stilts bios's are back

Nice.

I actually used his bios for my MSI 7870OC card, gave me almost 100KH/s. Couldn't get the card to do a thing before I flashed it.
 
All the dropbox links I clicked on said "Nothing there".

EDIT: Even tried saving a link directly because it appears they link directly to the file, but what was saved was not a valid archive that could be opened. It was most likely just the landing page HTML saved using the file's name.
 
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The bioses are available from here.

I just downloaded v44/v48 for the 290.
 
I wanto to try this on my 290, but not sure which version to pick. Can I still game while using this BIOS or are they just for mining only?
 
sgi02 said:
I wanto to try this on my 290, but not sure which version to pick. Can I still game while using this BIOS or are they just for mining only?
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In his 290 thread he said for mining only. He shuts down part of the gpu to save power/heat.
 
atp1916 said:
The bioses are available from here.
I just downloaded v44/v48 for the 290.
Click to expand...

Only 290 and 290X there I see. And only for reference cards, correct?

I am still looking for the 280X bios I need that is mia from his dropbox address.
 
_r2h said:
In his 290 thread he said for mining only. He shuts down part of the gpu to save power/heat.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! Gaming is secondary to me, so I decided to give the Stilt BIOS a try....

Initially started with the V3C 1.17 BIOS. Flash was successful, but mining caused the driver to crash after a minute or so. I went to the V38 1.2 BIOS next and ive been running about 10mins now without an issue.

My 290 has Elpida memory and before the BIOS update I was maxing out at 790-800 k/hs. After the flash im getting 830-840 k/hs with about 20W lower power usage according to GPU-Z. All temps appear to be the same thus far.

edit - The V38 BIOS would crash consistently after the 8HR mark. Ended up flashing to the V34 1.225 BIOS and ive been 24+ HRS solid on it. Overall wattage is still lower than stock, temps are slightly higher (1-3c), but it gave me a little more headroom in the OC department. Now hashing at a solid 860 k/hs!!! Really happy with the outcome!!
 
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His bios work really well. Tried to use them for my brother's 290x. Worked well for about a week then started to crash. Running the higher voltage bios made no different. Moved back to stock bios works fine. Damn shame too, because it was running with lower temps and more khs.
 
I found a couple that I was looking for by using that doc and getting the filenames then googling the filename ;)
 
It seems it's completely hit or miss with these 290 bioses. I've got 2 sets of 290s running like a charm - GXFX / Asus - on the v34 bios. Those cards are pulling 870khs individually @ 975/1475 with intensity 18. I've got a third crate on the ultra low leak bios - Gigabytes - but they seem to consistently crash out after long hours of stability. I am not entirely sure if it's the overclock or the bios, but it's a bit annoying.
 
Core32 said:
Only 290 and 290X there I see. And only for reference cards, correct? <snip>
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Correct, these are for reference cards only.

Edit: 975/1375 is an optimal clock for my 290s. All 3 rigs were stable overnight - this is a first since i put the stilt on the cards.
 
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I think that the voltages on the highest bios are still way below that of a basic stock bios. This is good in the sense that you are saving a lot of unnecessary energy flowing across the card, as you will get less wattage as well as less heat for the cards. The problem is that some cards require a little extra juice for stability, so you might have to go in and use afterburner to up the voltage a small amount for stability.

I have found that this set of bios' are really great if you have the elpdia ram in your card as the memory timings from the manufactures are complete garbage, and for the 290x it allows the extra shaders to do their thing. So with a stock bios on a 290x instead of running 1000/1500 you could get better khash with 1000/1375.
 
I know this is the mining subforum, but does anyone know if these bioses with improved memory timings will help in gaming? I don't do any mining, I'm just curious from a game perspective.

Over the years, I've heard unbacked suggestions about flashing different cards' bioses onto your own, with potential improvements to be had with "better memory timings". But when asked for more details, most seem to equate "memory timings" with "memory clock speed", and just a simple matter of overclocking.

I'm curious if gaming performance can be improved through tweaked memory timings, whether with Stilt's bioses or otherwise.
 
^^
- 50% of the RBs (ROP) shedded, one array (16) from each of the SHs (0/1) to improve the power and the thermal.
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from the change log, so i am sure these bioses will be slower than stock in gaming.
 
It would be great to have the better timings with all ROP's functional, is The Stilt still actively developing these?
 
I remember reading in the main thread that he got ticked off about something (or someone) and said he was done with this particular endeavor.

Huge shame if so, i am totally hoping he was/is gonna do non-reference designs.
 
Why not do what I did, keep the stock BIOS on the backup BIOS for gaming and flip the switch to Stilt's BIOS for mining? Sure you have to shutdown but we're talking a 2 minute switch, minor inconvenience.
 
atp1916 said:
I remember reading in the main thread that he got ticked off about something (or someone) and said he was done with this particular endeavor.

Huge shame if so, i am totally hoping he was/is gonna do non-reference designs.
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I followed the thread from day one and refreshed it every 10 minutes after he said he was getting them signed (last step). From what I can tell, he did get upset because not everyone was getting spectacluar results, just the majority. Apparently that wasn't good enough for him. It helped me a ton, turning my crap-tastic 290s into awesome hashers. His BIOSes alone gave me 150+ more hash for less wattage. I was stuck in 850-hash-hell prior to flashing his BIOSes and landed at 915 and 950 after.
 
^ Same story here with my reference 290s. His bios really straightened out the cards. They totally were resistant to anything over 850ish, now... they like 900+

I hate when people complain when they should be saying thank you :(
 
awesome link, i wish the part numbers were included with the sapphire 7950's though. i have four different types of sapphire 7950's and it's a headache trying to identify them without the original boxes.
 
wowsza said:
awesome link, i wish the part numbers were included with the sapphire 7950's though. i have four different types of sapphire 7950's and it's a headache trying to identify them without the original boxes.
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You'll have to go to the 280 thread created by thestilt, he created a bunch of custom bioses for different 7970/7950/280x cards, however if yours is not in there you're out of luck since hes no longer working on them.
 
I just received this card: Sapphire Technology AMD Radeon HD 7950 (11196-16-20G)
Mfg. refurb, nice price and mining right now at 652kH/s using cgminer 3.7.2 in Linux.

Any one have access to / using a modified BIOS for this card?
If so, does my rate seem reasonable/similar?
I see a few 7950s on the Litecoin HW comparison page that will do over 700 but those have some high clocks involved.
 
^^ 652KHs is a nice mark if you aren't running the highest clocks or your card isn't a Gigabyte or MSI.

All of my non-Gigabyte 7950s need at least 1100/1500 to hit 650khs+.
 
Need 1200/1500 to get these, with a TC of 24000. Temps are manageable and I have not undervolted yet either.
What TC are you using?
 
This is stilts # for it just in case:
Sapphire_E20700_S4C_K2_AGR.zip
 
rickyman123 said:
is there any stilts bios's for 270 (x) yet or not?
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Not that I've seen, but the 270 cards are about as "user friendly" as any GPU's get. I have XFXs, MSIs, Sapphires, and a VisionTek and I can set them all @I-19, TC-10241 and 1100/1250 or 1100/1500 and they put out 475KH/s+ all day. By comparison the 280/290 cards are a huge pain in the ass to tune.
 
I have some reference Asus 290x's. I've wanted to try Stilt's bios but I don't see it on the first spreadsheet from OP. I'm getting about 890-940 kh/s without issues right now though.
 
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