Well I have had minimal success o'clocking my 9700 pro and wondered if anyone had any input. I have moded my card with a slk-600 heatsink on gpu with a 60mm fan running at 5k rpm, so processor cooling is not the problem, and I use ramsinks attached to card. No volt mods done to card. Best o'clock without processor artifacts is 355/336. I wondered if the bios may need to be flashed to a different version to "unlock" it. I have a built by ATI 9700pro with version:Video BIOS : 113-94206-102(which i believe is 8004). I have not touched the bios yet. Anyone know of a better version or have any other ideas?
I would agree that a newer bios may cure the problem. go HERE or HERE and find the bios that best suits you.
I have the exact same card and bios. I have the same problem /w artifacts- but the card OC's fine and is stable. I also have ramsinks and have lapped the stock GPU heatsink and use AS3 on it-- If you find a good bios for this card, PLEASE let me know how it went and what bios you found to work.. I have never flashed any video cards bios, but I will do it if I can get this thing to stop having those annoying artifacts when trying to OC. Thanks.
Thanks for the replies, satech, I was wondering.., I think I read that you used a Warp bios on your card, would you might letting me know which one you used? I have the 8004 on my card, direct from ATI at the moment, it is the latest "stock" bios from Oct 17, 2002 at both 3dChipset and Omega's Corner. Maybe even a reflashing of the same bios could help? Not too sure myself, haven't ever done any vid card bios flashing.
8004 is reportedly the best BIOS for ocing the 9700 pro. reflashing it will not help. Did you remove the shim from the core? did you check to see if the shim was allowing the heat sink to make good contact with the core itself? I would check that. Pull the heat sink off, reapply very thin layer of as3 to core itself and then lay a piece of glass across the core. Press firmly and see how much contact you are getting with the core and with the shim....
I have machined my heatsink to fit over the shim. I have good contact and I am using ceramique thermal paste.
I may have a lead on a bios that may work out, not sure, I will post up a link when I get home from work and can test it out.
Well no luck with the other bios, it was the Mufu bios that a friend over at rage3d was telling me about, turns out it has no difference whatsoever to the bios we have installed right now. Must have just gotten some bum OC'ing cards.
Truth is that most bios files are the same and some just set with higher clocks but just flashing the card sometimes unlocks it for overclocking. IF possible remove the heatsink and check that your card isnt a 9500 hacked to a 9700. You will need to find the 9500 to 9700 mod to be able to compare. Was your card brand new ?? Did you pay a regular price for it or was it really cheap ?? Reason i ask is that my card was used and i got it for half the regular cost and it was allready flashed with a non original bios. Its weird cause i havent seen a radeon that cant overclock at all. Also note that your problem may be somewhere else and not the vidcard itself. Maybe your PSU isnt supplying enough power to it. Maybe the agp slot is undervolting the card. Try bumping up the agp voltage a notch and try again. One more thing: Looking at your first post i saw your clock settings and see that you had the ram @ 336, now that is about where i got mine to work without artifacts(maybe 338) and the best i got my core to was 378-380) and i dont have a volt mod either. So basicly the only thing you cant overclock is the core which again makes me suspect the power issue. The only way to be sure would to get a loan of a friends 9700pro and try his card on your rig to see if you can get the card any higher or as much as he can get it to on his own rig. Maybe even try your card out on another setup. These things im afraid need alot of trial and error to find their solution.
I paid full price for mine at a retail store- (I'm having the same problem with small artifacts in some benchmarks)- but I can OC pretty high and it is stable. My PSU might be the problem, I'm running a dual PSU ghetto settup right now though, which leaves my v card with ALL the power my MB and things running off it aren't using. I'm going to try a better PSU before I start thinking my card is at fault though- it's very possible in my case.
I too bought mine at a retail store, and paid full price. I am gonna borrow a voltmeter from a friend and start playing around, see where that might lead.
