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    AMD R9 M290X vBios

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by mitya_alba, Aug 18, 2014.

  1. akm

    akm Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have the same problem with my R9 M290X card. It is being detected as HD8970M. Initially I installed an old driver for this card, which didn't have a listing for R9 M290X. But then I uninstalled that driver to install the latest Catalyst beta driver. The inf of this driver lists R9 M290X and HD8970M separately under different ids. Even then my card is being detected as HD8970M. Please help. Will reformatting the system solve the issue?
     
    akm, Jun 21, 2015
    #51
  2. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

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    No reformatting won't help. This happens because R9 M290X doesn't have a unique hardware ID. The driver assigns the the same name as the 8970M because they are the same GPU and have the same hardware ID. There is no way the driver can name it R9 M290X unless you mod the driver. If you the same driver mod on a system with 8970M it will magically be called the R9 M290X. If your system is working correctly, don't burn any calories on this. It makes no difference.
     
    Mr. Fox, Jun 21, 2015
    #52
  3. akm

    akm Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks for you reply. AMD R9 M290X seems to have a different id than HD8970M in the inf file of the latest Catalyst drivers (15.5 beta):
    AMD6801.1 = "AMD Radeon(TM) HD8970M"
    AMD6806.1 = "AMD Radeon (TM) R9 M290X"

    Can anything be done to make the system identify the card as R9 M290X? By the way, this is on Clevo P770Zm laptop.
     
    akm, Jun 21, 2015
    #53
  4. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

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    The problem is the GPU hardware ID... the one you see in Device Manager. Unless something has changed, that is the same on the R9 M290X and HD8970M. Thus, the driver does not know which GPU it is.

    Try editing the INF to make them both have the same name. In other words, change HD8970M to R9 M290X. You may need to change it in more than one location in the INF if it has multiple occurrences. You can use Notepad Find/Replace All feature to make it easy.

    If you have Windows 8.X you will need to boot with Driver Signature Enforcement (DSE) disabled to install the modded driver. Any changes to the INF will cause the driver to be viewed as "unsigned" by Windows 8.X and the installation will fail if you do not disable DSE before Windows logon. Once installed, reboot and Windows will accept the modded driver and DSE will be re-enabled.
     
    Mr. Fox, Jun 21, 2015
    #54
  5. akm

    akm Notebook Enthusiast

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    I see. I am using Windows 8.1, so I will have to disable DSE before installing the modded driver. I can try doing this. I suppose this process will have to be repeated everytime I need to update the driver. Perhaps it's not worth the hassle.
     
    akm, Jun 21, 2015
    #55
  6. Mr. Fox

    Mr. Fox BGA Filth-Hating Elitist®

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    Yes, would have to do it every time you update the driver. But, some of us are used to having to do this with aftermarket GPU upgrades. Once you learn to do it this process only takes a few minutes. If you want Windows to identify your GPUs correctly, I'm not aware of another way you can do it more effectively. If you don't care what name Windows gives to your GPUs as long as they work correctly, then it is not worth the time.
     
    Mr. Fox, Jun 21, 2015
    #56
  7. HopnDude

    HopnDude Newbie

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    I second this!

    I've got a MSI GX70, which has the R9 M290X in 2GB form. Recently a flood of used Dell R9 M290X in 4GB size have appeared. I can only assume as Nvidia makes newer mobile graphics cards, that they've made them upgradable. This way they can upgrade the video cards in older stock, and still sell them, or if clients want to upgrade down the road.

    Alienware 17 w/ R9 M290X 4GB 1250mhz mem clock
    MSI GX70 w/ R9 M290X 2GB 900mhz mem clock

    With a slight bump in performance spec's and a 2GB jump in memory from one to the other, could we not just swap the cards, as they use the same video card slot? Would the BIOS in the MSI allow this?

    I emailed MSI about this a while back, and their answer was "No! Why would you ask! We do have new models with newer video cards though, here's a link." Unfortunately, I'm one of those hardcore AMD lovers. Yes, AMD at one time was up there amongst the best of them, and I feel they're still there, even with their driver issues of which I hope they fix in time.
     
    HopnDude, Jun 16, 2016
    #57
  8. BlackSheepA1

    BlackSheepA1 Notebook Enthusiast

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    BlackSheepA1, Jun 29, 2017
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