Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/22 10:46Hello to all, I have Radeon HD 2600 XT made by Sapphire. It's an Ultimate model with a passive heatsink. In 2D mode it's running very hot and also has about 25W power consumpton in idle. I know this is normal for modern cards, but as my other components use about 55W in idle, I'm not happy with power consumption of the Radeon HD 2600 XT. So I'm looking how to make card more power efficient in 2D mode. Using RivaTuner I see that card is at 800/700MHz with 1.25V all the time.
The BIOS Version is 010.059.000.003. If I would know that I'd never buy Sapphire. A passive card has a raised voltage. I suppose that's great for 3D, but is that really okay for 2D mode? In the BIOS I can find 7 lines (AD10-AD70) where frequency and/or voltages are set.
Edited 2nd Line to... F8 2A 00 70 11 01 1A 04 => for 110/700/1.05 Edited 3rd Line to... 30 75 00 70 11 01 B0 04 => for 300/700/1.20
My question is, would this enable 2D mode for my card? Should I make more BIOS editing or any other steps before flashing the card? Thanks!
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Siggi
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/27 10:56Hi mate, last year I checked many Radeon HD 2600 BIOS's and noticed this sloppy work that Sapphire has made. I had assumed that this fault would be adjusted in newer versions. Particulary in this case of a passive cooled card it is really annoying. To answer your question, yes it is the second entry. Here for example the entries of an another Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT BIOS.
Remarkable in this specially case is, that on the one hand in the 2D mode the GPU clock remains at 800MHz, but on the other hand the voltage decreased to 1.05V. I'm sure tthat some RV630 GPU's these kind of undervolting is not tolerated. By the way, it isn't just Sapphire that has made no good job. Also ASUS and HIS are having similar entries.
The standard values for the 2D mode are 110/700MHz at 1.05V. Don't ask me why it is just 110MHz. Probably due to the reference clock of 27MHz. So if you want to change these entries, it could looks like this: 803801_701101_B004 = 800MHz/700MHz/1.20V F82A00_701101_1A04 = 110MHz/700MHz/1.05V 307500_701101_B004 = 300MHz/700MHz/1.02V 803801_701101_B004 803801_701101_B004 803801_701101_B004 803801_701101_B004
For further information and tips you can also read my older thread about the RadeonHD 2600 series. So please read this and see what extra information you can find there which could be very useful and if else you can still ask what you want. XpertVision Radeon HD 2600 PRO, and tweaked BIOS update?
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Lechuck
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/27 11:45Thanks for the reply. My BIOS is even worse it's dated 08/01/07 and originaly has the following entries. Even more voltage for passively cooled graphics card. Today I tested the card with ATITool and it works in 2D mode at only 110/300MHz. But because card still uses 20W in idle I think it's on 1.25V. I'm not sure if I can check the voltage in Windows.
Before lowering clocks it was using 25W. Funny if I enter clocks with ATITool to 800/700MHz, then the card uses 35W, so the driver alone is doing some sort of energy saving. I read the thread and I have a question regarding the checksum. If I enter another entry the checksum changes. I was playing with values and found entry where the checksum is identically equal to the original BIOS.
Will there be problems if the memory frequency is not an round number? Or it doesn't matter at all, and the video card will just work with those values? Cheers!
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Siggi
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/27 21:39Lechuck wrote: Will there be problems if the memory frequency is not an round number? Or it doesn't matter at all, and the video card will just work with those values? Cheers! No, I don't think so. But I advise to remaining the memory clocks at the default values, because the memory voltage most likely or better, and surely will not be decreased. So there is no advantage, but maybe a disadvantage, because also in 2D mode a faster memory is necessary or useful. Furthermore, I would try to decrease the GPU voltage up to 1.2V. This is the usual value for this GPU at 800MHz.
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Mavke
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/27 23:21By the way could you also share your original BIOS? Maybe you have done it already but it would be nice to have it on this thread as a reference of what you are tweaking. Secondly I might also need some help on this voltage stuff on a PowerColor card that is acting up and it might be a voltage as the card is loosing signal now and then, and then you can just reboot the PC...
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Lechuck
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/28 06:01Here is my original BIOS file, attached on this post of my graphics card. I had the idea to lower memory frequency because I saw those on the ASUS BIOS that 2D is set at 110/252MHz at 1.05V and low 3D is set at 300/400MHz at 1.2V0. Maybe I'll try that later. I modified values so that memory is always on 700MHz now, lowered boot and it's like the Radeon HD 2600 PRO now, any thoughts here?
I did this because I noticed, that every time I go in mainboard BUIS the heat builds up on graphics card. Then edited the 2D mode to 110/700MHz at 1.05V, low 3D to 300/700MHz at 1.20V and 3D to 800/700MHz also at 1.20V. I guess we only need fast card in 3D mode. The values used are shown below.
Did someoe find out what are last three lines for? Didn't want to change these, as I don't know what to alter. After that I corrected the checksum. The value 78 is added to correct checksum.
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Lechuck
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/28 06:08And here is my modified BIOS file is also now attached on this post. No I just hope this will work. The checksum is corrected, should I still use "-f" option when flashing?
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Siggi
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/02/28 12:46Lechuck wrote Did someoe find out what are last three lines for? Didn't want to change these, as I don't know what to alter. After that I corrected the checksum. The value 78 is added to correct checksum. No, just some speculations. By the way, the number of PowerPlay entries in the Radeon HD 2600 BIOS's reach from 4 up to 10...
And here is my modified BIOS file is also now attached on this post. No I just hope this will work. The checksum is corrected, should I still use "-f" option when flashing? You must use the "-f" command. Furthermore the checksum must identical with the one from the original BIOS. And specially in this case work carefully. Particularly with regards to the voltage values.
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Lechuck
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/03/01 21:31I flashed my card with the modified BIOS that I posted above and for now it seems that all is okay. Thanks for all the help!
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Gogy667
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Re:Some help with Radeon HD 2600 XT and some BIOS tweaking? - 2008/03/04 21:42Lechuck wrote: I flashed my card with the modified BIOS that I posted above and for now it seems that all is okay. Thanks for all the help! Is it an AGP or PCI Express card? Just wondering as I am following what you have done, and checking what that means for my own tries...
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