Video card..unlocks? need help!

Hello all, recently I bought a ATI Radeon x1800XT 256mb and couple days ago I ran some tests on 3Dmark05 and the results seemed pretty low :\ according to a friend of mine on IRC

My CPU Specs are
AMD 3800+ @ 2.56ghz
ECS Elitegroup rx480-a MOBO
1gb ram
120 SATA HDD

I went into my ATI Catalyst control center and found out that the card wasn't even on default settings.. as listed on the Box/sites It's currently at 594 MHZ Core, and 693 Memory the bos listed 625mhz/1500mhz.. and due to the tests.. it says I ONLY have 8pipelines atm.. that means i have 8 more to unlock.. could someone please teach me how? I really want my video card to be at default settings cause right now the games i'm running don't look that great like oblivion, source, Q4 etcc.

Please leave comments or PM me.

isn't there an option in the catalyst center to set your card to default??
and look for new drivers, the one that are on the disk (if there was a disk with it) are mostly older.

What kind of 3d-card did you have before this one?? make sure you have uninstalled the drivers of the old one.

Maybe you could just reinstall the pc that sometimes works

For homuch did you bought the card because im still looking for a new 3dcard myself

if you want to unlock the pipes for your card, be prepared to lose it

You have to flash the bios in order to enable the extra available pipelines.. if this is done wrong in ANY way, or you have a power surge/spike/blackout/brownout while doing it... your card will NOT work any more, at all, and companies will not take it back after this has been done.

Risky stuff if you dont know what youre doing.

Make sure that the drivers from your old card are TOTALY removed... if you upgraded from an nvidia card... or even if you upgraded it might be an idea to do a fresh reinstall of windows (as when you install windows it installs based on the system setup you have at the time... when i get my new x1600pro i will backup the stuff i need / want that i have now onto dvd, then reinstall windows, thus getting a much cleaner card install, and also avoiding any OS / driver problems

Hey dothem. I'm just curious to what you score was because I just ran
3DMark05 as well and eneded up getting a score of 3393.

3400 AMD Athlon 64 @ 2.2 Ghz
ATI Radeon X1600 Pro
512MB Ram
160 GB HD

It sounds like your card is defective somehow. Call the seller/maker.

I'd suggest calling ati, sounds like a driver issue. I wouldn't do much of what is told to you on game forums (i.e. frying the bios post). Most likely it's a simple fix that they can walk you through the correct steps to resolve. ATI support is pretty above average...

I got just alittle above 7000

Well I wanna contact them via Email because my phone service is down ATM.. and on the support page all I see are problems I can't find emails to contact them with.