6950 -> 6970 - Recovering from bad flash.

[Lum]

I have an Asus 6950, the one with a factory overclock to 810MHz. I stupidly attempted to flash it to a 6970 using this BIOS which was the wrong one, however it did flash successfully, it just could not use my second monitor. No idea if games worked as I did not get that far.

I can switch to BIOS 2 and everything is back to normal, but when I then switch to BIOS 1 and attempt to flash any BIOS, including my original, ATI WinFlash gets to about half way and then exits. No flash appears to have taken place.

In all cases I've had to use -unlockrom followed by -f -p 0 <file>

I don't want to flash anything to BIOS 2, obviously, but is there any way I can make BIOS 1 flashable again?

 

[Lum]

Error 0FL01 if I try this from ATIFlash in DOS. Googled this error, and lots of people have had this with cards that are basically unflashable, but I was able to successfully flash the first time!

 

[megamanx00]

This is what you have to do. First boot up with the backup BIOS (what you're calling BIOS2). While it's running flick the switch back to the BIOS 1 position, and then run the flash utility.

 

[Lum]

That's exactly what I did. BIOS1 is unflashable after I put the wrong BIOS2. I'm using BIOS2 at the moment, and switch back to 1 just before the flash.

 

[Lum]

umm, I wrote that wrong and it wont let me edit it.

I meant to say "BIOS1 is unflashable after I flashed an incorrect ROM to it. I'm using BIOS2 at the moment and switch back to 1 just before the flash"

 

[Lum]

Well apparently the position I wrote to, which I'm calling BIOS1, the one closest to the DVI ports, is supposed to be unwritable and I've somehow managed to write to it.

In the end I just flashed the Sapphire BIOS into BIOS2 and it's working as a 6970 now!

The 6970 BIOS in BIOS1 sort of works, it boots the system but can't drive my second monitor. Now that I understand that BIOS1 is not supposed to be writable I don't feel so nervous about flashing BIOS2.

Would love to know how I managed to write to BIOS1 though, maybe the card was shipped with the switch in a half way position, enough to select the address line for BIOS1 but not to enable the write protect.

To find this out I'd probably have to take the card apart, and frankly I cannot be bothered.