BIOS won't flash

[bphillips79]

Hi folks, quick question for you. I've got a Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 and have the dreaded "driver stopped responding and recovered" problem. I've about pulled my hair out trying to fix it. I've tried everything on AMD's "page". I noticed that on Gigabyte's site, there was a BIOS update. Gigabyte provides this nice software that will autoflash the bios. It downloads fine, but only gets about 8% through the flash, and fails. I manuaully tried flashing it, but it failed then too. Does this confirm a defective card or just another problem on top of the original problem?

I had just upgraded the PSU and thought that fixed it, but the next day the problem arose with a vengence. System specs:

AMD FX-8 3.1Ghz
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850
ASUS M5A97
8 GB DDR3 Samsung
Zalman Z11 Plus chasis
HANNSPRE 22" LCD at 1920x1080
OCZ Silencer Mk II 80+ Silver 750W PSU

 

[drums101]

how did you manually flash it? or attempt to manually flash it? Did you create a bootable flash drive and flash the card in DOS..if so what error did it give you? if it says something about the BIOS doesnt match the card (cant remember what it says) then you gotta use this command

atiflash -f -p 0 BIOS.bin the -f will force flash it.

 

[drums101]

flashing BIOS from inside a windows environment is a big no-no in my book it never works out right....here is a good guide how to flash inside DOS...its really easy all you need is a flashdrive.....let me know if you have an issues/questions

http://www.overclock.net/t/640063/unofficial-how-to-flash-ati-cards

 

[bphillips79]

Gigabyte's delivered software has a manual flash method. You run the program, click the flash button, then point it to the updated bios file. I'm not even sure how to flash a graphics card from a boot disc

 

[bphillips79]

Thanks. I'll give that a try and see what happens.

 

[drums101]

good luck just be careful and think everything through before you do it a bad flash is a real quick way to brick a video card.

 

[bphillips79]

Thanks for the help. I was able to successfully update the VBIOS, but unfortunately, that didin't fix my problem. I guess I'm just going to have to return the card. Do you think I should stick with another brand of the HD 7850 or switch over to a GTX 560 TI?

 

[drums101]

I would stick with the 7850 its a great card

 

[bphillips79]

Thanks for all the input. I'm looking at the ASUS brand. Currently, Microcenter has the ASUS HD 7870 at the same price after rebate as the ASUS HD 7850. So I may actually do that instead of sticking with the 7850.

 

[bphillips79]

Best answer selected by bphillips79.

 

[drums101]

yea that sounds like a good idea...lol get more card for the same price! cant go wrong