Radeon 9500 Pro overclocking fix [Archive]

funnyperson1

12-18-02, 06:35 PM

heres the text in case Ati goes nazi on Rage3d, they have done that before with leaked drivers:rolleyes:

I fixed the 9500Pro BIOS. It's now overclockable!
I did a comparison of the 9700Pro BIOS, the 9700 non-pro BIOS, and the 9500Pro BIOS and was able to find the one hexidecimal value that is keeping the 9500Pro and 9700 non-pro from overclocking.

Address Line: 00000070h
Originally: 44 76 4E 37 91 08 02 10 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Edited: 44 76 4E 37 90 08 02 10 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

ATi is setting the same hex value on the 9500Pro and 9700 non-pro to keep them from overclocking. I tested this change on both a 9700 non-pro and 9500Pro and it works. All of the overclocking utilities functioned correctly...Rage3D Tweak works great with it!

Download the new 9500Pro overclockable BIOS here:

home.mindspring.com/~warp11/

You may need to uninstall/reinstall your ATi Drivers and Control Panel.

john240sx

12-18-02, 06:42 PM

i copied that into notepad, just in case..........

thanks for letting us know about this Captain Hilts

Captain Hilts

12-18-02, 07:59 PM

Originally posted by john240sx
i copied that into notepad, just in case..........

thanks for letting us know about this Captain Hilts

Don't thank me, thank warp11 from Rage3d!

I haven't flashed a video card bios before though, does anyone have a link to some instructions on how exactly to do this?

snvpa

12-18-02, 08:44 PM

thats awesome i knew someone would fix it. I did a quick google search but found nothing on how to flash an 9500 pro or 9500 bios. Id try the ati website though. nothing on the ati site either. that was a stupid idea though.

Ec]-[oMaN

12-18-02, 08:45 PM

wow nice find,and thanx for letting us know

Captain Hilts

12-18-02, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by snvpa
thats awesome i knew someone would fix it. I did a quick google search but found nothing on how to flash an 9500 pro or 9500 bios. Id try the ati website though. nothing on the ati site either. that was a stupid idea though.

Thanks for looking. I found some instructions for the older Radeon cards. I assume it's probably the same but I'll wait until I know for sure the correct procedure for this card. It looks like someone on the Rage3d thread ran into some trouble while doing this.

Penguin4x4

12-18-02, 09:03 PM

Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP Sticky ASAP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

kiljaden5

12-18-02, 09:18 PM

STICKY!!!!

I DL'd the new bios and will be OCing it as soon as I get it hehe :D

now I just gotta wait about a week or 2 to get it:(

Roof Jumper

12-18-02, 09:25 PM

1-Man-Army

12-18-02, 09:48 PM

i new some one was gonna get the bios compare it and use hex to change it damn right i was

iceman2g

12-18-02, 09:54 PM

That is just amazing! If this works can someone post some scores!!

q149

12-18-02, 10:02 PM

find a program called ATIFLASH. download it and put all the files on a floppy along with the bios.
boot into dos and direct to the a: drive and type the following
atiflash -p 0 xxxxxxxxx.bin
xxxxxxxx.bin being the name of the bios.
first before you do this uninstall your drivers and reinstall once you are done.

snvpa

12-18-02, 10:02 PM

yeah i saw the thread that someone had some trouble. not that it matters but it also looked like it was his first post. then again the person who invented the mod had only 13. I'd check over there for an answer. I've flashed tons of mobo bioses but never a vid card.

Originally posted by Captain Hilts

Thanks for looking. I found some instructions for the older Radeon cards. I assume it's probably the same but I'll wait until I know for sure the correct procedure for this card. It looks like someone on the Rage3d thread ran into some trouble while doing this.

thanks for the info q149

Captain Hilts

12-18-02, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by q149
find a program called ATIFLASH. download it and put all the files on a floppy along with the bios.
boot into dos and direct to the a: drive and type the following
atiflash -p 0 xxxxxxxxx.bin
xxxxxxxx.bin being the name of the bios.
first before you do this uninstall your drivers and reinstall once you are done.

Thanks for the instructions. I just found similar instructions here: http://210.66.112.141/rv2sbios.htm

That site uses a different program though, flashrom, and the file is a .rom instead of a .bin, any reason for that?

The guy who's having trouble with this on the Rage3d friend might be having the trouble because of his version of ATIFLASH. I don't know which one the newest one is, or which one I have though.

Overclocker550

12-18-02, 10:11 PM

could be a virus or a scam, be careful! I thought it was locked in the drivers, not bios!

kiljaden5

12-18-02, 10:24 PM

could someone PM me a link to the newest version of ATIFLASH?

T'wolves

12-18-02, 10:31 PM

How bout just post that link.

Captain Hilts

12-18-02, 11:20 PM

Here's a link, I believe this is the latest version:

www.radeon2.ru/bios/util/aflash2.rar

PreservedSwine

12-18-02, 11:28 PM

Originally posted by Overclocker550
I thought it was locked in the drivers, not bios!

Is that what your "freinds" told you...
Guess they were wrong...again....:p

Evnas

12-18-02, 11:43 PM

Originally posted by kiljaden5
could someone PM me a link to the newest version of ATIFLASH?

already posted :p

Evnas

12-18-02, 11:45 PM

Originally posted by PreservedSwine

Is that what your "freinds" told you...
Guess they were wrong...again....:p

No, thats what i said, and some other ppl, but i guess we were wrong (unlick some ppl, i admit when im not always right, but then again, i said it MIGHT be the drivers :) )

Captain Hilts

12-19-02, 12:18 AM

I flashed bios with that fix and upped the clocks to 300/300, but for some reason it didn't make any difference in Quake 3 (still right around 205 fps). I upped the clocks to 325/310 and ran 3dmark and got about 1000 more points than before though (over 12600)!

funnyperson1

12-19-02, 12:27 AM

what a horrible virus has infected your system;)

and QuakeIII is not by any means gpu limited.....any Geforce3+ card could get 200fps in that system you have:D

wtg man

Captain Hilts

12-19-02, 12:36 AM

Yeah I don't know what's going on with Quake3, I did manage to get a few more frames out of it now though, but still not much of a difference.

I set the clocks at 344/310 and ran 3dmark again. Also, I set the cpu back to 1.91GHz (I forgot that I had it at 1.83GHz before). This time I got 12979. Here's the link to the scores if anyone's interested:

http://service.futuremark.com/servlet/Index?pageid=/orb/projectdetails&projectType=6&projectId=5370915

My previous best was somewhere between 11700 and 11800. I imagine that it won't be hard to hit 13000 now.

T'wolves

12-19-02, 12:56 AM

Has anyone ordered an OEM card yet? Captain Hilts, yours was reatail wasn't it? Anyways, for anyone who has ordered an OEM card and overclock it I'ld like to see if can hit as high overclocking. Additionally has anyone tried to remove the heatsink and fan to replace with a cooljag yet? wonder if it will cause as much trouble as the 9700.

Captain Hilts

12-19-02, 01:00 AM

Yep, mine's a retail. I'll see if I can push it a bit further tomorrow.

IR1

12-19-02, 01:06 AM

hahahahhaha yes! just a matter of time.... guess I will be getting myself one of these puppies.

Ec]-[oMaN

12-19-02, 01:09 AM

Originally posted by IR1
hahahahhaha yes! just a matter of time.... guess I will be getting myself one of these puppies.
for sure, boxing day here i come!!!

larva

12-19-02, 01:34 AM

Originally posted by Overclocker550
could be a virus or a scam, be careful! I thought it was locked in the drivers, not bios!

Fortunately the link between what you think and reality is tenuous at best.

Cisco Kid

12-19-02, 01:34 AM

Originally posted by T'wolves
Has anyone ordered an OEM card yet? Captain Hilts, yours was reatail wasn't it? Anyways, for anyone who has ordered an OEM card and overclock it I'ld like to see if can hit as high overclocking. Additionally has anyone tried to remove the heatsink and fan to replace with a cooljag yet? wonder if it will cause as much trouble as the 9700.

I have an OEM ATI Built R9500. I just got in the door from a Peter Gabriel concert which was GOOD!! I will give a go tommorrow to see how it compares to Captain Hilts scores.

Nice to see the fix , I knew it eould pop up sooner or later. Also I see know reason an OEM ATI built cards such as mine would post a score much different from Captain Hilts, although take into account the difference in the systems as far as CPU speed which definitely adds a boost.

I think that if I scored a 10100 approx with an 8500 LE 128 this 9500 Pro overclocked should get into the mid 12's on my system with an fsb @166....... I hope hehehehe

cisco kid

iceman2g

12-19-02, 01:37 AM

So what happens to your 8500 LE now cisco? :D

T'wolves

12-19-02, 02:03 AM

Originally posted by Cisco Kid

I have an OEM ATI Built R9500. I just got in the door from a Peter Gabriel concert which was GOOD!! I will give a go tommorrow to see how it compares to Captain Hilts scores.

Nice to see the fix , I knew it eould pop up sooner or later. Also I see know reason an OEM ATI built cards such as mine would post a score much different from Captain Hilts, although take into account the difference in the systems as far as CPU speed which definitely adds a boost.

I think that if I scored a 10100 approx with an 8500 LE 128 this 9500 Pro overclocked should get into the mid 12's on my system with an fsb @166....... I hope hehehehe

cisco kid

Cool thanks cisco kid, I just wanted to know if there is any other differences between the two that we may not know about.

Hurk

12-19-02, 04:54 AM

We shouldn't have to do this.

Evnas

12-19-02, 04:58 AM

Originally posted by Hurk
We shouldn't have to do this.

Im more then willing to do this for this awesome card

mage_x

12-19-02, 06:40 AM

ati must be madddd

Penguin4x4

12-19-02, 09:42 AM

Anyone else see Kyle Bennett's post?:rolleyes:

Hey warp11! Do you mind if I place your fix in the conclusion of a 9500 article we were about to post? Of course with full credit to you and links to this thread... Drop me a mail at kyle@hardocp.com with your thoughts on this if you would.

Found in the middle of Page 2.

Anyway, I will hopefully be getting a 9500 Pro for Christmas, so this has helped imenssly.

BTW, STICKY STICKY STICKY STICKY STICKY STICKY STICKY STICKY !!

Captain Hilts

12-19-02, 09:47 AM

Yeah I saw that. They have an article up about it now.

At least they had the presence to address the issue though. I'm not sure if some of the other guys would.

RuKK

12-19-02, 09:53 AM

w00t! ATI should learn they cant beat the OCing community that easily :D

Hmm.. I may reconsider getting one of these O.o
So has anyone actualy OCed theirs to any decent numbers yet?

Penguin4x4

12-19-02, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by RuKK
w00t! ATI should learn they cant beat the OCing community that easily :D

If man can make it man can break it.

And I have seen so far people having theres in the 340-350 range, though me thinks with some supercooling and v-moddin it'll go much higher, :beer:

snvpa

12-19-02, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by Hurk
We shouldn't have to do this.

there is a very good and very legal reason why we have to. ati doesn't want to lose revenue from their top of the line card. this loss of revenue occurs when performnce concious customers such as us purchase a cheaper lower end card knowing that we can probably get the performance of the higher end card. Its perfectly legit and a good fiscal move by ati. plus I enjoy the challenge. also it doesn't appear to be very difficult to flash a video bios quite similar to flashing a mobo bios. If you think that we shouldn't have to do this then don't the 9500 pro is still an excellent value/performance card nto overclocked. also i would imagine this will not be an isolated incident and I would bet that nvidia will clocklock there lower end cards from now on.

PreservedSwine

12-19-02, 11:22 AM

Originally posted by Evnas

No, thats what i said, and some other ppl, but i guess we were wrong (unlick some ppl, i admit when im not always right, but then again, i said it MIGHT be the drivers :) )

Yes, you understood that what you read was not the final word. That's pretty smart:)
I did not intend to offend anyone, except maybe O/C 550:D (j/k)

Cisco Kid

12-19-02, 12:27 PM

Originally posted by iceman2g
So what happens to your 8500 LE now cisco? :D

Sold it , it was nice card shoulda kept it around for another system but needed the cash

cisco kid

iceman2g

12-19-02, 12:54 PM

9500 Pro Overclocking - 1:25 am EST - Xplosive
Brent Justice over at the Hard OCP trys to overclock the Radeon 9500 Pro (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDA5) but with no success. However, someone on our very own Rage3D boards (http://rage3d.com/board/) looked into the BIOS and was able to find the one hexidecimal value that is keeping the 9500Pro and 9700 non-pro from overclocking. You can download the new 9500 Pro overclockable BIOS here (http://home.mindspring.com/~warp11/). Keep in mind if something goes wrong during the flashing process, your warranty will most likely not be honored.

A huge thanks to warp11 for sharing the information! You can also find out more about flashing the BIOS of your VidCard in the Rage3D forums. I would surely head over to the Rage3D forums and read more about this and see what results folks are getting. Let me say this. Flashing your VidCards BIOS is not for everyone, in fact it will only be for the hardcore of you. You can hose your card quickly by doing this and I can guarantee you that warranties of 9500 Pro with dead BIOSes will most likely not be honored.
Read the complete article here (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDA5) and check out this thread (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33654157).

mbentley

12-19-02, 12:58 PM

Originally posted by Captain Hilts

Thanks for the instructions. I just found similar instructions here: http://210.66.112.141/rv2sbios.htm

That site uses a different program though, flashrom, and the file is a .rom instead of a .bin, any reason for that?

The guy who's having trouble with this on the Rage3d friend might be having the trouble because of his version of ATIFLASH. I don't know which one the newest one is, or which one I have though.

many times the files for bios upgrades don't have any specific extensions... probably harmless but virus check it to be sure.

Cisco Kid

12-19-02, 08:30 PM

Well the bios flash works fine. I have just ran 3D Mark2K1SE at 288/294. Here is the link and score, just shy of 12K but my system needs to be formatted bad, I will reach mid 12's for sure, I have a mess of drivers and stuff floating around......

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5377624

cisco kid

kiljaden5

12-19-02, 10:37 PM

Would it be a good idea to start a new thread with very detailed instructions on how to do this? I would as soon as I gey my card, its on its way now and I'll be OCing it as soon as I get my hands on it hehe

Ec]-[oMaN

12-20-02, 05:01 PM

the mods should really make this a sticky way to many other posts about the same thing

emericanchaos

12-20-02, 05:20 PM

how would the 9500 pro with the oc'able BIOS compare to a GF4 4400 Ti? better worse?

Captain Hilts

12-20-02, 05:24 PM

The 9500 Pro even without the OCable bios is better.

kiljaden5

12-21-02, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by emericanchaos
how would the 9500 pro with the oc'able BIOS compare to a GF4 4400 Ti? better worse?

even without the OCable bios, the 9500 pro is better than a Ti 4600 too, not just 4400... there is no nvidia card as of now that is faster than it is, only the radeons 9700 and 9700 pro are better

R.Rabbit

12-21-02, 08:32 AM

Originally posted by emericanchaos
how would the 9500 pro with the oc'able BIOS compare to a GF4 4400 Ti? better worse?
the 9500pro is faster and has better visual quality

Bon3thugz43v3r

12-21-02, 09:44 AM

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAY!!
:p :p :p

I am gonna go run in circles over this!!! I am getting a 9500 Pro fore sure now!:p