Sapphire X800 Pro Bios Hack Warning!

No_Style · Aug 19, 2004, 05:39 PM

This was released awhile ago, but I haven't seen it posted. It's a fair warning though:

"Sapphire stands at the forefront of performance-oriented technical advancement but does this in a manner where it rejects devices that would compromise the quality and life of our products.

While the current hacked BIOS available online that attempts to enable 16 pipelines on the X800 PRO product line can be applied to the Sapphire X800 product line as well, Sapphire strongly urges our customers to exercise caution when attempting to implement this BIOS hack. In general there is a large margin for board failure when the XT 16 pipe BIOS is applied to the X800 PRO’s 12 pipe boards. The X800 PRO boards while inherently possessing the 16 pipe pathways are not all capable of maintaining stability with 16 pipes enable. For this reason Sapphire will not be able to support the replacement or repair of any of our products returned with this BIOS hack applied."
_______________
Read More/Source: SapphireTech

Update: For those who are wondering about the hack, please read the first 2 pages of this thread. It contains vital information which you may want to know. Styles, has graciously posted the run down of the entire process on the second page.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 19, 2004, 08:08 PM

Ouch! but can't the customers simply flash it back if it doesn't work?

No_Style · Aug 19, 2004, 08:14 PM

Apparently, there are some who have complete board failures afterwards, despite the fact that the BIOS hack goes well.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 20, 2004, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No_Style

Apparently, there are some who have complete board failures afterwards, despite the fact that the BIOS hack goes well.

Ouch....

I bet they try going to full X800XT speed with out proper cooling...
Becouse Enadleing disabled pipes should at the most give you some nasty artifacts if the pipes are bad. other wise it should be easy to flash back. Something tells me in my gut there is some overclocking involved....

No_Style · Aug 20, 2004, 08:21 AM

Rage3D's uber thread about this mentions a lot of successes. I have not seen any posts about board failures yet. (Mind you, that I didn't go through 32+ pages of that thread) Here in DH, I haven't seen/heard of such problems as well, but then again not many members have a VIVO X800PRO.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 20, 2004, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No_Style

Rage3D's uber thread about this mentions a lot of successes. I have not seen any posts about board failures yet. (Mind you, that I didn't go through 32+ pages of that thread) Here in DH, I haven't seen/heard of such problems as well, but then again not many members have a VIVO X800PRO.

I've herd of a few on here that moded thiers just fine. This was news to me that people were haveing trouble with it.

Far as we know they could of got a corrupt download when they downloaded the bios to flash, or flashed it improperly. there are so many variables were they could of went wrong.

I wonder if it's just to curb people buying then and moding them to the better card

...

No_Style · Aug 20, 2004, 08:35 AM

I wouldn't be surprised. In fact if you download the PDF, they did promote their Toxic card.

But it's still a good warning. I'm sure Sapphire will take precautions when taking RMAs for X800 PROs.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 20, 2004, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No_Style

I wouldn't be surprised. In fact if you download the PDF, they did promote their Toxic card.

But it's still a good warning. I'm sure Sapphire will take precautions when taking RMAs for X800 PROs.

But if the card it dead like with overclocking, to the point were it's unflashable unless it's obvious or unless they told them what they did. How could they prove it? They can't just suspect they have to have bonified evidence. I have a funny fealing Sapphire's just blowing alot of hot air. I used to work with cell phones and shops would kill them with firmware but you couldn't pove it so they got a new or refurbished phone.

Them saying this alone will discurage alot of people from even thinking of trying it...

~~HawK~~ · Aug 20, 2004, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No_Style

I haven't seen/heard of such problems as well, but then again not many members have a VIVO X800PRO.

Yeah.. rub it in once more

The_Neon_Cowboy · Aug 20, 2004, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawK

Yeah.. rub it in once more

I't ok save those pennies!

(

quickly hides his X800XT PE order recipt)

Qba73 · Aug 21, 2004, 01:10 PM

thankfully i have a saphhire that hasent failed, runs like a champ since i got her early last month, past xt speeds too with 16 pipes enabled.

what i did was

the gigabyte flash to enable 16
then flash to ati x800xt pe bios which went well but the card could not oc as well as with the stock bios, so i flashed back to the pro bios and the oc speeds came back (550+ GPU 1100+mem) and my 16 pipes are still enabled being the ati flasher does not have a section to write the pipes as the gigabyte flasher does.
so essentially i have a Pro with 16 pipes and clock speeds well past PE stock speeds.

Chaos · Aug 21, 2004, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qba73

thankfully i have a saphhire that hasent failed, runs like a champ since i got her early last month, past xt speeds too with 16 pipes enabled.

what i did was

the gigabyte flash to enable 16
then flash to ati x800xt pe bios which went well but the card could not oc as well as with the stock bios, so i flashed back to the pro bios and the oc speeds came back (550+ GPU 1100+mem) and my 16 pipes are still enabled being the ati flasher does not have a section to write the pipes as the gigabyte flasher does.
so essentially i have a Pro with 16 pipes and clock speeds well past PE stock speeds.

sweet

Logla · Aug 21, 2004, 03:31 PM

I've been reading a lot about guys who have bought the VIVOs and done the flash. They all get excellent performance until one day they switch their machine on and get the message telling them to plug in the power cord to the vid card.

They check its still there - it is, they reseat, reboot several times and it still wont work.

This is what happens when your extra 4 pipes fail. As far as I know you cant then reflash back to the old bios as the card fails to be recognised properly by the computer and wont allow the flash. Even if you can flash it, you get the same error when you power up the pc.

Qba73 · Aug 21, 2004, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Logla

I've been reading a lot about guys who have bought the VIVOs and done the flash. They all get excellent performance until one day they switch their machine on and get the message telling them to plug in the power cord to the vid card.

They check its still there - it is, they reseat, reboot several times and it still wont work.

This is what happens when your extra 4 pipes fail. As far as I know you cant then reflash back to the old bios as the card fails to be recognised properly by the computer and wont allow the flash. Even if you can flash it, you get the same error when you power up the pc.

well im flashed back to the pro bios with no prob (note the device id is back to that of the Pro), been running for close to 2 months now, but if i crash i'll PM ya.

i think the key is once you enable the 16 pipes flash back to the pro bios and dont run on the xt bios for an extended period of time being the voltage if diffrent for the GPU on the xt bios than it is on the pro, thus i would understand why people after a while experience failure (i think its usually after about 1-2 weeks) when you flash back to the pro the 16 pipes stay enabled being the ati flasher does not have a section for pipes as the gigabyte one does.

Chaos · Aug 21, 2004, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Logla

I've been reading a lot about guys who have bought the VIVOs and done the flash. They all get excellent performance until one day they switch their machine on and get the message telling them to plug in the power cord to the vid card.

They check its still there - it is, they reseat, reboot several times and it still wont work.

This is what happens when your extra 4 pipes fail. As far as I know you cant then reflash back to the old bios as the card fails to be recognised properly by the computer and wont allow the flash. Even if you can flash it, you get the same error when you power up the pc.

well that makes my mind up in a hurry, although I will have a BBATI x800 if they ever get stock

Logla · Aug 21, 2004, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qba73

well im flashed back to the pro bios with no prob (note the device id is back to that of the Pro), been running for close to 2 months now, but if i crash i'll PM ya.

i think the key is once you enable the 16 pipes flash back to the pro bios and dont run on the xt bios for an extended period of time being the voltage if diffrent for the GPU on the xt bios than it is on the pro, thus i would understand why people after a while experience failure (i think its usually after about 1-2 weeks) when you flash back to the pro the 16 pipes stay enabled being the ati flasher does not have a section for pipes as the gigabyte one does.

So is yours a VIVO or a normal Pro? And can this work on a normal Pro or is it only the VIVOs that have the 4 hidden pipes?

Qba73 · Aug 21, 2004, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Neon_Cowboy

Ouch....

I bet they try going to full X800XT speed with out proper cooling...
Becouse Enadleing disabled pipes should at the most give you some nasty artifacts if the pipes are bad. other wise it should be easy to flash back. Something tells me in my gut there is some overclocking involved....

whoever decides to try and mod there card should first see if the card is capable of xt speeds, mine luckly was able to get xt speeds and more (my board has the 1.6 mem (which is what the xt uses) and not the standard 2.0 mem
i think the reason for failure is like what you said do to the varibles of a bad flash or overclocking. because 4 failing pipes wpuld only cause artifacting, or so i have read. as far as proper cooling to my knowledge the fans on the pro and xt are pretty much identical but i could be wrong, can anyone confirm this. well i myself run with the stock cooler with some as5 underneath and temps idle @ 43 and load up to 68-70

Qba73 · Aug 21, 2004, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Logla

So is yours a VIVO or a normal Pro? And can this work on a normal Pro or is it only the VIVOs that have the 4 hidden pipes?

i have the sapphire x800 pro ViVo. (a good way to tell is if your pro has the 1.6ns mem that is standard on the XT, that is a dead giveaway) however pp have modded with the 2.0ns mem and it worked, the key is the ViVo as the normal pro's have lasercut on the bridge point on the gpu, some have hard modded and joined the points with conductive ink and enabled the pipes but 50% of the time it didnt work..its really the luck of the draw, there's a lot of good reading out there to do research on...the vivo's, dont have the lasercut allowing a bios flash to unlock the pipes that ati locked. i am not sure whether this will work on all vivios being that ati only did this for the initial sets of pros that came out then stopped doing this as supply increased.

The cards that are said for this to work on are club3d, powercolor and sapphire's (im a member of rage3d and have read up extensivly on the matter.)

the vivo's are said to be XT's in pro's clothing and that ATI bios modded the vivo's to the pro so that they could fulfill orders being the x800 pro was scheduled to come out first. as far as im concerned ATI tried to slip it by hoping no one would notice, but us tech savy generation are too smart for that or that we are just a bunch of crazy modders just willing to try, and got lucky and stumbled upon ati's covert operation..lol

all x800 have 16 pipes whether bios locked or hard locked because its all the same chip r423

here is a link to do some research;
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33766704

Styles · Aug 21, 2004, 05:07 PM

geez what a load of crap. If you make a backup bios of your original pro bios you're fine. There is no problems with pipelines. They are true X800XT PE rebadged as pros because they didn't quite get the 520 core speed at full stability. It's not just Sapphire's either that can be modded. There are 2 types of mods: hard mods and softmods. Hard mods I would stay away from. Softmods is only the bios change and is harmless if you don't overclock if using stock cooling. For the cards that are using Ati4 Silencer fans you can improve on the stock speeds of 520/560 as games like doom3 that get temps of 70 degrees plus are reduced to about 53-59 degrees. The ati4 silencer fan is simply great. Go to google and read about it. One forum had only one person with problems out of the 40+ people who softmodded their cards. The gigabyte bios is the most stable compared to ati x800xt bios. I have guides and files still on my drive that I got from researching from weeks before i attempted softmod on my sapphire vivo. I still have my original X800 Pro vivo bios backed up too. If you play it smart and follow directions and not risk anything than there's nothing to worry about. Why u think there is so much pros sold? They took ages to bring out the successful X800XT PE's because they didn't have much in production for the high demands of orders. Woilah the 95-99% sucessful X800XT PE's are going to be the X800 pro's until we get lots of 100% sucessful X800XT PE's produced. They have to make money somehow these companies do!!!!!!!!

Woah this is an edit update cause I hope the guy before this post wasn't thinking i was replying to him as his post wasn't there when i was typing this one. I agree to what he says too as I have read lots of stuff. Actually i might put the info i got from my drive about this into next post.

No_Style · Aug 21, 2004, 05:11 PM

Ok, lemme recap:

Quote:

the gigabyte flash to enable 16

Gigabyte flash? Is this using the utility provided in that uber Rage3D thread? I haven't downloaded. What's in it exactly?

Quote:

then flash to ati x800xt pe bios which went well but the card could not oc as well as with the stock bios, so i flashed back to the pro bios and the oc speeds came back (550+ GPU 1100+mem) and my 16 pipes are still enabled being the ati flasher does not have a section to write the pipes as the gigabyte flasher does.

So after you finished flashing the Gigabyte's BIOS into the Sapphire X800 PRO VIVO, you use ATIFLASH, to flash your regular X800PRO's BIOS back in and the 16 pipes are still enabled? Sweet deal. I just need to know what makes the Gigabyte flash different... Because it must have did something to enable the extra 4 pipes. If you can describe what the Gigabyte flashing process is more clearly, I'd appreciate it.

Quote:

so essentially i have a Pro with 16 pipes and clock speeds well past PE stock speeds.

Sweet, indeed. This BIOS hack thing sounds like "Big Toe's P4P8X full PAT over 200 FSB on the P4P800" over @ ABXZone. Where you flash in the P4P8X BIOS and write the Boot Block, but then you can flash a regular P4P800's BIOS in and then be able to have PAT enabled beyond 200 FSB..

Styles · Aug 21, 2004, 05:39 PM

[color=#ff0000]ATI RADEON X800 Pro VIVO > X800 XT [/color]

[color=#ff0000]BIOS FLASH GUIDE[/color]

************************************************** ************************************************** ********

[color=#0000ff]Equipment & files required[/color]

2 x floppy discs

DrDos boot disk creator: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color]

FlashROM 2.37 + floppy creator: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color]

Gigabyte Flash utility & X800 XT BIOS: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color]

Retail ATI X800 XT BIOS: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color]

[color=#ff0000]**BEFORE FLASHING THE BIOS, MAKE SURE YOU MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR OLD ONE**[/color]

************************************************** ************************************************** *******

To back up your BIOS: (Floppy 'A')

([color=#ff0000]a[/color]) Create a bootable floppy disc with flashrom on it by double clicking the Flasher+Floppy2.37.exe.

([color=#ff0000]b[/color]) Restart the PC with the floppy disc inserted & boot in DOS.

([color=#ff0000]c[/color]) Once activity has ceased you will be at the A:\ prompt, type the following command line to back up your existing BIOS:

[color=#0000ff]flashrom -s 0 backup.bin[/color]

You now have a file on the floppy disc named 'backup.bin' this is your original BIOS which you may require at a later date.

([color=#ff0000]d[/color]) Remove the floppy disc & reboot the PC.

************************************************** ************************************************** *******

To flash to the Gigabyte X800XT BIOS for enabling the 4 locked pipelines (Floppy 'B')

([color=#ff0000]a[/color]) Create a bootable floppy disc by double clicking the DrDos boot disc creator.

([color=#ff0000]b[/color]) Unzip the Gigabyte Flash utility & X800 XT BIOS, then place the files on the floppy disc.

([color=#ff0000]c[/color]) Restart the PC with the floppy disc inserted & boot in DOS.

([color=#ff0000]d[/color]) Once activity has ceased you will be at the A:\ prompt, type the following command line to flash the BIOS:

[color=#0000ff]GVF11 -p -f A:\r80x256v.f1[/color]

([color=#ff0000]e[/color]) Remove the floppy disc & reboot the PC.

************************************************** ************************************************** *******

To flash to the ATI Retail X800 XT BIOS, for improved over clock (Floppy 'A')

([color=#ff0000]a[/color]) Insert floppy disc 'A' into into the floppy drive (leaving existing files in tact).

([color=#ff0000]b[/color]) Place the downloaded Retail ATI X800 XT BIOS ( X800XT.bin ) on to the floppy.

([color=#ff0000]c[/color]) Restart the PC with the floppy disc inserted & boot in DOS.

([color=#ff0000]d[/color]) Once activity has ceased you will be at the A:\ prompt, type the following command line to flash the BIOS:

[color=#0000ff]flashrom -p -f 0 X800XT.bin[/color]

([color=#ff0000]e[/color]) Remove the floppy disc & reboot the PC.

************************************************** ************************************************** ******

I recommend you retain the 2 floppy discs for future use.

If you have followed the instructions carefully you should have a fully fledged ATI Radeon X800 XT 520mhz core / 560mhz memory.

Due to the heat generated by the additional 4 pipelines your maximum core over clock is likely to be reduced by on average 20mhz.

By -=:Paddy007UK :=-

2nd info page i had saved on my drive:

Yes I have flashed my card now with another bios, using the flashrom tool. It has maintained the 16 pipes as flashrom will not close these pipes off. You can even flash back to a pro and still have 16 pipes, its not in the bios itself that changes the pipe status, its the flash program. Flashrom wont change the status of the pipes but the gigabytes will. Thats why when you use the gigabytes it changes from 12-16, but if you use flashrom it will NOT close them again !

To force a flash using the Gigabits tool -

gvf11 '-f' a:\r80256v.f1 should be gvf11 a:\r80256v.f1 -f

I am currently using this bios on my Club3d and still enjoying the 16 pipes, I've uploaded all the files I have used, and my cards original bios to my website:

http://www.littlebeigebox.co.uk/x800/

sry for typos, in a rush to get to work !

Ecks

using the x800xt bios from my site my card seems stable, with the GB one it wasnt :S

heres a quick guide for anyone who wants to try the mod...

youll need a sapphire x800 pro vivo, (the one with Samsung K4J55323QF-GC16 memory) the gigabyte flash tool(gvf11), flashrom 237, an xt bios, the gigabyte xt bios and atitool 0.0.20.
there seems to be 100% success so far with there cards, but you never know if ati will change their production process after this info becomes more widely available??
if your new to bios flashing read this http://www.rojakpot.com/default.asp...&var1=91&var2=1 ,its quite comprehensive although youll need flashrom 237 instead of the one used there.
first flash the bios with the gigabyte bios using the command gvf11 -f -p r80x256v.f1, then reboot and use install cat 4.6 and then atitool to read how many pipes you now have, if you have 16 proceed, if not then reflash with the original bios. at this point if your max overclock mhz will have dropped by 15mhz core and 20mhz mem approx.(is this because the voltage on the gigabyte bios is lower?)
now flash the bios with flashrom 237 to another xt bios,(flashrom -f -p 0 "xtbios".bin) I used the official xt bios from ati. this will boost your max overclock again to what it was before. (does anyone have a bios that takes the max overclock higher still??)
at this point I flashed back to the original pro bios because I carnt reach the xt speeds, just 515/535. flashing back will give you a 16 pipe pro as the pipes youve unlocked will still be there, but if you reach the xt speeds then there should be no reason to do so.
the advantage of unlocking my extra 4 pipes and overclocking the card has given me a 2000+ higher mark in 3d mark 03, and has made far cry run at approx 15fps faster with max details 1024/768. the card now runs 5C higher but thats nothing to worry about.
feel free to add or take away from this guide, and thanks everyone who has posted on this page and GL.

Someone already posted a link to another message thread with instructions, earlier in this thread.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...1725#post481725

But for everyone's benefit . . .

Boot from floppy to DOS prompt

Make BIOS backup:

flashrom -s 0 X800Pro_original.bin

Flash to Gigabyte XT BIOS:

gvf11 -P -F R80X256V_filename.F1

Reboot and make sure it has 16 pipes with ATitool in Windows

Boot floppy again

Flash to ATi XT BIOS:

flashrom -f -p 0 ATIX800XT-filename.bin

You need Gigabyte's XT PE BIOS that comes with its own flashtool, ATI FlashROM 2.37, and you can try using an ATI XT PE BIOS at the end. If the XT BIOS doesn't work for you, flash the BIOS backup you made instead.

Link to Gigabyte BIOS and Flashtool:
http://www.giga-byte.com/Download/D...r80x256v_f1.exe

Link to ATI FlashROM:

http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/bios/flashrom237.zip

Link to ATI XT PE BIOS:

http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/bios/A...6.Samsung16.bin

Link to ATItool:

http://atitool.ocfaq.com/

************************************************** *******
Well that's the info I had saved on hard drive, but i did delete one while back which was way too big and took ages to load up with explorer. It was about the x800 pro to xt PE hard mod which I don't agree with. It's up to the individual I guess.

**NONE OF THIS INFO IS MINE AND I DO NOT HAVE ANY CLAIM TO IT ALL.**

No_Style · Aug 21, 2004, 05:53 PM

Thank you very much, Styles

So there was a different flashing utility after all. That's what I was wondering about. Again, thanks for posting the info.

Styles · Aug 21, 2004, 06:06 PM

Haha I am not the best style as you are lol. I use stylez as nicks also in other forums. Well yeah i posted that info which I state again wasn't involved in the articles and discussions. It is copied and pasted from my hardrive. What is that PAT you talking about with the Asus P4P 800 because I own that mobo. I am using the 1.016 bios latest one. I have a prescott 2.8ghz cpu running at 3.023ghz as of yesterday. CPU idle temp now is 30 degrees mobo is 29 degrees. Send me a personal message as this is not topic related.

Qba73 · Aug 21, 2004, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Styles

Woah this is an edit update cause I hope the guy before this post wasn't thinking i was replying to him as his post wasn't there when i was typing this one. I agree to what he says too as I have read lots of stuff. Actually i might put the info i got from my drive about this into next post.

its ok styles i knew your werent talking about my post

wolfran · Aug 22, 2004, 04:16 AM

Actually if you buy a gigabyte x800pro VIVO, the extra 4 pipelines are enabled by default. I know some people here that buy those cards that have all 16 pipelines enabled by default but not sure if they'll keep doing that.

KRN-Drak · Sep 1, 2004, 07:55 PM

I'm planning on buying a x800 Pro ViVO Toxic, and I wanted to flash up to 16 pipelines, but I don't want my card to shit out.

Any experience with these specific cards and if the Gigabyte 16, back to ATI PRo flash mod works well with them? Or safe keeping it flashed to XT or blah blah. Anyone with one let me know

No_Style · Sep 1, 2004, 08:41 PM

From what I've learned off of Qba73 is if you flash with the Gigabyte and then revert back to your original BIOS the 16 pipes will stay and your card will be fine.

wolfran · Sep 2, 2004, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KRN-Drak

I'm planning on buying a x800 Pro ViVO Toxic, and I wanted to flash up to 16 pipelines, but I don't want my card to shit out.

Any experience with these specific cards and if the Gigabyte 16, back to ATI PRo flash mod works well with them? Or safe keeping it flashed to XT or blah blah. Anyone with one let me know

Also check this out.....in case your extra 4 pipelines fail.
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/100

Callandor · Oct 18, 2004, 07:14 PM

The X800pro rules baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;-)

RobbyRobbe · Oct 25, 2004, 10:53 PM

I have flashed to the gigabyte bios, but now my computer dont boot any more

... what should i do ???

Robby

Aug 19, 2004, 05:39 PM	#1
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Sapphire X800 Pro Bios Hack Warning! This was released awhile ago, but I haven't seen it posted. It's a fair warning though: "Sapphire stands at the forefront of performance-oriented technical advancement but does this in a manner where it rejects devices that would compromise the quality and life of our products. While the current hacked BIOS available online that attempts to enable 16 pipelines on the X800 PRO product line can be applied to the Sapphire X800 product line as well, Sapphire strongly urges our customers to exercise caution when attempting to implement this BIOS hack. In general there is a large margin for board failure when the XT 16 pipe BIOS is applied to the X800 PRO’s 12 pipe boards. The X800 PRO boards while inherently possessing the 16 pipe pathways are not all capable of maintaining stability with 16 pipes enable. For this reason Sapphire will not be able to support the replacement or repair of any of our products returned with this BIOS hack applied." _______________ Read More/Source: SapphireTech Update: For those who are wondering about the hack, please read the first 2 pages of this thread. It contains vital information which you may want to know. Styles, has graciously posted the run down of the entire process on the second page. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here Last edited by No_Style; Aug 21, 2004 at 05:57 PM.

Aug 19, 2004, 08:08 PM	#2
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	Ouch! but can't the customers simply flash it back if it doesn't work? __________________

Aug 19, 2004, 08:14 PM	Thread Starter #3
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Apparently, there are some who have complete board failures afterwards, despite the fact that the BIOS hack goes well. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Aug 20, 2004, 08:21 AM	Thread Starter #5
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Rage3D's uber thread about this mentions a lot of successes. I have not seen any posts about board failures yet. (Mind you, that I didn't go through 32+ pages of that thread) Here in DH, I haven't seen/heard of such problems as well, but then again not many members have a VIVO X800PRO. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Aug 20, 2004, 08:35 AM	Thread Starter #7
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	I wouldn't be surprised. In fact if you download the PDF, they did promote their Toxic card. But it's still a good warning. I'm sure Sapphire will take precautions when taking RMAs for X800 PROs. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Aug 21, 2004, 01:10 PM	#11
Qba73 Bench This Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Land of the Lost Towers Posts: 93 Rep Power: 0	thankfully i have a saphhire that hasent failed, runs like a champ since i got her early last month, past xt speeds too with 16 pipes enabled. what i did was the gigabyte flash to enable 16 then flash to ati x800xt pe bios which went well but the card could not oc as well as with the stock bios, so i flashed back to the pro bios and the oc speeds came back (550+ GPU 1100+mem) and my 16 pipes are still enabled being the ati flasher does not have a section to write the pipes as the gigabyte flasher does. so essentially i have a Pro with 16 pipes and clock speeds well past PE stock speeds. __________________ I7 920 @ 4.02Ghz 6gb Corsair Dominators P6T Deluxe BFG 285 GTX OC OCZ Powerstream 700w Samsung 2693HM 25in PS3/X360 60" Panny

Aug 21, 2004, 03:31 PM	#13
Logla HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 3,311 Rep Power: 62	I've been reading a lot about guys who have bought the VIVOs and done the flash. They all get excellent performance until one day they switch their machine on and get the message telling them to plug in the power cord to the vid card. They check its still there - it is, they reseat, reboot several times and it still wont work. This is what happens when your extra 4 pipes fail. As far as I know you cant then reflash back to the old bios as the card fails to be recognised properly by the computer and wont allow the flash. Even if you can flash it, you get the same error when you power up the pc.

Aug 21, 2004, 05:07 PM	#19
Styles DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 9 Rep Power: 0	geez what a load of crap. If you make a backup bios of your original pro bios you're fine. There is no problems with pipelines. They are true X800XT PE rebadged as pros because they didn't quite get the 520 core speed at full stability. It's not just Sapphire's either that can be modded. There are 2 types of mods: hard mods and softmods. Hard mods I would stay away from. Softmods is only the bios change and is harmless if you don't overclock if using stock cooling. For the cards that are using Ati4 Silencer fans you can improve on the stock speeds of 520/560 as games like doom3 that get temps of 70 degrees plus are reduced to about 53-59 degrees. The ati4 silencer fan is simply great. Go to google and read about it. One forum had only one person with problems out of the 40+ people who softmodded their cards. The gigabyte bios is the most stable compared to ati x800xt bios. I have guides and files still on my drive that I got from researching from weeks before i attempted softmod on my sapphire vivo. I still have my original X800 Pro vivo bios backed up too. If you play it smart and follow directions and not risk anything than there's nothing to worry about. Why u think there is so much pros sold? They took ages to bring out the successful X800XT PE's because they didn't have much in production for the high demands of orders. Woilah the 95-99% sucessful X800XT PE's are going to be the X800 pro's until we get lots of 100% sucessful X800XT PE's produced. They have to make money somehow these companies do!!!!!!!! Woah this is an edit update cause I hope the guy before this post wasn't thinking i was replying to him as his post wasn't there when i was typing this one. I agree to what he says too as I have read lots of stuff. Actually i might put the info i got from my drive about this into next post.

Aug 21, 2004, 05:39 PM	#21
Styles DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 9 Rep Power: 0	[color=#ff0000]ATI RADEON X800 Pro VIVO > X800 XT [/color] [color=#ff0000]BIOS FLASH GUIDE[/color] ************************************************ ********************************************** **** [color=#0000ff]Equipment & files required[/color] 2 x floppy discs DrDos boot disk creator: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color] FlashROM 2.37 + floppy creator: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color] Gigabyte Flash utility & X800 XT BIOS: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color] Retail ATI X800 XT BIOS: [color=#0000ff]HERE[/color] [color=#ff0000]BEFORE FLASHING THE BIOS, MAKE SURE YOU MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR OLD ONE[/color] ********************************************** ********************************************** *** To back up your BIOS: (Floppy 'A') ([color=#ff0000]a[/color]) Create a bootable floppy disc with flashrom on it by double clicking the Flasher+Floppy2.37.exe. ([color=#ff0000]b[/color]) Restart the PC with the floppy disc inserted & boot in DOS. ([color=#ff0000]c[/color]) Once activity has ceased you will be at the A:\ prompt, type the following command line to back up your existing BIOS: [color=#0000ff]flashrom -s 0 backup.bin[/color] You now have a file on the floppy disc named 'backup.bin' this is your original BIOS which you may require at a later date. ([color=#ff0000]d[/color]) Remove the floppy disc & reboot the PC. ********************************************** ********************************************** *** To flash to the Gigabyte X800XT BIOS for enabling the 4 locked pipelines (Floppy 'B') ([color=#ff0000]a[/color]) Create a bootable floppy disc by double clicking the DrDos boot disc creator. ([color=#ff0000]b[/color]) Unzip the Gigabyte Flash utility & X800 XT BIOS, then place the files on the floppy disc. ([color=#ff0000]c[/color]) Restart the PC with the floppy disc inserted & boot in DOS. ([color=#ff0000]d[/color]) Once activity has ceased you will be at the A:\ prompt, type the following command line to flash the BIOS: [color=#0000ff]GVF11 -p -f A:\r80x256v.f1[/color] ([color=#ff0000]e[/color]) Remove the floppy disc & reboot the PC. ********************************************** ********************************************** *** To flash to the ATI Retail X800 XT BIOS, for improved over clock (Floppy 'A') ([color=#ff0000]a[/color]) Insert floppy disc 'A' into into the floppy drive (leaving existing files in tact). ([color=#ff0000]b[/color]) Place the downloaded Retail ATI X800 XT BIOS ( X800XT.bin ) on to the floppy. ([color=#ff0000]c[/color]) Restart the PC with the floppy disc inserted & boot in DOS. ([color=#ff0000]d[/color]) Once activity has ceased you will be at the A:\ prompt, type the following command line to flash the BIOS: [color=#0000ff]flashrom -p -f 0 X800XT.bin[/color] ([color=#ff0000]e[/color]) Remove the floppy disc & reboot the PC. ********************************************** ********************************************** ** I recommend you retain the 2 floppy discs for future use. If you have followed the instructions carefully you should have a fully fledged ATI Radeon X800 XT 520mhz core / 560mhz memory. Due to the heat generated by the additional 4 pipelines your maximum core over clock is likely to be reduced by on average 20mhz. By -=:Paddy007UK :=- 2nd info page i had saved on my drive: Yes I have flashed my card now with another bios, using the flashrom tool. It has maintained the 16 pipes as flashrom will not close these pipes off. You can even flash back to a pro and still have 16 pipes, its not in the bios itself that changes the pipe status, its the flash program. Flashrom wont change the status of the pipes but the gigabytes will. Thats why when you use the gigabytes it changes from 12-16, but if you use flashrom it will NOT close them again ! To force a flash using the Gigabits tool - gvf11 '-f' a:\r80256v.f1 should be gvf11 a:\r80256v.f1 -f I am currently using this bios on my Club3d and still enjoying the 16 pipes, I've uploaded all the files I have used, and my cards original bios to my website: http://www.littlebeigebox.co.uk/x800/ sry for typos, in a rush to get to work ! Ecks using the x800xt bios from my site my card seems stable, with the GB one it wasnt :S heres a quick guide for anyone who wants to try the mod... youll need a sapphire x800 pro vivo, (the one with Samsung K4J55323QF-GC16 memory) the gigabyte flash tool(gvf11), flashrom 237, an xt bios, the gigabyte xt bios and atitool 0.0.20. there seems to be 100% success so far with there cards, but you never know if ati will change their production process after this info becomes more widely available?? if your new to bios flashing read this http://www.rojakpot.com/default.asp...&var1=91&var2=1 ,its quite comprehensive although youll need flashrom 237 instead of the one used there. first flash the bios with the gigabyte bios using the command gvf11 -f -p r80x256v.f1, then reboot and use install cat 4.6 and then atitool to read how many pipes you now have, if you have 16 proceed, if not then reflash with the original bios. at this point if your max overclock mhz will have dropped by 15mhz core and 20mhz mem approx.(is this because the voltage on the gigabyte bios is lower?) now flash the bios with flashrom 237 to another xt bios,(flashrom -f -p 0 "xtbios".bin) I used the official xt bios from ati. this will boost your max overclock again to what it was before. (does anyone have a bios that takes the max overclock higher still??) at this point I flashed back to the original pro bios because I carnt reach the xt speeds, just 515/535. flashing back will give you a 16 pipe pro as the pipes youve unlocked will still be there, but if you reach the xt speeds then there should be no reason to do so. the advantage of unlocking my extra 4 pipes and overclocking the card has given me a 2000+ higher mark in 3d mark 03, and has made far cry run at approx 15fps faster with max details 1024/768. the card now runs 5C higher but thats nothing to worry about. feel free to add or take away from this guide, and thanks everyone who has posted on this page and GL. Someone already posted a link to another message thread with instructions, earlier in this thread. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...1725#post481725 But for everyone's benefit . . . Boot from floppy to DOS prompt Make BIOS backup: flashrom -s 0 X800Pro_original.bin Flash to Gigabyte XT BIOS: gvf11 -P -F R80X256V_filename.F1 Reboot and make sure it has 16 pipes with ATitool in Windows Boot floppy again Flash to ATi XT BIOS: flashrom -f -p 0 ATIX800XT-filename.bin You need Gigabyte's XT PE BIOS that comes with its own flashtool, ATI FlashROM 2.37, and you can try using an ATI XT PE BIOS at the end. If the XT BIOS doesn't work for you, flash the BIOS backup you made instead. Link to Gigabyte BIOS and Flashtool: http://www.giga-byte.com/Download/D...r80x256v_f1.exe Link to ATI FlashROM: http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/bios/flashrom237.zip Link to ATI XT PE BIOS: http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/bios/A...6.Samsung16.bin Link to ATItool: http://atitool.ocfaq.com/ ********************************************** *** Well that's the info I had saved on hard drive, but i did delete one while back which was way too big and took ages to load up with explorer. It was about the x800 pro to xt PE hard mod which I don't agree with. It's up to the individual I guess. NONE OF THIS INFO IS MINE AND I DO NOT HAVE ANY CLAIM TO IT ALL.**

Aug 21, 2004, 05:53 PM	Thread Starter #22
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Thank you very much, Styles So there was a different flashing utility after all. That's what I was wondering about. Again, thanks for posting the info. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Aug 21, 2004, 06:06 PM	#23
Styles DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 9 Rep Power: 0	Haha I am not the best style as you are lol. I use stylez as nicks also in other forums. Well yeah i posted that info which I state again wasn't involved in the articles and discussions. It is copied and pasted from my hardrive. What is that PAT you talking about with the Asus P4P 800 because I own that mobo. I am using the 1.016 bios latest one. I have a prescott 2.8ghz cpu running at 3.023ghz as of yesterday. CPU idle temp now is 30 degrees mobo is 29 degrees. Send me a personal message as this is not topic related. Last edited by Styles; Aug 21, 2004 at 06:12 PM.

Aug 22, 2004, 04:16 AM	#25
wolfran DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 414 Rep Power: 0	Actually if you buy a gigabyte x800pro VIVO, the extra 4 pipelines are enabled by default. I know some people here that buy those cards that have all 16 pipelines enabled by default but not sure if they'll keep doing that.

Sep 1, 2004, 07:55 PM	#26
KRN-Drak DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 152 Rep Power: 0	I'm planning on buying a x800 Pro ViVO Toxic, and I wanted to flash up to 16 pipelines, but I don't want my card to shit out. Any experience with these specific cards and if the Gigabyte 16, back to ATI PRo flash mod works well with them? Or safe keeping it flashed to XT or blah blah. Anyone with one let me know __________________ etc

Sep 1, 2004, 08:41 PM	Thread Starter #27
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	From what I've learned off of Qba73 is if you flash with the Gigabyte and then revert back to your original BIOS the 16 pipes will stay and your card will be fine. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Oct 18, 2004, 07:14 PM	#29
Callandor Forged on Dragonmount Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Posts: 6,876 Rep Power: 256 System Specs	The X800pro rules baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;-) __________________

Oct 25, 2004, 10:53 PM	#30
RobbyRobbe DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	I have flashed to the gigabyte bios, but now my computer dont boot any more ... what should i do ??? Robby