(WIP) How to mod a gpu vbios (HD2000-6000+GCN4.0 only for now)

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Ive not seen a guide on how to do this yet, so here we go: (also if you do mod your bios send you mod and your stock to me so I can add it to this database!) Pm me to add a part to this guide

What is a gpu vbios?

The vbios is a bit of code (usually in the 200kb area of size) that is put in the gpu vram from a little chip. It tells it some things like "run at this speed" or "send this pulse to that pwm to stop it from overheating", or any other of the basic functions of the gpu

Why would you want to mod the vbios of your gpu?
This one is entirely subjective, but a lot of the reasons are on bies people share:

1. You want your overclock to stay after you turn off your pc, without having to deal with any software, like msiab or amd wattman
2. you can go up to your overclocking limits, but they are limiting your performance.
3. you want to upgrade your graphics card for free (such as turning a 5700 into a 5700xt, or a rx480 into a rx580, or a rx480 4gb into a 8gb)

Is it safe?

in some cases,yes, in others, no.

If you have a gpu with a dual bios, if you brick one bios, then you can flip the switch to the other bios, then boot, flip back, and flash the original bios to the bricked one.

If you have a integrated gpu, atiflash, you should be able to boot with the hdmi cable in the igpu, and using it as the primary video device in the motherboard bios, boot, and use atiflash to flash the original bios to the gpu.

If you do not have a igpu, 2 slots for pcie gpus, a agp (or pci) slot for another gpu, or dual bios, do not mod the bios.

What happens if I bricked my gpu and am unable to flash one with in OS?

you need to get a Arduino and hook it up to the bios chip, something we will not get into here, but is covered in guides.

Im going to sue you! You made me brick my card!

Well, thats odd, thats not a question. Well, I guess now would be a good time to point out that I am not making you do this. Use this guide at your own risk, and I will not be liable if you brick a card that you spent a thousand dollars on.

Radeon bad! Why nothing from nvidia!?!?!?!

For now, this guide is limited to a  few card generations, for that is the only ones have ever modded. Eventually, I might have some other users who are knowledgeable of how to mod the bios of a nvidia gpu.

 

So, lets get into this.

Step 1: Download the necessary tools

There will be several tools you want:

Standards for every flash; HWInfo64 and GPUz. HWInfo to make sure you are getting the results you should be (like increased clocks) and not getting something wrong, like the reported temp being normal. GPUz to verify that all of the info on the gpu, like name, model, etc are correct, as well as making sure you have the proper memory modules.

For all amd flashes, you want ATIFlash, which is used to program and save the bioses of your amd gpus.

Also, if you have a card that runs with the adrenaline drivers, that is not a rx500 series card, you will need to run the AMD/ATI Pixel Clock Patcher, it makes the drivers skip the bios check, ehich isnt present on rx500

Then there will be the bios editors. There are several options, based on the card you are editing. If you have a radeon HD2000-HD6000 card, you use Radeon Bios Editor (RBE). If you have a Polaris based gpu, or a Ellesmere, or possibly any other gcn 4.0 (im not 100% sure, but it cant hurt to try), use Polaris Bios Editor (PBE). Thats all I have personal experience with, so we will leave that there for now.

Now, sometimes, you might need a hex editor. any one will do, but i use this: its easy to use, and is a web app, so it doesn't take space.

Step 2: Save the bios from your card

The first step is saving you bios to change it later. This is done with ATIFlash, which you just downloaded. Open the install directory, and run the driver installer program as admin. If you dont have admin privlages, you probably shouldnt be modding the bios anyways. Then, after that completes, run the Atiflash program as admin, otherwise it wont launch.

You will now be in the app. THere should be 3 buttons on the bottom. The one on the far right should say save. Click that. Navigate to your directory you want to save the file to. Then name the file, something like "XFX Reference 8gb RX570.rom", if you had a reference 8gb xfx rx570, then save the file.

(note: this can be done by pressing the box with arrow logo next to the bios info on GPUz)

Step 3: Modding

Theres a lot of diffrent things, so ill split it into several diffrent parts

PolarisBiosEditor

rx480->580

Spoiler

You need to take your rx480 bios and open it with a hed editor

one byte at offset 0xD6 needs to be changed from 0xC6 to 0xE6.

you may need to change ELLESMERE should be changed to POLARIS20 but that was not the case for me.

then save it as a new file, so if it was a amd reference 8gb 480, now name it this "AMD Reference 8gb RX480-580" for example, just make sure that this one is amrked as one that was a 480, and is now a 580

Open it with PBE

Save it and overwrite the origonal file (fixes the checksum error)

Flash the bios with ATIFlash, by selecting load, selecting the bios where you saved it, and select program.

Verify the gpu is a rx580 in GPUz

Power Limit increase and max clocks increase

Spoiler

Open the bios with PBE

then increase the ones in the red by changing the number at the bottom in blue, change the max power limit to 75+(75*number of 8 pin power)+(150*number of 8 pin power)

Increase the max core/mem clocks to what ever you want, they wont boot like that, thats just the max theortical limit of what they can be oced to in wattman (not msiab)

then increase the max power limit adjustment to 100%, the max will be what you set first.

MAKE SURE TO PRESS APPLY CHANGE (green) AFTER EVERY CHANGE, OTHERWISE IT WILL NOT BE SAVED
Press save, and add OC the the end of the file to differentiate from the stock file

Run the pixel clock timing patch if you arent using a rx500 card

Flash the bios with ATIFlash, by selecting load, selecting the bios where you saved it, and select program.

Verify the increases with watman (not msiab)

permanent overclock

Spoiler

 

Better Memory Timings

Spoiler

 

 

(wip, just dont want to lose 4 hours of work lol)

[Murasaki]

I just want to mention that you can also save your bios with GPU-Z itself. A small button underneath the logo, next to the UEFI checkbox.

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Reserved for nvidia post

[Helpful Tech Witch]

18 minutes ago, Murasaki said:

I just want to mention that you can also save your bios with GPU-Z itself. A small button underneath the logo, next to the UEFI checkbox.

 

Yeah, I just was doing ATIFlashes tool as you will be using it later anyways. I’ll mention that though, thanks.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

26 minutes ago, Caroline said:

One thing worth mentioning is that you can't upgrade hardware by flashing a card.

Surface and power delivery components on a RX 580 are different than those on a 480, the same goes for 470 to 480, 4 to 8GB or 5700 to 5700XT, even if the cards look the same and are from the same manufacturer the lower end cards come with lower quality surface caps and VRMs, of course you can hardmod cards and make sort of hybrids or improved versions but that's at a whole different level than simply messing with firmware.

 

I've tinkered with a fair amount of RX cards and most of them ended up working just fine but 3 in particular had problems, one was an ASUS 470 that seemed bricked until I got to replace its 6-pin aux power connector for an 8-pin, for some reason the extra ground pins were required for that particular card to work with the 570 BIOS, the other was a 480 from Sapphire that would show artifacts because of wrong memory timings, the only way to get around it was to create a BIOS with the core clock steps and voltages from the 580 but retaining the 480 timings and a speed of 1999MHz instead of 2000 due to the card increasing the memory clock by a single MHz by itself (don't ask why, I have no idea).

The remaining card had died, it belonged to a friend, everything seemed to be working just fine... until it wasn't. Upon inspection several surface components showed signs of burning, my theory is that they couldn't handle the extra current, this was also a 480 to 580 mod and the card was an XFX 4GB.

 

If you're doing this don't forget to undervolt.

That’s why it’s just a byte change, not just flashing it to a 580bios to it, which does need some work