The Quest for BIOS... (Long)

Grab a beer and a smoke, you're going to need them.

Long time lurker here, guys. I know many of you quite well, though you don't know me. I've got pages and pages of your posts printed out, and I've used a ton of your expertise as reference. I'm even using your drivers and various tweaks. Anyway ...I've run into an issue and after scouring the forum (as well as the back corners of the internet), I have yet to find a solution and it's annoying me to no end. In fact, it's almost to the point of forcing me to send this laptop back and never order another again.

What's the problem you ask?

The M17 3870 BIOS. Specifically fan control. I mean come on, spend $2500 on a computer and not even have the ability to control the fans on the video card? This makes me livid. Here's the low down:

I bought a tricked out M17 and it showed up about a week ago. Got everything installed, the works, you know the drill. Got the modded 9.3's and it screams bloody murder, churning out 12,375 3DMark06 scores. Needless to say, it made me smile and gave me the tingles. So I got everything squared away and start to put on the games. I started out with AoC, CoD4, Crysis Warhead. Get them all patched up and off I go.

Age of Conan fires up great and after a little tweaking it looks like I'm in Hyboria. COD4, crashes after 5 minutes of game play. Crysis Warhead crashes after 5 minutes of game play. I install a few other games, Company of Heroes (with expansion), and several others. All of them crash after 5-10 minutes. Even AoC started doing it on occasion, but not nearly as frequent. There error I am getting is a total black screen and crash to desktop. Typical "driver xxx had a problem and recovered ...yada yada".

Right out of the box, staring at this new $2500 investment that I bought specifically for gaming, and it can't run any games, yeah - I am very upset.

I am a network engineer and systems analyst/server administrator for a living, and have been for 10 years. I build PC's for money. I know what I'm doing. I say this, just so you guys know that I'm not some noob geek off the street running to you guys waving his hands in the air screaming "HALP HALP SIRS!"

So I pop on HWMonitor and GPU-Z and leave them running and open up COD4 and Crysis. They crash of course, and I go back and look at the history, specifically the temperature. GPU's at 84C?! 184F!? The CPU is pushing 154F! I glance down at the fan history and see that, what? They never run above 30%!?

I'm quite certain that if I can do some tweaking with the fan duty cycles, and maybe get a hold of some Arctic Silver 5, I can get everything manageable and stable, as I know these guys run hot, and 70-75C would be acceptable for the GPU's and 60F or so would be fine for the CPU.

So first things first. I pull out the fans, scrape off the crappy "paste" and re-apply a nice coating of Arctic Silver 5 with a credit card. Put everything back in. Fire it up, do some testing. Since there isn't as much air flow in a laptop as there is in a PC, it didn't drop as much as it normally does. Got it to 80C.

Since Rivatuner is nice, and I can set fan profiles, I fire that sucker up. No low level fan control (or low level ANYTHING available for that matter). I thought this strange, so I fire up CCC 9.3. No Overdrive showing up. I fire up ATITools. It crashes, no low level driver support. I use the little icon to enable it. Doesn't work. I knew immediately that it wasn't showing up because of something on the card's BIOS. I grumble, as I've seen this before with other laptops.

I fire up GPU-Z, and take a look. I rip the BIOS off, and stick it into the newest version of ATI BIOS Editor (1.20) with Winflash 2.0.0.7 (no other version works with Vista 64, at least not for me) to take a look. Sure enough, a box pops up that says it was unable to find Overdrive settings. Hardly a surprise. I take a look at the vendor and the video card. Both (unknown), the Chip is M88, but the BIOS version string is blank. I knew this was not a good sign. I skip the clock settings (since I don't want to OC), and apparently the Fan settings button is grayed out!? Click on additional features button, and it looks like it's clocks have been hardcoded.

So I'm thinking that something is totally screwed with this BIOS. So I figure, no problem, I'll go out and grab a Sapphire 3870 BIOS, do some tweaking, replace the BIOS. Tried that with Winflash via RBE 1.20 (sees the cards, then pops up with a FAIL window when I try flashing) AND ATIFlash (through USB thumbdrive boot). Nothing works. Winflash comes back with a fail, and ATIFlash in DOS comes with with the infamous 0FL01. I try all the strings:

atiflash -s 0 oldbios.bin
atiflash -p 0 newbios.bin -f -newbios
atiflash -p 0 oldbios.bin -f

..you name it, I typed it. It sees the cards, start to flash, then 0FL01. I even tried flashing the slave card with master BIOS. Same SSID, same BIOS version, IDENTICAL. Nothing. Fails every time.

I have exhausted the limit of my knowledge. Scoured every thread, tried EVERYTHING I've found on the internet. Nothing works. Apparently someone, either it be ATI, or Alienware, or both, decided to stick stripped down/hardcoded OEM BIOS in the dual 3870's, and has somehow gone even further by making it impossible to flash.

So I am staring at a $2500 brick, a pretty boat anchor, because I can't increase the fan duty cycle on the video card to go beyond 30%, because some moron, somewhere thought it wouldn't be a good idea because I MIGHT hurt myself and blow something up.

So, in closing, I decided to finally make an appearance here, and consult my fellow partners in crime to see what they could come up with.

 

dam you should of came to us first.

do you want my ati master bios. abd those gpus scores are ok. yes it can by inproved but that requires a hardmod.

 

Don, I read in another thread where you tried to flash the master bios onto the slave and were having the same issues. Did you get it fixed?

 

yeah in the ocz section. and no i couldnt get that fixed. i get unknown spi when it is trying to read the cards.

 

Okay, my temps are slightly different. My Cores are idling cooler (38-40C), which is perfect. The CPU heat isn't the problem really. It's my GPU's. Just sitting here idling, they're at 50-57C, even after Arctic Silver 5 on both chips. I'm certain that if I can get some fan control and get them to run more than 30% all the time, I can solve this. Of course, the problem is actually finding a BIOS that will allow me to do that. Is your Master BIOS unlocked?

 

I dont know how would i find out. and then i can tell you.


i can get my cpu to idle lower but i am playing with drivers right now.


and my fans are also at 30%. but it should spin up and down at curtain temps.

 

Yeah, we have the exact same BIOS. I followed the instructions in the OCZ forum on flashing the master BIOS to the slave and unlocking them, but like you, it failed in DOS, and through RBE, every time.

When I checked my max fan cycles through GPU-Z while playing games, it never goes above 30%.

A lot of problems could be solved if they just put a REAL BIOS on these cards, that enables fan control control, or if we could find some way to unlock Overdrive in the existing BIOS because then we could run CCC/Rivatuner.

 

you lost me at the fans never going over 30%. because i hear then go loud at 85c. there is 3 settings. i think it is 65c 75c 85c.


i think they should make it go full blast at 75-80c.

as for ati overdrive, what do you think is causing that.

 

Even though the fans spin up at higher temperatures, hardware monitoring programs will never show more than 30% because fan control and low level driver control is either not supported or is locked out of the BIOS that the M17 3870's are shipped with. This is also why Overdrive doesn't show up in CCC and Low Level Driver Control is not available in Rivatuner.

And I agree, they should be at 100% at 80C, which is what I've been trying to fix, and since the BIOS on the cards is locked down and fan control is unavailable, AND they've made it currently impossible to flash the BIOS and/or unlock the existing one, we're screwed.

I understand locking down the CPU/RAM because it's a laptop. That I get. But having absolutely ZERO control over our video card's fans and clocks, quite simply really bothers me, when I could go out and buy an old HD2000 series for 80 bucks and control the fans and GPU clocks right out of the box without ANY BIOS mods.

 

I see. post your results in the ocz thread where we were talking about flashing the bios. it is still active. and you might get a better response but it will take a little longer.

 

i'd pm ichime hes the one to see and he said some card just wouldn't flash , he had one that just wouldnt do it even after he did it to 1 the other just wouldn't

priceless---- so pricelss

 

Well, I find it hard to believe that this is the case when both Don and I are having the same issues. I guess what I'm trying to find out is if ANYONE else with an M17 and dual 3870's has been able to flash their BIOS and unlock the card to enable fan control, and so CCC will show up, and Rivatuner can do low level driver changes.

 

he didn't do that he just flashed a slave to a master( if i remeber correct) ill sit back and learn now

any one tried with XP ? JW because if the winflash is older maybe a newer one that doesnt work with vista would work .... no harm in trying

 

He was also able to unlock from what he said in his thread.

Yeah, I tried that too. Followed his post to the letter. Ripped the Master BIOS off the master card, and applied it to the slave. FAIL. Tried it in DOS. FAIL. Rebooted several times. Fail.

Don seems to be having the same problems.

I know some folks have done it on the OCZ's, and the M17's are basically the same. But has anyone been able to do this on the 3870's that come in the M17's? Because if people can do it on the OCZ's but not on the M17's, then there is something fishy going on.

 

i highly doubt AW has done something there....but hey i've seen worse

well BIOS is not my think so imma stay outta this one ... quite curious though so ill lurk around

 

Well, this is really quite something, because in theory, if you can unlock the BIOS and get into fan control, then that would make any 3rd party low level driver tweaking software pointless. You could simply set your fans to spin up 10% every 10 degrees, which is what I am trying to do.

Also, have you noticed that Overdrive is not showing up in CCC, and low level fan/driver control is not showing up in Rivatuner, like with other 3870's? I am staring at a Sapphire 3870 BIOS and everything is available, from fans to clocks.

When loading the M88 Master BIOS (taken from the M17 3870's) in RBE, it actually comes right out and says in a pop-up that it couldn't find Overdrive support. The fan control button is completely grayed out. It doesn't even recognize the card or the manufacturer in RBE. Says "(unknown)" and there is no BIOS Version String.

Not only is this strange, but also annoying as all hell. I can understanding them not wanting people to over clock, but disabling the low level driver controls and fan control completely? I mean, short of the temperature we can't even MONITOR the cards. This is really quite ridiculous for a top-of-the-line GAMING laptop/mobile desktop with X-fire 3870 cards in it.

 

well i think it is flextronics not alienware because i can't do anything either with my ocz.

 

No kidding. Wow. Know what's strange Don? Look at the GPU-Z screenshot Ichime posted in his thread and compare it to yours.

EXACT SAME Bios version and sub-vendor as ours! Atleast it is for my M17.

Something is definitely screwy.

 

i see. i know that ichime has the same notebook as me so we should be the same. i thought thast alienware would of made there own.

i am thinking that it is maybe the 1st batch of ati cards could be flashed easily, because he had his for a while. i just got mines a month ago and i believe that you are the same.

 

ati over drive doesn't show up just because i dont think they want overclocking ....ATI drivers stopped letting you over clock at 8.10 thats what i use nothign else will over clock

 

On all cards or just Mobility? I upgraded my friend's 4870's (PC) last night to 9.3, and Overdrive showed up just fine and he was able to make custom fan profiles in Rivatuner.

 

mobility

AW driver dont support it because it will void your warrenty

no i do not know why its not showing ...... i use ATI gpu tool and it works fine for OC'ing

 

it is a 3870 thing. the asus with the 4870 and the msi with the 4850 have ati overdrive. we have to do some mod.

 

Ya, I'm not too worried about OC'ing. I just want fan control.

 

hey i wouldn't mind to you know OC'ing does raise temp

so its locked in the bios can you upload a copy of the bios of a card?


you saposed to be able to get it off of GPU-z

 

Oh, I agree. For spending as much as all of us have, we should have the ability to tweak/monitor our own hardware.

Yep, I did all that. Don did too. We can get the BIOS off the cards all day long with GPU-Z, just can't flash them with anything, and the clocks and fan control (and Overdrive support) in the stock BIOS (M88) is disabled according to RBE.

We can't even flash the exact same BIOS from the master to the slave.

Low level driver configuration/fan control is not available in Rivatuner, ATITools doesn't work because it says Low Level Driver control is not running, and Overdrive doesn't show up in CCC. The only thing that I can get to work that does anything is GPU-Z and HWMonitor, even then it only shows temperatures and nothing more.

Seems any type of clock and fan control is totally disabled or unsupported in the card BIOS, and since this is where Rivatuner, ATITool, Overdrive (and other 3rd party programs) get their data, none of them work.

As it stands, all we can do is monitor our temps, and that's it. Yet others (like Ichime) have been able to go in and not only flash their BIOS, but unlock these options, and they have the exact same cards and BIOS as we do.