Looks like Newegg has removed the Lightning....
Prolly from so many returns :ohcrap:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%205870

Just fired mine up with a dry pot to check the bios, and its the same as Dent's bios. No point in flashing it to the same bios. I hope it doesn't need to go back because of a bad vreg. I am gonna become worse than the worst case of syphilis to the tech folks over at msi till I get some answers.:flaminmad: Fucking dumbasses:gun5:

You wont get me to buy another Radeon product any time soon. The last cards were kind of ok but the drivers sucked. Tech suppport blows. And the bait and switch routine was just cut throat and the last straw. Cut your losses now and ditch the bitch before its to late.

Wish Crusty would give some input since his card did so well an even won are Vantage contest.

From what i read from Massman. Its not the bios, its not the Ab its a problem with the two being compatible. He says another Ab is on its way. but if you want he did post a bios that might work over at HWBot forums. My cards all packed so i won;t be trying. If it works i'll unpack it.

Massman posted a bios for use here: http://hwbot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6187
So you can all stop saying he's 100% evil now, just 99%

i hope it fixes the issue..i wanna see you guys bench cold on these mofos

Well my lightning turned out to be more like a watch battery. Even after flashing the bios that Massman posted still not worth the price tag. Another one sent back for refund. Something is definitely wrong with these. My return was approved within 10 minutes. So that has to tell you something...

good to know you guys getting quick refunds....funds for fermi :D

pwm will pawn :D i hope the gpu scales with cold...

yeah guys newegg is doing an auto RMA refund confirmation on these. IMO thats a bad sign and Im sending mine back as well.

Damm for 5 bills you think they would have taken the time to make sure they were working before they shipped to second party vendors ????

Not an MSI fan and prolly never will be .... this speaks to their quality controll and if the sub it still no excuss IMO as they have to hold their subs to a higher quality standard and spot check to ensure the high standards are being met.

This product was aimed directly at the overclocking community and MSI has effectivly wasted everyones time..................... :thumbdown:

If anyone has done the washer mod, please post a picture for examination...:D

Sounds like most people did the RMA mod. Sucks that they put this crap out.

Yea, I just hope for the ones that are getting a replacments they send out some hot rods

I had another delivered today, it came with the updated "20" bios installed. My other 2 have the "19" bios.

Does it hold your voltage settings when the bench starts Mike? I hope so bro. Where did you get it?

Have not tested it yet, bought it at Newegg on Friday of last week.

Spent most of last night trying to flash the other two cards to the new bios. <<<<<<NOOB ALERT!

Ended up using this: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/261/

Made it real simple to flash the GPU bios while in windows, so much easier than with dos based atiflash.

You better get to benching gunny. Roadrunner just told you to eat his shorts in 06.

Well I hope you have better luck than me. With OC's help, I finally got my flash boot disk to recognize and boot, flashed the card and nada. I think the voltage reglulators on these early models are fracked. I am gonna test it a bit more this morning with different drivers, but I am fairly sure that there is no redemption for MSI or the lightning within the Empire. Screwed again.

the voltage regulators should be working....if you have a display on the monitor..and play games..it should be working...

its a matter of controlling the output of the pwm...like any program it has to have a good communication..if one bit of the program isn't good..then controlling the pwm won't work.

Im the guy, the lightning is the ice = fail

http://i.imgur.com/b7aYN.gif

Not sure if I want to hard mod it but it seems its the only true way to go. Will get some pics up and see if anyone has any ideas.

I would send it back

And maybe call MSI and give them some abuse .......... who knows maybee they will send you a kick ass sample just so they never have to talk to you again ........ LOL

Meh I think its too close to the new nvidia release. Sell or send back and wait for the GTX480 I would say.

yeah your right, i mean if the gtx480 is almost as fast as a 5970 = ownage

There's hope even for fat dumb guys.
Running the new 1.5.1 AB (only one that controls voltage, nogo on AB E) maxed out at 1.35v (where it is) and max core speed of 1350MHz
Great card for that speed at that voltage, it just needs more juice.

btw, fat guy watching=OC
fat guy jumping into lake=Rom
Attachment 1825

I wonder how it acts with multiple cards...

I want to know what was going threw that fat guys head? Bet it was a chore to get him out of the ice.

He prolly just finished watching Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and thought the pond was made outa chocolate. :blink:

Sick score Rom .... :thumbsup:

27K is with in sight :clapping:

confirmed here, the new bios with 1.5.1 AB works, just clocks like shit on air is all, can't do 1000MHz core on 1.25V Tek's will be here this week though. :happy2:

I agree clocks like shit on air. Ok on LN2 but the max voltage setting on AB 1.5.1 of 1.3? is a dead stop. Vmod or unlocked AB maybe need to hit the 1400 mark IMO.

Once I am done doing what I am here I will see if I can install ABE and 1.5 to see if I can figure out the difference. Then will install 1.51 and compare to 1.5

Might be as simple as changing a little hex coding to unlock "extreme" on the 1.51 software :)

EDIT: will look at this weekend.. not time tonight and my kids are coming over tomorrow :)

Confirming it also works on 3 card setups. These little read out wires they include are the shiz nizzle, not worth the extra $100 bucks, but nice nonetheless.

http://kingpincooling.com/forum/show...7&postcount=20 :thumbsup:

Definately a nice card, but after the PITA mods it took to get the GTX 260 SOC up to speed, that's what pushed me towards the lightning's instead. :ohcrap:

Well Dinos is hinting at soft mods for voltage with this series. He won't speak much of it though so who knows?

Not alot of info out there on the lightning mods though. And with the new bios and new ab, they need it. Unless there is a AB-e that will work with them and that is unavailable except for certain clicks...business as usual

From W1zzard:

Anyone that still has a lightning and no voltage control....


open RTCore.cfg in ABExtreme and add this to the RV870 line ",689Eh"

Might help with detection and allow voltage controls. The only other changes I can see made in the versions is within the DAT files but quickview/notepad and such return garbage. Which can mean any number of things.

After flashing new bios and updating to AB 1.5.1 I can do voltage control finally on the Lightning. It clocks reasonably well on the stock cooler with 1.35v, but I'd like to freeze it in the next few days (waiting until I can get AM3 to work on my new Win7 64....still futzing).

I paired the Lightning up with a hard modded vanilla 5870 to see how AB 1.5.1 worked with only overvolting the Lightning. Wanted to make sure it didn't play funny with the hard-modded card voltages.

Got this with the CPU on SS: http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...70_35369_marks
I submitted it to orb but didn't bother with a screenie since I'm planning on freezing the cards/CPU this week. I didn't even realize the quality of the score until I was browsing the bot a few minutes llater. :blink: So I submitted it.

I really wish someone would share the data sheet on this lightning controller.......I haven't yet been able to try any config changes in AB because my noobness is preventing me from getting access to mod the files so far....I sure prefer soldering stuff to messing with code crap I don't understand.