X800 GTO2 flashing help needed

C

Cruc1al

n00b
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
22
Hi,

I just today finished installing my new hardware, and I got this nice GTO2 here that I want to mod to use 16 pipelines.

I just need some noobie help for the flashing thing - I've never done anything like that and I'm really not familiar with that department. I read the guide in techpowerup about modding it. Sure, it told me what to do, but it didn't tell me how to do it. It wasn't like a nice step-by-step guide to flash the bios.

I have the needed files (modified flashrom utility and modified gto2 bios or something).
I decided that I want to make a bootable floppy then - but my floppy drive isn't reading any disks, it just says "insert a disk into drive A:".
Then I thought, what the heck it can't be hard to make a bootable DVD then. I have a DVD-RW here that I can use so I won't actually use a DVD wholly for just one flash, as I can clear the DVD after the flashing is done.

But all the guides in the net are just complete gibberish...

I don't even know what I actually have to write on the floppy or CD or whatever I want to make bootable. Tell me: is it the flashrom utility or is it the gto2 modded bios file (or what you call it?)

So basically, what I'm asking you is...

How do I flash the BIOS in DOS with flashrom utility and the gto2 bios file? If I do this with a floppy, I need someone to tell me why my floppy drive isn't reading the disks, and if I do this with the DVD, I need someone to tell me how to make the DVD work like a floppy. I think the floppy solution is easier though.
Info about my floppy drive: I have the power cable and the floppy cable properly set. There's a constant green light in it on the front panel. It says in 3½ Floppy A: drive properties that it's working properly. Is it unable to read the disks because there's something about the diskettes then?

Thanks for any help. As long as it's step by step and tells me what to do. ;)
 
Cruc1al said:
There's a constant green light in it on the front panel. It says in 3½ Floppy A: drive properties that it's working properly. Is it unable to read the disks because there's something about the diskettes
Click to expand...
I cant help with the flash, but the constant light usualy means that the floppy cable is backwards...
 
^^^ What that one said. Floppy drives are real sensitive to what end of the cable they are connected by.. Also if you have a floppy cable with multiple plugs be sure and use the plugs at each end of the cable and not the middle one.. Unless you have multiple floppy drives.. But that is pretty much unheard of these days though..
 
first you need to create a floppy that will boot you to the A: prompt... to do that go to my computer then right click on your floppy device and go to format... select the create a MS-DOS start up disk

download the flashrom utility from here: http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/100/images/flashrom16p.zip
open it up and open flashrom.exe and extract it to a second floppy

download the modded bios from here: http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/127/images/Sapphire.X800GTO2_16P.Samsung16.bin
rename it gto2bios and put it on the second floppy with the flashrom utility

Reboot your computer with the boot disk then put in the second floppy and run/type flashrom -s 0 oldbios.bin to save your old BIOS just in case you might need it at a later time.

Now run/type flashrom -p 0 gto2bios

it should beep when it is done
remove disk
Reboot your computer
Done

edit: techpowerup.com says that a lot of cards are coming already unlocked from the factory... have you checked atitool to see if it already has all 16 pipes already?
 
thanks pstang, but I figured it out on my own!

I GOT 16 PIPELINES, YOU HEAR ME, WORLD ?!?!!!!

Damn that felt good :D

Thanks again guys, for reminding me that how noob I am :D Lol, floppy cord upside down...

*simultaneously ashamed and bouncing happy*

:cool:
 
Now get AtiTool and 3dmark05 and start overclocking :D

Report back later.
 
Hey again.

I managed to overclock the gto2 to a stable 437/537, which is 37/47 more than the default frequencies. ATI Tool ran for 3 hours without errors or artefacts with these settings until I closed it.
That's not very much, I know. I should be able to get core to almost 500MHz and mem over 550MHz, even with the default cooler. At least that's what they say.

So the questions are, from a noob like me (shouldn't be too hard to answer ;)):
How do I overclock it further? My guess is that I should change the voltage somehow, but how? Is there a software for it, can I do it from BIOS? How do those who overclock this card to X850 XT speeds overclock it there?

EDIT: Oh, and the temperature for the core was 51C when ATI Tool had run the find max mem for about 8 hours with these settings.

Thanks :)
 
Which core does your card have?.....ATiTool will tell you.

If you've got an R480 core, you can get a nice overclock. Hopefully you dont have an R430 core.

Can you post a 3dmark05 link?
 
Yeah, I have a R480 core, and I understand that that's what every X800 GTO2 card has.

What do you mean by 3DMark05 link? I do have a score in the ORB but it's not an OC'd score. Though I just ran 3DMark05, I didn't send the score to my futuremark profile.

The score without any overclock (GTO2, 1gb400mhz and 64 3500+) was 5121, but with the overclocked freqs I posted in my last message raised the score up to 5542. That's a ~8% increase, which is pretty good imo.

Also, can you say what temperature would be too high for GTO2? Because I suppose that it's the voltages that are preventing me to overclock further, presuming that inadequate voltage can cause artefacts?
 
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