XFX AMD RX580 0-RPM bug

[Hassan170]

I bought my XFX RX580 2nd hand a few months ago and for a steal of a price.

It turns out that what the seller had thought were faulty fans was just the GPU set to 0-RPM mode.
so with AMD Adrenaline software I turned off 0-RPM mode and went about my day enjoying my new GPU
 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I realize that 0-RPM will self-enable itself, every time I turn on the PC.

Its not too much of a chore for me to turn it off but it gets bothersome and sometimes my little siblings game crashes and they blame the fact i didnt get a brand new pre-built

Im not sure if this 0-RPM bug is baked into a custom BIOS onto the GPU or what but any help fixing this issue will be much appreciated

[mariushm]

You can download the bios from the card (using the amd firmware tool)  and edit it with a tool like SRBPolaris for example and flash the edited bios to your card with the AMD firmware tool https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-atiflash/

 

Careful where you download SRBPolaris from, it was very popular to customize cards for mining so some versions were bundled with mining wallet stealing viruses

 

github download location : https://github.com/srbpolarisbios/SRBPolaris/releases/tag/3.5

 

 

[Hassan170]

35 minutes ago, mariushm said:

You can download the bios from the card (using the amd firmware tool)  and edit it with a tool like SRBPolaris for example and flash the edited bios to your card with the AMD firmware tool https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-atiflash/

 

Careful where you download SRBPolaris from, it was very popular to customize cards for mining so some versions were bundled with mining wallet stealing viruses

 

github download location : https://github.com/srbpolarisbios/SRBPolaris/releases/tag/3.5

 

 

So i should re-flash the stock bios in the hopes that it irons out whatever this kink in my GPU is?

[mariushm]

What I would do is download the current bios from the card, and compare its checksum  with the checksums of genuine bioses uploaded in techpowerup ga bios database for the card : https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/?architecture=AMD&manufacturer=XFX&model=RX+580&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since=

 

See if your video card is in the list above (you have to match the model with a version of the bios that supports the memory chips on your video card, sometimes there's a version that supports let's say only hynix and elpida ram chips, and a version of bios that supports only micron and samsung for example)

 

If a genuine bios is found, I would try flashing the genuine bios to see if that solves things. May be a good thing just in case the previous user also modified other things like lower maximum gpu frequecy and increase vram timings and frequencies (both beneficial for mining but can result in corrupted textures or other issues in games)

[Hassan170]

On 12/17/2023 at 5:32 PM, mariushm said:

May be a good thing just in case the previous user also modified other things like lower maximum gpu frequecy and increase vram timings and frequencies (both beneficial for mining but can result in corrupted textures or other issues in games)

From the conversation I had with the previous user that I bought this GPU from, he didn't seem that tech-savvy.
He didn't even know about AMD adrenaline or the fact that 0-RPM was even a possibility on GPUs.
this may be a 3rd or maybe even 4th hand GPU and maybe one of those owners was the miner/played around with the BIOS
 

Spoiler

on an unrelated note, why would a miner turn off the fans? Seems counter-productive.
Ideally, if you're mining you'd want to keep the GPU as cool as possible
So you could squeeze that much more perf per watt out of it, isn't that the usual tactic?
Unless this was dunked in mineral oil, which is a possibility,
Although having repasted the GPU when I got it, I didn't feel any traces of oil, soooooo?

in any case thanks for the tech tip, I will now proceed to do the checksum and the BIOS flash and I pray to Tech-Jesus that I don't f*ck anything up.

[Hassan170]

im very confused as to how or even if my download of the AMD Firmware utility is even working.

the CMD is not giving me any respojnses, i made sure to download the drivers first




So now im not sure as to what im doing wrong

 

[mariushm]

Download and older version that has the windows application bundled with the command line, try version 3.31  or version 3.15 - you don't need the latest version to program a video card launched in 2016-2017.

 

Go to https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-atiflash/

Click on show older versions under the downloads on the left side, then select 3.31 or 3.15  , unpack in a folder that's easy to type like C:\amd or C:\temp\amd

 

Open a command prompt with administrative rights 

 

Start > Search  .. type CMD and wait for command prompt to show up , right click and select Run as administrator

 

Change working directly by typing CD C:\amd   or CD C:\temp\AMD  or whatever folder you've used

 

Type  AMDVBFlashDriverInstaller.exe --install  to install the driver.

 

Launch amdvbflashWin.exe  and save your bios , compare it , upload new bios, whatever.

 

When you're done, run that first application again but write --uninstall instead to remove the driver.

 

Here's me using the version 3.15 with my RX570 , the Gigabyte Aorus

 

[Hassan170]

@mariushm This is my progress so far, everything works but I, for the life of me, can't tell wtf my BIOS version is or if it even tallies up with the techpowerup database

 

This is the version of the AMD Firmware Tool that i used, version 3.31

 

Ran CMD as admin and located the driver installer in the temp folder I made

 

Successfully installed the drivers by pressing "i"

 

Proceeded to locate and execute amdvbflash.exe

 

this popped up immediately after executing that command

 

Now the MAIN issue is that i can't make heads or tails of this ^^^popup^^^.
More specifically, even though i can see the "Current VBIOS" and its contents, i can't understand what I'm looking at
hence why I can't tell if it tallies up with the techpowerup database model of my GPU

I tried to get some help from BingBoiChat but it didn't help much

 

Out of curiosity i also decided to use GPU-Z, to see if that would have different results and i came across this

 

Now to be fair, The "Microsoft Display adapter" leads me to believe that it might not be the GPU's actual Bios and maybe the version of the component that handles display i/o.
Not to mention, I've heard from many a GPU horror story that the Z-utilities can be lied to by modifying what the firmware identifies itself as

So I'm taking this GPU-Z result with a grain of salt.

BUT, I can't ignore the fact that

A) this shit I can understand...something

B) I (idiot that I am) can tell the numbers of the BIOS versions match with the techpowerup GPU database

 

So now I'm at a crossroads of what source of information to trust and what to do from here.
I still very much want to flash the stock BIOS regardless, mainly for the experience and knowledge.
and the very tiney hope that it might just fix this stupid 0-RPM glitch
 

Spoiler

(btw is updating the BIOS and Flashing the same BIOS the same thing? As in does updating the BIOS basically flash the new BIOS onto the GPU?)
or does updating just add the new "parts" and/or update the old "parts"?

or does it completely overwrite the old with the new?

 

 

Spoiler

Also, on an unrelated note, did some more research regarding my model of GPU and i came across some very interesting results

 

This is what my GPU is supposed to look like^^^

but this is what is actually in my PC

 

I am just realizing mine doesn't have a metal backplate......i wonder if this has any meaningful effect on thermals and consequently, stability.

 

 

[mariushm]

Use the SAVE button to dump the bios to your computer , in my case bios.rom

 

You can calculate a MD5 checksum to see if the checksum matches one of the existing bioses.

 

Total Commander (a Windows Explorer alternative) has a function in the menu ( Files > Create checksums file ) you can use to calculate the MD5 checksum of a file.  If you don't want to install Total Commander, you can use any free tool, like for example WinMD5 Free - Windows MD5 Utility Freeware for Windows 7/8/10/11 or Win SVF 32 https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/WIN-SFV32.shtml

 

Example in my case :

 

 

I know my card is RX570 with 4 GB so now I can look for a bios with that checksum. I can't find one with that exact MD5 checksum, but that's probably because I may have modified this bios in the past to tweak the fan curve so it spins up at lower temperature. I'm not sure.

 

I can open the bios I currently have with SRBPolaris - https://github.com/srbpolarisbios/SRBPolaris/releases/tag/3.5 - and it tells me more details : 

 

So now I know my card is model GV-RX570AORUS-4GD/F20/0623  or at least this bios was for that model.

The Powertune and Fan sections also tell me valuable info

 

 

 

 

 

If the md5 is not found, you can look in CPU-Z to get the Device ID and Subsystem ID so in my case I found this unverified bios that matches the specs of my card : See https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/198011/198011

 - this bios matches the device ID and subsystem ID, the gpu and memory frequencies match, the power limits, the memory type supported everything.

 

 

 

--------------- 

 

IN your case, you have there  Device ID : 1682 e580 , techpowerup has only c580 as verified bioses... but at a quick search in google it gives out an unverified one for e580. 

 

Your card is XFX RX 580 2048SP Black Wolf Gaming Edition 8GB  : https://www.ebay.com/itm/186180897653 , it's basically a card that's not listed on XFX website because it's made with RX580 for Asian markets, that has only 2048 cores enabled instead of 2304 ( you can see it says Shaders 2048 in GPU-Z). Basically, it's a tweaked RX 570  (RX 570 has 2048 "cores" enabled).

 

THIS BIOS file :  https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/213706/213706

 

has that 1682 e580 ID, and description says it's for RX 570 2048SP Black Wolf,  and the details look sane to me.

Double check that the memory chips on the card are either made by Micron or Samsung (try to look at the ram chips)

Save your bios somewhere, program the bios in the link above

 

If the bios is no good, the card won't work, you'll get a black screen. You can fix it by just installing another video card as main video card, put the amd card as a second card in the pc and run the programmer again with another bios.

 

Someone probably uploaded the bios for that RX 580 4 GB on your card, probably because it was better for mining (maybe the default timings for the Elpida chips are tighter, giving more performance in mining)