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Other => CPU/GPU Bitcoin mining hardware => Topic started by: Sophokles on May 10, 2013, 09:12:51 AM



Title: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: Sophokles on May 10, 2013, 09:12:51 AM
Hi,

on the top of my Sapphire Radeon 7970s there is tiny switch (settings: 1,2), next to the crossfire connector. A google search showed a possible relation to the 'Dual Bios' feature of the card. So, it is this useful for tweaking mining settings? Does any one here use it?


Title: Re: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: mine2mind112 on May 10, 2013, 10:22:36 AM
Basically one of them in writable and the other not.
 you can flash custom Bios and have the default Bios on board also so if the custom one doesn't work you can switch to the default bios, boot the machine, switch back to custom one and flash a new custom  bios.Don't know wich is custom and wich default one....


Title: Re: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: Sophokles on May 10, 2013, 11:43:12 AM
Thanks! Will try to fiddle with it later. It came shipped with setting '1', so that seems to be default setting (=non-writeable).


Title: Re: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: Spetznaaz on May 10, 2013, 05:09:23 PM
I thought one was just a "boost" bios..

Either way, i pushed the switch in so it glows blue, then flashed the BIOS on my Sapphire Vapor-x Ghz to the Sapphire 7970 non vapor-x GHz, and 730Kh/s+ on scrypt mining :)


Title: Re: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: Sophokles on May 10, 2013, 05:28:25 PM
The blue-glowing button on the Vapor-X version of 7970 (I have the plain-vanilla 7970s) is something different. It actually just increases the clock.

So you flashed the Ghz-Edition BIOS on your Sapphire 7970? Where did you get it from? I thought that was only possible for the AMD reference design cards. Does it unlock the voltage?


Title: Re: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: Spetznaaz on May 10, 2013, 05:33:41 PM
The voltage is already unlocked on the Sapphire vapor-x ghz 7970's - All you need to do is use MSI afterburner 2.2.2 or Trixx.

I've written a tutorial on how to flash the BIOS / get your speeds up to 700Kh/s+ - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=200777.0

Hmmm, so your saying the button does not change the BIOS?

I was almost certain that my card has two BIOS, and yeah switching them just increases clock speeds a bit.. but there definitely are two.. i think :P


Title: Re: Sapphire Radeon dip switch (Dual Bios?) - what for?
Post by: mine2mind112 on May 10, 2013, 05:37:04 PM
i think increase freq means exactly switch to another bios with new limit.Have you to reboot in order to boost?