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Help...Sapphire GDDR4 3870 can't flash BIOS.

pablo NZ

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Hi folks, I have what seems to be two early batches of 3870 from Sapphire with the fan speed locked to 25% (90'C+ load temps!). One card I was able to flash with a fixed BIOS and fan speed ramps up perfectly, but the other one I can't flash even using the force command with atiflash, infact I can't even save the BIOS file from GPU-z (it says "BIOS reading not supported on this device") :banghead:

The one that didn't flash also only reports the subvendor as "ATI" in GPU-z, whereas the other one correctly identified as Sapphire.

Does anyone know a way around this?




They both also suck at overclocking (max 800MHz core) but I'm not too bothered about that as long as I can fix the fan settings to run them in Crossfire.
 
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the fan speed isnt actually locked at 25% its just targets 90 as the operating temp.. it will run faster if the card tries to run hotter for any reason.. its how ati set it.. 90 C operating temps and quiet running.. it wont do it any harm..

as regards your bios flashing are the cards both the same.. ???

trog
 

pablo NZ

New Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
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Processor Q6600
Motherboard IP35-E
Cooling GeminII
Memory 2x1gb PC6400 CL4 aXeRam
Video Card(s) 512mb GeCube 3850 X-Turbo III OC
Display(s) Samsung 206BW
Audio Device(s) Xfi Xtremegamer
Power Supply Silverstone ST50EF
the fan speed isnt actually locked at 25% its just targets 90 as the operating temp.. it will run faster if the card tries to run hotter for any reason.. its how ati set it.. 90 C operating temps and quiet running.. it wont do it any harm..

as regards your bios flashing are the cards both the same.. ???

trog

I see, now that you mention it I did actually notice the fan speed go up to about 33% when it hit 90'C, but that's still too slow for my liking. I can force the fan speed to 55% in Rivatuner but I need a long term solution for when I put them in Crossfire. I'm not personally happy with the bottom card running at 90'C even if it doesn't do any harm, I like my case temps low :p

To answer your question - both cards look physically identical, but they have different BIOS versions and different subvendor IDs in GPUz. Here's a screeny of the one that doesn't want to play nice...
 

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  • 3870 bios error.jpg
    3870 bios error.jpg
    105.2 KB · Views: 699
Joined
Dec 18, 2005
Messages
8,253 (1.24/day)
System Name money pit..
Processor Intel 9900K 4.8 at 1.152 core voltage minus 0.120 offset
Motherboard Asus rog Strix Z370-F Gaming
Cooling Dark Rock TF air cooler.. Stock vga air coolers with case side fans to help cooling..
Memory 32 gb corsair vengeance 3200
Video Card(s) Palit Gaming Pro OC 2080TI
Storage 150 nvme boot drive partition.. 1T Sandisk sata.. 1T Transend sata.. 1T 970 evo nvme m 2..
Display(s) 27" Asus PG279Q ROG Swift 165Hrz Nvidia G-Sync, IPS.. 2560x1440..
Case Gigabyte mid-tower.. cheap and nothing special..
Audio Device(s) onboard sounds with stereo amp..
Power Supply EVGA 850 watt..
Mouse Logitech G700s
Keyboard Logitech K270
Software Win 10 pro..
Benchmark Scores Firestike 29500.. timepsy 14000..
its not normal.. looks like the early 67 bios.. have u tried taking one card out to do the flashing.. subvender stuff dosnt matter..

the fanfix bios will drop your temps if u can flash both cards with it.. i have no idea why u are having problems with the one card thow..

trog

its a not zip i have just renamed it to upload
 

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  • 3870fanfix.zip
    64 KB · Views: 635

pablo NZ

New Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
19 (0.00/day)
Processor Q6600
Motherboard IP35-E
Cooling GeminII
Memory 2x1gb PC6400 CL4 aXeRam
Video Card(s) 512mb GeCube 3850 X-Turbo III OC
Display(s) Samsung 206BW
Audio Device(s) Xfi Xtremegamer
Power Supply Silverstone ST50EF
I've only tried with one card at a time.

It certainly is confuddling :ohwell:

edit: yip that's the bios I used on the good card.
 
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