PCI-E X800 Pro Vivo -> XT flash ... Seen as x800GT ... help!

[Superguy]

Hey all,

I was trying to flash my PCI-E X800 Pro VIVO tonight, using the latest Cat's and everytime I flashed it to an XT bios, Windows would detect it as an X800 GT. Still had 12 pipes enabled and X800 XT speeds (my card won't do XT PE speeds). Nothing.

It has 2.0ns RAM, but it does have the yellow audio jack and the Rage Theater chip. I followed the tutorial at Techpowerup.com, and just about every PCI-E bios for the X800 XT ... an even the 16 pipe pro bios.

Nothing would unlock those other 4 pipes.

Are there any VIVO's out there with the laser cut?

I also heard that there was an ATITool command that you could run to check some registers. W1zzard had a theory about an "f" being in the right place meant it was moddable. Anyone know where that is? I had it book marked, but that was lost when I rebuilt my system tonight.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get this to work?

Thanks,

Super

[k800]

hi,


Try forcing it to install the xt, or xtpe driver, i put some steps below if needed:
First download all drivers you will need. Do a clean uninstall of the drivers, by first uninstalling the drivers from the control panel. Install and update drivercleaner. Then restart in safe mode (Admin) and use drivercleaner. Then restart computer, make sure no internet connection. Then install the drivers, make it install the appropriate xt, or xtpe driver (this may, if there is some conflict, cause windows to become unusable, so proceed carefully, after all these mods are obviously not guaranteed to work). Afterwards, reboot and then check again the number of pipes.


I have the exact same card, pci-e (is your card BBA?), and tried to flash this (x800 pro 16p) bios (flashrom -f -p 0 newbios.bin, you're using the modified flasher right?), and my computer display would not appear. I had to flash blind back to my old bios (x800 pro 12p) before it would work. I haven't tried the x800xt or xtpe bioses yet.. I will though and report back. Did you have this same problem with the x800pro 16p bios?

Anyways, how did you find out what speed your x800 pro could handle (ie. you said your card could only do x800xt, not x800xt pe? I assume you might have overclocked it to the stock speeds of the x800xt, xtpe to see if it was stable.. If so what speeds did you check?

I will try to find out more on w1zzard's theory, technically we could find out by looking under the gpu heatsink to at least see whether there is a laser cut...=/

Thanks,
K800

[k800]

Here's a page where this is being discussed: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showth...&page=54&pp=10

[k800]

Here's some of my discussion with someone on the techpowerup forums.

Hi,
I have a bba x800 pro pci-e vivo , when i tried flashing to the x800 pro pci-e 16p bios, i had no display, and had to flash blindly back to the x800 pro 12p bios. I haven't tried the x800xt bioses yet.. can possibly non-bba bioses work on the card? Any info? suggestions?

thanks,
k800

K800,

Did you hardmod your card prior to flashing the bios? Almost all, and I say "almost", because I haven't seen one yet that has not had a laser cut in the PCI-E version. But if you have hardmodded/have no laser cut, yes, you should be able to use another make of bios. The cards are all the same in the PCB. Just always make sure you have a backup of your orginal bios.

-Dan

Hi, thanks for the info! Yes it was nearly a nightmare, thankfully i had considered such a situation and had the old bios.. So your saying that even the vivo x800 pro PCI-E cards are laser cut, and so only the AGP cards can work easily according to the guide posted on the techpower-up thread? From reading the thread myself, and other posts, I and others seem to fall under its implication that exactly the same procedure is to be followed irrespective of the format of the card slot, iow i thought only the non-vivo cards had the laser cut pipes.

Oddly though is if the situation (having to do a blind card flash), is because of the extra pipes being laser-cut, then any of the 16 pipe bioses (x800 pro-mod,XT,XTPE) should cause a similar black screen (i guess), yet I have a friend who posted in another thread that the only problem he had with the PCI-E vivo un-hard-modded x800 pro, was that windows (!) would recognize the card as a x800 gt, but still have 12 pipes (only) and run at XT speeds (this was when he flashed the XT bios). If what your saying is true then I am to believe its likely that he has had his pipes laser-cut also...

Finally do you have any links to a guide for hard-modding?

Sry for all the noobness ,
k800

Yes you are right that the non-vivo's are laser cut, but so are the PCI-E versions. The PCI-E versions were released afterwards, and to peoples knowledge, ATI caught onto the fashing trick. So they started to cut the pipes on the PCI-E versions. But they didn't bother with the AGP versions, cause they would have lost more money trying to cut them. Some people have goten around the laser cut by hard modding. Heres a guide to mod the laser cut version. Now, as you said before, some where getting the card as showing up as a X800GT, when this happens, try reinstalling the drivers, or try another bios. But in most cases you can't flash the card, because it might be locked in some other way. A person on these fourms thinks he got the trick to getting the PCI-E versions unlocked, but so far has failed...and we don't think he will succeed either. The mod was aimed at the PRO VIVO AGP cards, not the PCI-E versions. Almost none have succeded on getting the full 16p on the PCI-E version. And some that did get them unlocked, had to close them because they were defective.

I can almost safley say, you wont get the pipes, and I don't recommend trying to get them, because all it will cause is you to get pissed, or or card will get fried. But I will help you if you decide, you want to try anyways.

-Dan

Hi,

IC so the pci-e vivos are cut b/c ATi caught on. I assume the person you were talking about who thinks he's got the trick to unlocking the PCI-e is the same person writing the hard-modding thread (i.e. the ONLY way to unlock the pipes is hard modding since they are cut). How come on this thread he says that for those who have succeeded in hard-modding their x800 pro and activating the pipes, have 100% success? I did take notice that there were very few successes overall tho =p, and I assume that he hasn't updated the thread in a long while since it is very old. I will try flashing the XT bios once, to make sure, I've tested my card at 500/500 and it seems okay...

Thanks,
k800

I also asked him for the difficulty of removing the heatsink to check for the laser cuts//

lemme know of your progress, anything else, if u think i should ask him something else or something

thanks,
k800

[ViperJohn]

Hey all,

I was trying to flash my PCI-E X800 Pro VIVO tonight, using the latest Cat's and everytime I flashed it to an XT bios, Windows would detect it as an X800 GT. Still had 12 pipes enabled and X800 XT speeds (my card won't do XT PE speeds). Nothing.

It has 2.0ns RAM, but it does have the yellow audio jack and the Rage Theater chip. I followed the tutorial at Techpowerup.com, and just about every PCI-E bios for the X800 XT ... an even the 16 pipe pro bios.

Nothing would unlock those other 4 pipes.

Are there any VIVO's out there with the laser cut?

I also heard that there was an ATITool command that you could run to check some registers. W1zzard had a theory about an "f" being in the right place meant it was moddable. Anyone know where that is? I had it book marked, but that was lost when I rebuilt my system tonight.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get this to work?

Thanks,

Super

Use RivaTuner.exe /rr990 . That dump return the contents of register 990 in the following bit mask format - ooooXooo. Bit three where the X is in the mask contains the count of pipe quads that were hard and permanantly disabled at the FAB.

If you have anything other than hex "f" ( binary 1111) at bit three where the X is in the mask above you have a pipe quad or quads that were hard disabled at the FAB due to a defect of a pipe in that quad.

Viper