9800 Pro / XT stopped working

  • Thread starter Thread starter Neil
  • Start date Start date
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Neil

My ATI card has stopped working, with it in the slot I can't get my
machine to even begin to boot. It's diagnostics tell me that it sticks
at the point of "checking the VGA BIOS". Someone has free-cycled* me an
old AGP TNT2 card so as to get the machine going again, and with this
card inserted I can boot just fine.

Is it worth my while trying to find a PCI card to boot with so as to be
able to re-flash the 9800 BIOS, or is the card beyond hope?

The 9800 was fitted with an Arctic Cooling cooler and I noticed, when I
took it out, that the clip which is screwed across the back of the card
had cracked. That would mean that the heat-sink may not have been
properly clamped down onto the core since that happened. I've replaced
the original cooler now, but still no luck. I can't see any signs of
heat damage. Would I expect to if the heat-sink had slipped?

Neil

*Try it, you might like it. It's dead easy to get rid of any old
computer parts, or pretty much anything else. (http://www.free-cycle.org).
 
did you try a blind flash ?

go on techpowerup.com and look for a a bios and make a bootable CD/floppy
with the right bios.

You might wanna google aroudn a bit. Then "blind flash" by booting with the
defective card..on the bootabe CD/floppy...and it would auto-flash your card
with a new bios and POSSIBLY fix it.

Georg
 
flexy said:
did you try a blind flash ?
Click to expand...

Problem is the computer doesn't even get around to looking for a boot
device. It just sits there saying, "This video card BIOS doesn't look
right to me - better stop."

I already have a bootable floppy with the original BIOS on it. (And one
with the XT BIOS I replaced it with). But at the moment they're not a
lot of help.

Neil
 
can you both with two cards in it ?

You said you have AGP..so you should have a PCI slot...somehow get it
bootable w/ a card in PCI slot,
and then try to flash the other/ defective card with the right parameters.
 
Georg said:
can you both with two cards in it ?

You said you have AGP..so you should have a PCI slot...somehow get it
bootable w/ a card in PCI slot,
and then try to flash the other/ defective card with the right parameters.
Click to expand...
That was my original question more-or-less: "Do you think it's worth my
while scraping around for a PCI card to try the flash, or is it much
more likely that the card is completely broken?"
 
Nope, not worth your while. The "smoking gun" is the Arctic Cooler with a
cracked brace. Either the card died from overheating, or the GPU or some PCB
component got squished because the cooler wasn't clamped down properly.
 
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