Help needed from R9 M290x/8970m owners

Hello everyone ..as the title says im having a msi r9 m290x which i have bought from a friend who messed up its VBIOS while flashing and tried to unsolder it and accidently broke 2 legs of the VBIOS chip ..i would like to know if anyone of you know the part number written on the top of the vbios chip or can help me finding that as i cannot read properly on mine but my guess is APL5930?i have attached a picture with the missing part...help would be appreciated..thanks also i would need a vbios dump file too later when i get the vbios chip

 

R9, Dell one.

 

thanks man ! But i am having the card from MSI so i guess the part used in it is different than DELL

 

No prob, welcome.

Not completely sure bout that, just had this pic on my phone, taken it some days ago as I have this card of a friend, which he also seems to have messed up.

I'd say there should be no difference, as the vBIOS are interchangeable between vendors, but the pros here may tell you more.

 

makes sense

 

The (v)bios eeprom is just a storage chip. You can use almost any brand and model as long as it's an SPI type (not I2C), is SOIC8+150mil form factor and has minimally sufficient room to store the vbios data. The type is identified by that '25' at the start of the code (I2C has '24' there). The '10' lists the size; 1Mbit. An 8 Mbit would be '80', which is a bit odd since '32' and '64' are simply 32 and 64 Mbit, as you'd expect. Anyway, all normal gaming cards use 128KB, so 1Mbit is ok, but Quadros and Radeons require more storage, so they need 2Mbit chips or larger. Funny thing is that AMD zero-pads them to nice round numbers which match standard eeprom sizes, but Nvidia doesn't and so their storage sizes are all over the place (doesn't matter when flashing though).

Only possible issue is that nvflash, atiflash or the hardware programmer cannot recognise a particular chip since it isn't listed in its internal database. This is necessary in order for it to know how to talk to the chip. The model posted by @M18x-oldie is by far the most common type used for MXM cards, so you can't go wrong there.

If you're going to solder anyway you could also install an adapter, that way modding and unbricking needs only tweezers henceforth:

Spoiler: HD 8970M, vbios socket

Used a 200mil model (5.3mm) since the 150mil (4mm) didn't exist at the time, but there's now some 150mil variants too. That 32Mbit eeprom is obviously overkill, but it works fine nonetheless.

Have a bunch of HD 8970M vbioses, but they're all Clevo and from dGPU-only systems at that. This is something to check out before flashing the clean vbios; a non-switching systems needs a non-switching vbios and vice versa. Also, some use different temperature sensors and not every GPU memory type is supported by every vbios. Uploaded mine, just in case:
HD 8970M, Clevo vbioses, pure dGPU systems.7z

Do remember I flashed a Clevo vbios to a Dell 7970M once since it refused to run on my Clevo with the stock vbios. Think MSI card were always the most compatible with all systems, so you may get away with those roms, but only if that Alienware cannot use the iGPU. Every SLI/CF capable system is dGPU-only, so an M17x would qualify.

 

wow thats alot of good information which i didnt even knew !! thumbs up for that...anyways i have ordered the ic APL 5930 which according to my friend came with this card so i am waiting for the chip to arrive but just incase if i cant wait enough can i remove the vbios chip from 5870M and program this card's vbios and solder that ic to it ?

 

Yes, no problem. Just make a backup/dump of the 5870M first; could bake it or sell the card as defective to someone else, who might then bake it. Just program the APL once it arrives with that dump and include it in the package; no need to wait then and the 5870M might have a second life.

Btw, motherboards also contain more eeproms than just the bios (LAN, TB, audio etc. etc. also have firmware and that needs to be stored somewhere). HDDs, BD-drive, memory, displays; either I2C or SPI chips, so I scrounge their pcbs and keep them for such parts.

 

Noted.. thanks mate