First post, by Heatvent
Hi, I am trying to save a nonfunctioning ATI Radeon 9500. I thought I would try to read the bios and see how it compares to something online to see if it is maybe corrupted. I am using at TL866II+ and it says it successfully reads the card but shows FF in all addresses??? I am tempted to flash with a bios from techpowerup (https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/?architec … memSize=&since=) but I am a little concerned I could further brick the card so to speak.
Some background on my troubleshooting to date:
- No apparent physical damage / broken traces and is otherwise in good condition.
- No chips getting hot.
- Fan runs when installed.
- PC won't boot when installed so I can't see if the card is recognized using dual cards.
- Thoroughly cleaned PCB and contacts.
- Tried different motherboards.
It would be good to hear some thoughts on the blank bios for the card.
Is there something that could cause this ... under normal operation?
Maybe someone else tried flashing and ended up erasing it?
Perhaps I am doing something wrong reading the bios? The TL866II says the read is successful and all pins passed, etc. Attached is the .bin file from the read.
Should I just go for it and program or are there other steps I should try?
I am a little leery about programming as I had a motherboard that wouldn't post that I borked at one point. The .bin from the manufacturer only contained a specific part of the address range of the flash and when I programmed it, the TL866II software blanked the rest of the bios. It was a cheap motherboard and not worth anything but it was a lesson learned. The .bin files on techpowerup seem to be the full bios and, as far as I can tell, I don't have a bios to overwrite.
Again, advice would be appreciated!