# Old motherboards + new GPUs



## MagnuTron (Nov 15, 2016)

Alright, so I just got a sad message back from ASUS, after I had tried to use a perfectly working RX 470 on a Crosshair Formula III.

_*Dear ASUS Valued Customers,

Hi
*_
*Modern vga cards have bios requirements that are not met with older motherboard bioses and there are no real workarounds for this as they are designed with the w10 framework in mind. For this issue there is no solution from our side. *

So I guess the whole "backward compatible" PCIe slots in kind of dead.. I know, I know, the AM3 platform is old - but we would still have though that a new card would work.

I will try a Hawaii and Maxwell GPU in it later, to see where the cutoff is regarding generations.

Poor 14 year old kid im trying to help


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## puma99dk| (Nov 15, 2016)

Hi MadsMagnus

Problem with newer cards is they might run UEFI only which ain't supported on older hardware so either see if u can get that tested in a newer computer to see if bios is UEFI only or it also support the old boot.

U can check with GPU-Z see the notch left to UEFI:


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## MagnuTron (Nov 15, 2016)

puma99dk| said:


> Hi MadsMagnus
> 
> Problem with newer cards is they might run UEFI only which ain't supported on older hardware so either see if u can get that tested in a newer computer to see if bios is UEFI only or it also support the old boot.
> 
> U can check with GPU-Z see the notch left to UEFI:



Ah right.. So modern GPUs are UEFI only huh.. That explains quite a bit. No workaround from here then right? Taking a BIOS based motherboard and throwing UEFI on it?


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## SomeOne99h (Nov 15, 2016)

MadsMagnus said:


> Ah right.. So modern GPUs are UEFI only huh.. That explains quite a bit. No workaround from here then right? Taking a BIOS based motherboard and throwing UEFI on it?


I have read somewhere here that some UEFI video cards have a switch that makes it use the regular BIOS. Try reading the manual of the card and see if it has (mentions) something like that?


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## JalleR (Nov 15, 2016)

yes a lot of R9 390 card had the manual switch.


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## MagnuTron (Nov 15, 2016)

Many of those switches were just between Uber and Quiet from what I remember. I am trying to get a hold of XFX to hear them out. Perhaps they can add BIOS support via. flash..


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## puma99dk| (Nov 15, 2016)

MadsMagnus said:


> Ah right.. So modern GPUs are UEFI only huh.. That explains quite a bit. No workaround from here then right? Taking a BIOS based motherboard and throwing UEFI on it?



Most new cards only run UEFI sadly, and only work around is new hardware.


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## Recon-UK (Nov 15, 2016)

????????????????????????

There are people running RX 480 on x58 boards with no issue.

Stupid ASUS... it's why i never buy ASUS GPU's.


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## MagnuTron (Nov 15, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> ????????????????????????
> 
> There are people running RX 480 on x58 boards with no issue.
> 
> Stupid ASUS... it's why i never buy ASUS GPU's.



It's a XFX card running on ASUS mobo.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Nov 15, 2016)

@Durvelle27  runs an ASUS X58 board with XFX 480


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## MagnuTron (Nov 15, 2016)

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:


> @Durvelle27  runs an ASUS X58 board with XFX 480


Which makes me question ASUS even more. They are pretty much dead-on age wise.


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## Caring1 (Nov 16, 2016)

Check the motherboard has the latest BIOS, as UEFI support may have been added later.


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## SomeOne99h (Nov 16, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> Check the motherboard has the latest BIOS, as UEFI support may have been added later.


Good call!


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2016)

everyone beat me to the UEFI punch, but you'd think if X58 works they'd be on BIOS :/


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## MagnuTron (Nov 16, 2016)

I have flashed the motherboard to newest version, which came out in 2016. No dice.


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## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Nov 16, 2016)

@XFXSupport

might be able to offer some insight.


Edit.

if this is a known issue their packaging/advertising  should highlight it.


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## Ferrum Master (Nov 16, 2016)

Intel supports EFI boot since socket 775 ages... so don't mix up things.

AMD platform is the culprit really.


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2016)

Ferrum Master said:


> Intel supports EFI boot since socket 775 ages... so don't mix up things.
> 
> AMD platform is the culprit really.



that WOULD explain it, AMD being behind on that one.


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## Ferrum Master (Nov 16, 2016)

Mussels said:


> that WOULD explain it, AMD being behind on that one.



The RX4x0 should have a hybrid bios actually. Not only UEFI. But the AMD bios is bugged out, Intel AMI usually was much more compatible. It isn't rare that some cards simply do not start in some boards uefi or not.

UEFI GPU bios implementation looked more like a mass beta test on people really.


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## R-T-B (Nov 16, 2016)

My X58 Sabertooth was a pure bios implementation, as were most X58 boards outside of intels reference boards.


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 16, 2016)

MadsMagnus said:


> Many of those switches were just between Uber and Quiet from what I remember. I am trying to get a hold of XFX to hear them out. Perhaps they can add BIOS support via. flash..



There is @XFXSupport  that can help.

By the way ensure to load the latest motherboard bios in before switching to a new gpu. Some board makers had beta bios for this situation


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## Ungari (Nov 16, 2016)

puma99dk| said:


> Hi MadsMagnus
> 
> Problem with newer cards is they might run UEFI only which ain't supported on older hardware so either see if u can get that tested in a newer computer to see if bios is UEFI only or it also support the old boot.
> 
> U can check with GPU-Z see the notch left to UEFI:




I do not have UEFI. I run my RX 480 on a legacy AWARD BIOS mainboard.


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## thebluebumblebee (Nov 16, 2016)

MadsMagnus said:


> Which makes me question ASUS even more. They are pretty much dead-on age wise.


No, the X58 is a year newer.  That Crosshair Formula III has the AMD 790FX/SB750 chipsets, so I am not surprised that it won't work.  BTW, I do think ASUS could make it work, but there's very little incentive for them to do so.


MadsMagnus said:


> Poor 14 year old kid im trying to help


Sorry, but he's either going to have to upgrade the motherboard or drop down to something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/SingleProductReview.aspx?reviewid=4076799


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## MagnuTron (Nov 17, 2016)

thebluebumblebee said:


> No, the X58 is a year newer.  That Crosshair Formula III has the AMD 790FX/SB750 chipsets, so I am not surprised that it won't work.  BTW, I do think ASUS could make it work, but there's very little incentive for them to do so.
> 
> Sorry, but he's either going to have to upgrade the motherboard or drop down to something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/SingleProductReview.aspx?reviewid=4076799



Poor kid.

Yeah exactly, ASUS doesn't seem to give a poop about this mobo anymore, and I don't really blame them. Though honestly this is one of those moments that make me question the ease of PC - or PCIe.. Because honestly ask pretty much any guy out there and we would all be like "oh no problem, PCIe is downward compatible" ... This is really fcked up.


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## Ungari (Nov 17, 2016)

MadsMagnus said:


> Poor kid.
> 
> Yeah exactly,_ ASUS doesn't seem to give a poop about this mobo anymore, and I don't really blame them._ Though honestly this is one of those moments that make me question the ease of PC - or PCIe.. Because honestly ask pretty much any guy out there and we would all be like "oh no problem, PCIe is downward compatible" ... This is really fcked up.



I blame ASUS.
ASUS customer service is atrocious, and this just another example of bad or no service after the sale of products for which they charge a higher premium than their competitors.


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 17, 2016)

MadsMagnus said:


> Poor kid.
> 
> Yeah exactly, ASUS doesn't seem to give a poop about this mobo anymore, and I don't really blame them. Though honestly this is one of those moments that make me question the ease of PC - or PCIe.. Because honestly ask pretty much any guy out there and we would all be like "oh no problem, PCIe is downward compatible" ... This is really fcked up.



Let me find out something. Punch up on google.com for crosshair 3 bios, grab the one from 2012. 

By the way I believe Sapphire gpus still have a uefi/legacy switch, my 290 vaporx does.


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## 27MaD (Jun 30, 2018)

eidairaman1 said:


> There is @XFXSupport  that can help.
> 
> By the way ensure to load the latest motherboard bios in before switching to a new gpu. Some board makers had beta bios for this situation


Hi , i am switching to a GTX 750TI soon and my mobo is quite old but the last bios update was beta bios (wich i am using now) , so do you think i will not have any compatibility issues ??? 




and btw sorry for replying on a 1.5 year old post.


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## MrGenius (Jun 30, 2018)

*FOR THE RECORD:* *There's no such thing as a UEFI-ONLY vBIOS.* ALL UEFI compatible vBIOSs to date are hybrid. Meaning they have a full and complete Legacy ROM(old school pre-UEFI vBIOS) + an EFI ROM(for UEFI GOP compatibility). So there's absolutely no need to have a "non-UEFI" vBIOS to run your card on ANY motherboard(UEFI or not). There's also no need(currently) to have a UEFI compatible vBIOS to run your card on a UEFI motherboard. You just need to disable secure boot(and/or any other UEFI GOP features) in the motherboard's BIOS/UEFI. You should be able to boot by just disabling secure boot. Other UEFI GOP features will just fail to work as they should. Typically resulting in a black screen during boot(until the desktop suddenly appears) and boot times that are no faster than without having them enabled.

However, the day is coming when you will need to have a UEFI compatible vBIOS to run your card on a UEFI motherboard. That's not due to happen for another couple of years though.
https://www.techpowerup.com/238950/intel-to-remove-legacy-bios-support-from-motherboard-uefi-in-2020


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## jboydgolfer (Jun 30, 2018)

i have overcome a similar issue on two occasions by installing the GPU not in the primary PCI-e slot, but in the secondary, or tertiary. I dont know if what your experiencing is the same as what i did, but my issue was a matter of my old Asrock Z68 not liking the newer GTX970, worth a shot atleast. im not saying i know why it might work, but it did in my case.


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## Tomgang (Jun 30, 2018)

i cant say much about UEFI and new GPU´s. But nvidia´s latest GPU pascal runs fine on non UEFI bios. Have a GTX 1080 TI running just fine on my old X58 motherboard from Asus and i have also testet GTX 570, GTX 660 TI and GTX 970. Different generations and all worked just fine. Cant say about AMD GPU´s cause i have never testet that.


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## jsfitz54 (Jun 30, 2018)

Was a Bios reset performed?

EDIT:  DDU used to clear out old drivers?


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## Readlight (Jun 30, 2018)

Asus doesn't make new bios updates even if there are problems whit multiple video cards.
i barely got to work my card, because needed to make extra steps and bios changes.


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## eidairaman1 (Jul 1, 2018)

MrGenius said:


> *FOR THE RECORD:* *There's no such thing as a UEFI-ONLY vBIOS.* ALL UEFI compatible vBIOSs to date are hybrid. Meaning they have a full and complete Legacy ROM(old school pre-UEFI vBIOS) + an EFI ROM(for UEFI GOP compatibility). So there's absolutely no need to have a "non-UEFI" vBIOS to run your card on ANY motherboard(UEFI or not). There's also no need(currently) to have a UEFI compatible vBIOS to run your card on a UEFI motherboard. You just need to disable secure boot(and/or any other UEFI GOP features) in the motherboard's BIOS/UEFI. You should be able to boot by just disabling secure boot. Other UEFI GOP features will just fail to work as they should. Typically resulting in a black screen during boot(until the desktop suddenly appears) and boot times that are no faster than without having them enabled.
> 
> However, the day is coming when you will need to have a UEFI compatible vBIOS to run your card on a UEFI motherboard. That's not due to happen for another couple of years though.
> https://www.techpowerup.com/238950/intel-to-remove-legacy-bios-support-from-motherboard-uefi-in-2020



Yeah some just provide the function of turning legacy off and on


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## gb_drbob (Jan 14, 2019)

eidairaman1 said:


> Yeah some just provide the function of turning legacy off and on



@MrGenius - Not all motherboards have the option to force legacy mode in the BIOS settings. I had a similar issue to the OP with a Dell Alienware Aurora R3 & an RX 480. The R3 has an early UEFI motherbboard that hangs on boot (blank screen, no POST) if a hybrid firmware AMD GPU is in the machine. Dell have abandoned the R3 with no BIOS update to fix the bug.

I worked round the issue by manually modifiing the firmware to ignore the GOP image, this allowed me to boot and use the RX 480 in my Aurora R3 (full details in this post on the win-raid forums, also spoilered below)



Spoiler: Long explantion of the manual BIOS mod



Hello,

Recent AMD GPUs have a hybrid ROM which contains two images: A legacy video BIOS (vBIOS) image and a compressed graphics output protocol (GOP) driver image. In theory this allows the card to work well on both legacy systems (which will use the vBIOS image) and more modern systems with a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI) compatible pre-boot firmware architecture (which use the GOP driver).

However some early UEFI implementations cannot cope with the hybrid BIOS, they try to load the GOP driver and fail, hanging at boot with a blank screen. I have personally experienced this with an AMD RX480 and an Alienware Aurora R3 system (other examples: RX 480 incompatibility thread on reddit,  R3 with an RX580, another R3 with an RX480)

It is a particular problem for branded systems with custom motherboards like many systems from HP, Dell, Lenovo etc that no longer receive BIOS updates from the manufacturer and have no options within the BIOS to force legacy mode boot when an EFI module is detected.

Some older video cards have a physical switch on them to swap between legacy and UEFI mode. The RX 480 however has no switch and exposes both the legacy and the GOP images to the pre boot firmware. I found that by modifying the firmware ROM for my GPU to mark the legacy image as the "*last*" image it would hide the GOP image and render the system bootable.

Here is what I did (cross posted from the AMD and Nvidia GOP update thread):



			
				drbob said:
			
		

> I manually edited the BIOS ROM of my RX 480 to set the last image indicator byte to 0x80 in the PCIR header of the first (legacy) vbios image in the ROM. I found this table helpful in identifying the correct byte to set (byte offset 0x15 from the start of the PCIR header), as I found the image @lordkag posted at the top of this thread a bit confusing.
> 
> The biggest hassle was finding out how to fix the BIOS checksum. I modified a 0xFF byte in the padding at the end of the legacy image to 0x7F (0xFF-0x80=0x7F), thereby compensating for the 0x80 I had added to the total, to make the checksum for the entire legacy image match that of the original. There is probably a better way to do this, but I couldn't work out how the value at 0x21 related to the image checksum. On my RX480 the legacy image occupied offset 0x00 to 0xE5FF
> 
> ...


To perform this fix you will need a system that will boot with the card you plan to modifiy (I had an older legacy BIOS only Q6600 system to hand). I downloaded the firmware of my GPU to a ROM file using atiwinflash (included with the command line too atiflash.exe, which would also work). I then used HxD to edit the ROM and verified that the ROM checksum matched that of the original BIOS with atiflash (atiflash.exe -cf <FILE> on both original and modified bios, or load the modified bios into atiwinflash without programming it to the card).

I programmed the modified BIOS to the GPU using atiflash.

IMPORTANT: If you plan to do this - backup your original BIOS first (make all edits to _second_ copy) and be very careful you are modifying the correct bytes in the ROM, an error could easily brick your GPU.

NOTE: The offsets mentioned in the table I link above are from the start of the PCIR header. The actual location of this header *will vary* depending on your GPU rom, it won't start at 0x00. For example, in the ROM of my RX 480 the PCIR header of the legacy VBIOS image starts at offset 0x254 and the last image indicator byte which I modified from 0x00 to 0x80 is at offset 0x269 (0x254 + 0x15):


Below is an example showing how I modified ROM of my card at offset 0xE568 in the the padding at the end of the legacy vBIOS image to balance the checksum so it would match the checksum of the original BIOS. You can also see the start of the next image (the GOP UEFI driver) which begins at 0xE600:

ALSO NOTE: All the offsets and values mentioned above are in *hexadecimal* Don't attempt this unless you understand what that means and what a hex editor is.



EDIT: Looking at some of the other posts on this forum seems like I'm probably reinventing the wheel here....


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 14, 2019)

gb_drbob said:


> @MrGenius - Not all motherboards have the option to force legacy mode in the BIOS settings. I had a similar issue to the OP with a Dell Alienware Aurora R3 & an RX 480. The R3 has an early UEFI motherbboard that hangs on boot (blank screen, no POST) if a hybrid firmware AMD GPU is in the machine. Dell have abandoned the R3 with no BIOS update to fix the bug.
> 
> I worked round the issue by manually modifiing the firmware to ignore the GOP image, this allowed me to boot and use the RX 480 in my Aurora R3 (full details in this post on the win-raid forums, also spoilered below)
> 
> ...



Drawback is this will not work on Vega Cards or NV GTX 1000 series as those are locked from bios mods


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## MrGenius (Jan 15, 2019)

gb_drbob said:


> @MrGenius - Not all motherboards have the option to force legacy mode in the BIOS settings. I had a similar issue to the OP with a Dell Alienware Aurora R3 & an RX 480. The R3 has an early UEFI motherbboard that hangs on boot (blank screen, no POST) if a hybrid firmware AMD GPU is in the machine. Dell have abandoned the R3 with no BIOS update to fix the bug.
> 
> I worked round the issue by manually modifiing the firmware to ignore the GOP image, this allowed me to boot and use the RX 480 in my Aurora R3 (full details in this post on the win-raid forums, also spoilered below)
> 
> ...


*MAJORLY* reinventing the wheel. All you needed to do was delete the UEFI GOP module from your VBIOS. Done. If you're not using it for UEFI GOP boot, it's not needed(does NOT need to be there for any other reason).

Also, you can do that on any card(even one with a locked down BIOS).

EDIT: I was wrong, you can't do it on cards with a locked down BIOS. And it might be more complicated on some cards than just deleting the UEFI GOP module(still might need to fix checksums and what not). But on some cards that basically all you'd need to do.


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## Melvis (Jan 15, 2019)

I have a RX 580 running on a X58 Mobo, I could test it on a AM3+ and possibly a AM3 Gigabyte Mobos to see if they work with the card if you like?


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## Ferrum Master (Jan 15, 2019)

Melvis said:


> I have a RX 580 running on a X58 Mobo, I could test it on a AM3+ and possibly a AM3 Gigabyte Mobos to see if they work with the card if you like?



They work on AM3. Tested dozens of them on GA-880GA-UD3H. I slapped a 1080Ti few days ago in that board. That's my repair testbed... at least not afraid to kill it.


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 15, 2019)

Melvis said:


> I have a RX 580 running on a X58 Mobo, I could test it on a AM3+ and possibly a AM3 Gigabyte Mobos to see if they work with the card if you like?


AM3+ 290 VaporX works.


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## theonek (Jan 15, 2019)

tend to run for awhile before the whole upgrade a 1080Ti on am3+ platform with no issues or whatever... so everything is about software support...


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## remdale (Feb 18, 2020)

MrGenius said:


> *FOR THE RECORD:* *There's no such thing as a UEFI-ONLY vBIOS.* ALL UEFI compatible vBIOSs to date are hybrid. Meaning they have a full and complete Legacy ROM(old school pre-UEFI vBIOS) + an EFI ROM(for UEFI GOP compatibility). So there's absolutely no need to have a "non-UEFI" vBIOS to run your card on ANY motherboard(UEFI or not). There's also no need(currently) to have a UEFI compatible vBIOS to run your card on a UEFI motherboard. You just need to disable secure boot(and/or any other UEFI GOP features) in the motherboard's BIOS/UEFI. You should be able to boot by just disabling secure boot. Other UEFI GOP features will just fail to work as they should. Typically resulting in a black screen during boot(until the desktop suddenly appears) and boot times that are no faster than without having them enabled.


Hi! I got excited about the work of *gb_drbob* regarding the hybrid BIOS AMD cards. I have a dual GPU Powercolor Devil 13 390 X2 16GB. It has a Dual BIOS feature and so it has 4 BIOS chips in total! (2 for each GPU).
The motherboard is a very old Intel D5400XS which has UEFI. UEFI boot disabled. I'm having a black screen issue, even couldn't get into UEFI settings. When I did, the picture was terrible, text strings from different screens were interfering with each other. Anyway, I couldn't boot into OS.

So I've dumped and edited all of the vBIOS chips with a USB flash programmer. Then I did everything in Hexedit (replaced 00 with 80 for the legacy image, fixed checksum, even replaced GOF with FF's when the first way didn't work out) and then flashed the edited versions back. No much luck. I could get a picture of the UEFI settings screen, but since it was in the VGA resolution, the picture wasn't full size on the screen, so was small instead. I could only get into the UEFI settings in the diagnostic mode only.

What could be wrong? Should be working fine as long as the legacy vBIOS is used and UEFI boot is disabled.


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## DR4G00N (Feb 18, 2020)

remdale said:


> Hi! I got excited about the work of *gb_drbob* regarding the hybrid BIOS AMD cards. I have a dual GPU Powercolor Devil 13 390 X2 16GB. It has a Dual BIOS feature and so it has 4 BIOS chips in total! (2 for each GPU).
> The motherboard is a very old Intel D5400XS which has UEFI. UEFI boot disabled. I'm having a black screen issue, even couldn't get into UEFI settings. When I did, the picture was terrible, text strings from different screens were interfering with each other. Anyway, I couldn't boot into OS.
> 
> So I've dumped and edited all of the vBIOS chips with a USB flash programmer. Then I did everything in Hexedit (replaced 00 with 80 for the legacy image, fixed checksum, even replaced GOF with FF's when the first way didn't work out) and then flashed the edited versions back. No much luck. I could get a picture of the UEFI settings screen, but since it was in the VGA resolution, the picture wasn't full size on the screen, so was small instead. I could only get into the UEFI settings in the diagnostic mode only.
> ...


Card is probably too new and the board doesn't like it. Why are you trying to use that on a dual 771 board anyway? That board won't even make use of half a single r9 390 let alone two.


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## Solid State Soul ( SSS ) (Feb 18, 2020)

As long as the board has PCI gen 3 it shouldn't matter


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## remdale (Feb 18, 2020)

DR4G00N said:


> Why are you trying to use that on a dual 771 board anyway?


In short, I just like that card and wanted to use it with the board.


DR4G00N said:


> Card is probably too new and the board doesn't like it.


Is there any way to figure out the real reason? Might be some flag in the vBIOS or the whole structure?


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## Grog6 (Feb 19, 2020)

I'm running a RX480 Nitro on a x79 system with BIOS only.

It works; you have other problems.

I have a Sapphire card,as I always buy their cards if I can.


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## potato580+ (Feb 19, 2020)

it can run just fine rx 4/5, im using am2+ socket for a test, problems it will start bottleneck while using higher than 1070/vega56


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## remdale (Feb 19, 2020)

Grog6 said:


> x79 system


Yours is much newer than mine


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 19, 2020)

You need to look up bios for that skulltrail. Intel stopped providing support totally.


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## remdale (Feb 19, 2020)

eidairaman1 said:


> Intel stopped providing support totally.


Yeah, I know and that's sad


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