Thanks SimGuy & Mackanz
SimGuy -> Don't all HERCULES 9800NP's have samsung memory? I really hope so I put it in the order-comment,but they probably didnt check.
Special thanks to SimGuy for pointing out the overheating issue lol
That's rather creepy!
I saw the new cat's have some cool functions.
So what to do : dont do the mod & use the new cats , or do the mod and use the older cats?
Hi guys,
I found this forum while I was waiting for my sapphire r9800NP to arrive, and when I saw the infineon 3.0 ns mem chips on that just arrived card, I was down for few hours...maybe without the reason:
I just oc'd the card to the 382/342 MHz, and got 0 artifacts in test.
Non oc'd card gave me 5004 3dmark03, and now I got 5640 3dmark03... now I'm tempted to flash the card, maybe after I install some passive hs on the ram chips...
Anybody have the same experience, maybe newer cards with infineon can do the magic 380/340 like r9800pro?
The BIOS file that is supplied in this guide is for Radeon 9800 cards with Samsung memory only. Flashing it onto a 9800 with Infineon memory will cause the card to no longer function correctly.
If your Infineon card will run @ 380/340 without a BIOS flash and without artifacting, then I wouldn't worry about flashing it with any Pro BIOS. Just overclock and you're good to go, as I have never heard of an Infineon card clocking that high before.
If you have a chance, could you post the information written on your RAM chips (serial numbers and identification numbers)? It would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, did you say this was a new Sapphire 9800 NP card?
NP, I'll post the data written on the mem chips in the morning (it's now 12.30 AM here and She is asleep, cannot crank open the case now)...
As for new card, here in Cro the companies that sell the hardware only have small quantities of the more expensive stuff in stock, so they order more frequently and I guess they have more recent stuff...Although, I may be very wrong...dunno...
All I can do for now is read the sticker on the box:
PN 102-A07513-01-AT
SN A033700019044
I'll open the case in the morning and post the mem info...
Must check another thing, I actually bought 2 cards, one for me and one for my bro, both of them have infineon mem chips, I'm gonna make bro to try to oc his card and post the result, those cards are from the same batch.
Thanks for the great tips here!
I want to buy a 9800 non pro card, but the only place I can find them lately is at brick and mortar retailers, like Best Buy and Circuit City. They only carry the Built By ATi cards however...and from what I hear the odds of getting Samsung RAM are very high with the Sapphires and Hercules models (and low with the BBA cards).
Does anyone know where to buy those 3rd party types of cards? Or, if I bought the BBA card at Circuit City, how could I return it if the RAM was Infineon? Would there be a 15% restocking fee or something? I'd really like to ensure getting Samsung RAM.
The only way you are going to be able to guaruntee that your card has Samsung memory modules on it is by visually inspecting the card yourself at a local store.
Most Sapphire's are now coming with Infineon RAM along with PowerColor, which means that the chances that you are going to get a card with Samsung memory is pretty slim to none now. Unfortunately, most Built By ATI cards ship with Infineon RAM as well.
If you can find a local store that carries 9800 NP's and they allow you to inspect the card before purchasing, you've got a much better chance getting Samsung memory than just blindly ordering from NewEgg or Excaliber.
I know of 1 place up here in Ontario that still carries them, but I don't know if they would ship to the US.
So do you have to over clock the card after installing the bios to get PRO specs, or are ppl over clocking just to get faster then PRO specs? Thanks. Also how would I go about overclocking the card, and what is the average people are getting? Thanks a lot! Can't wait to try it out when my card arrives.
If you flash the 9800 Non-Pro with the 9800 Pro BIOS, it automatically overclocks the card to 380/340 (which is 9800 Pro default speeds.)
If you want to, you can install Rage3D Tweak from www.rage3d.com, which allows you to overclock your card further.
With TweakMonster BGA RAMSinks and the stock fan on my Sapphire 9800 Non-Pro flashed to 9800 Pro, I can overclock to a maximum of 415/380, which is slightly faster than Radeon 9800 XT speeds.
I finally got my Sapphire 9800 NP and flashed it to Pro. Before the flash I got 16,914 3DMark2001 SE Marks and 39,857 Aquamarks. After the flash I get 18,055 and 44,647. All at 378/337.5 (Stock speeds) according to Ragetweaker. This card is simply awesome. I just played some Mohaa and the temps in my new case are 38/38 celsius for CPU and Mobo. Including the cpu, vid card and PSU, there are a total of 8 fans going.
//Edit
Thank you SimGuy! This is something I never would have attempted had it not been for you (SM) and this guide. I also appreciate the heads-up on the cat 3.8s
I was just messing around and decided to just to backup my current video card bios, where currently a Geforce is in the AGP slot. I don't know if it's because I don't have the ATi card in there, but when i tried to do flashrom -s 0 original.bin, it said there is no adapter in the 0 slot or something like that. Is there something wrong, or is just because of the video card? Thanks.
Stick it on a floppy, boot your computer with a Windows boot disk to a real DOS prompt, insert the disk with DumpBIOS on it and type dumpbios at the A:> prompt. It should save a copy of your NVidia BIOS to the floppy disk.
DogSoldier: Happy to help and congratulations on your success with the Flash
thanks a lot, your really a great help! also saved me lots of money, I almost bought the 9800 PRO until I saw this post, but I have to wait till thursday for my card to get here
dailo had this to say thanks a lot, your really a great help! also saved me lots of money, I almost bought the 9800 PRO until I saw this post, but I have to wait till thursday for my card to get here
Glad to be of assistance.
BTW, to anyone who has been attempting to grab the files to perform the BIOS flash modification, I appologize for them being offline for the last 48 hours. The ISP webspace in which they were hosted will be offline for the next 10 days and it took me a little while to find a new home for them.
Rest assured they are back online now with working download links.
I still haven't flashed my card because i think my temps° are too high (boxed)
but anyway
i was wondering if it's normal i only get 4.9k on 3Dmark2K3 and 36K on aquamark
Hercules 9800 NP
Snipe, what kind of system do you have? It may very well be normal scores as more than just your video card is tested with those benchmarks (3DMark may be the exception)...
sniPe had this to say I still haven't flashed my card because i think my temps° are too high (boxed)
but anyway
i was wondering if it's normal i only get 4.9k on 3Dmark2K3 and 36K on aquamark
Hercules 9800 NP
What freq cpu you have? Think it's pretty real to get 4.9k in 3dmark03, I got 5004 with mine rig (xp 1.7+ oc'ed to 2.4 (11*218)).
That's good score you got!
/edit: sorry simguy, prolly I should read all the posts before I post mine:rolleyes2 ...stupid me...
I've searched...and searched. Where in this world are they selling Sapphired Radeon 9800 NP's at? And will they ship to the USA? Also, do they sell they puppies stores? Help!!!:banghead:
Oh yeah, adn I don't know if this is true...but someone told me to stay away from PowerColor cards b/c they're crap, and I'm going to steer clear of OEM cards for the chance of getting a bad quality chip.:o
PowerColor & Sapphire's 9800 NP's are among the best in the business. Most retailers have phased out their 9800 NP's as ATI has discontinued that line-up of cards.
Your best bet to get a hold of them? Either through a second-hand sale, or a local computer store where you can verify that the card has 3.3ns Samsung DDR SDRAM memory modules.
Most online retailers like GoogleGear, NewEgg, Excalibur, etc.. have stopped carrying the 9800 NP.
How much did you get your Radeon 9800 NP for? Where did you get it? I live in Cali, USA and I see you live in Toronto, Canada. Au revoir(if u know some french)
I ordered a Sapphire 9800 nonpro from www.pcwonderinc.com just recently. It has the Samsung RAM and I assume would take a pro BIOS flash withouth trouble, but I have yet to try it. A friend got the identical card and flashed it, works like a dream.
A word of caution. The first card they sent was bad - would lock/artifact badly in 3D apps and games, etc. I sent it back, and they reshipped one which is working beautifully. It can happen with any store but I like to mention it.
I love the card.. I have an athlon 2800 XP+ and 512 of corsair 3200LL DDR400, I'm playing games at 1600x1200 with incredible framerates which had trouble running at 1024x768 before. Reason I haven't bothered to flash the bios yet.. so far, no need!
(Edit) - One thing I have noticed which is annoying.. I have a dark monitor, even with brightness/contrast all the way up I have to use software gamma sliders to increase for games/desktop. With this card, when I play a game and then exit to desktop - the gamma resets back to defaults (too dark!) and I have to change it again. Reading boards, I see this is a well known issue.. why in the world hasn't ATI fixed this? Sheesh. I can use Rage3Dtweak to gamma adjust with hotkeys inside a game, but it doesn't work for desktop.
Does anyone know a util/tweak I can use which would stop this annoying gamma reset when I exit to desktop?
Comments
SimGuy -> Don't all HERCULES 9800NP's have samsung memory? I really hope so
Special thanks to SimGuy for pointing out the overheating issue lol
That's rather creepy!
I saw the new cat's have some cool functions.
So what to do : dont do the mod & use the new cats , or do the mod and use the older cats?
Thanks ! snipe
Catalyst 3.9's will be out in.. give it a month.
AFAIK, all Hercules 9800 NP's use Samsung 3.3ns memory.
I found this forum while I was waiting for my sapphire r9800NP to arrive, and when I saw the infineon 3.0 ns mem chips on that just arrived card, I was down for few hours...maybe without the reason:
I just oc'd the card to the 382/342 MHz, and got 0 artifacts in test.
Non oc'd card gave me 5004 3dmark03, and now I got 5640 3dmark03... now I'm tempted to flash the card, maybe after I install some passive hs on the ram chips...
Anybody have the same experience, maybe newer cards with infineon can do the magic 380/340 like r9800pro?
Cheers!
The BIOS file that is supplied in this guide is for Radeon 9800 cards with Samsung memory only. Flashing it onto a 9800 with Infineon memory will cause the card to no longer function correctly.
If your Infineon card will run @ 380/340 without a BIOS flash and without artifacting, then I wouldn't worry about flashing it with any Pro BIOS. Just overclock and you're good to go, as I have never heard of an Infineon card clocking that high before.
If you have a chance, could you post the information written on your RAM chips (serial numbers and identification numbers)? It would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, did you say this was a new Sapphire 9800 NP card?
NP, I'll post the data written on the mem chips in the morning (it's now 12.30 AM here and She is asleep, cannot crank open the case now)...
As for new card, here in Cro the companies that sell the hardware only have small quantities of the more expensive stuff in stock, so they order more frequently and I guess they have more recent stuff...Although, I may be very wrong...dunno...
All I can do for now is read the sticker on the box:
PN 102-A07513-01-AT
SN A033700019044
I'll open the case in the morning and post the mem info...
Must check another thing, I actually bought 2 cards, one for me and one for my bro, both of them have infineon mem chips, I'm gonna make bro to try to oc his card and post the result, those cards are from the same batch.
Thx again,
Cheers!
I want to buy a 9800 non pro card, but the only place I can find them lately is at brick and mortar retailers, like Best Buy and Circuit City. They only carry the Built By ATi cards however...and from what I hear the odds of getting Samsung RAM are very high with the Sapphires and Hercules models (and low with the BBA cards).
Does anyone know where to buy those 3rd party types of cards? Or, if I bought the BBA card at Circuit City, how could I return it if the RAM was Infineon? Would there be a 15% restocking fee or something? I'd really like to ensure getting Samsung RAM.
Most Sapphire's are now coming with Infineon RAM along with PowerColor, which means that the chances that you are going to get a card with Samsung memory is pretty slim to none now. Unfortunately, most Built By ATI cards ship with Infineon RAM as well.
If you can find a local store that carries 9800 NP's and they allow you to inspect the card before purchasing, you've got a much better chance getting Samsung memory than just blindly ordering from NewEgg or Excaliber.
I know of 1 place up here in Ontario that still carries them, but I don't know if they would ship to the US.
www.pccanada.com
Here's the mem info, as written on the chips:
infineon
DDR SGRAM
HYB250128323C-3.0
A
0312 SUU 16933
Hope it helps
You've got one hell of a lucky Infineon-based card, as I've never EVER heard of an Infineon 9800 NP reaching Pro speeds before.
Hold on to that thing tight!
If you flash the 9800 Non-Pro with the 9800 Pro BIOS, it automatically overclocks the card to 380/340 (which is 9800 Pro default speeds.)
If you want to, you can install Rage3D Tweak from www.rage3d.com, which allows you to overclock your card further.
With TweakMonster BGA RAMSinks and the stock fan on my Sapphire 9800 Non-Pro flashed to 9800 Pro, I can overclock to a maximum of 415/380, which is slightly faster than Radeon 9800 XT speeds.
//Edit
Thank you SimGuy! This is something I never would have attempted had it not been for you (SM) and this guide. I also appreciate the heads-up on the cat 3.8s
You'll need this utility to backup your GeForce BIOS: DUMPBIOS.
http://members.rogers.com/csstechguy/nvbios/dumpbios.zip
Stick it on a floppy, boot your computer with a Windows boot disk to a real DOS prompt, insert the disk with DumpBIOS on it and type dumpbios at the A:> prompt. It should save a copy of your NVidia BIOS to the floppy disk.
DogSoldier: Happy to help and congratulations on your success with the Flash
Glad to be of assistance.
BTW, to anyone who has been attempting to grab the files to perform the BIOS flash modification, I appologize for them being offline for the last 48 hours. The ISP webspace in which they were hosted will be offline for the next 10 days and it took me a little while to find a new home for them.
Rest assured they are back online now with working download links.
Thanks for understanding
but anyway
i was wondering if it's normal i only get 4.9k on 3Dmark2K3 and 36K on aquamark
Hercules 9800 NP
Most people seem to be going by the "put your hand on it" meter.
NS
What freq cpu you have? Think it's pretty real to get 4.9k in 3dmark03, I got 5004 with mine rig (xp 1.7+ oc'ed to 2.4 (11*218)).
That's good score you got!
/edit: sorry simguy, prolly I should read all the posts before I post mine:rolleyes2 ...stupid me...
Your best bet to get a hold of them? Either through a second-hand sale, or a local computer store where you can verify that the card has 3.3ns Samsung DDR SDRAM memory modules.
Most online retailers like GoogleGear, NewEgg, Excalibur, etc.. have stopped carrying the 9800 NP.
A word of caution. The first card they sent was bad - would lock/artifact badly in 3D apps and games, etc. I sent it back, and they reshipped one which is working beautifully. It can happen with any store but I like to mention it.
I love the card.. I have an athlon 2800 XP+ and 512 of corsair 3200LL DDR400, I'm playing games at 1600x1200 with incredible framerates which had trouble running at 1024x768 before. Reason I haven't bothered to flash the bios yet.. so far, no need!
(Edit) - One thing I have noticed which is annoying.. I have a dark monitor, even with brightness/contrast all the way up I have to use software gamma sliders to increase for games/desktop. With this card, when I play a game and then exit to desktop - the gamma resets back to defaults (too dark!) and I have to change it again. Reading boards, I see this is a well known issue.. why in the world hasn't ATI fixed this? Sheesh.
Does anyone know a util/tweak I can use which would stop this annoying gamma reset when I exit to desktop?
Thanks if so!