Flash Radeon 9550 256MB with 9600 128MB BIOS

[tsowen]

I have a Connect3D Radeon 9550 256MB video card. I plan to flash it with a Connect3D 9600 Pro 128MB BIOS. Will this cause any problem? Can the whole 256MB memory still be used with the 128MB BIOS? Or only 128MB memory can be recognized? Thanks.

Tsowen

 

[Avalon]

Why do you want to do this?

 

[AristoV300]

I would strongly recommend not doing it, you are asking for nothing but trouble.

 

[cbehnken]

Originally posted by: AristoV300
I would strongly recommend not doing it, you are asking for nothing but trouble.

You are going to have lots of death and flames if you do this...

 

[Munky]

You can't just put any bios from one card to another one of a different kind and expect the card to continue functioning properly. The only time this works is if there are special conditions that make this possible, or if it's a modded bios specifically designed to be used that way. For example, I flashed my 9800p with a modded xt bios, and it works, but only because the bios was modded for 128mb of memory on my card, and also for the specific type of memory (there are like 3 different memory types used on the 9800). Also, the 9800p and the 9800xt are pretty similar cards in terms of the actual hardware. I don't know how similar the 9550 and the 9600 are, but unless you know that somebody has done this in the past I would strongly advise against flashing a 9550 with a 9600 bios.

 

[tsowen]

According to this article, one can flash Radeon 9550 with 9600 BIOS. It recommends to flash the BIOS that matches my card's configuration. Connect3D 9550 uses Samsung 5.0 memory. I can't find a 9600 PRO 256MB with Samsung 5.0 memory. Therefore, I am thinking of using the 9600 pro 128MB BIOS instead. So this is not a good idea? Thanks.

 

[Munky]

OK, you can try the bios, but be sure to make a backup of your original one before flashing. It might work like a 9600, but I'm pretty sure you'll only be using 128mb of memory. Still, it's a risk you're undertaking, and it might damage your card.

 

[selfbuilt]

Sounds like a bad idea, since you may boink your card if you try. Since the whole point of this exercise is simply to increase the cpu/mem clock speeds in your case (there's no other advantage to 9600 bios), you are much better off simply using ATITool to find you max safe o/c, and then manually setting it with ATITool right before you play a game. A lot of safer that flashing with a memory size mismatched bios.

 

[BobDaMenkey]

I'd say it's not a sound idea. Just mix matching any BIOS is generally not a good idea. Would you try and reflash your nForce 2 mobo with an nForce 3 BIOS just because it 'might' work right? It's still for AMD processors, I mean, it should work, shouldn't it??? Probably not.

I'd go for soft overclocking with ATiTool. Don't mess with BIOS flashing unless you're prepared for the worst case senario (no more card).

 

[tsowen]

Thank you all for your feedbacks. I will try soft mod first.

Tsowen