Radeon 9800SE AIW>9800PRO AIW

[monkeyharris]

so does anyone know what bios is needed for the 9800se aiw to 9800pro aiw mod? purrrrrrrrrrrrlease

[Austin]

You'll have to search I'm afraid. All you should need is a BIOS from anybody with a 9800PRO_AIW which is easily extracted. It is preferable to have one using PAL (or NTSC if US) and the same RAM chips ... and ideally the same manu. SAVE YOUR CURRENT BIOS FIRST! If it does screw up badly and you can't even boot from floppy you should find you can still boot from a PCI gfx card with AGP still in place (select 'boot PCI first' from BIOS) and then run the flash prog.

[monkeyharris]

cool thanks for that, i already flashed my 9500pro a while back but wasnt sure what bios i would need for this 9800se as i prefer a more permenant solution to software mods. unfortunately iv no pci grfx but will c wat i can find. :/ as for the mem looks like i got lucky with this card as the mem can run at 364 which is faster than even the fastest 9800pro stock memory as far as im aware

[dp7641]

O.K. Guys I am well impressed with your skill and how clever you all are .But surely at some time you where floundring and just begging for some human kindness and support.
In this thread there is mention of trying a softmod and if doesnt E-Baying it
O.K. I may be the fool who has bought a attemped card but is possibly that one of you could give a opinion on the chances of the card being blown.
Or maybe I am on the right track thinking it be that I dont have enough punch in my system
(300w power pack celery 2g 256 DDR VIA P4M266A on W98SE )
Or could it be softwear I did get some failure comments on loading.
I would be gratful if only to confirm I have been stupid even that would put me out of my misery

[Austin]

I'm not sure exactly what the problem is you're having dp7641. I take it you have bought a 9800SE_AIW and it doesn't appear to mod to a 9800PRO_AIW successfully (artifacts, crashing?). If so there is a chance it could be the drivers you are using 'detecting' you are up to something. You are best to use CAT3.4 drivers (patched with 9800SE->9800PRO) just to confirm your drivers aren't in the way of the mod. If it is the newer drivers there are ways around that.

A 300W PSU esp if of an unknown brand isn't really a good idea, it can be very hit and miss as to whether or not it's up to the task. The Celeron 2ghz is awful I'm afraid, even o/c'ed to 3ghz it is often still slower than a Duron 1.8ghz, AthlonXP2000+ (1.67ghz) or P4 2.0ghz. Your mobo is Skt478 533FSB so AFAIK it can take any P4B CPU so ANY P4 (rather than Celly) will be a BIG step up in all round perf. With many people after P4C (800FSB) you may find a good deal 2nd hand, esp if you're happy with 2.0ghz or so.

What type of DDR do you have? PC3200 is now very cheap and is very advised for P4's, I'm not sure exactly what options your mobo will give you in order to use its max potential though. Adding more RAM is ideal but 256MB is fine esp with Win98 which is less hungry. However Win98 doesn't deal with more than 192MB very well (is a little buggy) but all you have to do is edit system.ini in the Windows directory under the [vcache] section, add the following entries:

MinFileCache=65536
MaxFileCache=65536

EDIT: Trying the softmod on your gfx card is VERY safe. Basically there are 4 pipes dormant which may or may not be awakened and may or may not work when awoken. It's purely sw based so if you take the card out of your system and put it in someone else's it will not be softmodded. Hence there is no moral issues involved with selling a 9800SE which doesn't mod (AIW or otherwise) on Ebay. If you tried to softmod and now it won't load into Windows all you need to do is boot into safemode and remove the gfx card drivers. IIRC you can also edit system.ini and change 'VGAfallback=0' to ...=1. Then it will boot without gfx drivers so you can install your own etc.

[dp7641]

Austin
Thankyou so much but it seems I have messed up by not being clear
I bought the card s/h Ebay ish from Guy claim it not useably in his board
It seemed staight cables still intact in plastic bags
I bought it for Video capture softmod not intresting me
But I cant get it to work viz S.Video black & white only input thro compst if I fast forword video it freezes and when I try capture it almost dies on the monitor
And in general there are some odditys in the system
Can you understand that all these posts about softmod scared me it had been blown But thanks to you I know feel its softwear etc
I am not total novice but your comment vcache is way beyond anything I have done. My DDr is 2700 I have been offered Intel P4 2:8 at £140 new in sealed box and Kingston 512 type 2700 at £50
My thing is turning VHS into stills & VCD

[Austin]

There should definitely be no problem if the previous person has tried a softmod or even o/c'ed the card. Have you installed the latest drivers from ATI's website (inc specific AIW sw)? Also ensure all your hw drivers are the latest official ones. Chances are you may have problems with residual drivers (did you fully remove old gfx card drivers etc). You could try a fresh OS install (or reinstall). The B&W thing is known problem with ATI cards, you tend to need to use composite instead of S-video, did you get the leads with your card? The ATI cards tend to have a non-std S-video connection which has 2 extra pins IIRC. HTH.

[dp7641]

I got everything with card no moans complaints it feels dead straight
Today have ordered a 550w PSU & P4 2.6 that should kick a***
Thinking of changing DDR to 3200
Format seems to be on the cards
My card has 10 pin DMN or something wich has a supplied lead and junction box Svid , comp , L &R audi it also has power cable attached with piggy back going onto hard drive
At computor fair LONDON last Sat guy was going to try making Scart one end and 10 pin on other
The CD seems to be version 8.6 so there is update
O one more clue re power prob the main lead kept blowing fuse
Thanks again
PS This will be my first build re PSU & Processer

[Lexeus]

Just out of interest do you know what motherboard the person who sold it had ? as you said it wasn't compatible and i am having probs with this card and an MSI k7N2 Delta-ILSR ....

[G4Z]

does any1 have a link to bestonthewe...? i cant find it at all



I am prolly gonna buy this card next month

[Austin]

LOWESTontheweb (not that they are) esp for 9800SE as their prices have kept on climbing. I'd definitely point you to www.komplett.co.uk as I recall they have them in cheap (do a search there's a thread somewhere). As said you really do want to ensure you get the 9800SE using 256bitDDR & 380/340 but it seems all the AIW versions are. I wouldn't imagine there would be an incompatibility with ANY mobo, more likely a PSU or faulty card problem. AFAIK the only incompat probs people had with DX9 Radeons was with some early 9500 & 9700 in combination with the early AGP8x VIA (KT400) mobos. That was fixable through BIOS or drivers anyway. If you don't need the AIW the 9600PRO/XT are better buys as although you'll never have a chance of modding to a 9800PRO you are virtually guaranteed stock perf, specs and a great o/c.

http://www.lowestonweb.com/Products/...9-EFD030750327

[G4Z]

thanks ausitn, I am using an MSI KT4 Ultra (KT400 chipset) but I dont think il have any bother tbh.



also I want the gaming performance and I think the AIW is better than the 9600 XT for DX 9 games.

[G4Z]

cant find the herc 9800 SE AIW on komplett



http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/kl.asp?A...ID=1&t=278&l=2

[Austin]

May not be the Hercules one then (seem to be the top brand Sapphire). I know www.dabs.com do the Herc but brand shouldn't matter anyway, it's just that Herc seem to have a tiny bit more moddability in them (rumour?). If you do have compat problems simply dropping to AGP4x mode (no perf hit) was all that was usually needed, I doubt you'll even need that though.

9800SE (if 256bitDDR 380/340) is on par with the 9600XT (so a little faster than 9600PRO) but the 9600PRO/XT both o/c very well while the 9800SE doesn't. Overall it pretty much evens out really, they're all good buys.

eru on 9800SE (AIW?) ...

Evesham Technology are selling them for £149.99 inc
DABS do them for £168.00 inc
eBuyer has them for £148.03 inc
Komplett do them for 144.77 inc
(added) Lowest (ha!) £157 inc

[dp7641]

I feel I must comment re E Bay
They do appear to be cheap but I found that when I went for the buy now option I got the "sorry out of stock routine and the new stock will be £***"
viz I went one at £159 but it would have been around £200
As to the comment about mobo I feel it would not be fair to the seller to comment further I still feel I have to have trust
It was my ignorance re softmod that made panic
After all despite my novice status I do feel that new components can sumtime be hell till you get the tweaking right.PS Yet again a big thankyou to Austin

[Russ]

tried to softmod mine today..











worked. need to repair windows still, dodgy install to say the least.
what best tool to o/c card with?