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Thread: Sapphire Radeon 4870 and Flashing

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Posts
    48

    Sapphire Radeon 4870 and Flashing

    hi there

    I am having a big doubt regarding my video card. I am having some troubles regarding freezing problem of my graphic card.I am having troubles with random 3D freezes under both Linux and Windows operating system but didnot have problems with 2D. I searched around a bit and found results of users explaining that how they have flashed a new firmware onto their Sapphire Radeon 4870 and how it is been helped in their card performance. Now my qustion is as follows:

    How safe is flashing a graphic card?

    What's better option for flashing from Windows or DOS?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    1,467

    Re: Sapphire Radeon 4870 and Flashing

    1 ) Yes it can help in some situations.

    2) If care is taken, it should be OK. ALWAYS SAVE THE ORIGINAL BIOS BEFORE FLASHING. There are times where flashing can make issues worse though for example if the "new" bios from the other vendor uses more aggressive memory timings due to performance tweaking or different memory chips being used on the other card. When this happens, if you have another video card handy (does not have to be the same model or make or brand) and have the slots to put in both the video cards it can usually be easily reverted too. Plus if you ever have to send your card in for warranty you want to flash it back. Another thing to note is make sure that heatsink and fan on both models are the same. If they are not (for example the card's bios that your going to be flahing too utilizes a non reference cooler), there is a good possiblity that the fan speed steps are different.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    2,335

    Re: Sapphire Radeon 4870 and Flashing

    if the case is for sapphire 4870 than
    the bios update can be found here :
    http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/support/drivers.php

    there is a known issue for very certain cards
    if on the box your part number (writen on a green patch) is PN: 188-01E85-001SA // SKU#:11133-00-XXR
    than your default bios should be VER011.006.000.003.000000 (can be reveled with GPU-Z)
    this is a buggy bios since on low graphic games the gpu tries to lower the clock rate which crash your PC
    you would probbly c alot of squeres like corduray effect of some kind
    in that case you should go to the link above and upgrade your bios
    preferably in dos mode (use a bootable cd/flash drive)

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    1,547

    Re: Sapphire Radeon 4870 and Flashing

    It is very simple.

    Download nvflash here.
    DOWLOAD
    Extract the files and copy the 2 files nvflash and cwsdpmi to a clean floppy disk.

    Get another disk and make this boot disk.
    DOWNLOAD

    Now you will have 2 disks,
    One is a DOS boot disk with a RAMDrive (virtual drive) C:
    The other contains the files to flash/save a BIOS.rom from the gfx card.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    1,059

    Re: Sapphire Radeon 4870 and Flashing

    Originally, the video BIOS was stored in a ROM (Read Only Memory) and could not be replaced. Nowadays it is located in a flash memory chip (that's why it's called 'flashing').
    The reason for this move was that like every other piece of software, the BIOS had programming errors, or an issue was detected in the hardware for which a workaround had to be found. So the manufacturers just gave out an updated BIOS to a customer to fix the issue.

    The more interesting use is to mod cards. For example, on the X800 Pro VIVO you can unlock additional pipelines by changing the BIOS. How so? Inside the BIOS is a small block of information which tells the GPU how many pipelines it should run at. If you replace the original BIOS with a BIOS which tells the GPU "16 Pipelines!" .. well, then you are running 16 pipelines.

    Another good use is to change the default clocks of the card. As you remember from above, the BIOS sets the core and memory clock. On the last page of this article we will cover the different BIOS editors and their use.

    Sometimes a new BIOS increases performance as well. However, my personal experience is that this difference is rather small. However, if you do upgrade your video BIOS for this reason, make sure you run benchmarks before and after.

    The BIOS is a small piece of code (typically <64 KB), which is stored inside a small chip on your video card. When the VGA card receives power, the BIOS is loaded into system memory and immediately executed by the CPU.

    On startup, the BIOS initializes the video card:
    Initialize the GPU
    Detect number of memory chips, chip size, access mode
    Enable memory access and set proper timings
    Detect if external devices (analog VGA, DVI, TV-out) are connected and enable them
    Set core and memory clock
    Enable power management
    Set fan speed (if supported by the board)
    After these tasks are completed, the display will turn on and display what's happening next - usually the motherboard's POST screen.

    Once you boot into Windows, the display driver takes over all video functions and the BIOS is no longer used. However, it remains accessible for execution. Actually, manufacturers like ATI added a handful of functions which can be invoked from within Windows, for example to change power management settings on a mobile GPU.

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