Sapphire ATI HD5750 1G GDDR5 Vapor-X problems on Linux (x64)
Recently, I asked myself, what about a new graphics card for my pc? Since it was terribly slow… So I started looking around and bought myself an Asus Nvidia GTS250 card. This was a logic choice because Nvidia has good Linux drivers and this cards aren’t too expensive. But, it turned out that the card makes more noise than a vacuum-cleaner. 🙁
I returned the card and went looking for another one. The Sapphire ATI HD5750 Vapor-X 1G GDDR5 seemed to be the perfect quiet replacement. ATI supports Linux with binary drivers, so that was no problem (I tought). After installing the card with the latest proper drivers, all worked well. When suddenly… after 10 minutes my computer (videocard) crashed and my screen showed vertical lines. Most of the time I could SSH to the computer, so it didn’t totaly crash, but I was unable to relaunch Xorg. The graphics card was totally losing control.
After some surfing, emailing and chatting around, it turned out that many people are facing problems (ATI forum thread) with this cards. Finally, a good solution came from Sapphire. I had to upgrade the video bios from the graphics card. The new VBIOS adjust the powerplay function in 2D mode. Underneath you find my solution:
!! IMPORTANT, please check that your card has the following P/N:288-1E138-100SA and SKU#11164-04 !!
!! Don’t turn off the computer and do this at own risk !!
- Download the atiflash tool that only can use under pure dos mode here – http://www1.sapphiretech.com/global/lib_files/40.zip
- Then check the SOP step1 to step7 to make a bootable USB stick that can help to boot into pure dos mode – http://www1.sapphiretech.com/global/lib_files/103.zip
- Download the latest VBIOS – http://www1.sapphiretech.com/global/lib_files/117.zip
- After booting into pure dos mode , please type below command after prompt
C:\atiflash -p 0 S3C01201.V22 -f - Reboot your computer
I’m hoping that this solves your problem too!
