X800 Pro->XT conversion... pipes unlocked, but problems!

I received my Sapphire X800 Pro VIVO today. First of all, I have to say that after having a 6800 GT with an NV5 Silencer on it, this card is tiny. I used driver cleaner before I removed the 6800, so when I installed it, I had no real errors... used latest catalyst drivers from ATI's website, but without the control panel.

Downloaded ATI Tool. I really have to say that this program alone is worth the switch from nVidia. It really makes the entire overclocking process a breeze--a lot more cranking up speeds and a lot less watching 3DMark05 200 times.

After running both of the detect tests for about half an hour, it determined that my max speeds were 561/603. Temps were peaking at about 63C, so I wasn't too worried, but those speeds do seem spectacular... and a little excessive for stock cooling.

More importantly! I attempted to flash from Pro->XT-PE using the modified flashrom version and the latest XT-PE BIOS. The flash went fine, Windows detects it as an XT-PE, and ATI Tool reports all 16 pipes are functional--but whenever I attempt to do anything 3D, it chokes. No artifacts or anything--it just chokes immediately. It's running at the stock XT-PE clocks (520/560), and considering I spent a solid 4.5-5hrs gaming at speeds above that tonight with no artifacting at all, I know it's capable of handling the speeds.

I've read about people who have had problems after enabling the other 4 pipes, but all of them seemed to report serious artifacting issues. I'm actually writing this right now with the other 4 enabled, flashed as XT-PE (last time I flashed first to the 16 pipe version of the Pro BIOS that's floating around, so I decided to try flashing to XT-PE first to see if anything changed... it didn't), so everything functions normally with it like this until I fire up an app that uses 3D.

Are the pipes borked? Or is it possible that I'm doing something wrong here?

Either way, this is an absolutely fantastic card. I can't wait to put it through it's paces in 3DMark05, even if it is with only 12 pipes enabled.

Have you upped the cards voltage at all? I'm not sure if that will help you but, remember that the xt-pe cards run stock at a higher voltage than the x800 and your card may need that too.

I haven't tried it yet. I just moved, and my multimeter is... well, I have no idea where the hell it is, heh. I'm also not sure what I would need to increase voltage to (I guess the core?) to function with the 4 pipes enabled.

I'm also a little afraid to increase the voltage more (unless somebody tells me that increased voltage will turn these babies on) because of the increase in temperature it'll cause.

I purchased the card because I plan to make the jump to SFF in the not so distant future, thus I'm limited in my cooling improvements--as best I can figure, all I can do is give the thing a nice coat of AS5 at some point.

But if it'd enable the 4 pipes, I'm confident that even a reduction in overall speed (for the sake of reducing the load temps) would be worth it for the jump in performance.

Don't mess with the voltages, use the flash empty method and reflash with a different bios , there's 2 ati 520 560's use the one dated 06/09/04 .If still having probs after that, try the empty.bin method and flash back to a 12 pipe pro. I believe the bios controls the voltages , so try a couple different ones if you have to. I stuck with this ati one, because it oc's the best for me and after being flashed to a bba , I can use the ati mmc for my vivo . If you don't have a link here u go http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/

I don't think the bios does control voltages. Only on nVidia cards will the bios allow you to increase and decrease the voltages.

You may very well want to try upping the voltage on your card though.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=194&page=1

Lots of good info there. Good luck.

Your card should be running the 1.4V core right now anyways since its a Vivo so its running the XTPE voltage currently. It just might be the pipes don't work properly or that its hardlocked.

Don't mess with the voltages, use the flash empty method and reflash with a different bios , there's 2 ati 520 560's use the one dated 06/09/04 .If still having probs after that, try the empty.bin method and flash back to a 12 pipe pro. I believe the bios controls the voltages , so try a couple different ones if you have to. I stuck with this ati one, because it oc's the best for me and after being flashed to a bba , I can use the ati mmc for my vivo . If you don't have a link here u go http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/

Click to expand...

Yeah, I flashed it back to empty and back to the stock BIOS I saved to disable the other 4 pipes. That 6/9/04 BIOS is the exact XT-PE BIOS I was using for the flash.

I left ATI Tools scanning for artifacts for 6 hours at 560/600, and it ran the entire time without a single error.. temps are at a nice low 58 this morning, even after going for so long.. so I can definitely rule that out for sure now.

I'm going to take a look into voltage mods, but I think the pipes just might be kaput.

Thanks a lot guys.

deathman20 said:

Your card should be running the 1.4V core right now anyways since its a Vivo so its running the XTPE voltage currently. It just might be the pipes don't work properly or that its hardlocked.

Click to expand...

My VIVO runs with x800 voltages, so not all vivo's run at 1.4V. But, somethings probably wrong with the pipes in this case.

Maybe after pushing them the bios gets corrupted or something, I just realized my fans potential and can bench 546 580 now.

Thanks for the help guys.

Things have actually gotten a little strange since I enabled the 4 extra pipes. I was afraid at first that I had done some damage to the card, but after playing with it until all hours of the night with ATITool, it seems that the card functions fine, but the speed on the core has decreased.

Even though ATITool never detects any artifacts with it... and even running Prime and scanning for artifacts and watching it myself, I can't see anything out of the ordinary at all... I get missing textures in 3DMark05 at any speed over about 450. Oddly enough, however, the memory runs like a demon. I can run it 24/7 at 600 with no problems at all... and temps are in the 50s.

Now, I know this may sound a little insane, but stick with me here and see if this is... well... somewhat sane or not I think that by opening those pipes, even though I have since disabled them via the empty BIOS (and ATITool confirms that they're gone) I may have permanently put some additional strain on the core, causing it to need more vGPU voltage to run at stock (or above) speeds.

Unfortunately, I never really tested the card as it came--I literally flashed the VIVO BIOS with 16p before I ever installed drivers for the card at all--so I have no way of knowing if this card ever ran correctly at stock speeds.

So is this all conspiracy theory, or does someone agree that this is plausable?

I just moved, so my multimeter is... displaced. I mean, seriously displaced. If I knew Walmart even carried multimeters for sure, I'd be there now. I figure trying to pencil mod the vGPU can do nothing but help--and if invisible is right, and it's possible that my X800 Pro VIVO could be running at X800 Pro voltages, that just makes my case even more.

I just completed the pencil mod. Really have to give some serious thanks to the one like Spyd3r for this. I would have avoided this like the plague without a little encouragement... I'm all about mods that involve floppy disks and reboots, but multimeters are usually something I keep away from my box.

Well, it was so incredibly simple I can't even begin to tell you. I took the ohms to volts formula given on that page, measured my stock volts, figured out how many ohms I should drop, and took it down that many. When I rebooted and measured, it was so close to exact it was unbelievable.

It was exactly 1.40v stock, so I didn't want to push it much, but now with a slight bump I'm able to run stock speeds flawlessly. I haven't pushed the core past 475 yet because I'm just so happy to have things working as is. I don't want to sound sappy, but I didn't feel right sending the card back to some company in CA when I may very well have been the cause of the problem, so having the card stable and well within the safety limits temperature wise, running at 475/600 is like Christmas all over again.

Hopefully, with a little luck, I'll be able to push it a little harder now too. In the mean time, just happy to not just be able to bench at 475/600, but actually able to bench without any missing textures.

If you're considering the volt mod, do it. Once you have the necessary equipment, doing the mod is no harder than using OmniEdit and flashing an nVidia card to change the voltage.

I wish my ram could do 600, good luck man.