Bios for non-'Built by ATI' card

dh3x · Jun 30, 2002, 04:42 AM

Hi everyone,

I've been having some problems with my Powercolor VIVO Radeon 8500 with playing games. All 3d games that I've tried locked up after awhile of playing with the sound looping and would require a hard reboot. (i.e. Quake 3, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft 3) I've ran it with the 6071 drivers, catalyst, and the latest leaked one also, but to no avail.

I've read some threads about other guys solving their infinite loops problem by flashing to another bios. My current bios is 7.008. I'm not overclocking my card or cpu. Oh yeah, tried swapping back my old GeForce2MX just to confirm that it's really my Radeon. After swapping back to the gf2mx all my locking up problems is gone.

So now my only hope is to flash it to another bios. I've tried the ones in this webpage http://lradunovic.tripod.com/radeon8500/id6.html but those are for 'Built by ATI' cards I believe, because after I flashed the bios to my card (I've tried all 3 of them) there were a lot of artifacts during bootup. Before flashing, I edited the mem/core clock to 250/250 (which is my original default) and also the vendor id to those of my manufacturer (C.P......).

Any help please?
Thanks in advance!

DallasStar · Jun 30, 2002, 05:12 AM

you already have the latest bios.

Considering that it has to do with looping sound, did it ever occur to you to check to see if the soundcard is the problem? If you've already confirmed that its not the soundcard, then I don't know what to tell you. You may want to try the omega/plutonium drivers:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/drivers

dh3x · Jun 30, 2002, 02:40 PM

I don't think it's my sound card as my gf2mx runs fine without and glitch. Anyway, will swapping back to an older bios help fix my problem? On the other hand, I'll try taking out my sound card as a test. For your info, I'm using SB Live 5.1 using the latest leaked driver (35.21). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I've also tried the Omega/Plutonium drivers.

frijec · Jul 1, 2002, 10:32 PM

lol Welcome to the Powercolor Problems club I have the exact same problem...

Sus · Jul 2, 2002, 12:14 AM

Me too.... and I don't know what to do. If anyone knows ... please help us ;-)

Sus

almebe · Jul 2, 2002, 05:03 AM

I had the same problems with that card. Try to change AGP to 2x in the BIOS, or even to 1X. And also change graphic aperture size, I changed it to 4MB.

dh3x · Jul 2, 2002, 01:10 PM

wow damn! All you guys with Powercolor are having the exact same problem? Weird man... sighh... I'm still hopeful about trying to flash some other bios into the card. I'm about to try the Sapphiretech bioses from their ftp. The first one i tried (P14901.018) didn't turn up well as it has artifacts during bootup. The only bios I've managed to get artifacts-free result so far is the Hercules LE bios (7.004) but it still hangs during 3d gameplay.

Jun 30, 2002, 04:42 AM	#1
dh3x DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Malaysia Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	Bios for non-'Built by ATI' card Hi everyone, I've been having some problems with my Powercolor VIVO Radeon 8500 with playing games. All 3d games that I've tried locked up after awhile of playing with the sound looping and would require a hard reboot. (i.e. Quake 3, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft 3) I've ran it with the 6071 drivers, catalyst, and the latest leaked one also, but to no avail. I've read some threads about other guys solving their infinite loops problem by flashing to another bios. My current bios is 7.008. I'm not overclocking my card or cpu. Oh yeah, tried swapping back my old GeForce2MX just to confirm that it's really my Radeon. After swapping back to the gf2mx all my locking up problems is gone. So now my only hope is to flash it to another bios. I've tried the ones in this webpage http://lradunovic.tripod.com/radeon8500/id6.html but those are for 'Built by ATI' cards I believe, because after I flashed the bios to my card (I've tried all 3 of them) there were a lot of artifacts during bootup. Before flashing, I edited the mem/core clock to 250/250 (which is my original default) and also the vendor id to those of my manufacturer (C.P......). Any help please? Thanks in advance! __________________ System spec: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ ECS K7S5A (motherboard) Windows XP Pro 512MB PC133 RAM Powercolor VIVO Radeon 8500 @250/250

Jun 30, 2002, 05:12 AM	#2
DallasStar Junior Join Date: May 2002 Location: Wave Existence Posts: 2,065 Rep Power: 0	you already have the latest bios. Considering that it has to do with looping sound, did it ever occur to you to check to see if the soundcard is the problem? If you've already confirmed that its not the soundcard, then I don't know what to tell you. You may want to try the omega/plutonium drivers: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/drivers __________________ "A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night." --- Franz Kafka

Jun 30, 2002, 02:40 PM	Thread Starter #3
dh3x DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Malaysia Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	I don't think it's my sound card as my gf2mx runs fine without and glitch. Anyway, will swapping back to an older bios help fix my problem? On the other hand, I'll try taking out my sound card as a test. For your info, I'm using SB Live 5.1 using the latest leaked driver (35.21). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I've also tried the Omega/Plutonium drivers. __________________ System spec: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ ECS K7S5A (motherboard) Windows XP Pro 512MB PC133 RAM Powercolor VIVO Radeon 8500 @250/250

Jul 2, 2002, 05:03 AM	#6
almebe DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Alzira, Valencia, Spain Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	AGP 4x I had the same problems with that card. Try to change AGP to 2x in the BIOS, or even to 1X. And also change graphic aperture size, I changed it to 4MB.

Jul 2, 2002, 01:10 PM	Thread Starter #7
dh3x DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Malaysia Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	wow damn! All you guys with Powercolor are having the exact same problem? Weird man... sighh... I'm still hopeful about trying to flash some other bios into the card. I'm about to try the Sapphiretech bioses from their ftp. The first one i tried (P14901.018) didn't turn up well as it has artifacts during bootup. The only bios I've managed to get artifacts-free result so far is the Hercules LE bios (7.004) but it still hangs during 3d gameplay. __________________ System spec: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ ECS K7S5A (motherboard) Windows XP Pro 512MB PC133 RAM Powercolor VIVO Radeon 8500 @250/250

Jul 1, 2002, 10:32 PM	#4
frijec DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	lol Welcome to the Powercolor Problems club I have the exact same problem...

Jul 2, 2002, 12:14 AM	#5
Sus DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Me too.... and I don't know what to do. If anyone knows ... please help us ;-) Sus