How to flash your graphics card (Mobility 3870s).

Now some of you have asked or wondered if it's possible to flash the VGA cards in the W840 without bricking the system. The answer is yes, and it is easier than one would think thanks to techpowerup. You don't even have to run DOS at all.

Also while I was doing this, I noticed something pretty interesting. When I killed my first Master VGA card, it wouldn't post anything on the LCD screen of the notebook, but oddly enough, posted on the external screen. Maybe a transistor was damaged, but since it was able to post picture on the external screen and play games with no problem, I decided to use that as a second card. So, while I was in the process of flashing, I put the partially fried Master VGA in the secondary socket and the new Master VGA that I bought in the primary slot. After booting up, Catalyst automatically created a "CrossfireX" tab in the Control Center right below the PowerPlay tab. I did not see this with the regular Master-Slave setup. The CrossfireX tab just allowed me to enable or disable Crossfire directly, rather than do it indirectly by disabling Catalyst A.I.

Ok now to the flashing. Now before I begin, make sure that you don't have too many unnecessary processes running in the background and that your system is PLUGGED IN. That last point is important; you don't want your system turning off in the middle of a flash. This next point is important too:

I do not hold ANY responsiblity for a bad flash or a damaged card if you do decide to emulate this procedure. That is all.

Basically you'll need three programs (1 optional), all of which are available from techpowerup.com These programs are Radeon Bios Editor V1.2 (latest one), ATi Winflash v2.0.0.7 (This is the only version that works with Vista. The other versions will hang up your system), and GPU-Z. GPU-Z is optional, but I included it because it is better when you want to save your BIOS files for the long term.

If you have GPU-Z, run it until you see the main screen with all the graphics info:



You should see a picture of a chip with a green swerving arrow right next to where it says BIOS Version. Click on that picture and go to where it says "Save BIOS as" or something like this. This will be the Master VGA BIOS you're saving, so name it accordingly.

After that, you are going to want to backup the Slave VGA BIOS, in case the flash goes wrong. From the same screen in GPU-Z, go to the bottom left where it gives you the name of the card (ATi Mobility 3870). After clicking the downward arrow, select the second one. Although nothing will change after you change it, this is the Slave VGA information. Click on the chip icon again, save the BIOS info and name it accordingly.

Now, you want to extract the ATi Winflash utility to a folder. Make sure you remember where you created the folder because you're going to need to find it later.

After creating the folder, download and run the Radeon Bios Editor in Administration mode. If you do not run it in administrator mode, the system will hang when scanning the cards. Your RBE screen should look something like this:



As you can see, this program is rich in features and stuff that you can modify your BIOS with; from clocks to voltages, etc. I'll save all that for another time. Now what we're going to do is acquire and eventually flash your BIOS. Towards the bottom left of the screen, you'll see a button that says Acquire/Flash BIOS. Click on that and the following should appear:



Click the Browse Button on the top right of the screen and look for the ATi Winflash program (again, make sure it's version 2.0.0.7) which should be in the folder you extracted Ati Winflash to earlier. Once you find the program, open it and it should automatically scan for the two cards. If it doesn't, then just click the Analyze button towards the bottom right. During the analyzing process, it'll tell you that it can't find any Overdrive functionality in the BIOS. That's fine and you can ignore that. It'll tell you this everytime you load a BIOS such as the ones in these cards.

After analyzing, your screen should look similar to this:



This is for the deskop 4870 cards. The Mobility 3870 cards should read RV670/M88.

You'll notice that two cards are scanned (if you have two VGA cards). Although the numbers are similar, pay close attention to the numbers under the Checksum number. If you have a Master-Slave setup, the Checksum number for the Slave VGA will have a 6 in there (0xD600 or 0x0600). The Master VGA card will have no other number other than 0 (0xD000 or 0x0000). Another way of viewing this is that the primary card will be in Adapter 1 and the secondary card will be in Adapter 0. The latter is chosen by default.

In this instance, we're going to flash the Slave VGA with a Master VGA BIOS, which will make the Slave VGA a BOOTABLE CARD. We can acquire the BIOS 1 of two ways at this point. On the Acquire/Flash BIOS window, you can select the Master VGA (Adapter 1)and click "Acquire BIOS." The Acquire/Flash BIOS window will automatically close and will take you back to the original RBE screen. This time, it will have all the BIOS info filled out. A second way of acquiring the BIOS you want to flash the card with is to click on the LOAD BIOS option towards the bottom left of the RBE screen and look for the .bin files you saved from GPU-Z. That will also load the BIOS.

We want the Master VGA BIOS, so the correct BIOS should say something along the lines of "Arima W840Di Master VGA BIOS" in one of the lines in the RBE screen. Now, go back to the Acquire/Flash BIOS window (click the button again) and select the Slave VGA BIOS, which should be in adapter 0 and have the 0xD600 under the Checksum number). Also, make sure the Force flash box is checked, otherwise it will complain about the Checksum number being incompatible.

Once everything is set, click on the "Flash this BIOS" button and the Slave VGA card should be in the process of being reflashed. This takes about 3 minutes, so don't worry if your pointer times out for a while. After it is complete, it'll ask you to restart. Click yes to reboot. If Catalyst pops up and notifies you of CrossfireX, that means the flash was successful. If not, then it can mean one of three things: 1) You flashed the wrong card, 2) You killed your card or 3) You already created a CrossfireX tab. If you want to verify for certain that the flash was successful, take your Slave VGA card and put it in the main slot and see if it boots (and make sure you place your heatsink properly no matter what).

So that's pretty much it. No DOS, no command lines, you can flash from the comfort of your own operating system. You can even flash your main card too while using it (as I accidently did when flashing it with the same BIOS).

 

Hmm. So why did you flash it? And what purpose does flashing the cards to both be master serve? Otherwise, nice guide props to ya for the efforts. I never flashed cause I was affraid to lose a card or two.. Way to take one for the team

 

To be honest, I flashed it to get some money back Selling a card with the slave BIOS is worth less than one with a master BIOS that can post. And plus, putting a master VGA card in the second position gives you the ability to directly enable or disable CrossfireX and add CrossfireX profiles.

I semi-fried my first VGA card when I tried swapping the card inside an MSI 1722. The heatsink wasn't touching the core, so it overheated. It doesn't post anything on the LCD, but it works with no issues on an external monitor. Ran stress tests and it can do 3d fine. So, I bought another Master VGA card that works properly (posts in LCD and external monitor). So, I have three cards in total, 2 of them are fine, one a slave, and the other a useless master. So, in order to get some of the money back used to purchase the VGA, I would need to flash the slave card into a master card and put the useless master card in the slave's spot, since a slave card is not responsible for posting on the main screen.

When I get home, I might tinker with the clocks and voltages to see if I can get anywhere in terms of stability and performance increases.

 

Ahhh.. Nice lemme know if ya can flash some new clocks and such. This is good info.

 

very good thread. can you post screen shots of the crossfire setting that you saw?

 

sos did it work in the 1722 at all then?

 

Kinda. It posted something for like half a second, then it whited out and the GPU started to fry (smelt smoke).

Anyways, got some good news and bad news regarding flashing these 3870 cards with a modified bios. Bad news first: you can't modify the voltage settings. They're hardwired.

Good news: I got ATi Overdrive to appear in CCC and work too. Only problem is I can't set the limit to the max overclock, thus it uses the default limit for the desktop 3870, which is like 851 core, 1150 memory or something like that. Doesn't mean that the standard clocks are 851 and 1150; it's still 660 and 850 by default, but the max you can go is 851 and 1150 via overdrive. Nonetheless, fan speed indicator and temperature gauge work and the "Test Clocks" feature is able to test stability. I never went over 730mhz core and 900mhz memory (which according to overdrive is a stable set). I might push it a bit today and see where the max is.

I didn't feel like running 3dmark06 because my notebook is in pieces (to get it painted), but I did run the Counter Strike Stress test. Stock speeds: 163fps, OC'd to 730core, 900mem: 175fps. Not a huge increase, maybe around a 7% increase overall.

I'll post screenshots of it soon along with the CrossfireX tab.

 

thanks ichime and hey any increase is better then no increase

 

these are the errors i get. nd if i try i get the last one. so i have to reboot to try it again. this happened in vista and window7. also this is a fresh install. there is nothing on it.

 

-fa to force flashing if the ROM is already programmed
-fm to force flashing if legacy memory config mismatch
-fs to force flashing if SSID mismatch
-fp to force flashing if BIOS P/N mismatch
-pa to search and program multiple adapters according to BIOS P/N
-padevid to search for adapters of a specific PCI device ID when used with -pa command
-passid to search for adapters of a specific subsystem ID when used with -pa command
-pasvid to search for adapters of a specific subsystem vendor ID when used with -pa command

newest version of atiflash:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1123/ATIFlash_3.60.html


make a bootable usb stick. add the ati flash extracted to the root of the stick then add the rom you want to flash. reboot.

you need to force the flash or it will not work because the rom does not match the original

use the command "atiflash -f -p" followed by either a 0 or 1 to determine which card gets flashed (which slot the card is in) along with the name of the rom exactly as it reads in dos including the .rom at the end of it. so if your rom name was as a example oczatislave.rom the command would look like this:

atiflash -f -p 0 oczatislave.rom

or

atiflash -f -p 1 oczatislave.rom

then hit enter.

you need to do each card separate but can do one after the other without a reboot.

after you finish remove the usb and reboot

 

ok I am on my phone. how do I force flash

 

I g error 0fl01

 

you rebooted to dos correct?

what command did you type at the prompt? what is the exact name of the rom you are flashing?

 

don here is master: http://forums.techpowerup.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=23477&d=1236098975

here is slave: http://forums.techpowerup.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=23477&d=1236098975

both are bin format.

 

I had that error a couple of times. It could be a bug with Winflash (which sucks becaue v2.0.0.7 is the only version that works with Vista 64), but after restarting the system, it was able to reflash it with no issues. The ATiflash method zfactor mentioned may also work as well. Just remember 0 = slave/secondary slot, 1 = master/primary slot.

Also, some cards just won't flash at all. Could be the Winflash version or something else. For instance, the 3rd 3870 card I bought wouldn't flash. It would just give me an error message the second you hit the flash button. Never tried using the Atiflash method on it though (and I sold it anyways).

 

Icihme,

I sure would like to know how you did it, because apparently, flashing the BIOS on the dual HD 3870's that come with the Alienware M17, is impossible:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=369626

 

Now that I think about it, the card that I couldn't flash was pulled from an Alienware M17. Could be a locked BIOS, which really sucks (which you demonstrated by not being able to flash the cards via DOS).

Also, regarding your fan issue, the motherboard BIOS controls the fan rather than the VBIOS. The VBIOS just relays temp info to the motherboard, which in turn controls the fan speed. Usually the fan will hit full throttle when it gets above 85 degrees.

 

ok so why do you think i cant flash mines either?

do you think there is different batches of bios.

 

wait, scratch that last post of mine. I actually concentrated enough to read and comprehend what he said.

Question for both him and you don, after you hit the flash button, did the error message come right after you hit the button or was it a long while (like 3-4 minutes) after you hit the button?

 

Could be, but if it were, it should at least flash anyways.

 

i after i hit flash it took 2 seconds.

there was 2 times where it froze like it was going to do it but i bluescreened. and the other time i got random boxes on screen and i waited for 5min and nothing.

 

here is everything

 

weird. I know for the one card I couldn't flash, it gave me an error message right after I hit the flash button with the force flash box checked. It has to be the cards then, since the other guy even had problems doing it via command prompt.

BTW, is there a commandline that forces a flash rather than a passive one?

 

i dont get what you mean. what command line? do you have a screen shot. maybe it is the cards. that never came up.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4705068&postcount=10

 

Oh Lol. give me 2 mins

 

i tried master and slave bios on boths cards. and bios from zfactor. from the tech website. and from gpu's and the atiwinflash and rbe same thing.

 

try this:

atiflash -f -p 0 xxx.bin -sst (replace the xxx with the name of the bin file)

 

also if that doesnt work try this other program:

http://www.overclock.net/attachments/ati/17383d1135992482-i-got-error-ati-flash-flashrom16p.zip

then take the m88.bin and rename it to PE.bin do not touch the .bin extension.

make the bootable usb stick and remove EVERYTHING else from it except the flashrom16 files after extracted, and the now named PE.bin file nothing else.

reboot to the command line and type flashrom.exe -f -p 0 PE.BIN

see if that works.

also try to make the backup .rom from the original master and DO NOT rename it then try to run flashrom.exe -f -p 0 and use the exact full name of the .rom its possible the card is locked to that rom name and will not accept anything else unless it matches exactly ive seen that before.

another commant that works at times when other do not it amtel

so it would look like this:

atiflash -p -atmel 0 xxx.bin

 

also from my source at ati error 0fl01 means "adapter 0 not found"

so maybe its not finding the 0 one because its set up as a slave card. i wonder if that card was in the main slot if it would flash easier.. now sure though

 

i tried that 1st step. no luck i am going to try the second one now. and i tried doing the master card also and it said the same thing. so i dont think that is a possiblity.

 

ok i tried every test and it i get the same error in the command prompt and that is adaptor not found.


so basically it is not finding the gpu's for whatever reason. master or slave. no matter how i try to flash it.

 

Try removing the crossfire cable while doing it. It should still detect the 2nd card, but crossfire will be disabled (if the flash is successful, but the cable back and it should crossfire again).

 

Lol would you believe me if i told you that i was doing that before you posted that.

 

nope nothing. i guess my cards just can't be flashed.

 

ahhhh im trying to do this

i will try but i think it will be futile

imma ask the Aw rep about this.

is it legal to lock a bios like this so you cannot touch it ...they should not have control

 

yes of course they can

 

dang those commies lol

 

any idea why Over drive does not show up ? would it be bios limits or driver issues?

in other words which one needs modding

 

bios issue.

let us know what happens.

 

Hi guys,
I think there is a way to flash the bios of the ati cards...
If you look on your cards you will find an IC next to the crossfire bridge adaptator who seem to be an atmel 2 wire serial EEPROM who has a Write Protection on pin7.



It seem to be an atmel AT24HC02B familly. If the pin 7 is on Vcc it's write protect and on GND it's R/W enable. There is a direct bridge between VCC and the pin 7. You must to unsolder the pin and make a bridge to GND (on pin 4).
And it's must disable the write protection.
I try that, but Winflash said that I have not the right bios for the adaptater I want to flash...

Perheaps it's a way to explore...

I'm sorry for my bad english but it's not my primary language...




little question tu Zfactor:

I saw you made a custom fix bios for the quadcore with the OCZ bios...
Is there a way to unlock certain part of the bios like Vcore or RAM latency. I saw the bios is a phoenix. I try to open with the Phoenix bios editor but I couldn't open it... It's make me error. But I think the bios is encrypted. So How can't you edit the bios to unlock some specific fonctionnality?

Thanks

 

yes the bios is encrpted. i don't see it i am going to compare it a another card and see if i see the difference.

ok i need a picture of a card that is flashed to compare. do want my bios or you need one that is already flashed.

 

even after getting the bios to open there are still limitaions as to where it will let me go and what i can modify. some of the stuff is unclickable and you still cant touch it sadly...

 

zfactor can you take a picture of ur 3870

 

And this is with the force flash box checked, correct?

 

if it works. then let me know. i just need instucrtions on how to do it.

 

quite strange ichimes would work and the others would not ...... possibly when he burnt out that one he desodered the chip..... so crazy it just might be true lol

 

You know, that could very well be possible. But then again, the slave card was able to be flashed. But also, the fried card was able to flash with overdrive enabled while the slave-turned-master card couldn't post or render with it turned on.

 

it was able to be flashed cuz it fried that part ...and not in the other one ....

does any one wanna try i dont have the tools to soder Its for the greater good ?!?!?!

 

i wouldn't mind if i get instuctions. i want the most out of my system. i don't want to spend so much money and have features(crossfire options, overdrive) locked.