with anything, that
last 30% performance increase costs disproportionately more
than the first 70%, though this is just a generalization, it
varies per each card and further by the particular games and
eye-candy settings in each, not even considering the
potential bottleneck that might be caused by some other area
of the system outside of the video card performance.

Generally speaking it's same-thing-different-day, figure on
a budget and see what the online benchmarks show as best
value within that budget.

Flashing the bios isn't a question of whether you can do it, it's a
question of if it will take and what happens if it doesn't.

Well that's somewhat same thing as "you can do it". I don't
consider "doing it" to just mean booting dos and running a
flasher, you have to know what bios is compatible, have a
general idea how far you can push the particular card, and
specific reasons WHY you're flashing the bios in the first
place. Further it's good to have a PCI card handy, and I
always do.

Another question: Why did the computer reboot when it found the card?
It sounds like he never uninstalled his old video drivers. Not that
it should matter, but I've never had a reboot until the software was
installed. He sounded like he never got to that point.

I don't recall all the details of the thread, and thus, not
the relevance of your question.
If there were old driver remnants, sure, they should be
uninstalled.

Anyway, I suspect his card is history and that's the repetitive lesson
concerning flash bios. It's serious...

It seems a bit premature to conclude. How many cards have
you flashed and how many *dead* cards have you revived from
a bad flash or other types of scrambled-bios scenarios?
It's usually not a big deal, relatively painless to reboot
the system with another card as the primary adapter, though
in this case he doesn't have the spare card.

I suppose I would suggest it's a bad idea to flash cards
without a spare PCI card handy, and one has to weigh the
risk against the value of the card. I'd hesitate a lot more
before flashing a $400 card than an $80 one.

 

[john]

OK, I hear what you're saying, but what gain do you get a what cost?

Well the cost is nothing. THats what makes it so appealing.
The thing is there are crazy overclocks and then there are no
brainers.

Crazy OCs are when you have very little info and you are trying to
push something just for the heck of it. Especially if most say they
cant push the same CPU/graphics card higher. And you end up spending
a lot of money to do it with elaborate cooling.

A nobrainer is like he mentioned. For instance the AMD 2500 Barton and
2400 mobile chips --- by that time the yields were very good so
actually it seemed like all or most of the 2500 bartons or 2400 mobile
sold much cheaper than a 3200 barton and yet it was virtually
guaranteed you would get 3200 performance at a much lower price. You
just set it like it was the 3200 and you got the extra performance for
free.

Its kind of the same with many ATIs now. However you have to know
which ones and another precaution is to use ATI TOOL. Its a software
program that ups your mem and your core until you start getting
artifacts. You can set it to run for a while. If it seems ok at the
higher settings and you hear others say they got it to work at higher
settings then its pretty much a no brainer.

See what I did was ---- I was OCing and then I reflashed my
9600Pro/XT. That worked fine. I flashed the pro to a XT and as
everyone said it would , it worked as described.

I have TWO cards :

a) 9600PRO which I flashed to a XT level 500/300
as I said that worked fine. I tested it and flashed it.
It still works. No problems.

b) 9600 non PRO ---- I also have this card. This card
CANT BE FLASHED to a higher OC. It says right at the website
I was reading. I didnt intend to flash this.


Its not a case of flashing as recommended and it going dead.
What happened was I had been flashing the the first card which has
worked perfectly before and after flashing. I was trying to then
test the effects of two graphics cards - one XT level another non-pro
level combined with two levels of systems/CPU --- one an AMD 3200 64
and the other a Athlon 1600 XP.

I was playing the new Quake 4 with the athlon 1600 (ancient CPU) -
and the pre flashed 9600 Pro ---- it paused a lot and the setting was
640x480. I was curious because many online claim they can play new
games with winpy cards as low as the 9250. So I wondered what was the
load split - CPU and Graphics card. Obviously Quake 4 which is brand
new doesnt play that well at all in my experience with a 9600 PRO
level and an ancient 1600 XP even at lowest setting. The 9600 Pro is a
higher end card vs a 9250 etc that some list online in consumer
reviews as being OK with such games . Well I flashed it to a 9600 XT
cause I knew it could be done from other posts as I said. And as I
said this worked no problem. The amazing thing was the jump from PRo
to XT enabled the ancient 1600 XP to work OK at 800x600 now with most
pauses gone. It was a huge improvement which surprised me.

Next I wanted to test the 9600 non pro in the compaq 3200 AMD 64 to
see how much the CPU would add to thegame performance. Since that had
to be the key since others said a 9250 could play many new games at
med settings. In other words I switched cards.

Remember the 9600 non pro they say CANT BE flashed to anything else.
I didnt intend to flash it. This is late at night.

So I get home the next day --- having completely forgotten I switched
the cards and flicked my compaq on. Ive got 3 PCs. Im still stuck on
the idea that my Compaq has the 9600XT. I look and it says 9600 when
Im looking under device manager messing with a new tv tuner card I
got. I think " The darned thing reverted back to a 9600 !" DUHHHHHHH

I think somehow the flash didnt take and it actually fell lower ---
was the insane thought I had in Twilight Zone fashion. I then
proceeded to flash it to a 9600XT again I thought. Of course I was
flashing the WRONG CARD.

This thread isnt really about the dangers of flashing. Its about the
dangers of being an idiot. If you read the websites and get good info
you shouldnt have any problems and not get greedy and start thinking
you can REALLY push it to get FREE extra performance. Just do
reasonable flashes and you wont get burned in general.

And there is a standard fix for bad flashes -- use a PCI card to
bootup with your bad AGP flashed card in the slot too. According to
many sites this works. Havent tried it yet.

I dont use the other systems that often - my main system is another
AMD 64 with an 800XL ATI.




Anyway Im going to try another idea.

I generally have my main AMD 64 networked with my Compaq AMD 3200 64
so that I can control it remotely. I do this so I can do system
intensive things on separate systems like converting video - the dual
core idea except I have two separate systems.

So wouldnt that work? Or am I missing something? Does the other video
card have to be functional anyway? I can see whats on the other
systems and control it right? If that doesnt work Ill go the PCI card
route.