Video Card Bios Update ?

**BrokenApe** · 03-26-15, 07:17 PM

Having to work with an r9 290 bios update, spoke with the manufacturer (sapphire) who after asking a bunch of questions about the card I'm fiddling with verified that yes indeed, there's a bios update, and we can't help you with it you need to contact a company called Althon Micro (who I assume handles support for them in some fashion) After them asking the SAME questions, they sent me a program atiflash and what I believe is a bios file to update with, there's a decided lack of instruction from them, and I think i'm not looking in the right places on google what I do know is that it won't work in windows saying it's a 16bit program, i haven't f'd with actual dos in years beyond count vs a command prompt, does anyone know of a windows based tool to update the bios perhaps I can ask while thinking about it?

**RhysJD3** · 03-26-15, 07:23 PM

The R9 290 -> 290X Unlock Thread

I just like the music

**BrokenApe** · 03-26-15, 07:44 PM

Hey, I didn't know you could flash them to another type of card.. I was just trying to figure out how to apply the newer version of bios the manufacturer provided (sans instructions) ... heh

**HeavyG** · 03-28-15, 10:18 AM

Video Bios Collection | techPowerUp

Check out their list of BIOS to find the latest version available for your card. You will want to use the application GPU-Z to backup your current BIOS ROM. This way, if it doesn't work well, you can just restore to the backup.

GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility

Lastly, you should be able to use ATIWinFlash:

Download ATI Winflash 2.6.7 | techPowerUp

I haven't used it in about a year, but back when I was doing scrypt mining with GPUs, I had to flash to custom BIOS ROM files all the time, and this worked wonders. Just make sure you backup your original BIOS first with GPU-Z and it should work fine.

As you can see, almost everything I posted is from TechPowerUp. They are your best friend when it comes to this sort of stuff.

**HeavyG** · 03-28-15, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by BrokenApe

Hey, I didn't know you could flash them to another type of card.. I was just trying to figure out how to apply the newer version of bios the manufacturer provided (sans instructions) ... heh

The old 6950 cards could unlock some shaders to make them almost like the 6970 cards, but most of the modified BIOS files only allow you to unlock extended parameters for setting memory, clock, and fan speeds and some voltage settings. They are great for if you had a lower model card that you put into a water cooled system and wanted to crank to 11!

**Ace22** · 03-28-15, 02:48 PM

There was a very limited sale of 290x's sold as 290's. They were shipped as such to meet orders deadlines and the available stock went out the door. Only 2 companies got this run of cards. I remember searching hard to try and save the $200 or so price difference when this was going on. You'd want to hit up overclock.net to confirm you have one of those cards by matching the batch #'s.

99%+ chance you do not. Flashing the 290x bios on your 290 will not yield positive results. I believe I put up a post over year ago on the topic which is long gone now.