Radeon HD7670 driver problem (No help on AMD forums)

[Nikaido]

So, I was given a Radeon HD7670 by my cousins so I could put it in an old HP Pavilion Elite m9340f (the last computer I bought before doing DIY builds). Well, for some reason no version of the install suite (13.9, 13.12, 14.4) wants to install the driver nor Catalyst Control. It just gives me a fail report, although the HDMI Audio driver installs fine.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the latest .NET framework, using Driver Fusion to uninstall all traces of AMD drivers on my system, turned off all my protective software (anti-virus, etc) during the install, and made sure it was compatible with the Asus IPIBL-LB motherboard. Thinking it may be a problem with my OS (Win 7 Pro) I tried to install the Linux driver (14.4) on my Mint 16 partition. While running the install file I get a message saying that the card is an "Unsupported Device". And yes I made sure to uninstall xserver and the other AMD drivers that come with Mint before installing.

It's very strange because Win 7's "Auto Detect & Install" is able to install an older version of the driver (8.960.11.2000) without any problems.

 

[Law-II]

Hi

Welcome to TPU

AMD Desktop Product Family Compatibility
Not seeing the HD7670 in the Catalyst Driver Release Notes; source - here
Edit: Looking at the inf file for the 14.4 seems to be included
Example:

Note: Report this to the AMD Driver Team - here

Test vga card in another system
Test vga card in another PCIe slot
Remove vga card; check PCIe slot and clean with can of air duster, clean blades of the vga card; use a coffee filter and isopropyl alcohol and reseat the vga card

atb

Law-II

 

[Shambles1980]

ati catalysts dont like to install if you had it on their previously.
try a full uninstall of the drivers. restart go check that windows did not install default drivers for it (if it did tell it to uninstall and delete those)
run driver sweeper (or whatever it is called now) and remove all traces of ati stuff.
restart again
Extract the ati drivers and eveything from the file you downloaded (use right click and extract to or open with)
find the setup file you just extracted. right click that and run as administrator.

if your lucky that will do it for you.
the ammount of issues i have had with installing ati drivers is rediculous to be honest. when they work they work, but there is a lot of issues starting to come with these cards making me think about going back to nvidia. not quite enough yet though.


-=edit=-

just had a quick check. and the 7670 is oem isnt it?
oem cards usually arent supported by official ati releases. you will need the mfr released driver (dell or similar probably HP though)
You can edit the bios to change the vendor id and stuff like that if you are desperate..
but there is no guarantee that the oem card will have the functionality of the similar spec card (would be a HD 6670 btw)

-=edit 2=-
i did a bit more sleuthing and i found drivers that i THINK will work for that card..

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp56501-57000/sp56685.exe
136.93MB

the problem?
they are ancient!
the card however should be a re branded radeon 6670. so you may think about changing the bios data for it to match that and it could allow you to use ati drivers then.
but be warned you could brick the card and have a hard time undoing the changes.

another option would be to edit the driver files so that your card gets drivers installed thinking its a 6670 im not to familiar with doing that but assume its quite possible.

your card seems to have 1gb gddr5 ram. most 6670's had 1gb gddr3. a few had gddr5 and very few had 2gb..
so you could possibly use a 1gb gddr5 6670's bios and that coud work but as it could brick it then it would also probably be a bad idea. so try to edit the drivers so they see your cards hardware id as a 6670 would be best.

 

[Nikaido]

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Yea, I had that thought since it's an OEM card. More precisely it's a HP HD7670 Firebird3 PCIex16 HF 1G GDDR5 695592-001. For some reason this card's driver is not available on the HP website. Though the lower grade (yet 6 months younger) Radeon 7450DP is on it. Guess it's just too damn old. The driver you found is for the HD7950 model. I looked through that entire list of drivers and the closest I could find are two; one for the HD-7770 model, and a bunch for the HD-7670M (laptop) model. Would either of them even work?

I guess I may have to change the bios and see if that works. Though with the warning you gave I may want to stick with the one supplied by Win. 7's Autodetect.

 

[Law-II]

Hi

Maybe worth checking out FLEM - here if have good understanding of drivers

Note: If know the Make & Model of the PC the vga card came out of, all system drivers should show up; including oem driver

+1 Shambles1980

sp56685.exe includes the 7670
Example:


First: Make a backups of the original vbios image; use GPU-Z [Keep a copy in a safe place]
Example:

Select: Bios Chip Icon
Select: Save to file [VbiosName].rom

Note: changing the device ID in the vbios image *may brick the vga card
[PCB layout and components need to match for this to have any chance of success]

atb

Law-II

 

[Tatty_Two]

Whilst I would not normally recommend a Bios flash it may be your only potential solution here as it seems that you have tried most things to remedy the situation, if you can find a Bios from our selection tha exactly matches your card and matches in reference/non reference desgn you may be able to do a force flash that could then be recognised by the installer.

 

[Nikaido]

Tried sp56685.exe and it said that my system didn't meet minimum requirements. The great thing about PC's is that they were meant to have interchangeable parts (if the specs are right), but no the "powers that be" at HP put restrictions on everything so they only work on what they want them to. [Expletive Deleted]

OK now that I've vented, I found that the driver version sp56685.exe supplies is the same exact one that Win 7's Auto-Detect installs, which does OK I guess (41°C idling). So unless I want to risk bricking the card by revising the bios, which I may try later, I guess I'll just have to live without Catalyst Control.

Now I do have an old MSI HD5670 (R5670-PMD1G) that is compatible with this system. Should I just go with that since I can get their full updated driver off their website or just leave the 7670 where it is? I'm kinda torn because of the comparisons between them both. http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7670-vs-Radeon-HD-5670

 

[Law-II]

Hi

"I guess I'll just have to live without Catalyst Control"

Could give RadeonPro a look here [replaces CCC with a little more control over apps & games]

Note: HD7670 looks to be the winner on paper

atb

Law-II

 

[TheMailMan78]

Welcome to TPU Nikaido. The Law is the man to ask in this kind of situation so you couldn't be in better hands.....unless its me. I would just tell you to buy something you don't need.

Hope you get it sorted out. You'll learn fast there is far more knowledge on this forum than most tech forums.....including MFG forums.

Just be careful who you listen to. But that's the case anywhere and remember there is no stupid question. Just stupid answers.

 

[Shambles1980]

a 7570 is about the same (bit less performance than a 5770 so the 7670 is definatly better than a 5670
like i said the 7670 is really a 6670 re branded.
i would consider flashing it with a 6670 bios
back up your bios on the card 1st.
make a bootable usb pen drive and stick the new bios on it with the flash utility.
then flash it with the closest bios from the 6670 database and hope for the best. if you brick the card you can always try to flash it with the old bios again.
if you have multiple pci-e slots you can use your 5670 to boot up and see what your doing whilst you reflash the 7670
just make sure you know which card is which.. or even use onboard graphics or a simple pci card if you have that. (remember to change the bios to boot from pci 1st instead of peg if your using on board or a pci card.

there are lots of tutorials for flashingso use one of those, but i will add if you brick the card then
i would use ATIFlash and use the command
atiflash –i
this should give you the adapter numbers
then i would use the adapter number to fill in this command
atiflash –f -p adapter number bios.rom
remember to replace "adapter number" with the correct one

you can use the same command to flash the card the 1st time, and to re flash it if it goes wrong

if you take the time to get the adapter number before you 1st flash the card, you can even make an autoexec.bat file that will automatically run the command for you when the system boots.
(remember that you would need to set your pc to boot from a usb device. this used to be done y setting 1st boot device to usb. but most bioses now see a usb drive as a hard disk. so you would just change the hard disk boot order instead.