Can a bad bios flash kill a card?

[JonJ678]

Specifically if I try to flash my gfx card with a different bios, and it doesn't work well afterwards, is it likely that I'll be able to flash it back to the default with no ill effects?

I've been meaning to play with graphics cards for a while but information is scarcer than with cpus. I'd rather not kill my card with my curiosity.

Cheers

 

[ConnectionFX]

if your not confident. dont do it!

GFX bios like you say are not as easy as a standard Mobo bios.

Yes a bad bios flash can kill a card and its easy to make a mistake as well.

If you do go ahead and do it then goodluck m8

 

[gareth170]

if u flash it wrong or fails it isn't a big issue, just get a pci graphic card or if your motherboard as 2 pcie slots get a cheap pcie card, then just reflash the failed card

 

[Kezmo]

You can kill the card, though ive been flashing my cards for years and never had a problem, i don't like having apps running to oc them

A bad flash is easy to fix though, rather than changing the bios why not edit the current one with NiBiTor

 

[errata]

get prepared first, have a copy of the standard firmware, know the recovery procedure for a bad flash (often a pci card sometimes a bootable floppy as well) and how to force an upgrade (depends on the utility) before you goose your system rather than after

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Heard of it happening to some people, but never killed one myself.

 

[elpedro]

if u flash it wrong or fails it isn't a big issue, just get a pci graphic card or if your motherboard as 2 pcie slots get a cheap pcie card, then just reflash the failed card

Yep, its advised to stay away from software flashing. Bricked my 4870 last year, chucked my 8600GT in the other PCI slot and flashed with the back-up of the original bios I had saved, problem solved.

 

[ViRuS2k]

hehe i bad bios flashed my 4870X2 ;P
black screen on bootup i flipped out lol, wasnt the cause of me doing it wrong its just my pc locked up for no reason as i have done it loads of times lol and its been fine.

i had to blind flash with a old PCI graphics card i have lieing about in dos with atiflash.

 

[JonJ678]

Hey guys. I'd completely forgotten Id asked this. Sound advice above and appreciated.

I've now flashed my card 3 or 4 times, great success. nvflash and nibitor combined is really rather excellent. What I've done is replace my 8800gt bios with that of a fx 3700 found online. This has worked excellently, and benchmarks are showing improvement across the board. Just running through a set of overclocked benchmarks now, then to try to edit my own bios to achieve the same effect.

I'd love to try this with a 280gtx. Whats holding me back is that the hardware between 280gtx and fx 5800 are different, google thinks it cant be done, and if I brick the card I'm down 200 quid. So I'm going to stick with my 8800 which I'm now thrilled to bits with and sell the gtx.

There must be at least a couple of people on here who use cad applications as well as/instead of games, so I'll post the testing results once they're more complete.

Cheers all