VRAM causing crashes/artifacting problems when it's underclocked?

[Mnky313]

So I've been having problems with my M6700, it's randomly turning all the screens a solid colour and freezing. from my googling it appears to be VRAM related and because the GPU in it (MXM RX 480) is definitely unofficial and has to have a modded vBIOS to run I'm not surprised it's that.

I downloaded GPUMemTest to see if that had any issues and sure enough when I run it there is a ton of artifacting all over the screens. I had already slowly lowered the GPU mem clock from 1250 MHz to 625MHz (as low as it lets me set it) hoping that that would help. However, this is where it gets interesting...

On a whim I decided to set the mem clock back to 1500Mhz (the clock the vBIOS sent with the card has) and sure enough all the artifacting immediately stops and I haven't had any solid colour crashes yet (though sometimes It happens every few minutes and sometimes it doesn't happen for a day or 2 so I'm not completely sure that solved it.

Anyone ever had problems from setting the memory clock too low? I'm just confused as to how that could possibly cause issues.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Mnky313
video didn't work

[TehDwonz]

9 minutes ago, Mnky313 said:

Anyone ever had problems from setting the memory clock too low? I'm just confused as to how that could possibly cause issues.

There will be a voltage/frequency table in the card firmware. It's possible that under-clocking it outside of the expected values is leading to an incorrect VRAM voltage. Who modded the vBIOS? It's unusual to have to mod the GPU in this situation - usually you need to mod the laptop BIOS to allow unofficial GPU cards.

[Mnky313]

2 minutes ago, TehDwonz said:

There will be a voltage/frequency table in the card firmware. It's possible that under-clocking it outside of the expected values is leading to an incorrect VRAM voltage. Who modded the vBIOS? It's unusual to have to mod the GPU in this situation - usually you need to mod the laptop BIOS to allow unofficial GPU cards.

AFAIK these were pulled from the asrock deskminis or something similar, I don't think these were intended for laptops and definitely not my precision.
If I run the vBIOS that was sent to me on the card nothing shows up on the internal or external displays (and I had to reflash it with the modded one I found without any display, that was fun XD)
I have no idea the origin of the vBIOS  I have on the card, probably either a Chinese forum or Notebookreview, I included the vBIOSes in question in the attachments and an image of them in polaris BIOS editor.
All of them show VRAM voltage as 1000mV with clocks ranging from 1250-2000Mhz.
(I also uploaded all the other vBIOS I have though the only one working on the card in the laptop is 700.rom...)
 

700.rom Pulled from card.rom RX-480 from some forum.rom RX-480 MXM 4GB.rom Seller Sent Deskmini RX480 MXM.rom Sent from seller.rom

[TehDwonz]

9 minutes ago, Mnky313 said:

Anyone ever had problems from setting the memory clock too low? I'm just confused as to how that could possibly cause issues.

There will be a voltage/frequency table in the card firmware. It's possible that under-clocking it outside of the expected values is leading to an incorrect VRAM voltage. Who modded the vBIOS? It's unusual to have to mod the GPU in this situation - usually you need to mod the laptop BIOS to allow unofficial GPU cards.

[Mnky313]

1 hour ago, TehDwonz said:

There will be a voltage/frequency table in the card firmware. It's possible that under-clocking it outside of the expected values is leading to an incorrect VRAM voltage. Who modded the vBIOS? It's unusual to have to mod the GPU in this situation - usually you need to mod the laptop BIOS to allow unofficial GPU cards.

yeah, maybe. Idk why you responded with this twice.

The laptop BIOS allows other GPUs already, so idk what is wrong with the vBIOS that shipped with the card....

[Mnky313]

Random solid colour freezes are still happening but not as much it seems, I just had it happen after ~15 hours and decided to set the mem clock to 1625 (highest it lets me), if it still crashes i'll probably modify the vBIOS to let me set it to 1750 or 2000 MHz and see if that changes anything...

[TehDwonz]

9 hours ago, Mnky313 said:

yeah, maybe. Idk why you responded with this twice.

The laptop BIOS allows other GPUs already, so idk what is wrong with the vBIOS that shipped with the card....

The forum keeps going unresponsive for me at certain times of day. No idea why, but it causes double-posting. I didn't submit it twice.

 

Are you sure there is no whitelist in the BIOS of the laptop? Many do, and one way around it is to alter the vBIOS vendor/device IDs. However, a better method is to add the IDs to the BIOS whitelist of the laptop, rather than alter the vBIOS. You can sometimes remove the whitelist feature altogether, but it's not as simple.

[Mnky313]

11 hours ago, TehDwonz said:

The forum keeps going unresponsive for me at certain times of day. No idea why, but it causes double-posting. I didn't submit it twice.

 

Are you sure there is no whitelist in the BIOS of the laptop? Many do, and one way around it is to alter the vBIOS vendor/device IDs. However, a better method is to add the IDs to the BIOS whitelist of the laptop, rather than alter the vBIOS. You can sometimes remove the whitelist feature altogether, but it's not as simple.

I thought there wasn't however I checked GPU-Z on the working vBIOS and it reports subvendor as Dell so maybe. Is there anyway to check/modify the subvendor ID of vBIOS.

I have a file with a ton of UEFI firmware Variables for the M6700. I can look for anything in there, short of that idk if I can modify the laptop BIOS.
 

[Mnky313]

Well, this is currently the end of this thread and my poor m6700...

 

not because the laptop is dead, its not (I hope).

However after flashing a modded vBIOS on the RX 480 (the working one with the subvendor changed) it no longer posts with the card in the laptop. (not what I was talking about where there is no display, completely no post...  

 

Making it worse, the card isn't detected in the alienware (m17x R2 I believe) I tried it in so I have no way to reflash the vBIOS...

And just to top it off, the K3000M that was originally in this laptop is dead as well....
Here's a picture of the K3000M

[Flopinou]

Hi ! I just created in account in order to answer to you (I hope it isn't too late).

I could reflash a AMD 480 mxm card that was "dead" -> Like even booting in DOS using ATIflash could make it detected... (and the fans were spinning crazy).
I used a Linux (Ubuntu 20.04), I changed the boot option with "nomodeset" instead of "quiet splash" (Lot of information on the web on how to do it), and with https://github.com/patrickschur/amdvbflash I could flash a "working" bios. I put "" because right now I can only run OpenGL apps (I use Linux mostly).

I think that even with a live USB you could do that, or at least it worth the try

 

And also you can try to flash directly the bios chip with an eeprom reader like the CH341A, I've saved a lot of motherboard with this little and cheap machine !

 

Anyway i'll try to flash your bioses in my card, and I'll see what happen !

 

Cheers and sorry for any English misspelling, weird language etc : English isn't my native language.

[Mnky313]

4 hours ago, Flopinou said:

Hi ! I just created in account in order to answer to you (I hope it isn't too late).

I could reflash a AMD 480 mxm card that was "dead" -> Like even booting in DOS using ATIflash could make it detected... (and the fans were spinning crazy).
I used a Linux (Ubuntu 20.04), I changed the boot option with "nomodeset" instead of "quiet splash" (Lot of information on the web on how to do it), and with https://github.com/patrickschur/amdvbflash I could flash a "working" bios. I put "" because right now I can only run OpenGL apps (I use Linux mostly).

I think that even with a live USB you could do that, or at least it worth the try

 

And also you can try to flash directly the bios chip with an eeprom reader like the CH341A, I've saved a lot of motherboard with this little and cheap machine !

 

Anyway i'll try to flash your bioses in my card, and I'll see what happen !

 

Cheers and sorry for any English misspelling, weird language etc : English isn't my native language.

Yeah, I've also seen it's probably possible to reflash the vBIOS using a USB programmer as for using a live USB for reflashing it I don't think that's possible. I've reflashed the card without being able to see the screen by just using sound and cmd and a lot of luck XD but after I flashed the vBIOS the laptop won't even post with the card in it, idk what was so bad about that vBIOS.
I might get a USB programmer if I feel like reviving the laptop but for now I turned the display into a portable monitor and I need a new chassis/frame because the CPU heatsink mounting holes are completely destroyed so for now i'm just shelving it.

Thanks for the help and ideas though!

[Flopinou]

My pleasure