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Flash a Vanilla with a MAX Bios????

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  • Flash a Vanilla with a MAX Bios????

    Is that possible? I've got two G400s, one dualhead, one singlehead. Both run 100% stable at 150/200, is it possible to flash them with a MAX Bios to get them to lock at that speed?


    --------------------
    ABIT BF6, Pentium III Katmai 450->645MHz, 192MB SDRAM, Toshiba 6X DVD, Quantum Fireball Plus KA, Matrox Millenium G400 DH @ 160/200, Creative SBLive, Enlight 7237 Case, 300watt PCPC TurboCool PS, and some fun with a Dremel!
    Last edited by dneal; 20 May 2022, 08:52.

  • #2
    How about flashing the vanilla's with a chocolate bios?

    ------------------
    Cheers,
    Steve

    "Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

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    • #3
      A very, very interesting question indeed!

      Can't believe I didn't think of it!

      I know alot of people who has plain G400's which would benefit from it.
      Abit BE6-2 (Rev 2.), P3-1000E@1050(10x105/3), 768mb Kingston 7.5ns CAS3, G400MAX, SBLIVE, AHA 2940AU, IBM GXP75 60Gb (*2), IBM IBM GXP75 45Gb, Mitsumi FX48, Yamaha 4416S, Zyxel Prestige 200, 3Com 905C-TX On W98SE Lite, DX 8.1, PD 6.82

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      • #4
        NOOOO...

        Why would you? Just get teh Matrox Tweak utility and you can set it to the Max speed and it will do that change to BIOS and it'll be permament. Until you change it again.

        Also, the Max RAMDAC is 360MHz versus the non-Max varities having a 300MHz RAMDAC. SO, if, by ANY chance there is something in the BIOS pertaining to the RAMDAC and its speed of 360MHz you might cause some trouble.

        Now, flashing your G400 DH with the BIOS from a G400 Flex3D, the card used in the RT2000, thats something. And, they both seem to be the same card going by the technical description of them.

        Oh, this site has the Matrox Tweak Utility as does Matrox.
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        • #5
          "and it will do that change to BIOS and it'll be permament. Until you change it again."

          No it won't. Matrox's tweak util does nothing to the card's BIOS. It does it's stuff in the Windows registry.

          Also, MatroxTweak does not work with PD6.xx drivers any more...
          Core2 Duo E7500 2.93, Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, 4gig 1066 DDR2, 1gig Asus ENGTS250, SB X-Fi Gamer ,WD Caviar Black 1tb, Plextor PX-880SA, Dual Samsung 2494s

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          • #6
            Hmmm... since both the Max and the vanilla use the same G400 chip, and the G400 has an integrated RAMDAC, the RAMDAC would have to be the same on both cards. The differential max.

            Maximum RAMDAC speeds are *imposed* by the MGA BIOS, not reflected by it.

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            • #7
              so who'll be the first to try?
              not me, atleast not until the g800 is sitting nicely in my #1 computer and the g400 in my 2nd!
              jim


              ------------------
              Abit BE6-2 with P3 700(cb0) @ 7*150=1052 using an MC-1000!
              15.3 gb Maxtor ata66 and Twinmos 128mb pc-133 ram
              G400 vanilla 32mb @ 168/210 @ 2x
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              Windows 98se with DX7a
              Worn out reset button :O)

              PIII-500mhz @ 620 ! with an Abit BE6 mobo
              128mb pc-100 cas 2
              Mill G400 (vanilla!!!) 32mb @ 167/208 with MGATweak-417mhz, (2.5, 2, 2.5), PD 5.5010 & bios 1.5-22
              Maxtor 14.3 gb Uata66 hdd
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              • #8
                Does that mean that the high success rate for overclocking vanillas to max speed may be because they have more trouble getting the ramdac to pass than the rest of the chip?
                chuck

                Chuck
                秋音的爸爸

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                • #9
                  A couple of questions though: Which file in the BIOS folder is the Max's BIOS? Isn't the BIOS for the G400 and the Max the same?

                  And with which program would you want to flash your G400 with a Max BIOS? Doesn't Matrox's progbios read what BIOS is on your card, before flashing it with the new one? (Foolproofing it)

                  Jord.
                  Jordâ„¢

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                  • #10
                    ...and the bios knows what max ramdac speed to impose on the chip by reading the pins, which is not over written by a bios flash.
                    OK, so who wants to write a global flash ram dump & write program for the G400?
                    And who wants to be the first to run it on their card?
                    chuck
                    Chuck
                    秋音的爸爸

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                    • #11
                      In theory, it should be fairly easy to overclock the G400 by modifying the BIOS PINs just like we did for the G200s. When I re-did my G200 PINs, I included cranking up the RAMDAC. If you knew what to change on the G400, you could even get your card to report as a MAX.

                      However, the only missing element is the PINs definitions for G400, and I doubt if Matrox is going to let that info out
                      It won't do any good to dump the PINs if you don't know what lines to change...
                      Core2 Duo E7500 2.93, Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, 4gig 1066 DDR2, 1gig Asus ENGTS250, SB X-Fi Gamer ,WD Caviar Black 1tb, Plextor PX-880SA, Dual Samsung 2494s

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                      • #12
                        BTW - this has been discussed before, and Hunsow even posted a web page about how he hacked his G400 BIOS.

                        Just be aware that this voids your warranty, and ALWAYS make an emergency BIOS recovery disk, and keep it handy
                        http://www.hunsow.tmfweb.nl/overclock.html
                        Core2 Duo E7500 2.93, Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, 4gig 1066 DDR2, 1gig Asus ENGTS250, SB X-Fi Gamer ,WD Caviar Black 1tb, Plextor PX-880SA, Dual Samsung 2494s

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                        • #13
                          And........Hunsow's method works like a charm. My G400 is now permanently clocked at 151/201. You can ignore his RAMDAC overclock in there too, I didn't see a reason why to bother overclocking that when I'm never above 85Hz anyway.




                          --------------------
                          ABIT BF6, Pentium III Katmai 450->645MHz, 192MB SDRAM, Toshiba 6X DVD, Quantum Fireball Plus KA, Matrox Millenium G400 DH @ 160/200, Creative SBLive, Enlight 7237 Case, 300watt PCPC TurboCool PS, and some fun with a Dremel!
                          Last edited by dneal; 20 May 2022, 08:52.

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                          • #14
                            I was talking about global dump from a MAX and write to a vanilla.
                            But I myself would't let any program like that within 10 feet of a card I owned.
                            chuck
                            Chuck
                            秋音的爸爸

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