Just installed Sapphire Radeon 9550

[Nick]

on my Celeron 2.5, 512mb, XP.

Working great (i had onboard graphics before) - thing is, I thought I would
have to go into the PC bios to tell it to ignore the onboard graphics but
there doesnt seem to be an option there for that (just an option for how
much of the memory to share etc) and the PC seems to 'know' not to use the
onboard graphics anyway (it used to share 64mb but that doesnt appear on the
screen when you bootup anymore).

I just wanted to know from others if this was normal etc...its a Packard
Bell PC bought from PC World (yes I know that was a stupid idea in the first
place but it wasnt my idea at the time!)

Any help much appreciated....its nice being able to play Rome Total War now!

 

[GinTonix]

on my Celeron 2.5, 512mb, XP.

Working great (i had onboard graphics before) - thing is, I thought I would
have to go into the PC bios to tell it to ignore the onboard graphics but
there doesnt seem to be an option there for that (just an option for how
much of the memory to share etc) and the PC seems to 'know' not to use the
onboard graphics anyway (it used to share 64mb but that doesnt appear on the
screen when you bootup anymore).

I just wanted to know from others if this was normal etc...its a Packard
Bell PC bought from PC World (yes I know that was a stupid idea in the first
place but it wasnt my idea at the time!)

Any help much appreciated....its nice being able to play Rome Total War now!

It depends. Some newer machines notice existence of an external graphics
adapter by themselves, some need fiddling with the bios. If you don't
even have any options in the bios conserning add-on graphics and the
add-on-card works, then I'd think it (the mobo I mean) is one of the
newer crop. Go on and start wondering if something weird happens.

However, to reduce general Win-confusion, you might want to uninstall
the drivers of the integrated graphics.

 

[hilly22]

Try going to

Control panel/ System/ Hardware/ Device manager

then try and Disable ur onbard graphics

Might work
hill

 

[Nick]

Thanks for the help - the onboard graphics are not even listed in the device
manager so I gotta assume that the motherboard knows its not needed anymore
etc - the memory has been freed up so Im just gonna leave well alone as
everything seems ok to me!

Any tips on overclocking etc or should I not bother (Im tempted not to
bother - im not that bothered about an extra 10% etc)

 

[Harry]

Thanks for the help - the onboard graphics are not even listed in the device
manager so I gotta assume that the motherboard knows its not needed anymore
etc - the memory has been freed up so Im just gonna leave well alone as
everything seems ok to me!

Any tips on overclocking etc or should I not bother (Im tempted not to
bother - im not that bothered about an extra 10% etc)

I flashed my Sapphire 9550 with a 9600Pro BIOS and it works a dream.
The GPU clock speed is doubled by doing this.

The 9550 is effectivly a crippled 9600, if you have adequate cooling
on the GPU it will work.

The Sapphire I have has a cool blue LED fan on it and cools the card
well. In the middle of summer it locked up a couple of times when
under BIG load. Apart from that its a gem.

HTH

Harry

 

[Nick]

Yeah my card sounds like its the same as yours - has a big blue LED on it.

Flashing the bios needs a floppy disk doesnt it? I dont have a floppy drive
(never thought Id need it to be honest!)

How awkward is this etc?

 

[Harry]

For your info my card is the Sapphire 256mb 9550 with Samsung 4.0ns
chips

and I used the BIOS

Sapphire 9600 Pro 256 MB Aug 26th 2004 7:49 PM Oct 21st 2004 4:09 PM
400 / 227.5 Samsung 4.0
(http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/)



Check out this link
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/107

It has all the lowdown on what you need to do/consider.

Also http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=463 is a
comprehensive thread on overclocking the 9550 too.

Certainly get the ATITool (http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/) so you
can test your card.

Using ATITool up the speeds to 400 on the GPU and 227.5 for the
memory. If all is stable then you are set for flashing the BIOS to a
9600

The key things to be aware of are

The BIOS I used assumes your card can handle GPU @ 400 and Mem @ 227.5
and the memory chips are 4.0ns or faster
The card has adequate cooling
You are fully aware of what you need to do to flash back to the
original BIOS (bear in mind that if the flash fails you may have a
blank screen as have to flash back with no video, so you need to know
the keystrokes)

finally:
You are doing this flash at your own risk... If the flash fries your
card then dont blame me. (Read the links I gave you and be sure you
are fully ready before doing the flash.

Good luck

Harry

 

[Nick]

thanks for the info Harry!

For your info my card is the Sapphire 256mb 9550 with Samsung 4.0ns
chips

and I used the BIOS

Sapphire 9600 Pro 256 MB Aug 26th 2004 7:49 PM Oct 21st 2004 4:09 PM
400 / 227.5 Samsung 4.0
(http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/)



Check out this link
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/107

It has all the lowdown on what you need to do/consider.

Also http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=463 is a
comprehensive thread on overclocking the 9550 too.

Certainly get the ATITool (http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/) so you
can test your card.

Using ATITool up the speeds to 400 on the GPU and 227.5 for the
memory. If all is stable then you are set for flashing the BIOS to a
9600

The key things to be aware of are

The BIOS I used assumes your card can handle GPU @ 400 and Mem @ 227.5
and the memory chips are 4.0ns or faster
The card has adequate cooling
You are fully aware of what you need to do to flash back to the
original BIOS (bear in mind that if the flash fails you may have a
blank screen as have to flash back with no video, so you need to know
the keystrokes)

finally:
You are doing this flash at your own risk... If the flash fries your
card then dont blame me. (Read the links I gave you and be sure you
are fully ready before doing the flash.

Good luck

Harry