Powercolor Radeon 9500pro

[Lycan]

Hi Guys,

Anyone else running one of these cards?

Require some assistance re: BIOS.

Cheers
Lycan

[Solid Snake]

Im not running one, but, uhm, what is the problem? Artifacts ... what?

[Artifice]

try
enable 4x agp
boot agp first
dont assign an irq for vga.
turn off video pallet snoop.
im not sure about any other settings. but those should help.
i think. your not to clear on the problem?

[Lycan]

Naah, nothing like that...

I "upgraded" the bios to the overclockable one on 3DChipsets.com and I'm getting constant lock-ups crashes, etc. POS bios unfortunately.

Silly me though forgot to take a copy of the original bios :(
Now I'm hoping someone else has the card and can download the bios for me.

Lycan

[must kill Dell adguy]

I can do that....
You don't need a PowerColour BIOS to get it going...
I can give you one if you want...'cept I might not be able to get it until tonight....kinda doin' stuff today...pm me if you want the BIOS.

[must kill Dell adguy]

..I forgot to say...3dchipsets.com???
don't ever go there....there was a better BIOS at overclockers.ru.
I had the same problem, the thing would boot, but It wouldn't detect anymore in windows, and ****ed up, but I'm not going to properly occlock it for about another month.

[Lycan]

Ahh, yes lessons learnt :)

I've actually managed to get the thing repaired by using a different 9500pro bios called 9500WARP.BIN, I've tested it and now I can watch DVD's for more than 5mins without the machine locking up :D

Scary stuff this BIOS ****e.

Still keen on keeping the stock bios handy though so I'd appreciate it if you could email it through to me. Cheers M8.

HEHEH

Lycan

[DiscoStu]

you can create a batch file on a floppy which will automatically flash back to a particular bios.........quite handy if you mange to screw up the flash and lose use of the card.

Just make a boot floppy, place the flashrom contents in the floppy, then place a backup on the floppy and name it "backup.rom". Now simply add a text file called "autoexec.bat" and put the following line in it:"flashrom -p 0 backup.rom". Now if you boot to that floppy, it will automatically restore your bios. I would recommend you do this before flashing as it saved me once.

not really that helpful for you.............but handy all the same ;) :p

[must kill Dell adguy]

that's quite a good way, but using atiflash and radedit, any ATI 9500 Bios can be changed according to manufacturer using radedit, and atiflash to flash the bugger. I think he would know how to flash it since he has already done so...and all he needs is to get the replacement BIOS file....which he doesn't have...as I said PM me...I have one ready for flashing.

[DiscoStu]

yeah, I mean it's a handy thing to have if you have no output.........ie blank screen.

Unless of course you're telepathic and can flash a bios without needing a screen.

[Gh0s7 L3mUr]

Originally posted by DiscoStu
yeah, I mean it's a handy thing to have if you have no output.........ie blank screen.

Unless of course you're telepathic and can flash a bios without needing a screen.

Or have screwed it up so many times that you have it memorized. :D

[must kill Dell adguy]

Originally posted by Gh0s7 L3mUr
Or have screwed it up so many times that you have it memorized. :D

hehe, gotta love it huh!!!
However, flashing a bad BIOS shouldn't do too much to your boot/DOS screen because it runs on VESA. Although, If your BIOS is really really FVCKED (I mean, the only reason you could flash it in the first place was it was the same kb as the orig., and everything else is ****ed up and totally random words and numbers, not even in Hexadecimal format...).
I tried the BIOS from 3Dchipsets, and found it could boot, and I could go into DOS, but Windows was just a blank screen, so I used a DOS-startup disk and reflashed it with the Original.

[Brendan]

you guys scare me from away from touchin my 9700pro .. Im still considering it. maybe.

[wimpy]

just on a different topic, how you finding the 9500 pro running in general.

decided on one over a ti4200 and just wanting some feed back (plus how are powercolour as a brand?)

[Artifice]

i had a bit of trouble traking down thier website the first time.
the only real trouble i had with thier product turned out to be "VIA" related. i had a powercolor gf2 mx shmax at the time. and a fic aziiea mobo. basically when i put that gfx card in my sound went crap. i believe the via iteration at that time had a bug with the agp. well thats the story that im sticking to. and its the only time i could justify an upgrade. other than that... they are cheap.

[Deviant]

Originally posted by wimpy
just on a different topic, how you finding the 9500 pro running in general.

decided on one over a ti4200 and just wanting some feed back (plus how are powercolour as a brand?)

Powercolor are generally rubbish, well at least for overclocking. They are ok for general or noraml peoples use.

[Lycan]

Mines a powercolor card (actually an original ATI card just in P/C box) runs really well.

351 on the core and 317 on the RAM.

317 is the limit for the RAM (getting way to hot)... havent tried higher on the core yet.

Lycan

[Brendan]

Ive heard mixed opinions..
They are obviously one of the "Powered by ATI" card manufacturers, and one of the cheaper brands at that.

Heard/read that some of the first powercolor 9700pro cards sometimes misrepresented the 256 bit memory interface.. after researching I couldn't find any other information to prove it..

Ended up going for the Commando 2 multi display edition which I PRESUMED would be ok being a later board.. but at $700 + gst for an AIW, I ended up just going for it.

Their suport site is pretty bad, and their english translation isnt great either..

however the card uses ATI Catalyst drivers anyway so there has been no need to go to their site for support/driver updates, demos etc.

Was shopping arround for prices for a Geforce4 Ti 4600/4800 series2 (MSI, ASUS, or Triplex), but couldnt find anyone in Auck with any in stock apart from in Christchurch.
After reading lots of reviews and performance charts, I then looked at the ATI - even though I have been an avid NVidia supporter since early TNT2.

I havent had any problems with mine yet, But you will hear if I do.:p

[wimpy]

kk~

Well I guess Ill find ou how good they are tommorow when my 9500 pro turns up. Been impossible finding benchmarks or even reviews on this card tho. Someone let me know if ya find any. Be keen to have a look.

~wimpy~