My current video card, a PowerColor Radeon 9550 256MB 256 Bit AGP (BK-ATI VER008.017D.033.000), which is missing its fan, and has been put through strenuous use over the last ~3 years, seems to be on its last legs. I can't run any Direct3D programs for very long before the screen goes to "Input not supported" or "No signal input", with the computer crashing. Occasionally VPU Recorder will pop up, occasionally a system error report has come up, and on rare occasions (usually after toggling various BIOS AGP settings), it'll run a game for one day. I've tried various versions of the Omega drivers, the official ATI drivers, and the best ones I've found are the old drivers that came with it. Official ATI Drivers, v6.14.10.6497, dated 11/30/2004.
I decided I'd see if I could perhaps flash the card to 9600 and see if that restores some functionality, so I downloaded Flashrom, put it on a CD with the BIOS of both it and a 9600 PRO, and went into DOS. Before I planned to flash, I gave it the -i parameter, just to see what would happen.
This happened. Second time I tried, the comp stopped responding, though the caret continued to blink. I don't dare to flash it now, but I still want to save this card. Can it be done?