Is it possible for a R360 core to run properly with an R350 BIOS? it stands to reason that if it's not, then ATI Tool can identify the core. Most software probably (drivers definately) uses the HID 4E48 to identify a Radeon 9800 Pro and 4E4A to identify a Radeon 9800 XT and simply presume they have the R350 and R360 cores respectively, regardless of BIOS information. Although, this is all presumption since the only pre XT 9800 I've had the chance to pop the hood on had a 350, as correctly and logically detected by ATI Tool. One thing I did notice was if you did flash a BIOS that didn't match the card's HID, they became extremely slow displaying IBM or line based resolutions. Although this is not directly linked to the core revision, it does show that the wrong BIOS does cause problems.
It is possible to run an R360 core 9800 with a modified R350 bios, which is why so many people are finding R360 cores on 9800pro cards. The R360 can be "down clocked, and feature removed" down to a R350, since the only differences is the RAM amount (256mb compared to 128mb), special shader optimizations (which do practically nothing), and a lower clock (pro: 380/675) (xt: 412/730). The reason why you would flash a 9800 pro to XT is merely to get a higher default clock, instead of overclocking. My experiance: I did run ATi tool on my project to see if i had an R360 core, but it said that I had an R350 bios. I removed the heatsink to find an R360 core. Hence why i believe the only way to be sure is to look at the core itself.
So instead of reflashing can you just OC with a good heatsink/fan combo and get the same results? I would be worried if I had to use my dremmel on or near my $200 video card.
o/c will get near identical results toward a 9800xt. If you dont want to risk damaging the card, and want more performance from it, o/c would be a wiser path.
Question, is it safe to flash the bios? and can it be reversable? links to the both upgrading and back to original 9800pro would be great, thanks in adavance. and does this affect any other quality of the original 9800 pro or this is in fact a boost for my card as I know nuts about oc of video card. cheers!
First step ( what u need to know ) is what is your card core ! If you got r350 core then you cant flash it to XT. But if your card got r360 core its pice of cake
I've got r360... Hi all, I've been searching for answers and have confused myself. I've got a BBA 9800pro256 w/r360 w/arctic cooler rev3 from frozencpu. I want to flash it to xt, but like I said I've confused myself on which bios I should get. I think I can do the process of flashing, but just need to know exactly which bios I need. Thanks.
mod my 9800pro Hi all, what BIOS Utilities do I need to flash my 9800pro to a 9800xt I have a 9800pro with a 360 and samsung ram chips.is there any links that gives info on how to flash it. thanks guys
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=92&var2=0 To flash you need to confirm that you have an R360 core (take off the heatsink and fan and look for yourself, software won't do it). Then you need to determine your RAM chip type (Samsung or Hynix). Then you need to overclock your card to 412/265, which is what it'll default to when you flash. Overclock to these speeds and let it get used to these speeds for several days or a week or two. If everything is completely stable, you're set to flash. You need a floppy disk, a FlashROM program and the appropriate BIOS. The guide linked to above used FlashROM 1.3, but when I downloaded that version and installed it, things got all wonky. So I downloaded version 2.13 here: http://www.3dchipset.com/bios/ati/applications/flashrom223.php A list of BIOSes can be found here: http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/ Make absolutely sure you get the BIOS with your memory type. Flashing a Samsung BIOS onto a card with Hynix memory or vice versa is very, very bad. If you have a BBA card, there are no BIOSes to flash your card to XT. You have to use the Sapphire BIOS. I used it on my BBA 9800 Pro 128MB/256-bit and it worked flawlessly. In the first link there's a page in there called 'Flashing the video BIOS'. Read that because it details exactly what to do. You need to have the BIOS file in .rom or .bin format, the Flashrom.exe program, and the flashrom.rom that comes in the download package. The BIOS filename will be long, so rename it something short because DOS doesn't like long filenames. I used '9800XT.bin'. Format the floppy and click the 'create DOS Boot Disk' option. Once that's done extract all three things onto the disk and reboot. When you reboot your computer will boot into DOS from the disk and come to the 'A:/' prompt. Type the following exactly to save your old BIOS onto the floppy: flashrom -s 0 backup.bin It will give you a couple messages saying X KB of X KB saved, blah blah. That means it was saved successfully. To flash the new BIOS, type the following exactly: flashrom -f -p 0 xxx.bin Where xxx = the filename you chose. It will work for a few seconds and then give you a few lines of output. If it says something to the effect of 'X KB of X KB written', you've flashed successfully. CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot and eject the floppy. When you get back to the desktop, your screen will probably flash black for a few seconds then go back to normal. Mine did this three times, and ended up with my monitor geometry all messed up. Don't worry, that's normal. Right click on the Desktop, go the Properties, then the Settings tab. If the flash was successful, it will list your display as 9800 XT. You'll have to go into the Advanced section and reconfigure your graphics settings, but you won't have to reinstall your ATI drivers. At least, I didn't.
what bios do i use for mine ? ive got a Powercolor ATi 9800 Pro 128mb R360 Core + Hynix 2.8ns ram. i have tried some bio's but it won't work has anyone successfully flashed a card like mine ?
Crap I just ordered a VGA CO0LING ATI SILENCER 3 RT and I seen in the first post you had ATI Silencer 1. Will Silencer 3 fit a 9800 pro? Thanks
Way too much trouble for such a limited gain. I went to Zulman water cooler with CPU and GPU cooler blocks. Works very well, looks cool and is very quite.
hey i guys i could use some help so i have a 9800 pro using samsung and r360 but when i try to flash using flashrom 2.40 it doesnt want to write the 9800xt bios (saphire show on the first page) enven if i force it by this command -f -p 0 i dont know what to do. thanks
9800 Pro with 360 Core and 16x16 Memory Hey basically I was wondering if anyone had any info on what a user with the 16x16 (memory) 9800 Pro with a 360 Core would have to purchase as far as cooling goes. I am not sure if I would need the Arctic Cooling VGA Cooler, Model "ATI silencer 3" AS many have said the 256MB needs. I am concerned that my memory would not be cooled properly, because it was only designed to have to cool 8 memory chips (4 on front and 4 on back) The Arctic Cooling VGA Cooler, Model "ATI silencer 1" , however, has no Memory Cooler, allowing me to add two sets of OCZ Aluminum BGA Ramsinks . Many people have said this card does not fit the 256MB 9800 Pro, so I am not sure whether this would be the propper fan to purchase. Thanks for the help in advance, this has been really puzzling for me.
HIS9800pro ice Hi i got an Higtech9800pro ice (r360) I dont know what memory it uses because the memory is covered up by heatzink. (i dont want to remove those becase i dont have anything to glue them back with). I wanna try to flash the card to an xt, but i have no idea wich bios to use. i tried the link to bioses but i only got confused. (im a noob) Can anyone please help me please
I'll post this in this thread too, sorry if this is poor etiquette. So I just flashed my 9800 Pro 256 to the 9800 XT and it was succesful. I turned Overdrive on and it seems to be working just fine. ATITool and that marble thing both show artifacts but City of Heroes, Everquest 2, Half life 2, and Aquamark show no graphical anomolies anywhere. While playing EQ2 at max settings I am getting around 14FPS and the GPU is reading 74-75C and overclocking itself to 418Mhz. My question is that I am not planning on overclocking any further than this. It is a stock built by ATI 9800 Pro, will the heatsink and fan be adequate for this or do I still need to mod it further? It's just bouncing back and forth from 74C and 75C so I am assuming that is alright but I am afraid that it might still be TOO hot. I'm unaware of what it was running before this update. Thank you very much for your help and input.
