ATI: Flashing The Radeon 9800 Non-Pro To A 9800 Pro
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DISCLAIMER: The methods outlined below can cause irrecoverable damage to your hardware and should not be performed unless you ABSOLUTELY know what you are doing.
WARNING: Attempting this modification on any ATI-based video adapter besides the Radeon 9800 Non-Pro will produce undesirable results, such as not being able to view any visual output from the card or a non-booting operating system.
DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTEMPT THIS MODIFICATION WITH ANY OTHER VIDEO CARD. THIS FLASHING GUIDE IS STRICTLY FOR THE RADEON 9800 NON-PRO.</TD><TD ALIGN="RIGHT" VALIGN="CENTER" WIDTH="220">
</TD></TR></TABLE>ATI: Flashing The Radeon 9800 Non-Pro To A 9800 Pro
Introduction:
ATI released the Radeon 9800 Non-Pro video adapter (R350 core) as the Spring 2003 product refresh to their R300 series of video adapters (the 9700, 9500 & 9100). Bringing minimal changes to the core (such as an enhanced Z buffer system and SmartShader 2.1), the Radeon 9800 Non-Pro was positioned to replace the Radeon 9700 Pro as ATI's highest-performance leader. With NVidia breathing the NV35 down the necks of computer enthusiasts around the world, ATI needed a quick remedy to the situation, which manifested itself in the Radeon 9800 Pro. Released to much surprise, the Radeon 9800 Pro is basically an up-clocked Radeon 9800 Non-Pro with faster memory chips (2.8ns -vs- 3.3ns). As many of us have come to expect, top-of-the-line technology (especially video adapters) cost an arm and a leg these days, and are usually the most expensive component in today's high-powered gaming systems.
Everyone wants to save money these days, myself included. In this guide, I'm going to show you how you can turn a Radeon 9800 Non-Pro video adapter into the much more expensive Radeon 9800 Pro version. Users will get the same performance out of their Radeon 9800 Non-Pro as a user would out of a Radeon 9800 Pro, but at only 50% of the cost. OH YEAH.
Many people have asked me why they should bother with flashing their Radeon 9800 Non-Pro just to attain the Radeon 9800 Pro clock speeds? Couldn't they simply manually overclock their video adapter using Rage3D Tweak? The answer is both yes and no. Some video adapters have no problem reaching the Radeon 9800 Pro default clock speeds (380 Core / 340 DDR Memory) from the Radeon 9800 Non-Pro speeds (325 Core / 290 DDR Memory), in which case go right ahead and manually overclock your adapter. On the other hand, there are some adapters that benefit from the Radeon 9800 Pro BIOS being flashed onto them, as many video adapter enthusiasts believe that the Radeon 9800 Pro BIOS increases the voltage passed to the onboard memory chips slightly to help in attaining a higher memory overclock.
Legal Disclaimer:
WARNING: Myself, Short-Media or any of Short-Media's subsidiaries are NOT responsibile for ANY damage, abnormal system behaviour, graphics corruption, game incompatability or data loss that may occur to your hardware (and supporting systems) from performing this modification. By following this guide, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this warning, you are aware of the inherint risk of modifying computer hardware, you are aware that this modification will VOID any warranty that you currently have on your Radeon 9800 Non-Pro video adapter and that you are solely responsible for any damages or abnormalities that occur with the video card.
Hardware Required:
-> Sapphire Atlantis 9800, PowerColor Radeon 9800, Hercules Prophet 9800 or any ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro with Samsung 3.3, 3.0 or 2.8ns DDR memory modules.
-> PCI-based video adapter (for emergency BIOS restoration purposes only)
-> 2 Freshly Formatted Floppy Disks
Note: I have only tested this guide with my personal Sapphire Atlantis 9800 Non-Pro, which was 100% successful. Your milage may vary with other Radeon 9800 Non-Pro manufacturers.
Software Required:
-> Radeon 9800 Pro BIOS
-> FlashROM (to flash the BIOS with)
-> Windows 98 Boot Disk (someway to get to a REAL DOS prompt)
-> FutureMark's 3DMark2003
-> FutureMark's 3DMark2001 SE
-> Latest ATI Catalyst Driver
-> Rage3D Tweak (Great tweaking & overclocking utility)
Before You Perform The Modification:
1) If you previously installed the ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro into your PC, please remove it and place it on an anti-static surface. If you have just purchased the ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro, please unwrap the device and place it on an anti-static surface.
2) Carefully inspect 1 of the DDR memory modules that are located on the ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro PCB. There should be a total of 8 DDR memory modules (4 on the front and 4 on the back, each in an "L" configuration pattern).
3) This modification can only be performed with cards that utilize the Samsung 3.3ns, 3.0ns or 2.8ns DDR memory modules, as they have sufficient headroom to run at the required 340 MHz specification. Infineon's 3.0ns DDR memory modules will NOT run at the required 340 MHz specification, therefore not permitting the modification to work.
4) You will notice that the DDR memory modules on your ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro will be manufactured by either Samsung or Infineon. The following pictures show the typical Samsung & Infineon DDR memory modules utilized on the ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro series of cards:
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</TD></TR><TR><TD ALIGN=CENTER>Samsung 3.3ns DDR memory module</TD><TD ALIGN=CENTER>Infineon 3.0ns DDR memory module</TD></TR></TABLE></CENTER>5) If your ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro has the Samsung DDR memory modules (which match or closely resemble the FIRST image), your card can be successfully BIOS flashed to a Radeon 9800 Pro. If your ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro has the Infineon DDR memory modules (which match or closely resemble the SECOND image), your card CANNOT be BIOS flashed to a Radeon 9800 Pro.
Steps To Perform The Modification:
1) Install the ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro into your PC (refer to the video card's documentation on how to do that).
2) Restart the PC and install the latest ATI Catalyst Drivers.
3) Install 3DMark2001 SE & 3DMark2003 onto your system.
4) Run a default benchmark for each application and note the performance of the card in each.
5) Create a Windows 98 Boot Disk either on a Windows 98 machine or from the link above.
6) Unzip the "FlashROM.zip" file and copy the following files to a freshly formatted floppy disk:
flashrom.exe
flashrom.rom
dos4gw.exe
7) Copy the "98-8004.BIN" file to the same floppy disk utilized in step 6. Make sure that the write-protect tab on the floppy disk is NOT SET, as you will be writing to this disk during the flash process (more on this in a minute).
8) Uninstall the ATI Catalyst Control Panel (if installed). DO NOT RESTART.
9) Uninstall the ATI Catalyst Drivers. DO NOT RESTART.
10) Restart your computer with the Windows 98 Boot Disk.
11) When presented with the Boot Menu, hit SHIFT+F5 to boot directly to the command prompt WITHOUT loading any software.
12) Once at the command prompt, remove the Windows 98 Boot Disk and insert the floppy disk created in steps 6 & 7.
13) Change to the floppy drive by typing "A:" (without the quotes).
14) Backup your current video BIOS (incase something goes wrong) to the floppy disk by typing the following command: flashrom -s 0 original.bin (the "0" is the number ZERO, not the letter "O").
15) After a few seconds, your original video BIOS will be backed up to the floppy disk and you are now ready to flash your video adapter.
16) Flash your video adapter with the new 9800 Pro BIOS by typing the following command: flashrom -p 0 98-8004.BIN (the "0" is the number ZERO, not the letter "O").
17) After a few seconds, you will receive a message saying that the BIOS flash was successful.
18) Remove the floppy disk containing your backup BIOS, enable the write-protect tab on the floppy disk and restart your computer.
19) Upon restarting your computer, you should see nothing out of the ordinary and it should boot completely naturally into your OS.
20) Once logged in, your should re-install the latest ATI Catalyst Drivers.
21) After installing the latest ATI Catalyst Drivers, open Device Manager (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager) and check under the "Display Adapters" listing. It should list your video adapter as a "RADEON 9800 PRO."
22) Re-run the same default benchmarks for 3DMark2001 SE & 3DMark2003, again noting the performance numbers of the card.
23) Compare the "after-mod" values with the "before-mod" values. You should see an increase, as demonstrated on the system below:
Modification Benchmark Testing:
<TABLE WIDTH="600" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="2" BORDER="0"><TR><TD COLSPAN=2 BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Test System Specs</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Video Card</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Sapphire Atlantis 9800 (Pro BIOS Mod)<BR>-vs-<BR>Sapphire Atlantis 9800</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Video Drivers</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">ATI Catalyst 3.6</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Processor</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Intel Pentium 4 2400C</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Motherboard</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Asus P4C800-E Deluxe<BR>(BIOS rev 1010)</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Memory</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">512 MB Corsair PC3700 CAS3<BR>(2x256MB Dual Channel)</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Hard Disk</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Western Digital Raptor 36.7 GB x2 (RAID-0)</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Sound</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum</TD></TR><TR><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Operating System</TD><TD BACKGROUND="http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg" ALIGN="CENTER">Windows XP Professional SP1 w/ DirectX 9.0b</TD></TR></TABLE>
![http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg"](http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/greysquare.jpg"){kind=link}
![http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg"](http://www.short-media.com/img/9800flash/bluesquare.jpg"){kind=link}
IF YOUR SYSTEM REFUSES TO BOOT AFTER THE FLASH:
There is always a chance that the BIOS flash will not work (through power fluctuations, corrupted downloads or acts of god). In order to repair your video adapter, you will have to install the PCI-based video adapter into a spare PCI slot to boot your PC to re-flash your video adapter with the original.bin BIOS you saved in step 14. If you DID NOT save your original BIOS, you are hosed as your retailer will NOT honour the warranty after they discover you screwed your card up by BIOS flashing it with a NON-SUPPORTED BIOS.
1) Power down the PC and unplug it from the wall.
2) Remove the case cover.
3) Locate a spare PCI slot and install the PCI-based video adapter you have laying around.
4) Hook up your monitor to the PCI-based video adapter you have laying around.
5) Plug the PC back in and start it up with the Windows 98 Boot Disk in the floppy drive.
If your system does not start up, you will have to remove the AGP Radeon 9800 Non-Pro Video adapter, install the PCI video adapter, enter the BIOS and change the INITIALIZE FIRST DEVICE option from "AGP" to "PCI." Then, re-install the Radeon 9800 Non-Pro video adapter into the AGP slot and attempt to start your system up with the Windows 98 Boot Disk once again.
6) When presented with the Boot Menu, hit SHIFT+F5 to boot directly to the command prompt WITHOUT loading any software.
7) Once at the command prompt, remove the Windows 98 Boot Disk and insert the floppy disk containing the flash software and your backup video BIOS.
8) Change to the floppy drive by typing "A:" (without the quotes).
9) Flash your video adapter with your backup original video BIOS by typing the following command: flashrom -p 0 original.bin (the "0" is the number ZERO, not the letter "O").
10) After a few seconds, you will receive a message saying that the BIOS flash was successful.
11) Shut down the PC and remove the PCI-based video adapter.
12) Hook up your monitor back to the ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro AGP video adapter.
13) Start the PC. You should now be back to the same position you were before you started this guide.
At this point, it's up to you whether or not you wish to try again to flash your ATI Radeon 9800 Non-Pro video adapter.
Instructions written by SimGuy.
Files downloaded & organized by SimGuy.
Memory images provided by Rage3D.com & FiringSquad.com
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Comments
You won't regret it at all! The Sapphire 9800 Non-Pro's utilize Samsung 3.3ns DDR VRAM. I've been able to push the VRAM as high as 355 MHz, but that's without any extra cooling (no RAMsinks or anything). As for the core, I've been able to push it to 425 MHz with only stock cooling & stock thermal pad between the cooler and the VPU. Pretty impressive.
No artifacts at all (ran a 2-hour 3DMark2003 & 2001 SE benching session) and no artifacts appeared throughout all of the testing.
At $365.00 CDN, it's one hell of a steal for kick-ass graphics and amazing anti-aliasing & anisotropic filtering performance.
What do you all think?
The 9800 Non-Pro, when flashed with the 9800 Pro BIOS will perform EXACTLY like a 9800 Pro.
That's the beauty of this whole mod.
We managed to find out some details concerning the mysterious RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards firstly mentioned in CATALYST 3.5 release notes. Apparently, there will be two versions of the RADEON 9800 SE, one of them will be pretty low-cost and will more resemble RADEON 9600, another will be more advanced and will probably become a successor of the legendary RADEON 9500 128MB that was easily transformed into more expensive RADEON 9700.
The first version of the RADEON 9800 SE will be made on simplified 6-layer PCB and feature 128-bit memory bus for 128MB of DDR SDRAM. The RADEON 9800 SE graphics chip will have only four active rendering pipelines. ATI Technologies again simply disables half of the VPU’s pixel pipelines and probably end-users should have a chance to re-enable them using tweaks in drivers or simply by re-soldering some resistors on the chip.
The second version of the RADEON 9800 SE graphics card will be made on 8-layer PCB and will boast with 256-bit bus for 128MB of DDR SDRAM memory. The chip will also feature only four pipelines, however, this is not an obstacle for brave overclockers and modders, is it? After certain tweaks some lucky users will probably get a fully-functional RADEON 9800 from a lower-cost RADEON 9800 SE solution.
Core and memory clocks of the RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards are to be determined, but in general I expect speeds of the RADEON 9800 SE with 128-bit memory bus to be lower compared to its brother with 256-bit bus.
As far as I understood, RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards are designed for OEMs’, some System Integrators, Asian markets and other price-conscious customers. In Europe ATI signed a deal with Media Markt to exclusively sell such cards into retail channel, whereas it is very likely that there will be almost no RADEON 9800 SE products in the US. All in all, RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards are not supposed to become massive. Though, market always places everything straight and hopefully there will be some RADEON 9800 SE products in Russia and Eastern Europe.
NEVAR! ATI pays me well to pimp their products.. cough cough
I'm about to buy a 9800 non pro from the ATI website using their $50 rebate for sending your old card. Will it definately work with the "built by ATI" retail version or is it sort of a crap shoot? Is there any way to know if it has the right type of memory before i buy it if i intend to do this bios flash? Thanks.
NS
Pardon my poor grammer.
Either way, it gets the point across.
Thanks NS.
//Edit: MS Word tells me that there is a "Irrecoverable"
I'll use that
Soon as HL2 comes out... and the 9800's price drops... and I get more cash, I'll be sure to try this out!
Thanks for the kind words. The mod works best on the Sapphire Atlantis 9800, the PowerColor 9800 Non-Pro or the Built By ATI 9800's, as they all use the Samsung 3.3ns memory.
Note: The 9800SE does NOT work with this modification. The 9800SE is a 4-pipeline castrated version of the 9800 NP.
The only reason I picked up the Sapphire version over the others was because it was cheaper (OEM version) and I could guaruntee that it had the 3.3ns RAM by inspecting it before purchasing it.
Best of luck!
After checking on different reviews of the BBA ATI Radeon 9800, it looks like ATI is shipping them with both types of RAM: 3.3ns Samsung and 3.0ns Infineon RAM modules. Your luck is about 50/50 on this one, as there is no way to tell before hand.
You a gambler?
NS
It´s at 230 on pricewatch and it has the Sammy memorys
1) If i went back and exchanged my card at BestBuy do you think theres a chance i could get one with the samsung ram this time or do you think these batches pretty much stay together?
2) Would a non pro oc'd to 380 core and 340 memory be identical to a pro anyway or would this bios flash do something else that makes it faster?
3) Is it possible that theres another bios flash procedure out there that works on the Infineon memory?
Thanks.
As for No. 2, just flash the NP to a Pro bios (where you also can change the core and memory speed to more if you like i think) and you have the same as a Pro.
The only NP cards that is KNOWN to give you sammy ram is Powercolor and Sapphire as far as i know.
I'm tempted to try the bios flash unless someone tells me its suicide.
Simply put, the 9800 Pro's BIOS forces the Infineon RAM to 340 MHz, which obviously it can't handle (without severe artifacting). Flashing your 9800 NP with the 9800 Pro BIOS with Infineon RAM simply won't work, unless you plan on playing 3D applications full of artifacts and possibly damaging your card.
That's why I recommend against flashing cards with the Infineon RAM, as they can't reach the required 340 MHz on the RAM.
Try it if you wish, but you'll immediately notice artifacts. There are 2 ways around it, but neither you'll like:
1) Edit the 9800 Pro BIOS with an ATI BIOS Editor so that the RAM only operates at 330 MHz instead of the usual 340. You'll still get 380 MHz on the core, but your RAM will be 10 MHz slower than a stock 9800 Pro.
2) Flash your card with the new BIOS, install Rage3D Tweaker and downclock your RAM to 330 MHz.
I'll forwarn you that you can damage your hardware if you continue to play 3D applications while the card artifacts.
IMHO, I'd return the card, spend the extra few bucks and grab a Sapphire or PowerColor 9800 Non-Pro (NOT THE SE version), even if it has to come from another vendor.
1) Usually they ship identical batches to the same retailers. Therefore, you'll probably be out of luck doing this.
2) Some overclockers have had trouble pushing a 9800 NP to the 380/340 specifications of the 9800 Pro. Rumor has it that by flashing the 9800 NP with the Pro BIOS, it raises the voltage to the core & memory ever so slightly as to help aide in the stability and overclockability of the card. I agree with it too, as my Sapphire 9800 NP, when operating at stock 9800 NP speeds would not clock over 365/335. Flashing with the Pro BIOS allowes me to overclock to an amazing 440/365.
3) There is only the one BIOS modding procedure for the 9800 NP to 9800 Pro modification. To put it bluntly, users with a 9800 NP that utilizes Infineon RAM are shafted out of this mod. Sorry bud.
UPDATE: This mod worked perfect! Thanks a lot.
quote "I also have a bios version for those who were unfortunate enough to have memory that cannot reach 340MHz. This BIOS will set the memory speed to 325MHz and will set the core speed the same which is 380MHz. "
http://www.digitalsynapses.com/articles/9800npflash/
For the time being i've decided to upgrade the rest of my system before a buy a 9800. I've had a 1.3 ghz T-bird with 512m of sdram for too long. I ended up ordering an xp 2500 barton, an nforce2 mboard with dual channel ddr, and 1 gig of pc2700 to go with it. When i do get the 9800 it will probably make much more a difference with my new system.
It is so easy and common to take the 2500 Barton's to 200fsb on the NF2 boards, especially if you happen to have ordered an Abit NF7-S rev 2.0.