VBE7 - vBIOS Editor for Radeon HD 7000 series cards

[fade2blac]

Request NCP4206 support

Darkhmz, thanks for all the work so far on this awesome tool. I have a Sapphire 100352-3L Radeon HD 7950 which uses an ON Semiconductor NCP4206 VRM controller. Would it be possible to add support for this chip?
http://www.onsemi.ru.com/pub_link/Collateral/NCP4206-D.PDF

P.S. MTDEW332

So I just changed my TDP(W) from 167 to 200 and figured that makes my default the +20% extra I needed without the need to literally go in and add the +20% through software all the time.
And of course, now if i move +20% manually in software, it will be the new 240 value instead of the original 200.
Was my way of thinking correct?

Yes you are understanding things correctly.

On a related note, I have noticed that changing the Overdrive TDP limit from 20% to 50% while also increasing the PowerTune TDP wattage midpoint to 200W resulted in GPU throttling when left at 0% power boost just like it does with the stock bios (167W midpoint) @ 0% power boost. Dropping the Overdrive TDP limit back to 20% and leaving the PowerTune TDP wattage at 200W like you did stops all GPU throttling @ 0% power boost. This seems counter intuitive given the info available, but these boost cards are strange animals at times.

I figure there must be some odd effects on the power tune algorithm when you change the Overdrive TDP limit at the bios level. It is more convenient to just modify the PowerTune TDP anyway.

 

[LeVarren]

Hi Guys i have 7990 and 7970 vapor x 6g

Firstly hello im new here

I have been trying to
OC my 7970 vapor X 6gb card so it will keep pace with my oced 7990 Water cooled 7990.

A friend pointed me to this thread and i was hoping that someone could help me out as i have never flashed bios of GPU before.

I did read and i have tried but my first error was that the ATI flash utility is not compatible with windows 7 64 bit ?

would someone mind walking me thru how to do it ?

i have save my original bios and i have made a new bios using this tool.

Vapor x 7970 6gb stock voltage is in techpowerup GPU Z is reading 0.875 ? im really not sure about that as it seem very low?
especially as i am about to clock it with this tool to 1.3V to achieve my desired 1200 OC
and i want to try for 1760 on the memory clock.

as i think my 7990 will do that so i want the 7970 to match. if i can not get it to match i have to lower the 7990 which is a bit of a shame so ...I really hoping for a bit of help to OC my 7970 relatively safely

 

[fade2blac]

LeVarren: ATIwinflash works just fine under Win7 64-bit for me. If you are using ATIwinflash, make sure you start with an administrator command prompt. The actual flashing process requires elevated privileges under Windows 7.

Refer to the following thread for more details on flashing under Windows.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1353325/tutorial-atiwinflash-how-to-flash-the-bios-of-your-ati-cards

 

[LeVarren]

problems ocing 7970 vapor x 6gb

LeVarren: ATIwinflash works just fine under Win7 64-bit for me. If you are using ATIwinflash, make sure you start with an administrator command prompt. The actual flashing process requires elevated privileges under Windows 7.

Refer to the following thread for more details on flashing under Windows.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1353325/tutorial-atiwinflash-how-to-flash-the-bios-of-your-ati-cards

Thanks fade i got that working perfectly.
However i had a bsod after restart the error was too fast to catch sorry.
The only way i could get back into windows was to choose the option of boot in last known good configuration.
But i seem to have lost crossfire with my 7990?
so i thought must be driver problems so i used atiman unistalled completely done a fresh install of 13.11 beta which was working perfectly before i decicded to flash the 7970 vapor x.
and straight away bsod with no time to see bsod code ?
the only way is to load last known good config and stat windows ...but then the drivers are all messed up and no crossfire ...Gpuz is obviously not reading the cards correctly either as it is now saying i have 43000000 in the memory of gpu 1 on my 7990 ??
Anyways im in great need of some help here please.
i have obviously balls something up ! my system was working awesome before ,,,,,,i just thought if i could squeeze a little more out of my vapor x then i could clock teh 7990 which i have watercooled just that bit higher. but to do that i need mopre voltage on the 7970 whic seems to be locked at 0.875. i was attempting to set the voltage to max 1.3 to get the clock to 1200 and mem to 1700.

advice help would be very much appreciated i am very new to this gpu ocing

 

[Frogger]

Use the bios switch

to reset the 7970. then see if it will boot right. you will prob have to reinstall the drivers again
here's a link to Afterburner to test your setting's with http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/msi_afterburner_beta_download.html

 

[fade2blac]

For starters, 875mV should be the voltage for the idle state (300MHz core/150MHz memory). Either GPU-Z cannot properly read your voltage or your card was not in 3D/boost state. Did you check voltage with GPU-Z running during a 3D game or benchmark?

1.3V is a bit on the high end for air cooling. My experience is that past about 1.20-1.25V you will quickly run into temperature or stability problems as power usage will increase dramatically with both temperature and voltage.

It sounds to me like you could be overly ambitious with your bios settings. Did you test the settings with Trixx/Afterburner/etc. first? Which specific settings did you modify?

Are you able to re-flash to your stock BIOS or switch to a second BIOS (small switch on top edge of card near crossfire connectors)?

 

[LeVarren]

For starters, 875mV should be the voltage for the idle state (300MHz core/150MHz memory). Either GPU-Z cannot properly read your voltage or your card was not in 3D/boost state. Did you check voltage with GPU-Z running during a 3D game or benchmark?

1.3V is a bit on the high end for air cooling. My experience is that past about 1.20-1.25V you will quickly run into temperature or stability problems as power usage will increase dramatically with both temperature and voltage.

It sounds to me like you could be overly ambitious with your bios settings. Did you test the settings with Trixx/Afterburner/etc. first? Which specific settings did you modify?

Are you able to re-flash to your stock BIOS or switch to a second BIOS (small switch on top edge of card near crossfire connectors)?

ok fade i will re flash with lower volts.
I actually think the voltage is locked somehow i have tested it with cine bench and battlefield 3 with GPUZ running and sppefically to tell me teh highest the voltage gets to.it always stays at 0.875 no matter what.
Alos MSI afterburner and TRIX will not allow a voltage tune up. Its greyed out in MSI and it will not hold in TrIX.

 

[LeVarren]

Use the bios switch http://www.overclockersclub.com/siteimages/articles/sapphire_hd7970_6gb_vaporx_ghz/16_thumb.jpg to reset the 7970. then see if it will boot right. you will prob have to reinstall the drivers again
here's a link to Afterburner to test your setting's with http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/msi_afterburner_beta_download.html

Hi Frogger thanks man.
I tried this booted up and same again BSOD with error code came and went so quickly i could not read it.
Safe mode is ok to boot into and last known good config works ....
it seems like its the new driver install that cause the BSOD
but like i saidi have to reinstall drivers as crossfire is not detected my 7990 is not detected properly either .....hmmm i have now tried the standard updated bios from tech power up for my card and still the same issues ...

EDIT: another quick question if i may!
when i am flashing my 7970 which is in the top slot of my mother board. is it safe to assume that when i am using winflash -f -p 0 bla bla bla
that the 0 means its flashing the card in the top slot ? and NOT flashing the card in teh third slot IE my 7990 which is crossfired ?
the reason why i ask is becuase GPUZ started telling me that my 7990 had a Tahiti chip ?? when it has two Malts in it.....i blamed in on the drivers and gpu not reading correctly after flash .....and i really messing stuff up here .....currently trying to flash back to original bios.....luck please !!

P>S is it ok to flash bios in safe mode ? i also still have the crossfire bridge connected ..is that ok too ....im not panicing honestly !

 

[Tomorrow]

7990 is 2xTahiti GPU-s on one PCB. So GPU-Z is showing everything correctly.
yes -f -p 0 means it will flash the first card in top slot.
Its actually reccomended to flash bios in dos mode (during pc bootup) and not in windows. That's why i've personally steered away from atiwinflash and have used atiflash instead.

 

[LeVarren]

7990 is 2xTahiti GPU-s on one PCB. So GPU-Z is showing everything correctly.
yes -f -p 0 means it will flash the first card in top slot.
Its actually reccomended to flash bios in dos mode (during pc bootup) and not in windows. That's why i've personally steered away from atiwinflash and have used atiflash instead.

i have tried both mate win flash and ati flash..both did the same thing.

So the 7970 is teh MAlta chip ?? need to do some research here !

OK phew sorted it ! thank god the 7990 has dual bios switch ! as somehow ati flashed both my cards with the same BIOS ! be careful guys ! im not doing that again lol
for your information TOMORROW the 7990 is 2 x malta chips and the 7970 is the Tahiti i only wanted to flash the tahiti

 

[Tomorrow]

Sorry you're wrong about the GPU codenames. 7990 as a platform is called Malta (they tried with New Zealand first btw) but the GPU-s themselves are 2x7970 Tahiti-s. Slightly downclocked but nevertheless. If you dont believe me believe w1zzard: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/

Ok enough nitpicking. Regardless what we choose to call 7990 im glad u got it running normally again. And indeed flashing dual gpu cards is more tricky.

 

[LeVarren]

Sorry you're wrong about the GPU codenames. 7990 as a platform is called Malta (they tried with New Zealand first btw) but the GPU-s themselves are 2x7970 Tahiti-s. Slightly downclocked but nevertheless. If you dont believe me believe w1zzard: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/

Ok enough nitpicking. Regardless what we choose to call 7990 im glad u got it running normally again. And indeed flashing dual gpu cards is more tricky.

hi Tomorrow yes
apologies on the Maltas thing i have been getting a bit stressed with sorting this out hehe !
gpuz picks up the 7990 as Malta and the 7970 as Tahiti
what i was trying to say was
after the first flash
1 of the Maltas in GPUZ changed to a Tahiti
thats how i knew somehow the flash utility had flashed my 7990 ..its just weird ..


Present time : i can boot into windows ..phew !
HOWEVER im having difficulties installing CCC.
I will try a few more times and then im going to hit it with a restore from image file i created before the flashing etc..i realise this will not undo the flash but im hoping t will restore my drivers etc.

BTW
i cheekily flashed the bios with th e7970 toxic edition which had higher clocks.
However this may well be why i can not reload CCC
im getting aweird message during CCC instal which reads :

Application install: install rejected due to system policy"

What next??!? ! lol

 

[sinnedone]

darkhmz

I wanted to ask what you thought about my voltage locked XFX 7870's and adding support if its possible.

The voltage regulator has what I believe are the following markings (if incorrect there is an actual picture attached)

uP1608PK
PGP245

I am attaching a picture and bios as well. (the 1145mhz folder is the bios for that picture)

Thank you.

 

[HellfireZA]

I've got a R9-280x Windforce 3 OC, and wanting to know if anyone has ACTUALLY tried it on a R9-280x card with success? Thanks

 

[Screemer]

Hi,
found these clock profiles in your BIOS:

#0: Core Clock:  800, Memory Clock: 1250, VDDC: performance state voltage
#1: Core Clock:  300, Memory Clock:  150, VDDC: 850
#2: Core Clock:  400, Memory Clock:  800, VDDC: 950
#3: Core Clock: 1100, Memory Clock: 1350, VDDC: performance state voltage
#4: Core Clock:  300, Memory Clock:  150, VDDC: 800
#5: Core Clock:  500, Memory Clock:  800, VDDC: 800
#6: Core Clock:  300, Memory Clock:  800, VDDC: 800
#7: Core Clock:  400, Memory Clock:  800, VDDC: 800

It's me again. A couple of pages pack i told you about my gfx-card clocking to 500MHz and full-ram-clock as soon as i set higher frequencies than 60Hz. Today i had a idea and set the activated overdrive and set the max clock to 300Mhz-core and 150Mhz-ram and e viola, the card used those clocks. no issues what so ever. Seems to me that the 500Mhz is a driver forced clock and not related to the bios at all. Does anybody know if there are any known facts about the driver setting clocks without overdrive active?

 

[Pill Monster]

Sorry i don't plan to add support for older cards.

o.

Hi great tool. Was wondering if you could possibly add mVDDC adjustment? Cheers

 

[Dalton Sleeper]

Unsupported VRM

I tried to load the bios for the Gigabyte (GV-797OC-3GD with windforce 3x cooler) into the application but the VRM is listed as unknown. This bios is for rev 2.1 which does not allow voltage control. It would be awesome if it was possible to unlock/raise the voltage on these cards as the first revisions were really good overclockers. My cards can be overclocked from 1000 to 1010 but the first revision cards could do 1200-1300.

I would really appreciate if we once and for all could unleash the power of our cards

Best regards,
Dalton Sleeper

 

[Coldblackice]

I'm still fuzzy as to what the "TDP (W)" (PowerTune) value is, and what purpose adjusting it serves...?


Also, I want to get rid of the nefarious downclocking that PowerPlay does, where it's constantly jumping the GPU percentage up and down, and never sticking at the full-speed max clock.

Is "disabling" PowerPlay just a matter of setting static core/memory clocks across the states?


(For reference, I'm running a Sapphire 7950 3GB Reference, 54.5% ASIC, 1140/1375 OC)

 

[charly77]

I flashed my 7950's to 1100/1500 with vddc 1150 and change the overdrive max to 1200/1600.

The first time when I enabled crossfire the fan of my second gpu just stops , disable crossfire it started again..
After that flashed the cards seperately and when done, installed both cards again and the fan stops again when crossfire was enabled....

But I solved it, after enabling crossfire I turned off ulps with afterburner and the fan didn't stopped.

Ok, but got a question. I still use afterburner do change the powerlimit to +20%, otherwise the core will fluctuate and I don't want that.
How to change it so I don't have to use afterburner again at startup?

 

[Pill Monster]

I'm still fuzzy as to what the "TDP (W)" (PowerTune) value is, and what purpose adjusting it serves...?

In relation to GPU's it's the max power VRM's can supply to the board, usually software controlled and preset by the vendor. It's not an exact science either due to the way it's measured.....

CPU TDP has a slightly different connotation.....



Anyway long story short.....move the slider all the way to the right if you don't like throttling, ticking Afterburner's "Constant Voltage" box will also work.

I flashed my 7950's to 1100/1500 with vddc 1150 and change the overdrive max to 1200/1600.


Ok, but got a question. I still use afterburner do change the powerlimit to +20%, otherwise the core will fluctuate and I don't want that.
How to change it so I don't have to use afterburner again at startup?

http://tweakers.net/ext/f/Rh0pbo6ES1qIDCvXJ4ocfGnA/full.jpg

I'm pretty sure AB or CCC need to run for PP settings to stick.
You could try editing the .ACE user profile in Users/Application Data/Local but I'm not sure that trick still works with 7xxx series cards.

Worth a try though.

 

[charly77]

Darkhmz, thanks for all the work so far on this awesome tool. I have a Sapphire 100352-3L Radeon HD 7950 which uses an ON Semiconductor NCP4206 VRM controller. Would it be possible to add support for this chip?
http://www.onsemi.ru.com/pub_link/Collateral/NCP4206-D.PDF

P.S. MTDEW332

Yes you are understanding things correctly.

On a related note, I have noticed that changing the Overdrive TDP limit from 20% to 50% while also increasing the PowerTune TDP wattage midpoint to 200W resulted in GPU throttling when left at 0% power boost just like it does with the stock bios (167W midpoint) @ 0% power boost. Dropping the Overdrive TDP limit back to 20% and leaving the PowerTune TDP wattage at 200W like you did stops all GPU throttling @ 0% power boost. This seems counter intuitive given the info available, but these boost cards are strange animals at times.

I figure there must be some odd effects on the power tune algorithm when you change the Overdrive TDP limit at the bios level. It is more convenient to just modify the PowerTune TDP anyway.

So in my case I should change the tdp from 250 to 300 and after flash I don't have to set msi ab to+20% anymore ?

@phill
But then I also have to set it "everytime" if for example I uninstall ccc/drivers.
I made a profile with +20% powerlimit with every startup, but is somehow bugged sometimes it is ok and sometime it is set to 0%.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Seriously, I am going cuckoo with my GV-R797OC-3GD V2.1

It is kind of voltage locked, at least on one side. I bet one vid input is not soldered/traced to CHiL regulator, but the existing combinations drives me crazy, I can't crack it. Maybe some can give me the full datasheet.

So at default i have 1.07V [multimeter measured, all tools lie].

If I flash the TO bios of the same maker, voltage rises to the my maximum 1.16V, at least that's the biggest I've seen on this card.

The heck why setting same voltages as in TO in this tool I can't get the voltage output in my stock bios. I need the voltage table :/.

OH, so a BUG

I really have ADP4100 under the hood. So there are some detection problems there.

Datasheet

OK where are the 01 FF or 02 FF default voltage located? It's well hidden, ain't it? xD

 

[Dalton Sleeper]

Seriously, I am going cuckoo with my GV-R797OC-3GD V2.1

It is kind of voltage locked, at least on one side. I bet one vid input is not soldered/traced to CHiL regulator, but the existing combinations drives me crazy, I can't crack it. Maybe some can give me the full datasheet.

So at default i have 1.07V [multimeter measured, all tools lie].

If I flash the TO bios of the same maker, voltage rises to the my maximum 1.16V, at least that's the biggest I've seen on this card.

The heck why setting same voltages as in TO in this tool I can't get the voltage output in my stock bios. I need the voltage table :/.

OH, so a BUG

I really have ADP4100 under the hood. So there are some detection problems there.

Datasheet

I have no idea what they have done to these (rev 2+) cards but it seems at least a few people were able to flash to another bios and get the voltage regulation working. I would really like to overclock the shit out of these cards before switching to a pair of 290X (Windforce 3x). Sadly, these cards will once again team up with the good old bottlenecking Q66

 

[Ferrum Master]

I have no idea what they have done to these (rev 2+) cards but it seems at least a few people were able to flash to another bios and get the voltage regulation working. I would really like to overclock the shit out of these cards before switching to a pair of 290X (Windforce 3x). Sadly, these cards will once again team up with the good old bottlenecking Q66

I know why... coz the VRM tend to burn down like wooden church.

I am bored to death in hex editor now comparing the bioses.

 

[Pill Monster]

So in my case I should change the tdp from 250 to 300 and after flash I don't have to set msi ab to+20% anymore ?

@phill
But then I also have to set it "everytime" if for example I uninstall ccc/drivers.
I made a profile with +20% powerlimit with every startup, but is somehow bugged sometimes it is ok and sometime it is set to 0%.

PowerTune only affects 3D clocks so the slider will always be sitting at 0% when Windows boots up.

And yeah, increasing the min and max TDP parameters should stop the card from throttling even if slider is at 0%.