THe6410
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Because there is absolutely NO information on bios modding/fixing for AMD's Firepro's I decided to post my findings about them. (I've made a reddit post but posted it in the wrong group so it maybe removed.)
NOTE: this should also work with similar cards (e.g AMD r9 280)
Also note I'm not responsible for any further damage done to equipment. Although I'll gladly help with any issue you are having for GPU/bios issues (as long as it's not nVidia GPUs)
So recently I bricked my GPU (Firepro s9100) while loading a custom bios on. I Believe it failed due to my faulty editing of undervolting not letting the core get enough voltage and that apparently broke the bios during the flashing process so it was super kaput...
I tried re-flashing my original bios but I was getting "error 0FL01" in amdvbflash, so it wasn't able to read the bios on the card. (side note: there should be a way to flash a bios without reading the one on the card correct? It should be possible if you are just overwriting one you don't need to read it, right? Can anyone verify if you could do this?) anyway, so "amdvbflash.exe -i" showed no GPU found, and "amdvbflash.exe -ai 0" showed that the GPU had no vbois. (dat's d issue btw if you couldn't guess...)
So I began reading on how to fix this. I knew I could just unsolder my current one and order a new bios to put back on, only, there is not a single bios chip I could find for sale that matches mine, and buying a whole GPU just for the bios wasn't something I was about to do with the current prices of GPU's... And naturally, of course there is literally nothing on fixing failed bios modding for firepro's. (actually there isn't any information on these cards in general..) So I looked and found a little information on the r9 280 r9 390x series cards which are basically the same hardware as the firepro and finally pieced some information together + a ton of other unrelated bricked GPU post that gave me the general idea.
So the general idea,
short out the bios chip that changes it to a low voltage which changes the chip to a "write only" mode. So it skips reading the bad bios which would cause it to fail on POST or booting. so log into your OS (If you can. If not you don't have the right pins shorted or something else is wrong with your GPU) (Also I used windows 10 for this.) anyway, start up amdvbflash and display the information about the GPU, If you can see it (even if it says test failed) You should be able to write the original bios back to it. If not see if you can find it in device manager if not reboot and try again. In theory you need to remove the pin before the bios flashes because if not you are basically writing to a read only chip which won't write anything to it.
So the pic below shows a general bios pinout. So in my case (pins 4 & 7) shorts the HOLD# (which is input) some other GPU's have a different bios pin out so I just based my unknown bios off the known r9 280 which had pins 4 & 7 for the short trick. I eventually ran across this link https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/problem-flashing-bios-msi-r9-280.224796/page-2 which double checked me for which pins I needed to short. I also read somewhere that you can break the bios by shorting the wrong pins so that's always a risk. But a cheap one at that because you can just (eventually) find a bios and either solder it yourself or pay someone 10 bucks to do it for you.
So now you know the general idea here are some basic steps to what I did that got mine working.
You will need
!!!WARNING!!! the bios chip in all the pictures is upside down so don't think I'm doing pins 3 and 5 those are NOT the correct pins. Be sure you know how to count the pins the correct way
First, prepare your work area for a professional experience. It makes things easier. Trust me
DON'T SETUP YOUR WORKSPACE LIKE THIS!!!!
Next you will want to remove the heatsink and locate the chip (usually marked with a 'U+some number', e.g, U3, U11, U8, On the Firepro s9100 it's U3.
Remove Heatsink to access BIOS chip
The GPU gets a little hot when being flashed with a bios so you will want a way to cool the GPU core while it's flashing because you can't put the heatsink on because the bios is in the way. The vRam was fine so i don't think you need to cool that.
Once that is complete, find pins 4 & 7 and connect your conductive wire to them. (Make sure you don't short anything else out!) and glue them or secure them temporarily in a way you find suitable to your situation.
pins 4 & 7 (the chip is upside down in the pic BTW)
Once you've done that you should be good to boot it up. If successful run amdvbflash and see if you can flash your original bios back on. You should be good to remove the pin once you've got into windows. DON'T leave the short on the bios while writing the new BIOS to the GPU!!!
It should successfully complete and you can reboot and you have a WORKING GPU!!!
Finished Product! (with modded fans lol! and it still runs at 80c at full usage.)
if that still didn't work, I'd do more trouble shooting see if the bios is the issue and not something else. and also see if you got the right pins shorted for your GPU, Again pins 4 & 7 are not for every GPU. Make sure you are sure that you know what pins you are doing for your GPU. But for the firepro w8100, s9100, s9150, r9 280, r9 270, it should work just fine.
if you find any error in this post just comment and letme know and I'll see if I can clarify or fix something.
That's about all there is to it. Hopefully This can help someone! Again mostly just posting for more information about these cards.
NOTE: this should also work with similar cards (e.g AMD r9 280)
Also note I'm not responsible for any further damage done to equipment. Although I'll gladly help with any issue you are having for GPU/bios issues (as long as it's not nVidia GPUs)
So recently I bricked my GPU (Firepro s9100) while loading a custom bios on. I Believe it failed due to my faulty editing of undervolting not letting the core get enough voltage and that apparently broke the bios during the flashing process so it was super kaput...
I tried re-flashing my original bios but I was getting "error 0FL01" in amdvbflash, so it wasn't able to read the bios on the card. (side note: there should be a way to flash a bios without reading the one on the card correct? It should be possible if you are just overwriting one you don't need to read it, right? Can anyone verify if you could do this?) anyway, so "amdvbflash.exe -i" showed no GPU found, and "amdvbflash.exe -ai 0" showed that the GPU had no vbois. (dat's d issue btw if you couldn't guess...)
So I began reading on how to fix this. I knew I could just unsolder my current one and order a new bios to put back on, only, there is not a single bios chip I could find for sale that matches mine, and buying a whole GPU just for the bios wasn't something I was about to do with the current prices of GPU's... And naturally, of course there is literally nothing on fixing failed bios modding for firepro's. (actually there isn't any information on these cards in general..) So I looked and found a little information on the r9 280 r9 390x series cards which are basically the same hardware as the firepro and finally pieced some information together + a ton of other unrelated bricked GPU post that gave me the general idea.
So the general idea,
short out the bios chip that changes it to a low voltage which changes the chip to a "write only" mode. So it skips reading the bad bios which would cause it to fail on POST or booting. so log into your OS (If you can. If not you don't have the right pins shorted or something else is wrong with your GPU) (Also I used windows 10 for this.) anyway, start up amdvbflash and display the information about the GPU, If you can see it (even if it says test failed) You should be able to write the original bios back to it. If not see if you can find it in device manager if not reboot and try again. In theory you need to remove the pin before the bios flashes because if not you are basically writing to a read only chip which won't write anything to it.
So the pic below shows a general bios pinout. So in my case (pins 4 & 7) shorts the HOLD# (which is input) some other GPU's have a different bios pin out so I just based my unknown bios off the known r9 280 which had pins 4 & 7 for the short trick. I eventually ran across this link https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/problem-flashing-bios-msi-r9-280.224796/page-2 which double checked me for which pins I needed to short. I also read somewhere that you can break the bios by shorting the wrong pins so that's always a risk. But a cheap one at that because you can just (eventually) find a bios and either solder it yourself or pay someone 10 bucks to do it for you.
So now you know the general idea here are some basic steps to what I did that got mine working.
You will need
- amdvbflash (for AMD GPU's We are not bothering with nVidia...)
- a thin conductive pin or solder wiring. (I used a single ethernet wire)
- glue, solder the wire or something to firmly hold the wire on the small bios pins will be helpful unless you want to end up holding the wire like I did the whole time
- screwdriver to remove the heatsink to get at the bios
- Be sure to have all the heatpads/thermal paste to repast GPU
!!!WARNING!!! the bios chip in all the pictures is upside down so don't think I'm doing pins 3 and 5 those are NOT the correct pins. Be sure you know how to count the pins the correct way
First, prepare your work area for a professional experience. It makes things easier. Trust me
DON'T SETUP YOUR WORKSPACE LIKE THIS!!!!
Next you will want to remove the heatsink and locate the chip (usually marked with a 'U+some number', e.g, U3, U11, U8, On the Firepro s9100 it's U3.
Remove Heatsink to access BIOS chip
The GPU gets a little hot when being flashed with a bios so you will want a way to cool the GPU core while it's flashing because you can't put the heatsink on because the bios is in the way. The vRam was fine so i don't think you need to cool that.
Once that is complete, find pins 4 & 7 and connect your conductive wire to them. (Make sure you don't short anything else out!) and glue them or secure them temporarily in a way you find suitable to your situation.
pins 4 & 7 (the chip is upside down in the pic BTW)
Once you've done that you should be good to boot it up. If successful run amdvbflash and see if you can flash your original bios back on. You should be good to remove the pin once you've got into windows. DON'T leave the short on the bios while writing the new BIOS to the GPU!!!
It should successfully complete and you can reboot and you have a WORKING GPU!!!
Finished Product! (with modded fans lol! and it still runs at 80c at full usage.)
if that still didn't work, I'd do more trouble shooting see if the bios is the issue and not something else. and also see if you got the right pins shorted for your GPU, Again pins 4 & 7 are not for every GPU. Make sure you are sure that you know what pins you are doing for your GPU. But for the firepro w8100, s9100, s9150, r9 280, r9 270, it should work just fine.
if you find any error in this post just comment and letme know and I'll see if I can clarify or fix something.
That's about all there is to it. Hopefully This can help someone! Again mostly just posting for more information about these cards.
