Sapphire X800 XT bios

[canadiantoaster]

I’ve already did the softmod and my Sapphire X800 Pro is running along perfectly with 16 pipelines. I had to flash it back to the original bios since it’s not able to sustain standard X800 XT speed with the Gigabyte Bios. But I would like to try flashing it using the original Sapphire X800 XT bios, now that the 16 pipelines are open. Can anyone direct me toward a downloadable version of this bios?
By the way, great forum!

[iwillburnbush]

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!!

When you flash an x800 pro to an x800xt bios you open the 16pipes, but when you flash it back you disable them again. Are you sure that the cards just couldn't run at XT speeds, or were the pipes messed up? In otherwords, did the screen have a cheackerboard effct or did it have white or black dots all over th screens or did it have tearing (which looks like random black triangles and other polygons)?

What I would do first (assuming you haven't already done it) is download ATItool and overclock to XT speeds, if that works and you don't have any artifacts than you can try the ATI bios (found here: softmod.ocfaq.com/bios.php) or the sapphire bios (If you can find it), but it probably will not work...

[canadiantoaster]

In fact, if you flash the Gigabyte bios, you get 16 pipelines and the X800-TX clock speed. If you flash back the original bios not with the Gigabyte flasher but instead with Flashrom, you still get to keep the 16 pipelines but at the original X800 Pro clock speed. I just tough try my luck with the Sapphire X800 XT bios.

[Pntgrd]

Very few of the Sapphires would run XT speeds after the Softmod without also doing a voltmod. A few licks of a pencil will do wonders for them. Just do a search on "Pencil Mod" and all you problems shall be cured. Mine were.

[iwillburnbush]

Toaster, did you reinstall the drivers after flashing back to the original bios? If not than it's possible that the pipelines are controlled by drivers, which would be a pretty big thing. Although I doubt it is (nobody else has figured it out yet, so that's probably not th case) so how would it keep the 16 pipes when you flash it back to 12? Anybody care to explain, I don't know much about x800s, but i do know about BIOSs and that doesn't make an sense to me (But I'm stupid... [shrug])

[Kunaak]

here you go, I found a version of the X800 Pro VIVO Bios, thats been modded to use 16 pipelines, but only uses the X800 Pro speeds.

so if your Vivo is fine with 16 pipelines, but not the XT speeds, this bios should be perfect for you :D

I found it here, reading the details of this particular flashing method.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/100

this quote reminded me of your problem here.

"If you know your card can't handle the XT PE speeds you can download a modified X800 Pro VIVO Bios from there as well (ATI X800 Pro VIVO 16P). This Bios is just 16P enabled and is recognized as X800 XT PE - clocks are unchanged"

I attached the bios here as a zip file.
goodluck, and please-post some results-I'd like to see :attn:

[canadiantoaster]

Thank you all for your help! I will try the bios you sent me and let you all know how it went!

[Cheator]

Is flashing a video bios much of a risk? I;ve never done it before. And I am planning on getting an x800 pro vivo so i'd be doing the same thing.

[canadiantoaster]

If you follow the instructions posted here and on other forum, it’s actually quite simple to do. The only thing to remember is that if something go wrong, you might be forced to use a PCI video card to boot and flash back you card, or do a blind flash. And by the way, make a backup of your original bios!

Iwillburnbush, if you use the Gigabyte flasher to flash the XT bios, and then flash back to the original bios but using Flashrom, you do indeed get to “keep” the 16 pipelines. But if for some reason you need to go back to 12, you just have to flash back to the original bios but this time using the Gigabyte flasher. Strange as hell!

Kunaak, I tryed to open the bios (ATX.X800PROVIVI16P…) using RaBit 1.3, but I got a checksum error, so I don’t think I’ll try and flash my card. I found the original Sapphire XT-PE bios, and I think I’ll try with that one instead. The best thing for me, since my card does not work at full XT-PE clock, would be to flash it to an original Sapphire XT-PE bios, but with the clock speed adjusted to the level of the Pro. Alas, I have not found a bios editor that will let me play with the clock speed of any X800 familly of cards bios.