Bitcoin Forum

Does anyone here have an UNLOCKED BIOS for a 7970 Reference Card ?

How do I know if I have an unlocked BIOS ?
If you are a Windows Miner and can make Voltage Changes to your 7970 using CGMiner....you have an unlocked BIOS.

Some Asus Reference cards are bound to have them, as that is where I got my 5870 Unlocked BIOS (flashed my 5850 Reference Cards with) which allowed me to make on-the-fly Voltage changes to my 5850's using CGMiner.

I would just like to add on-the-fly Voltage control to all of my 7970's....without needing anything other than CGMiner.

Thanks in advance,
bitlane

I use MSI Afterburner profiles. Is there some reason why you cannot use that?

I'd rather keep each rig as simple as possible and not rely on another point-of-failure.
Remember, this is Windows....LOL

k, well
I have found through trial and error (and help from ckolivas) that my 7970s run below stock voltages even though cgminer is still reporting stock.

How do I know this?
plugging system into a wattmeter and comparing power draw at different clocks
Finding that if I do not put --gpu-vddc <number> in my .bat cmd line (ie stock voltage) the cards overheat and crash within 10 seconds

I have also an issue with one card running consistently hot (thanks no advice needed, the supplier doesnt care , told them I'd see em when it fails)
it took quite a while and I'm not sure if its just a problem with the sensor, but with this command line I get 702Mhash per card

cgminer.exe -o http://eu.ozco.in:8332 -u graet.20 -p p -o http://us.ozco.in:8332 -u graet.20 -p p -I 9 -k poclbm --auto-fan --gpu-engine 1100-1180 --auto-gpu --gpu-vddc 0.87 --gpu-memdiff -150 --temp-target 75,95 --temp-overheat 95,115

without those temp settings the card was being throttled by cgminer

I found system with 2 card enabled:
base measurement
97W idle
652W hashing with only --auto-fan --gpu-engine 1100-1180

my command line above
102W idle
620W

been running stable at 702Mhash/card for 5 days (power outage killed my uptime :P)

I have been told this is impossible - meh, I believe my eyes ;)

cards GDDR5 Overclocked HDMI Radeon GV-R797OC-3GD 7970
I don't do ref cards - 3fan gigabytes are my fav - hash well, run cool and most importantly quiet :)

Well, this setup below is drawing 1,000W at the plug (well, at the UPS as it tells me in it's fancy little LCD window).

- 4x Gigabyte Reference HD7970 @ stock voltage, 1100mhz GPU, 950mhz Mem
- Gigabyte X58 I7 Motherboard
- Xeon 5506 80W Quad Core CPU
- 4GB DDR3
- SATA HDD
- Win7 x64, CAT 12.3

**output from my API Monitoring App (a little different from standard CGMiner output, but all info is there)

Using: -I 9 --auto-fan --auto-gpu --gpu-powertune 5 --gpu-engine 1000-1100 --gpu-memdiff -150 --temp-target 69


I am about 100W or so over the power draw I really wanted to be at with this setup....

have you tried setting --gpu-vddc ?
I just started at 0.95 and eased it down till I found minimum stable voltages, that allowed me to up the clocks on both cards to run stable :)

also --temp-target 69 will make your fans run harder than the default 75 - and that uses more power too (unless ambient temp is quite low of course)

I tried --gpu-vddc but the only thing it did was screw up my --memdiff setting, with all cards reverting to stock mem clocks when (gpu-vddc was present) in my BAT file and no effect on the card voltages.

I confirmed this by setting it (-gpu-vddc) to an unreasonably low setting to force a lockup, yet everything stayed running fine and no voltage change.

hmm I guess the old "every system is different" saying is true ;)
sorry I cant be more help

I have a couple BIOS files I am going to try out.

I found an 'Extreme Reference' BIOS straight from ATI as well as an Asus BIOS for Reference cards, said to be unlocked.

I have 'get out of jail free' cards here (thank you dual bios switches...lol) so I might as well take advantage of them and play.

I appreciate your help.
bitlane

welcome - and <3 that switch :P
good luck :)

Did you manage voltage control from inside CGMiner in the end on your 7970s?

If you've ever heard of Gpu-z, you'll also know that they have a bios upload feature which allows the user to send a copy of their bios to their database... and then for others to download. ;)

Here are all of the Asus 7970 bios they have uploaded: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/index.php?page=1&architecture=ATI&manufacturer=Asus&model=HD+7970&interface=&memSize=0 (http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/index.php?page=1&architecture=ATI&manufacturer=Asus&model=HD+7970&interface=&memSize=0) The bios you're looking for may or may not be there. Hopefully you find what you need.

Op
Did You find any working BIOS whith allows You to change voltage in Cgminer?

Did You try GHz edition BIOS as well?

I can confirm that the firmware here unlocks voltage as far as I can tell: http://en.expreview.com/2012/07/15/new-bios-turns-reference-hd-7970-into-ghz-model/24148.html

Can I flash that to my Gigabyte 7970 GHz edition? It's got a factory OC of 1100MHz, but I want to unlock voltage control.

The bios linked above will not work on the gigabyte 7970 ghz edition, I just tried it on mine.

After flashing that bios I can't seem to get the original or any other bios to flash to my card, I had to use the dual bios switch for now to get it back to mining.

Bitlane,

What's the status on flashing your GPUs?

Exact same thing happened to me.