VBE7 - vBIOS Editor for Radeon HD 7000 series cards

[darkhmz]

PLEASE NOTE THE DEVELOPER OF THIS SOFTWARE HAS NOT VISITED HERE SINCE 2013, THE SOFTWARE IS FOR A LIMITED GROUP OF Tahiti, Pitcairn, Cape Verde, Oland, and Malta based GRAPHIC CARDS SO PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ANY REQUESTS RELATING TO UPDATES OR FEATURES..... WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET!

Download links can be found at the bottom of this post

Hi!


After a few weeks of developing / testing / tweaking, - and with the help of a guy (DroiDMester) who has BIOS modding experience - here is a small utility which lets you modify your Radeon HD 7000 series card's BIOS (HD 7790 not supported).


With this tool you will be able to

• Change Vendor ID / Subsystem ID (not recommended)
• Change clocks and voltages
• Change OverDrive's core clock and memory clock limits, TDP limit, power limit
• Make custom fan profile

There are some limitations though...

• You cant change 2D / UVD voltages
• You cant set 2D / UVD clocks higher than the values stored in BIOS (these limitations are intentional, without these limits powerplay would go nuts...)
• The following voltage regulators are fully supported: CHL822x, CHL8214, UP1637, UP1801, ST6788A, VT1556M
• For unknown voltage regulators, you can select voltage from a predefined table.

When you open a file, the first thing you'll see is the Overview panel with some information about the loaded BIOS

...including BIOS version, Device ID, VRM type, memory type(s) supported by BIOS etc...



Notes regarding the 3D voltage(s) displayed on the PowerPlay panel

VBE7 shows the first entry of the voltage table, which is the highest voltage (for the lowest ASIC quality). So, for example, if your GPU's ASIC quality is 85%, and needs 1050mV, but the first entry of the voltage table is 1188mV (70.9% ASIC quality), the displayed value would be 1188mV. You'd expect 1050mV but its not a problem, because if you edit the voltage, VBE7 modifies all entries of the table, which means the GPU will get the voltage you set, regardless of ASIC quality.

Also, since its not possible to adjust voltage by 1mV steps, VBE7 recalculates the value - while taking into account the VRM type - when you leave the edited field.

If you want to get rid of boost, just make your 3D clocks / voltages equal, thats what i did with my Tahiti LE



Fan Profile

You can make, save, and load your custom fan profiles.

A few words about temperature hysteresis... Basically, temperature hysteresis is the fan controller's sensitivity to temperature changes (applied to decreasing temperatures only). For example if the controller has a hysteresis of 6°C, and the last fan speed change was at 72°C, the fan speed wont chage while the temperature is higher than 72-6 (66°C). Without hysteresis, the fan speed would change too frequently, which is really annoying.



New Fan Profile Editor in version 0.0.7

How to use

• Save your BIOS with GPU-Z
• Open with VBE7
• Modify
• Save
• Think twice before flashing
• Flash your modified BIOS either with atiflash or atiwinflash (preferably atiflash)
• Reboot

Please read the following before you give it a go

• This is a new software so even though it worked for me and some others, i cant guarantee it will work for you as well. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!
• Dont forget to make backup of your original BIOS
• Use it only if you know what you're doing, and if you can recover from a bad BIOS flash if something goes wrong...
• This software is not foolproof, use it carefully
• Modifications only affect the legacy BIOS, and after saving, UEFI image will be disabled (in case you have UEFI vBIOS)
• If you're experiencing problems with your modified BIOS, please post your original and modified files.
• Note to crossfire users: it is strongly recommended to disable ULPS before BIOS flashing

Changes in version 0.0.4

• added voltage control support for VRMs reported as unknown

Changes in version 0.0.5

• added support for Volterra VT1556M

Changes in version 0.0.6

• now VBE7 recalculates the BIOS checksum, no need to use the -f (force flashing) parameter

Changes in version 0.0.7

• new fan profile editor
• modifiable power limits

Changes in version 0.0.7a

• Fixed a bug in the fan profile editor

Changes in version 0.0.7b

• Fixed some bugs

Ive attached the executable, a comparison picture of my card's original and modified BIOS, two GPU-Z shots showing modified clocks in action, and a picture of od window...

 

[W1zzard]

How did you manage to work around the digital signature requirement for the overdrive section?

 

[darkhmz]

How did you manage to work around the digital signature requirement for the overdrive section?

I didnt do anything related to digital signature, I just modify the values and it works with no problems.

 

[Pixrazor]

please can you extend the voltage regulator support, mine is reported as unknown

 

[darkhmz]

please can you extend the voltage regulator support, mine is reported as unknown

I'm afraid only the types mentioned above will be supported. I might look into it later though.

 

[SonDa5]

Will be trying this out with VaporX hd7950. Thanks.

 

[cadaveca]

Tested on v1.0 (2x 6-pin, 900/1250 @ 0.900 V) Gigabyte 7950 WindForce (F2 non-UEFI BIOS originally). Card already tested to have full software voltage control on original BIOS and other non-BOOST/BOOST BIOSes.


Power Limit(to 225) and voltage increases(to 1.182 V) work fine with Catalyst 13.6 B2 drivers. Haven't checked other drivers or other BIOSes for this card.

1.182 V gives 1.162 V idle, 1.112 V loaded, measured via multimeter.

Entering values and hitting "enter" on keyboard makes GUI tabs go blank, but moving to other tab, then going back to modified tab, shows changes made. Had to manually flash BIOS via DOS.

 

[darkhmz]

Entering values and hitting "enter" on keyboard makes GUI tabs go blank, but moving to other tab, then going back to modified tab, shows changes made. Had to manually flash BIOS via DOS.

Thanks for the bug report, ive fixed it...

 

[Frogger]

I needed something to play with this wkend Thanks

 

[thesmokingman]

Nice work darkmhz.

 

[darkhmz]

Added overdrive window picture to 1st post, showing modified od limits (3000/3000/42).

 

[Vario]

Card is a Gigabyte 7970 OC 3GB Windforce rev 2.1 I used this bios: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4290#bios and it worked perfectly but didn't like the new native memory overclock at 1500. It would crash unless I used CCC to lower the memory to original 1375. I'd like to change it down to 1375 (stock for card) in the bios so I don't need to rely on software underclocking. Do I just load the ghz bios and change all the 1500 mentions back to 1375 on the performance and UVD screens?

What does UVD panel mean?

To disable boost, set #6 and #0 to same settings in the performance window?

Heres what I have it changed to now:

Any issues you guys forsee?

 

[darkhmz]

Hi Vario!

I'd recommend you to modify your original BIOS. Just change clocks / VDDC to the values you want. The drop-down combo is only to show you what clocks are used in different states. For example if you're watching a HD movie with a player that using hardware acceleration, the clocks listed on the UVD panel will be used.

Yep, to disable boost, make clocks #6 and #0 equal.

After you tried it, please let me know if it works, thanks.

btw UVD stands for Unified Video Decoder

 

[Vario]

Hi Vario!

I'd recommend you to modify your original BIOS. Just change clocks / VDDC to the values you want. The drop-down combo is only to show you what clocks are used in different states. For example if you're watching a HD movie with a player that using hardware acceleration, the clocks listed on the UVD panel will be used.

Yep, to disable boost, make clocks #6 and #0 equal.

After you tried it, please let me know if it works, thanks.

btw UVD stands for Unified Video Decoder

I would mod the original bios but it doesn't like my changing the voltage. Core voltage is "locked" in Rev 2.1.


edit: one small step for man... (gonna test this modbios.rom)...

edit2: hung in 3dmark11 instantly.

edit3: remade it without any custom fan profiles or forcing boost and reinstalled the catalyst drivers and ....


IT WORKS!

 

[darkhmz]

edit: hung in 3dmark11 instantly.

Could you test your clocks / voltage with the GPU-Z render test? Start render test and check your clocks and VDDC. Did you modify VDDC too?

 

[Vario]

Could you test your clocks / voltage with the GPU-Z render test? Start render test and check your clocks and VDDC. Did you modify VDDC too?

Just did the render test, it passed, started up 3dm11 and it is running now, its working great I think! When I made a second modbios.rom this time I just changed the memory clock only, nothing else. No Boost vs non boost stuff. I think it was either the drivers or forcing boost 100% of the time.

 

[Vario]

Just did the render test, it passed, started up 3dm11 and it is running now, its working great I think! When I made a second modbios.rom this time I just changed the memory clock only, nothing else. No Boost vs non boost stuff. I think it was either the drivers or forcing boost 100% of the time.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7031098

Thanks so much for this tool!

P9823 with AMD Radeon HD 7970(1x) and Intel Xeon Processor E3-1230V2

Graphics Score
10219

Physics Score
9239

Combined Score
8218



Graphics Card
AMD Radeon HD 7970
Vendor
Unknown
# of cards
1
SLI / CrossFire
Off
Memory
3,072 MB
Core clock
1,100 MHz
Memory clock
1,375 MHz
Driver name
AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Driver version
12.104.0.0
Driver status
FM Approved

heres my old score: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6989036

 

[darkhmz]

Just did the render test, it passed, started up 3dm11 and it is running now, its working great I think! When I made a second modbios.rom this time I just changed the memory clock only, nothing else. No Boost vs non boost stuff. I think it was either the drivers or forcing boost 100% of the time.

Thanks for your feedback, glad it works. Making clocks equal should not cause problems, at least works fine on my Tahiti LE (and many other cards).

 

[Vario]

Thanks for your feedback, glad it works. Making clocks equal should not cause problems, at least works fine on my Tahiti LE (and many other cards).

I am running valley now, it seems stable. I'll keep running benchmarks for a few hours and deem it stable if it passes all.

edit: testing new fan profiles now. Love how easy your software is to use.

 

[Nordic]

I am going to try this for fun.

What is the difference between the two files?

 

[darkhmz]

I am going to try this for fun.

What is the difference between the two files?

The difference is that VBE7_staticlib.exe has the required libs compiled into the file. If you try the other version, and your OS complains about missing dll's then try the staticlib version.

 

[W1zzard]

The difference is that VBE7_staticlib.exe has the required libs compiled into the file. If you try the other version, and your OS complains about missing dll's then try the staticlib version.

I strongly recommend just releasing the static build to public. 2 builds will confuse people and you'll get additional problem reports when people don't have the vc++ runtimes

 

[Vario]

Are there any advantages to raising the TDP?

 

[darkhmz]

I strongly recommend just releasing the static build to public. 2 builds will confuse people and you'll get additional problem reports when people don't have the vc++ runtimes

Good call, already been thinking about that. Done, attached only the static build.

 

[darkhmz]

Are there any advantages to raising the TDP?

With the stock BIOS my clocks fluctated between boost and non-boost. I had to increase power limit to 20% to avoid that. Now with my modded BIOS power limit is at 0% and clocks not jumping, no throttling at all.