VBE7 - vBIOS Editor for Radeon HD 7000 series cards

[Vario]

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.

Whats the rough power limit % to TDP ratio? Is it just 1:1 and therefore did you raise your TDP by 20% ?

 

[darkhmz]

Whats the rough power limit % to TDP ratio? Is it just 1:1 and therefore did you raise your TDP by 20% ?

Yes, i've set TDP to stock*1.2. Take a look at the attached comparison picture, stock is 209 (upper power limit is 251 (+20%)), and the modified is 251.

 

[Vario]

Yes, i've set TDP to stock*1.2. Take a look at the attached comparison picture, stock is 209 (upper power limit is 251 (+20%)), and the modified is 251.

Thats awesome

 

[Octopuss]

So was all the talk about impossibility of changing the overdrive settings during all the years false or what? Seeing how your editor apparently works...

 

[Black Flag]

Thanks a lot! Tested with 7970 DC2T bios 015.023.000.002.000000 version and works like a charm. I've change the stock voltage to 1286 mV, the TDP to 240 W (288 has the Lightning Black Edition) and the stock clocks to 1100 - 1650 MHz. I've manage to reach 1200 - 1700 MHz with no issues. No need the Matrix Platinum bios anymore.

 

[The Mac]

So was all the talk about impossibility of changing the overdrive settings during all the years false or what? Seeing how your editor apparently works...

That was mostly in relation to the 6xxx series, there have only been a few attempts at 7xxx.

This being the most advanced so far.

 

[Octopuss]

But the way it works hasn't changed since 6000 series, has it? I don't quite understand how it works, but thus far I believed this type of protection was unbreakable. It surprised me even more after I read the author didn't add any "bypass" functionality or something.

 

[The Mac]

I cant answer that, perhaps it has.

Many people tried to modify the 6xxx series without any luck, not just bagzzlash and RBE.

 

[thesmokingman]

So was all the talk about impossibility of changing the overdrive settings during all the years false or what? Seeing how your editor apparently works...

You could not edit clocks with Cayman because that part of the bios was signed though voltage was not signed so that's what we used RBE for.

In this instance, it looks like the bios is still signed but they've worked around that by not changing the signature of the bios so that it will pass the checks.

 

[darkhmz]

Fixed some bugs, new version available.
Black Flag, thanks for your feedback!

 

[Black Flag]

Is there any possibility to add a function for setting the highest of voltage that the overclocking utilities will use? To unlock the voltage with few words.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

good tool...

one request if possible.

could you include also change log? im sure in few weeks this thread will simply go long and i dont want to go through every post to read comments...

 

[Alienate.Me]

Hello everyone.

first of all, thanks for the editor - waiting since about 18 month for that
im new to this forum and have some trouble with the states after i flashed the bios of my 7970.
its a reference card from day 1.

i just edited the "State 1 - Performance" topdown @ #0 to:

Core Clock 1225Mhz
Mem. Clock 1400Mhz
VDDC 1231mV.

settings have been proofen as stable since hundreds of hours of gaming via afterburner.

my problem is, that i have 2 screens running and the voltage remains @ 1,231V in idle-mode.
deactivating one screen brings it down 0,9xxV - activating again and 1,231V are running.

anyone else got this problem with 2 or more screens?

here are my files:
7970 bios

 

[Veky]

Thank you very much for this editor

I have one question,i edited my bios(032 bios,VTX3D 7870 BE).
Changed max. clock,voltage and Power limit,first tried to flash without "-f" to see whether it will succeed,it says "invalid pc bios image".

When i open modified bios with VBE7 Editor everything is ok and my modified values are there.
Is it safe to flash that bios than?

 

[Black Flag]

Veky let's say that your modded bios has the following name : "7970.bin".

You'll type the following command (I use dos bootable usb stick) : atiflash -p -f 0 (if you have two cards or more, you must type atiflash -i to see information about your cards and numbering of adapters) 7970.bin

atiflash -p -f 0 7970.bin

 

[darkhmz]

Black Flag:
Tested my card with trixx and afterburner, both let me adjust the voltage between 800 mV and 1300 mV but can't find relevant info (1300mV) in the BIOS. ADL (AMD Display Library) reports 800 mV and 1131 mV which is right, according to the values in my modded BIOS. So either the values are hardcoded in oc utilities, or calculated like max reported voltage+x% or... I don't know.

night.fox:
No problem, i will include change log for the next releases.

Alienate.Me:
Could you check your multi-monitor clocks/voltage with original/modded BIOS and post results here?

Veky:
You have to force flashing because this tool does not recalculate the BIOS checksum. Probably thats why you get that error message without the -f parameter. Could you post your original / modded BIOS files?

 

[Veky]

I know that i must use -f but i tried to see what will happen without -f and what error will i get.
I that error "invalid pc bios image" is what everyone gets when trying to flash without -f i will flash bios with -f command.
Here are the bios,032 is original bios and 032p i modified. http://www.sendspace.com/file/2j0gvk
Thank you for helping

 

[darkhmz]

I know that i must use -f but i tried to see what will happen without -f and what error will i get.
I that error "invalid pc bios image" is what everyone gets when trying to flash without -f i will flash bios with -f command.
Here are the bios,032 is original bios and 032p i modified. http://www.sendspace.com/file/2j0gvk
Thank you for helping

Checked your modded BIOS, it looks ok to me... If your GPU is stable with 1081 mV then i'd say this modded BIOS must work. After you tried it, please let me know it it works, thanks.

 

[Veky]

Its working
Thank you VERY much

 

[Tomorrow]

Firstly thank you for the wonderful program darkhmz.
I have a few suggestions too:

1. Add version number to the program. Either to the program name or to the executable details itself (so if one hovers over the executable they see version info in standard windows tooltip). This is to prevent confusion when you update the program and user already has an older version downloaded.

2. Would be nice if we could also save uefi bios so we dont loose win8 fast boot feature due to the regular bios. Not a big problem but if you can do something about it in the future it would be great.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

Firstly thank you for the wonderful program darkhmz.
I have a few suggestions too:

2. Would be nice if we could also save uefi bios so we dont loose win8 fast boot feature due to the regular bios. Not a big problem but if you can do something about it in the future it would be great.

yes this would be great.... I ask sapphire or somebody ask sapphire but damn they simply dont care about UEFI

by the way, this tool was so easy to use... and very easy to understand...

I tried to but after benching, I realized that if the card dies when the bios is modded, bye bye warranty ( its only 2 weeks card so I'm doing some torture

but had to return to default bios again cause like I said if it bricks and bios is not original.. well you know what will happen..

But then again. Thanks man great work...

hope you can find a way to punch in UEFI bios

 

[Tomorrow]

Few more:

I noticed the program is 32bit. Can we get a native 64bit version? (not sure what difference it would make but it would be nice).

In the future could we change Device ID latter part? (unsafe i know). Im just annoyed my Powercolor Myst is always shown as "Radeon 7800 Series" when in truth it's essentially 7900 series. As far as i know the driver reads Device ID from vbios and then sets the name so i cant change it to like "Radeon HD 7930" but this would allow TLE owners to set it to "Radeon 7900 Series" (DID for that is 679A instead of 679E on TLE). The first part (1002) should always stay the same because obviously we're only dealing with ATI/AMD cards.

Also bit annoyed subvendor is ATI AIB instead of PowerColor/TUL Corporation but seems all their cards use ATI AIB designation.

 

[darkhmz]

Thank you all for your feedback.

Veky:
Glad it works. Enjoy your new Tahiti LE GHz Edition without BOOST.

Tomorrow:
1. I'll add version number to the next releases.
2. The problem with UEFI images is that they're compressed, thats why i cant modify them. So you have to choose between your modded BIOS and fast boot feature. Btw some BIOSes are able to switch between the legacy/UEFI vga BIOS (was tested with an ASUS mobo, and it worked with modded vga BIOS)
3. I didnt plan to make a 64bit version, this tool would not benefit from using 64bit instructions. (...and 32bit OS users would not be able to use it)
4. I might add that feature later.

 

[Tomorrow]

Ok flashed to 1000/1500 without boost and changed UVD to 500/750 instead of 501/1500.
Created custom fan profiles too. Flashed and so far so good.
Did same game and HD video testing. During HD video UVD correctly set clocks to 500/750 and fell back to 300/150 once the load stopped.

Game testing revealed a slight anomaly (might be my own fault/misunderstanding) where VDDC was lower than what i had intended/set in the modded bios. I set it to 1.056 (good enough for 1Ghz on my gpu even after 6 hour gaming sessions with 100% stability), but GPU-Z reported max being 1.047. So for some reason 0.009 lower than i had set. Perhaps its because i set TDP from 209 to 251?

Also i was a little worried when after the flash atiflash didnt correctly report new device id-s and so on but GPU-Z shows everything to be ok. Will keep the usb flash option on standby incase in a need for a reflash.

http://i.imgur.com/yoJFOco.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5zYW64h.jpg

 

[Pixrazor]

these are my bioses from hd 7950
Maybe it can help you in developing this awesome tool
(vrm not supported) thanks again