Unlock your Radeon HD3870

B

BillParrish

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
7,519
This looks like fun in a "dangerous sort of way. "

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/21/unlock-radeon-hd3870

More

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=44942

Even more

Bios: http://www.armada.fi/HD3870/HD3870_PLLVCO_v010.071.zip
Flasher: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/855/ATIFlash_3.49.html

I used ATIFLASH, i removed all current display drivers and catalyst.
Used floppy to boot to DOS and saved the old bios to the floppy disk "a:\atiflash -s 0 oldHD3870bios.bin".

Went back into windows and transferred the bios to another computer for a hard backup.

Then i booted back into DOS and "a:\atiflash -p 0 -f HD3870new.bin" (i had renamed the bios from TechPU so as to make it easier in DOS).

I then shut off the power and did a hard reset by removing the main power lead and then replacing it.

This worked perfectly for me anyway and i personally don't like flashing stuff through windows as its a bit volatile and not very easy to rectify
Click to expand...
mattmartineau88 @ XS.


More even more.

The frequency of GPU internal PLLs are changing with GPU frequency.
At certain points the PLL must change it´s divider to maintain the frequency at correct range.
If the divider is not changing for some reason the frequency of the PLL will raise too high and it will flip.
This is what happening at 862MHz.
...
The problem can be easily fixed by updating the new bios.
Unfortunately I don´t have a bios for HD 3850 cards, but it should also be available soon.
Click to expand...
The Stilt @ XS



--------------------------------------

The new bios is purported to be from ATI itself. It fixes an error so its not technically an 'unlock' . So how was someone who recently bought one but does not hang out in OCing forums susposed to know about this? So yet another poorly tested, defective, rushed into the market, POS. Thats 2 for 2 for AMD/ATI - me.

The End.
 
Yes it does work, check out the XS thread, people are already at work on it.

At 90/100% fan speed, it's 50C at load at 885 clock..
 
What the results vs a stock 8800GT, overclocked 8800GT, a stock 3870 and a overclocked 3870.

This looks pretty interesting.
 
I wonder how you do this with crossfire enabled???? Common sense tells me I should only have one card in at a time.
 
Yeah, do it with only one card in at a time to be safe and repeat with the second card.

Lightman on XS is at 877 core / 2600 mem with stock air cooling for CF... impressive!
 
BillParrish said:
The new bios is purported to be from ATI itself. It fixes an error so its not technically an 'unlock' . So how was someone who recently bought one but does not hang out in OCing forums susposed to know about this? So yet another poorly tested, defective, rushed into the market, POS. Thats 2 for 2 for AMD/ATI - me.
The End.
Click to expand...
Poorly tested, and defective? Yeah I'm sorry ati didn't oc the crap out of it to make sure it oc well. Get real. You pay for card at a certain clock speed with certain features, you don't pay for a guarantee on an oc. The card does everything it is supposed to, which in my makes it perfectly tested and not defective.
 
Why is it proof of POS and bad testing ? Ati says card will run at stock speeds and it does - that's all what they promise.
 
cause I am certain the PLL clock chip has a data sheet that any competent engineer could read and any good programmer could properly implement and I am thinking the overclocking utility built into every Catalyst driver since I don't know when is not just some huge bug that has not been noticed.
 
Did it ever cross your mind that the speed lock could have been intentional?? Ever since ATI has supported overclocking on their cards do you think the RMA rates have gone up?

Its business sense...the usage of the new bios voids any warranty the card may have saving them dollars
 
BillParrish said:
cause I am certain the PLL clock chip has a data sheet that any compentent engineer could read and any good programmer could implement properly and I am thinking the overclocking utility built into every Catalyst driver since I dont know when is not just some huge bug that has not been noticed. Because these things "only" cost around $200 am I susposed to accept shoddy work ? We call these cards mid-range but do not overlook the point that these are susposed to be high performance cards. Otherwise I would be running a $29 card and would not be nearly as cynical. Run your cards stock if you want, I do not.
Click to expand...

What is the shoddy work you refer to? The cards run at their rated speed, ati may put overclocking into catalyst but do any of companies that put out ati cards actually warranty overclocking? I don't know of any that do (unless they have changed their stance in the last year), it's the nvidia companies that do. So far the only reason you have listed for calling the cards shoddy is that they have a "lock" on overclocking. Once again get real, seriously. This is the most retarded thing I have ever heard. Go ahead and keep on living in your world where you expect a 8800 ultra out of a 3850. :rolleyes:
 
You just want to argue, sorry I dont do that. Express your opinion all you want, I have stated mine and will add, why would they put a lock in and then "unlock" it a week after release ? Someone fucked up, it happens, but it should have been caught sooner. Note to anyone that might care, I was quoted while editing to delete my mini rant about pricing and the shoddy work, I felt this was not exaclty on topic and really was not the point of this post, I did not remove my comments because of any other post.
 
BillParrish said:
You just want to argue, sorry I dont do that. Express your opinion all you want, I have stated mine and will add, why would they put a lock in and then "unlock" it a week after release ? Someone fucked up.
Click to expand...

You don't want to argue? It sure seems like your continuing it to me. :rolleyes: You put out a flamebait post by calling the 3870 shoddy and then you expect everyone to agree with you otherwise you say they come in just for the sake of arguing? Get real.
 
Does anyone want to argue in any possible OC benchmarks of the 3870 possibly?
 
The title of this thread should not be "UNLOCK" rather "FIX MULTIPLIER".

That would have saved 1/2 this thread thus far.
 
Unfortunate cut and paste on my part as I thought people here would be interested in learning about this as quickly as possible (apparently I was mistaken in some cases). I agree, but did not uncover exactly what the issue was until it was too late to change the title.

Upon further reflection this "error" in the bios could well have been a clumsy "lock" on purpose to prevent OCing on the stock cooler with a potential to kill the card. It could be ATI felt it had to respond to market pressure because of the performance shortfall vs the 8800GT. But it seems odd they would do such a turn-around so quick after launch, but on the other hand they just announced reduced prices right after launch!!! So perhaps they felt like they were just getting hammered to badly and are doing whatever they can as fast as they can to help the cards. It seems they are selling well but so is the 8800GT and that is market share they would love to have. All speculation.

Does anyone want to argue in any possible OC benchmarks of the 3870 possibly?
Click to expand...
This was discovered/released literally as I posted it here. XS has a thread on it with a very few posts discussing the impact to OCing frequency results, I have not seen, yet, any benchmarks. I am sure as people have the time they will come but there is also the time needed to sort out the enhanced cooling needed.

thread at XS.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166334
 
Curious, Newegg.com is going to get new stock of the 3870s on November 26th, will they come with this BIOS fix pre-installed ?

I'm strongly considering on purchasing one to replace my 8600 GTS.
 
The 55nm process has enough power to wipe the 8800GTX with a 3870X2, but ATI releases a 256MB 3850 ( the only card in stock at MRSP), make money with 3870 DDR4 (OMG DDR4 on a 256bit bus??) and then launch the 3870X2 that will be crushed by the 65nm GTX.

I believe that ATI has the better product right now: a 3850, just flash a new BIOS to remove the clock caps and put a duorb ( why not make all mid/high end dual slot cards with a duorb???). DirectX10.1 + sound in stock at MRSP: can NVIDIA beat that?

I do understand that the 3870 has 512MB and better solid polymer capacitors but the 256bit bus makes the DDR3 a better price/performance option than DDR4: an overclocked 3850 with stock cooler has reached 3870 performance even at 1920x1200 4xAA.

And no single card can run Crysis at 1920x1200 max quality with super frames.
 
I am tempted to get the 3850 and try to overclock it to 3870 speeds, but not quite sure if it'll be the same performance or if I have to do anything else to it. That's if and only if I can't get a 3870 by Nov. 26. >_>;
 
I'm just not really sure though, the 3850 only has 256mb of vram, and we all know how much of a bottleneck 320mb was on the 8800GTS, wouldn't 256 be even worse?
 
eric66 said:
65 nm gtx ?
Click to expand...

i mean a 65nm version of a 768MB 8800 GTX/Ultra, now that would be a card to run Crysis at 1920x1200 max quality solo, forget about SLI.

and the 3850 can achieve good results at 1920x1200 because of the high bandwith of the memory, and the 512MB DDR4 are hampered by the 256bit bus. 3850 is the way to go and NVIDIA maybe the performance king but without the card in stock at MRSP ATI will have a happy new year.
 
geok1ng said:
i mean a 65nm version of a 768MB 8800 GTX/Ultra, now that would be a card to run Crysis at 1920x1200 max quality solo, forget about SLI.

and the 3850 can achieve good results at 1920x1200 because of the high bandwith of the memory, and the 512MB DDR4 are hampered by the 256bit bus. 3850 is the way to go and NVIDIA maybe the performance king but without the card in stock at MRSP ATI will have a happy new year.
Click to expand...

But again, the 3850 only has 256 vram, which is now becoming so little!!! I think it would be rather ridiculous to crossfire these cards since 256megs will be saturated so quickly. At least the 3870 has 512mb of vram, which still seems to be enough for most games w/ 4x AA
 
geok1ng said:
and the 3850 can achieve good results at 1920x1200 because of the high bandwith of the memory, and the 512MB DDR4 are hampered by the 256bit bus. 3850 is the way to go and NVIDIA maybe the performance king but without the card in stock at MRSP ATI will have a happy new year.
Click to expand...

Right, so the faster memory on the 3870 doesn't provide more bandwidth? It also appears to overclock well, in the region of 2.6GHz which is WAY beyond what the 3850 memory can achieve. And 256mb of video memory is not always enough, which is why the GTS320 will sometimes get beaten at high resolutions by an X1950XTX (which is running 512MB of GDDR4 on a 256-bit bus btw).
 
Wendig0 said:
Are there any risks to flashing the bios?
Click to expand...

Killing yr card! But really, if it won't boot up after you flash the bios and you get the dreaded vga error bios beeps you can plug the card in JUST after powering up then try flashing back at this point. I resurrected a 9800 Pro-XT flash this way (used the wrong bios to begin with!)
I just flashed my 3870 with that bios but STILL have no CCC to overclock the damn thing :(
 
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