***Update Version 3.3 of this guide is now out to enable Windows 7 support and add support for newer drivers 9.11+ Go HERE***
Here is the new limit breaker guide for the
Asus W90,
included is flashing & driver update guide and new tools for overclocking your system.
Purpose: To give you the tools and knowledge to easily update your stock old age video card drivers to a much newer release (9.4 currently), also includes the tools needed to break the overclock limits of the video cards and break the limits of overclocking the cpu via turbo gear. Thus the name Limit Breaker!
How: By changing the bios on the video cards to allow a standard modified driver to install and then manually installing the modified 9.4 drivers, also includes the programs/tools need for overclocking the CPU/GPU in Windows for more performance.
-Updated from the last version is the flashing procedure, now the use of ATIFlash has begun, it has shown much safer and compatible with the new card types the W90 has started to ship with. The older guide with Winflash could not properly flash the new card type. Also new is the GpuTool that properly overclocks the video cards for nice gains in video card performance.
-Standard Warning-
While I feel this guide is very easy to follow and safe, you are playing with fire here, so if not properly handled you may end up burned. In theory modifying the gpu bios would void your warranty most likely and if you fail to follow the steps or have some unforeseen bad luck you may "brick" your computer.
----> Download Asus W90 Limit Breaker Package V2.1 <----
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Guide Start
Part 1 - Preparing your bootable media
The W90 comes stock with a master/slave bios setup, your second card having a slave bios means that it depends on the master card to run, it also seems to make it incompatible with any driver except the included Asus one.
Flashing to master/master has proven to have absolutely no ill effects on the system and performance remains the same, infact a benefit is that if you ever had your original master card die, you can use the second card to run the system still.
To do this we need to use a program called AtiFlash, its a DOS based program so we need to get into DOS to use it. DOS based flashing over the years has proven safer and faster than Windows based flashing.
Everything you need is already compiled into a burnable CD .iso image. Just download this .iso and burn it to a disk and boot from the disk and this step is done.
Download Links
Kens Super Ultra Cool Bootable CD .iso HERE (You can use the CD exactly the same as the Flash Drive with the commands below in the guide, but Ken also put some extra commands into his disk to automate the command process. Details can be found
HERE)
If you do not have a spare disk at hand or choose not to use one, but have a usb flash drive that you would like to use, you can instead boot from a usb flash drive.
This method takes a bit more work but all the files needed to do it are included in the limit breaker package.
1.) Open the folder called USB Flash Drive Boot
2.) Open the hpflash1 folder and install the HP USB Storage Tool
3.) Run the tool after its installed you will see a window like this, follow the instructions from top to bottom in the picture:
4.) After following the picture click the Start button, when this is done you should have a fresh formatted USB drive with 3 files in it.
5.) Now Open the atiflash360 folder and drag all the files inside onto your flash drive.
6.) Now open the W90 GPU Bios folder and drag all the files inside onto your flash drive.
7.) Everything is ready to go, should look like this:
(dont panic if you noticed the bios files are not the same name, I have changed them since the original release of this guide)
Bootable Media is Done! you should now have a USB drive or a CD ready to boot with containing all the files needed for the flash.
Note - Thank you Ken @ GentechPC for making the bootable .iso image
Part 2 - Booting into our media to use Ati Flash
No pictures here for this part (yet) as I cant take screen shots in DOS and I dont have my camera with me tonight so read along carefully.
First of all we need to boot our media, this is not as easy as it sounds or should be.
My W90 came configured so that it would not book from a USB Flash Drive, but it should boot from CD with no configuration just look for the "Boot from disk hit any key now" message and hit a key in time (if not follow the steps below but just set your cd-rom to boot instead of the usb flash drive)
For those of you using the flash drive we need to go into the W90 system bios and set it up so that it boots from the usb instead of the internal hard drive.
Booting From the USB Flash Drive
1.) When you turn on your W90 and the Asus splash screen comes up press the F2 key.
2.) Your system bios will open in a moment and you need to arrow key over to the BOOT section.
3.) Inside somewhere you will see a section called hard disks or hard drives. Arrow down to it and hit Enter
4.) The first HDD should be highlighted hit Enter again and a selection menu will open allowing you to change this. In my case I pick the one called Sandisk, you will choose what ever your flash drive is called, then hit enter to change it.
5.) After you have your Flash Drive set as the first device press the Esc key to exit this menu and go back one section in the BIOS.
6.) Just above the hard drive menu should be one called boot device order or priority, arrow to that menu and press the Enter key to open it.
7.) Now again just go to the first choice and hit the Enter key and arrow down till you see your USB Flash Drive, hit Enter again to save the changes.
8.) All done setting up the boot device just press the F10 key to exit and save the bios.
9.) The computer will restart and we should all be ready for the next steps.
Part 3 - Flashing the GPU Bios with ATI Flash
At this point we have just booted into our media and are in DOS looking at the command prompt.
Welcome to DOS!
hopefully you have seen it before but if not its easy to use and we dont have much to do here.
Ati Flash can do many things, if you just simply type "atiflash" (without the quotes) and hit enter it will list for you all of the commands you can use, press any key to scroll down through them as its like 3 pages long.
When your back to the prompt again ready to type a new command this is all you have to do to flash your second card to a master and be able to install new drivers.
1.) Type (without the quotes) "atiflash -p 1 MSTR-OR.bin" then press the Enter key. Thats it, it will tell you its flashing, and some other info and should be done in about 5 seconds. let me explain what we just did.
atiflash - the program needed for the command
-p is program (aka flash)
-1 is the adapter (0 is your master card or primary adapter, 1 is the slave or secondary adapter)
-MSTR-OR.bin is the Bios file we want to program to the adapter
About the BIOS files: I used the same name theme on my files in the USB guide as Ken used in his .iso so that the steps are the same for everybody. Here is how we named the files.
MSTR-
OR.bin =
MSTR - Master as in master bios,
OR - Original as in the original unmodified bios right off the factory card.
So we have 4 BIOS Files Total
MSTR-OR - Original master card bios
MSTR-OC - Master card bios that I modified to allow a higher overclock in overdrive
SLAV-OR - Original slave card bios
SLAV-OC - Slave card bios that I modified to allow a higher overclock in overdrive
Important - Dont get Master and Slave mixed up! MSTR = master SLAV = Slave
The reason we have the slave bios there is so that if you ever wanted to you can flash back to the original state of the machine. If you had to do something like RMA, I would do this.
The OC bios I have modified to allow a much higher overclock than normal in overdrive in the ATI CCC, but we have discovered that the overdrive function isnt actually boosting card performance! So we found a AMD overclock tool that works instead and that is included in the package called AMD GPU Tool.exe I have not tested if my overdrive bios increases the clock range on that tool yet.
Important!! - While this step above is simple and straightforward this is the only part of the whole guide that you can really actually break something if you did it wrong. Take it slow and pay attention. If you did something not so smart like flash a Slave Bios to both of your cards guess what? Your not going to have a working video card anymore as a slave card cant boot the system. Also make sure your on mains power with a charged battery so you know the computer wont shut off while flashing
If you want to flash my modified OC bios on both cards its a simple task booted into your media just type the following:
> atiflash -p 0 MSTR-OC.bin
> atiflash -p 1 MSTR-OC.bin
The first is going to flash the master card with the modified bios, the second will flash the second adapter with the modified master bios and your good to go.
After Flashing
1.) After finishing the flash procedure it will tell you to restart the computer just press Control + Alt + Delete to restart.
2.) Press F2 at startup to go back into the system bios and restore your hard drive and boot device settings to how they need to be if you need too.
Part 4 - Installing the new drivers!
Ok now we are all done and back in Windows, its time to install the new modified 9.4 drivers onto the video cards.
Prerequisite: Have the stock Asus drivers already installed on the system, we are only updating the video card drivers, but will keep the old ATI control panel so it needs to be installed.
1.) Install the Included 9-4_vista64_win7_64_dd.exe to the default directory and
exit out of the installer when it comes up, you will not install anything via the regular installer.
2.) Copy the ATI Folder located in the Modified .INF folder over the top of your ATI folder located on the C: to replace the original .inf files with the new ones.
3.) Get into your Device Manager (I usually click the windows start button, right click on "Computer" go to properties,and then click on "Device Manager")
4.) Right click your 4870X2 display adapter (the first one is the one I use) located under the tab "Display Adapters" Choose "Update Drivers"
5.) Choose "Browse my computer for driver software"
6.) Choose "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"
7.) Choose "Have Disk"
7.) Navigate to the directory where the modified .INF files are located for your driver (C:/ATI/Support/9-4_vista64_win7_64_dd/Packages/Drivers/Display/LH6A_INF/) is the default for the included drivers.
8.) Choose the 2nd card name/option and the drivers should install.
That is it, if the card name changes for both cards (it should) your all done! If the 2nd card name did not change follow the steps above again for the 2nd card also.
CPU Overclocking
This is so easy compared to the above, but somebody may still need a little help if they never used SetFSB before.
You need the "beta" version of SetFSB included in this package in the programs folder to work with the W90
> Open SetFSB
> Select the PLL Code ICS9LPRS929AKLF
> Click the "Get FSB" button
> Scroll the big bar to the new desired FSB
> Click "Set FSB"
You should take this in small steps and test for stability with a tool like WPrime (run the big test and let it finish, if temps stay cool and no errors its considered atleast semi stable.
GPU Overclocking
Use the included AMD GPU Tool.exe and just increase the sliders to the desired value and hit apply! I would test for stability with the built in FurMark program or with 3dmark Vantage and take it in slow steps (I found my max to be 620/960 ish for stable overclock but others have seen much lower values so test your own system for max values)
W90 Limit Breaker Guide .V2
