AMD Radeon Pro v540 Research Thread

[PixelButts]

Despite no forthcoming opinions, I went on flashing adventure anyway. It turns out that card can be made to work in Windows, however daily use is out of question (at present). Have CH341A with add-on clip on hand.
View attachment 305365View attachment 305366
How to get there:
- Have some way to flash a vbios from software. I used my working Linux setup, but booting from USB with some most recent kernels (6.2 tested) should also initialize GPU properly. DOS/UEFI I have not tested and none of the available Windows amdvbflash allowed me to program vbios. AMDVBFlash 4.71 confirmed as working.
- Flash this vbios

amd radeon v520 pro VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 1150 MHz GPU, 334 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

to device 1 (second GPU, away from the bracket, reason will be made clear later).

sudo ./amdvbflash -p 1 258445.rom -f

- Reboot straight into Windows, DO NOT power cycle or hard reset.
- Manually install drivers posted on LTT to the flashed Video Controller. Check properties - select one with higher bus ID.

Radeon Pro V520 Win10x64.zip

drive.google.com

- I was connected through RDP, so V520 was automatically used for rendering. If you are using secondary GPU, find a way to select primary rendering device.
- One GPU should be ready to play around.
- Now the best part. Once you get bored, shutdown the machine. Oh wait, "I have to check something else" - too bad, computer will no longer POST with this card connected. Switch off/on AC power - first POST will always fail, second after hard reset will pass, but flashed GPU will no longer be detected in OS. (That was my experience, YMMV)
- Now it is time to restore vbios with CH341A, luckily SPI chip of the second GPU we were flashing is on the backside of the card.
- Good luck, if You dare.

My quest for the weekend - flash both ROMs and see what happens.

I wanna just say I appreciate your dedication to this. You're definitely more equipped than most of us are to do this so thank you for detailing everything you do with it.

 

[mczkrt]

I have many more thoughts and observations, but I don't want to turn this thread into a personal blog. I would like to encourage other members to share their opinions, maybe our collective brain power will allow us to find path to better compatibility.

Just for fun, I erased both backside ROMs. First GPU works as before, second shows in OS, but complains about missing vbios. Amdvbflash sees both GPUs, with no vbios in adapter 1, and allows to flash it without problem. This disproves my earlier theory that vbios is somehow swapped during driver initialization.

 

[Aspect]

Currently ripping the card apart and messuring some stuff to see if i can get a WB made/Designed

 

[mczkrt]

Does heatsink really have graphite pads? If so, were they damaged when you removed it?

 

[Aspect]

Does heatsink really have graphite pads? If so, were they damaged when you removed it?

graphite pads yeah, and no not damaged, left a bit of residue tho

 

[laceflower]

Currently ripping the card apart and messuring some stuff to see if i can get a WB made/Designed

Please share your measurements! Would love to also but been living vicariously through the thread. Just don't have $300 to drop on this with the state of things

 

[Beatyoubeach]

Please share your measurements! Would love to also but been living vicariously through the thread. Just don't have $300 to drop on this with the state of things

This is really needed

 

[mczkrt]

Here is a short summary of my vbios research. All tests were done on GPU2, with roms of GPU1 erased.

AMD 5600M VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 300 MHz GPU, 316 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

Cold boot/reset ok
Works with Bootcamp drivers
GPU clock maxed at 300MHz

amd radeon v520 pro VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 1150 MHz GPU, 334 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

No POST on cold boot, no device present on reset

AMD 7000 VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 1150 MHz GPU, 334 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

No POST on cold boot, no device present on reset
This one is interesting, as it has similar build info to half-dump I managed to get from AWS. Just to check I merged them together and to my surprise system booted every time. Drivers did complain about invalid signature, but if we could get our hands on complete file with version 017.003.000.007.014041 (D3050100-101), this might actually work.

I also tried 258445 on both GPUs - no POST or no GPUs detected.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I just found this thread and find it an interesting project. Have you compared these to the Radeon Pro W6800X MPX found in the 2019 Max Pros? Perhaps they share some similarities? I saw boot camp drivers referenced earlier, but wasn’t sure if these were tried.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp

 

[laceflower]

AMD 5600M VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 300 MHz GPU, 316 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

Cold boot/reset ok
Works with Bootcamp drivers
GPU clock maxed at 300MHz

Would it be feasible to use this vBIOS as a base for modding up with RBE?
Override the PPT, SoC, boost, and memory clock, copy timings from a bc-160 bios? (HBM2 really doesn't differ much in memory timings vendor to vendor iirc)

Edit: Given the board complexity, PCI switch, and Navi 1's SoC clock shenanigans, I REALLY want to know where this falls. It could be normal, could be abnormally low, or it could be 5700 MPX levels of high.

 

[mczkrt]

RBE only supports Navi10, I could not open any of these vbioses.

Creating SPPT also made no difference, card was obviously in fail-safe mode, ~300MHz max clock is fairly typical for AMD from what I could find.

 

[laceflower]

RBE only supports Navi10, I could not open any of these vbioses.

Beta 1.3.8 supposedly has 5600M support

Not sure what do about this fail-safe mode, though

Edit: Tried messing around with bioses - RBE only supports the 5600M 6Gb (with GDDR6). It doesn't appear that there's any version of RBE that loads HBM-equipped GPUs. I have made a v520-like SPPT from it, but it's pretty useless without straps and being able to write HBM timings.

 

[mczkrt]

Does anyone know how vbios switches operate in general? Do they work on Chip Select pin? Simply switch Vcc between ROM chips? Or maybe some other method? Since there are two chips per GPU and no jumpers/switches apart from HDT connectors, there probably should be a way to select active one. I want to try and trace them, but it would help knowing what to look for.

I would like to be able to work on both ROMs without taking card apart every time it bricks.

 

[laceflower]

Currently ripping the card apart and messuring some stuff to see if i can get a WB made/Designed

The VRM is so overbuilt we can get away with just a shim and some airflow imo. HBM is on die too so we dont need to worry about cooling the vram.

How much cooling does the PCI switch need? If it's doable with just a little heatsink we might be able to get away with a couple generic waterblocks - each die already has a small backplate.

I have a spare EK velocity cpu block and adjustable M3 screws so if I can get my hands on the card I could give that a shot, too.

Does anyone know how vbios switches operate in general? Do they work on Chip Select pin? Simply switch Vcc between ROM chips? Or maybe some other method?

It looks like the same 8 pin eeprom chip used in the 5500XT, Radeon Pro Duo, and Radeon VII, but there's no distinguishing markings. Looking around for any documentation.

Edit: I think I found something! I believe the rom chips are from the Winbond 25Q40 series.
If im right, pin 1 is chip select and needs to pull high to be deselected. Pin 3 should also be checked for write protection (pulled high = disabled) as write protection can be configured to only cover some of the rom.
Pin 7 is also a hold pin that allows a chip to remain selected but pause operation by pulling low. I suspect these are being used for fallback, and they're worth checking too i think.

 

[Beatyoubeach]

if someone can i think the 5600m bios can be edited with a hex editor i opend it and you can read the hex, edit it so you can get rid of that supid tdp limit.

 

[VuurVOS]

Here is a short summary of my vbios research. All tests were done on GPU2, with roms of GPU1 erased.

AMD 5600M VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 300 MHz GPU, 316 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

Cold boot/reset ok
Works with Bootcamp drivers
GPU clock maxed at 300MHz

amd radeon v520 pro VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 1150 MHz GPU, 334 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

No POST on cold boot, no device present on reset

AMD 7000 VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 1150 MHz GPU, 334 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

No POST on cold boot, no device present on reset
This one is interesting, as it has similar build info to half-dump I managed to get from AWS. Just to check I merged them together and to my surprise system booted every time. Drivers did complain about invalid signature, but if we could get our hands on complete file with version 017.003.000.007.014041 (D3050100-101), this might actually work.

I also tried 258445 on both GPUs - no POST or no GPUs detected.

Did you also try this bios? It has a newer build date.

AMD Radeon Pro VBIOS

8 GB HBM2, 300 MHz GPU, 316 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

 

[mczkrt]

This vbios is build for NAVI12 ULA, same as Pro 5600M. I might give it a try, but I don't have high expectations.

Honestly I don't think it is worthwhile trying to make Apple vbios work. Even if we could get past fail-safe behavior, performance would be disappointing, and editing SPPT back to intended values will most likely trigger lockdown back. Bootcamp Adrenaline drivers had no settings in Performance/Tuning.

 

[Beatyoubeach]

This vbios is build for NAVI12 ULA, same as Pro 5600M. I might give it a try, but I don't have high expectations.

Honestly I don't think it is worthwhile trying to make Apple vbios work. Even if we could get past fail-safe behavior, performance would be disappointing, and editing SPPT back to intended values will most likely trigger lockdown back. Bootcamp Adrenaline drivers had no settings in Performance/Tuning.

i get what you mean i think its 100 doable just way to much time and effort 100hrs or more to do that

 

[LabRat 891]

New driver pkg from amernimezone

Radeon-ID - Browse Files at SourceForge.net

Official Mirror of AMD Domestic Community Driver Indonesia

sourceforge.net

0 indication of any work done on v520/v540/BC-16/Pro 5600M but, figured it was tangential.

 

[Beatyoubeach]

• Radeon Pro V540 is under the navi combatiabilty section on there web site https://www.amernimezone.com/#compat under navi

edit i tryed instaling them on win 11 home did not work

 

[laceflower]

edit i tryed instaling them on win 11 home did not work

For the record, which vbios and what went wrong? It might be worth asking for a hand in their discord too

 

[Beatyoubeach]

For the record, which vbios and what went wrong? It might be worth asking for a hand in their discord too

i dont nkow ive only used windows 11 home it never shows up as enything other than unidenified pcie device i cant even pull a bios dump

 

[levelud]

Thats the reply if got from their forum, sadly i didn't get it to run perhaps one of you.

 

[mczkrt]

I only tried with original vbios, and could not get them to work.

 

[JDcryptBB]

I only tried with original vbios, and could not get them to work.

Hey, I just picked one of these cards up and have been working to figure out what makes it tick in terms of gaining controls on the clocks, I wanted to ask if this ever went on, what you learned, ended up doing with this? It works on HiveOS miner, but no clocks unless you go in through SSH/shell and do it through sysf (changing dpm states) which can adjust clock but not very much/or very well. Any response from you would be great, me and a couple others with the card are pretty intrigued by these cards and want to see what we can push through them. Thank you!