Success/Failure R290 -> R290X flash

Success or Fail with flash?

  • Total voters
    26
  • Poll closed .
L

Lord_Exodia

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 29, 2005
Messages
7,008
HIS Fail ---
HIS Success ---

As the title says. If you own a R290 or a pair of them and have had success flashing them to R290X please post your result. In addition if you own more than one and had success or failure on both/all please post which cards you have and by what manufacturer and when you bought them.

Let's have some fun. I just want to start getting a idea of how people have been doing with this, which brands seem like the best bet etc..

I would have like to have 14 possible answers as I find 7 brands here in the US and would have liked to be able to say a success option or fail option for all 7. Because I can only post 12 possible options, I am going to keep HIS updated in the OP. If you have had a success or fail on a HIS card please post in the thread your result at the top of your post, then anything you want to say below.

Also if you have some free time, what do you guys think the best aftermarket cooler is for a reference R290 card, or a pair of cards?
 
Last edited:
Nenu said:
There are also OC card versions that may have a higher binned part, fyi.
Will post my experience when I get mine.

It would be handy to post the process and a link to the tools if possible.
Grab some of the BIOS files here
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...r=&model=R9+290X&interface=&memType=&memSize=
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I wouldn't mind paying more for a higher binned part if it has a higher chance of unlocking. 4GB vram should suffice for the resolution I game at and I would definitely consider getting aftermarket coolers on the R9 cards since IMO AMD sucks at making High end Part Stock coolers. /endrant. In either case I could save $100 per card after all of this and that's a great bargain on some sweet $400.00 great bargains already.
 
Yeah spotted that, and he hasnt posted.
I'll pm him and see whats what.
 
I asked him
Nenu said:
Hi
I noticed you voted success on all the cards but you didnt make a post in the thread.
Can you explain this for us?
Click to expand...
His answer
wirerogue said:
i like turtles.
Click to expand...

Its probably best to disregard his votes so subtract 1 vote from each success category.
 
if I flash my sapphire and something goes wrong, how would the retailer know what went wrong if I asked for an exchange, especially if I am still within my rma period?
 
bigbeard86 said:
if I flash my sapphire and something goes wrong, how would the retailer know what went wrong if I asked for an exchange, especially if I am still within my rma period?
Click to expand...

Your conscience would call them and let them know you screwed up the card, not them.
 
If MemoryInfo shows my Sapphires have Hynix memory, does this mean my cards can unlock?
 
bigbeard86 said:
if I flash my sapphire and something goes wrong, how would the retailer know what went wrong if I asked for an exchange, especially if I am still within my rma period?
Click to expand...

If something goes wrong just use the dual BIOS switch!
 
I have seen comments from people who have flashed their 290 cards that the dual bios can be used to switch bios.
The [H] review commented their card had the bios switch as well.
It would be nice if someone can confirm.
 
You can. You are only flashing 1 of the bios. If you flip the switch it will be on the other bios. Which on the 290 they are both the same bios.
 
To be clear, do you mean both switch positions use the same BIOS chip, or that both selectable BIOS chips are programmed with the same version BIOS?
 
I wonder if a mod can help with the poll trolling. Maybe they can even allow for 2 more fields. So I can add HIS to the poll. I'll PM one.
 
I asked a mod already through the complaints procedure, but maybe it needs to come from the thread starter.
 
Nenu said:
To be clear, do you mean both switch positions use the same BIOS chip, or that both selectable BIOS chips are programmed with the same version BIOS?
Click to expand...

One switch position has the asus 290x on it and the other switch position has the xfx 290 bios. From the factory they both have the same bios programmed on each position. The board has 2 bios chips on it.
 
Just as a quick question, is it possible to brick your card with the dual position bios switch?

I have an XFX 290 coming in later today, but I wanted to make sure there was a fail safe in the event the flash does not work.
 
Brampton_Boy said:
Just as a quick question, is it possible to brick your card with the dual position bios switch?

I have an XFX 290 coming in later today, but I wanted to make sure there was a fail safe in the event the flash does not work.
Click to expand...

Only if you flash both bios or you try to mod your own/use an untested bios.
 
veedubfreak said:
One switch position has the asus 290x on it and the other switch position has the xfx 290 bios. From the factory they both have the same bios programmed on each position. The board has 2 bios chips on it.
Click to expand...

Thats neat, thanks for taking the time to answer.
 
I found a tool that checks your card to see if it is unlockable.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1445030/is-your-r9-290-unlockable-find-out-here

It doesnt appear to be malware, there was no attempt to connect to the internet (using Comodo firewall to alert on anything).
I made a PC backup and a restore point before using it just in case, I advise the same.
I dont know if the result is genuine, but here goes anyway

From that web page
LOCKED R9 290's will report R1: F8010005

UNLOCKED R9 290's will report R1: F8000005
Click to expand...

Mine is unlockable, Powercolor R9 290 OC.

Compatible adapters detected: 1
PCI ID: 1002:67B1 - 1002:0B00
Memory config: 0x5A0013A9 Elpida
R1: F8000005
R2: F8010000

I'm going to flash it then update the poll with the result.
 
I just unlocked my XFX I bought at Amazon on Wednesday. The ASUS bios gave me a black screen on boot. So on a whim I tried the Powercolor overclock bios and it worked.

I got the following Unigine score on my stock clocked 290 before flash:
FPS:
56.3FPS:
56.3
Score:
2354
Min FPS:
28.2
Max FPS:
106.4

After flash:
FPS:
60.5
Score:
2533
Min FPS:
30.1
Max FPS:
111.5

GPU-Z shows 2816 shaders now as well.
I was lazy and didn't overclock it stock, was too excited to see if it would unlock. So the gains could be just from the speed increase.

Now to strap my Gelid Icy Vision on and overclock it and see what it can do. It's not very loud at all right now though, I don't see what the hubub is all about. It's certainly much quieter than my reference 4850s in crossfire were a years back. I ended up getting aftermarket coolers for them because of the noise and because they would hit 100c.
 
Could you please post Hawaii info results from Nenu's post above yours?

I have an XFX 290 and it says I have the locked 290, but want to know if the successful unlockers also have R1: F8010005.
 
I switched to the stock bios and ran the Hawaii info program and my R1 returned F8000005
 
Mr. Stryker said:
Could you please post Hawaii info results from Nenu's post above yours?

I have an XFX 290 and it says I have the locked 290, but want to know if the successful unlockers also have R1: F8010005.
Click to expand...
Here is what the memory tool gave me. I was able to unlock it.

IO1GPYW.png
 
G*d I've had problems trying to flash my card.
My PC has no floppy drive interface and I have no USB floppy drive.

Made a bootable USB pen with my only USB pen. Wont boot.
Its always been a pita anyway and used to prevent CPU overclocks with my last PC if it was plugged in at boot (dead true !!).
Its too big to throw away and serves its main purpose so I havent replaced it.

Tried a couple of recovery boot CDs and they crashed partway through loading, odd.

Created a DOS boot CD with the intention of accessing a USB pen from it.
Loads great but USB driver detection of USB devices hangs the machine.

My external hard drive isnt accessible from DOS as its too big.
None of my hard drives have FAT32 partitions.

Tried ATI Winflash but it says no compatible cards found despite using the overrides.
Tried DOS flashing in a CMD window and it wont run on a 64 bit OS.
ffs

Theres more I tried, cant remember everything.
So jumping through hoops, I'll plug in an old PC and use that to flash it from a floppy disk.
(I dont want to make another CD with the flash tools on cos I dont like wasting blank disks)
 
My XFX was locked too, guess I can't complain since it would have just been a nice bonus.
 
Finally got my Powercolor 290 OC (975/1250 clocks) flashed, works perfectly with the XFX 290x BIOS 1000/1250 clocks.
GPUz reports 2816 shaders.

Heaven 3.0 gives approx 5% higher performance.
Looking good.
 
Last edited:
Nenu said:
Finally got my Powercolor 290 OC (975/1250 clocks) flashed, works perfectly with the XFX 290x BIOS 1000/1250 clocks.
GPUz reports 2816 shaders.

Heaven 3.0 gives approx 5% higher performance.
Looking good.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I'm looking into this because as I've seen the performance difference gets better at extreme resolutions up to 4k. For a single monitor about 5% is what is expected. If you had aftermarket coolers you can probably go beyond the 1000mhz core. You may need to up the voltage though.
 
I was supposed to be testing higher voltage performance this evening but I've hit a snag.
The Xtreme III cooler isnt compatible with the R9 290 as it comes, you need 3 extra normal ramsinks and another different one to fit under the mounting plate for the main cooler.

I made a thread about it here.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040413145
Misleading advertising by AC.

I'll buy some other sinks and get it fitted, but this is a pita.
 
Its up and running with the Accelero Xtreme III, GPU temp is great, but I cant fully test it yet.
Running my 290 with a 290x bios fully unlocked, default clocks (1000/1250) and default voltage.
Unigine Heaven 4.0 maxes out at 49C GPU, neat!

Quite a few other tests see the GPU use fluctuate a lot and sometimes the clockspeed drops, despite the low temps.
It turns out that any settings I change in Overdrive to do with the power target and clockspeed dont stick, its the broken 13.11 beta 9.4 drivers.
So I cant test it properly until I get Overdrive working.

Without increasing the power target I got Heaven to run at 1080 core, 1400 memory with default voltage.
I did the MSI Afterburner +100mV trick and it easily ran at 1100core, didnt push further as the card had a lot of heat coming from it.
Max temp was from the VRMs at 72C (using GPUz to get temps).
Not that high but they felt quite hot to touch so was being cautious.

I'll do more testing when I can adjust the power target.
 
My XFX was locked, but the Asus r290x bios has its perks.

No more GPU throttling and I managed to increase my memory overclock to 6300mhz (why this is, I have no idea)

All in all, I am very pleased.
 
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