ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/15 14:32Hi to all, I recently bought an ASUS Radeon AX1650 PRO 256MB card and I don't enjoy this damn graphics card, because it's full of errors. The problem, which bug's me most is the inability to install any official Catalyst driver. Yes, you heard right. If I install a Catalyst driver then, after the reboot, it looks a bit like the whole memory is corrupted and/or errors and the whole screen flashes. No, the card is not bad and/or damaged. In short terms, this is the worst graphics adapter I've ever had!
I've uploaded the BIOS of the ASUS Radeon AX1650 PRO, because I'll try everything to get this damn card working. I would even try to install a BIOS of another brand if the chance is higher then fifty-fifty that the card is working after the flash. I'm desperate... Any help, suggestion or a BIOS to try? The closest BIOS I've found, would be the Sapphire Radeon X1650 PRO BIOS, AGP also with 256MB of memory. So, set the clock speed of the memory to 800MHz and try it?
The greatest problem of the Sapphire BIOS, it's written for the 71c6 (RV530 XT2) and not for the 71c1 (RV535 XT), which I'd need... Also, is there a Radeon X1650 PRO reference BIOS from ATI available? Yes, I know, that RaBiT says, that the BIOS backup is damaged, wrong CRC, but I've tried three times with the newest ATIFlash. Maybe that's the cause of this messed up graphics card. No ASUS, I'm sorry I definitely don't get an ASUS anymore... ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO 256MB AGP Edition - Bus Type : AGP - Memory : 256MB
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Siggi
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/16 02:02I've edited an experimental BIOS for you. Checksum and digest are identical with your uploaded BIOS. The CRC isn't. Therefore you must use ATIFlash from Ms-DOS and the listed command. After flashing appears a list. None of this lines would be blank. However there are still blank lines it is unnecessary to reboot the PC. In this case flash back your original BIOS instantly. It is just an experiment! In case there are entries in all lines reboot the PC and see what happens.
I'm not sure what exactly could happen,maybe nothing, maybe your card won't any longer recognize as an ASUS video card. Probably you have to reinstall the drivers. Before flashing use RaBiT and compare both files, if you like. Don't worry, the clock rates for GPU and memory are equal, so still set at 600/800MHz. Also, run RaBiT, load your BIOS and use the Logging tab. You will see an annotation, this BIOS has hidden (by RaBiT) data. That's the reason for the supposed corrupted BIOS respectively the wrong CRC.
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Drago
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/16 17:40Hi Siggi, thanks for your efforts! As you can imagine I couldn't wait to try it, so I booted with a Windows ME startup disk, inserted the other floppy with ATIFlash v3.49 and your BIOS. I used the command as you wished and got the following output as listed below
ATIFlash v3.xx Flash Output... Old product name : c1.9... <blank line> New product name : c1.9... <blank line> Old BIOS version : 009.013... New BIOS version : 009.013... Flash type : m25p05/c ROM not erased <blank line> Error 0FL01 : Press '1' to continue...
What's wrong? Damn ASUS... Now I just tried the "-t" options and received a pass as output. If it helps, I also wanted to try with FlashROM, but logically FlashROM can't find any ATI graphics card, because of the Radeon X1650.
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Mavke
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/16 19:15Drago wrote: What's wrong? Damn ASUS... Now I just tried the "-t" options and received a pass as output. If it helps, I also wanted to try with FlashROM, but logically FlashROM can't find any ATI graphics card, because of the Radeon X1650. Well just so you know FlashROM not working that good, so I would never advise to use it, so really ATIFlash or ATIWinFlash are the programs that should be used to flash the ATI graphics cards these days.
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Siggi
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/16 20:05It's a pitty. And what is wrong, well I guess these hidden data are the problem. Would you try to flash skierkid's BIOS? It is a Sapphire Radeon X1650 AGP DDR2 BIOS running at 600/800MHz.
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Drago
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/16 20:34I followed the link and saw that the BIOS is for the 512MB version of the Sapphire Radeon X1650 PRO version. Is that really okay? In the first page of the same thread there is another BIOS from MrMariusz. Would that be okay to try?
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Drago
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/16 23:51Woohoo! Finally some good news, after a terrible mistake. Okay, first of all the mistake. I did a little bit of searching because of the problem reported. So I saw, that there are a few methods to flash a so called bridged adapter. Bridged because on my ASUS AX1650 PRO I see two devices. One with Rialto and the other one with RV53x. In short terms I found out, that there are a few different commands, which works on specific configurations...
Boom... ATIFlash reported 1380/10000 bytes programmed ASIC not idle after write enable. Tried a few times, but the same result. I then tried to verify and saw, that ATIFlash could only verify 1380 bytes. So I knew if I reboot, my graphics adapter is dead, because of the erased memory. Tried everything, until 5minutes ago I saw on another forums, that the ATIFlash v3.25 can solve a few problems. So, downloaded, copied and tried.
Okay, now let's see. I haven't tried to install the official Catalyst drivers yet. But the first problem, the non flashable device, is now solved... So I can continue and see what else is also fixed by being able to flash the card and hopefully enjoy the video card as of now.
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Drago
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/17 00:38Well, the BIOS itself is working great but it didn't solve the problem, I still can't use an official Catalyst driver. Okay Siggi, I'm awaiting your response to the answers of the Sapphire BIOS. Should I really try the 512MB version of the BIOS? Would the 256MB, but wrong clocked version of MrMariusz be better? I also tried changing the ID of your modified BIOS to 71c6 and 71c7, flashed both, none of them worked. It really seems that the BIOS is fucked up or even the whole card...
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Siggi
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/17 16:47Regarding using ATIFlash with the force flash command. If using the force flash command,i t is very important to choose the right adapter number. For verification it is recommendable to use the "-i" or "-ai" command. With regards to the 256MB BIOS, a big warning as it isn't a BIOS for a DDR2 card. It is for a card with GDDR3 memory. The default clock rates are 600MHz for the GPU and 1400MHz for the memory. The default clocks for a DDR2 memory is usually 800MHz effective.
On the Sapphire BIOS being 256MB or 512MB, I guess the memory size shouldn't be a problem. The memory timings are also equal in this case. The question is, if it works at all to flash a BIOS from another vendor. Nothing but a test will give the answer. Also the answer about potential risks. Before reinstalling new drivers it is essential to uninstall the old drivers by using the uninstall routine. And in some cases, it is necessary to install Microsoft .NET framework.
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Mavke
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Re:ASUS Extreme AX1650 PRO AGP, facing problem with drivers? - 2007/12/17 19:16Siggi wrote: On the Sapphire BIOS being 256MB or 512MB, I guess the memory size shouldn't be a problem. The memory timings are also equal in this case. The question is, if it works at all to flash a BIOS from another vendor. Well I have to say on thing on this rom previous experience and that si that you can't mix different memory size BIOS's on ATI based graphics card as it gives some issues in the end. On the ATI BIOS's the memory size is encoded in the BIOS while for NVIDIA it is a check routine in the BIOS that check how much memory there really is...
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ASUS 9800GTX+ (DK) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
