- Joined
- Nov 26, 2004
Before I begin, I'd like to thank DDR-PIII for a wonderful thread which is currently a Sticky.
Now, on to the project. I had a Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256-Bit edition and I was aware that it could be flashed to an XT if it met to some of the critical specifications all XT's have.
After testing the capability of the 9800 Pro, I came to a conclusion that if the card was capable of running a core clock of 412Mhz and a memory clock of 365Mhz (those of the XT) then it could be successfuly flashed and the specifications of the stock 9800 Pro would certainly be altered since it contains a stock core clock of 378MHz and a memory clock of 338Mhz.
After removing my original heatsink I was very fortunate to find the following information much similar to the XT's
Core:
R360
215R9RBKA11F
N06573.00
0418AA
Taiwan
Memory:
Samsung 419
K4D263238E-GC2A
Jackpot. It was time to do the flash.
1) The first step is to obtain a floppy. If you have Windows XP, right click on the A: drive and give it a full format. After doing so, click on the option which will make the floppy into a boot disk, giving you the opportunity to go into MS-DOS (where the flashing will take place).
2) The next step is to download Flashrom v2.23 After downloading the following, extract the contents (should be three files) and copy and paste them into the floppy you originally formatted and made into a boot disc.
3) The third step is to download the XT BIOS.
If you have the R350-128MB go to the following site R350
If you have the R360-128MB go to the following site R360
After downloading the XT Bios (.bin file) I'd recommend renaming the file to something like XTBIOS because my file name was quite lengthy.
Note: Before downloading the BIOS make sure you know what core you are using, R350 or R360, and what kind of memory you have.
Finally, go ahead and copy paste the XTBIOS.bin (or whatever you have named it) to the floppy.
You are ready to flash.
4) The fourth step is to reboot with the floppy inserted into the A: drive.
You'll see the A:\ prompt.
Go ahead and backup your original BIOS by typing "flashrom -s 0 original.bin"
After that, go ahead and type "flashrom -p 0 name.of.the.bios.bin" which will flash the current 9800 Pro BIOS to that of the XT.
Once you see the following message ""6xxxx of 6xxxx bytes verified," go ahead and reboot the computer with the floppy out of the A: drive.
Since the card was going to be running at speeds beyond it's manufacturer set defualts (Pro~~>XT) I decided to get a VGA Cooler to keep the monster cool.
I went with the High Performance Ultra Quiet VGA Cooler, the Zalman VF700-Cu. Install wasn't hard at all and like always, Zalman makes some great products.
After the installation of the VGA cooler and the successful XT BIOS Flash, I decided to find my stable maximum core and memory clock.
The results were great, 420.19MHz core clock and a 393.19MHz memory clock.
Core clock increased a total of 34MHz (From Pro to XT)
Memory clock increased a total of 27MHz (From Pro to XT)
After finding my stable maximum core and memory clock:
Core clock increased a total of 8.19MHz (From XT to XT)
Memory clock increased a total of 28MHz (From XT to XT)
Total performance Increase:
378 Core Clock / 338 Memory Clock to 420 Core Clock / 393 Memory Clock
Core clock increased a total of 42.19MHz (From Pro to modified XT settings)
Memory clock increased a total of 55.19MHz (From Pro to modified XT settings)
Note: All of the Core + Memory clock settings were modified via ATITool 0.24
Hope any of this information can be useful to some of you out there.
Now, on to the project. I had a Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256-Bit edition and I was aware that it could be flashed to an XT if it met to some of the critical specifications all XT's have.
After testing the capability of the 9800 Pro, I came to a conclusion that if the card was capable of running a core clock of 412Mhz and a memory clock of 365Mhz (those of the XT) then it could be successfuly flashed and the specifications of the stock 9800 Pro would certainly be altered since it contains a stock core clock of 378MHz and a memory clock of 338Mhz.
After removing my original heatsink I was very fortunate to find the following information much similar to the XT's
Core:
R360
215R9RBKA11F
N06573.00
0418AA
Taiwan
Memory:
Samsung 419
K4D263238E-GC2A
Jackpot. It was time to do the flash.
1) The first step is to obtain a floppy. If you have Windows XP, right click on the A: drive and give it a full format. After doing so, click on the option which will make the floppy into a boot disk, giving you the opportunity to go into MS-DOS (where the flashing will take place).
2) The next step is to download Flashrom v2.23 After downloading the following, extract the contents (should be three files) and copy and paste them into the floppy you originally formatted and made into a boot disc.
3) The third step is to download the XT BIOS.
If you have the R350-128MB go to the following site R350
If you have the R360-128MB go to the following site R360
After downloading the XT Bios (.bin file) I'd recommend renaming the file to something like XTBIOS because my file name was quite lengthy.
Note: Before downloading the BIOS make sure you know what core you are using, R350 or R360, and what kind of memory you have.
Finally, go ahead and copy paste the XTBIOS.bin (or whatever you have named it) to the floppy.
You are ready to flash.
4) The fourth step is to reboot with the floppy inserted into the A: drive.
You'll see the A:\ prompt.
Go ahead and backup your original BIOS by typing "flashrom -s 0 original.bin"
After that, go ahead and type "flashrom -p 0 name.of.the.bios.bin" which will flash the current 9800 Pro BIOS to that of the XT.
Once you see the following message ""6xxxx of 6xxxx bytes verified," go ahead and reboot the computer with the floppy out of the A: drive.
Since the card was going to be running at speeds beyond it's manufacturer set defualts (Pro~~>XT) I decided to get a VGA Cooler to keep the monster cool.
I went with the High Performance Ultra Quiet VGA Cooler, the Zalman VF700-Cu. Install wasn't hard at all and like always, Zalman makes some great products.
After the installation of the VGA cooler and the successful XT BIOS Flash, I decided to find my stable maximum core and memory clock.
The results were great, 420.19MHz core clock and a 393.19MHz memory clock.
Core clock increased a total of 34MHz (From Pro to XT)
Memory clock increased a total of 27MHz (From Pro to XT)
After finding my stable maximum core and memory clock:
Core clock increased a total of 8.19MHz (From XT to XT)
Memory clock increased a total of 28MHz (From XT to XT)
Total performance Increase:
378 Core Clock / 338 Memory Clock to 420 Core Clock / 393 Memory Clock
Core clock increased a total of 42.19MHz (From Pro to modified XT settings)
Memory clock increased a total of 55.19MHz (From Pro to modified XT settings)
Note: All of the Core + Memory clock settings were modified via ATITool 0.24
Hope any of this information can be useful to some of you out there.
Last edited:
