Getting modded: The Polaris (RX460-480/RX560-580) modding thread

[ZL1]

Although there are a lot of posts on the net on this, it's still a hot subject, so I figured I'd have it here in one thread for us. Now, I need to start by reminding everyone that modding your bios may result in damaging your card and voiding warranty, so do this AT YOUR OWN RISK!! please be careful and consider doing this if you are experienced or just don't care about the card, also do one card at a time

Ok to the fun part, so you got your brand new (or old beaten off ebay) Polaris wonder, but you can barely get 22Mhs out of it .. you ask WTH .. well here's the answer:

- First, get the AMD Blockchain driver, here does wonders for ETH mining as it compensates for the DAG size slow down

- Second, its the memory timings, even if you set your card to the proper 1130-1150 Core and 2100-2150 Ram, the timings on the ram are slower when you OC so time to trick that with a handy bios mod or not .. this is the time to reconsider
To do the mod you need the following:
- TechPowerUp's super handy ATIFlash utility, you need this to save your current bios and to upload the modded one, get it here
- PBE also known as Polaris Bios Editor, get it here

Ok now that you got all that and are sure you wanna go down this road

- start ATIFlash with admin rights, right click, select run as admin
- hit save current bios

- start PBE and open your saved bios
- now here you have two options really, you can either
- hit the "one click timing patch" see pic:


- manually edit the timings by doing the following: select 0:1500 memory speed and copy the timings to 0:1625, 0:1750 and 0:2000, but I for one find that a bit aggressive and I just copy them from 0:1750 to 0:2000 a bit less mhs, but I feel a bit safer, its up to you here



- now save your modded bios and reopen ATIFlash (again as admin)
- select the GPU this bios came from, highly recommended you use the modded bios on the GPU it came from, since there are differences in memory and other settings and you dont wanna mess up your card by uploading the wrong bios, and hit program !

when its done, reboot

after reboot if your card shows up, but displays no sensors, fix the driver signature with this lil tool

reboot again and enjoy

 

[chawks2]

MOVED HERE from another thread for relevancy

Hi Everyone,

I have done a TON LOAD of testing on the RX580 8G's and guarantee 30 MH/s ON ANY RX580 8G with HYNIX memory the following changes to memory timings are required below (I have not yet tested this on the Samsung memory variant):

2:1750,777000000000000022AA1C00B56A6D46C0551017BE8E060C006AE6000C081420EA8900AB030000001B162C31C0313F17
2:2000,777000000000000022AA1C00B56A6D46C0551017BE8E060C006AE6000C081420EA8900AB030000001B162C31C0313F17
2:2250,777000000000000022AA1C00B56A6D46C0551017BE8E060C006AE6000C081420EA8900AB030000001B162C31C0313F17

P.S - I will post a bunch more information when I have time, but this is the best I can do right now. I have tested this and it is working for ASUS DUAL RX580 8G OC Edition + XFX Superclock RX580 8G - I was able to get 27 MH/s pretty standard, but these changes give me another 2-3 MH/s!!!! Enjoy!

 

[deathman20]

Hi Everyone,

I have done a TON LOAD of testing on the RX580 8G's and guarantee 30 MH/s ON ANY RX580 8G with HYNIX memory the following changes to memory timings are required below (I have not yet tested this on the Samsung memory variant):

2:1750,777000000000000022AA1C00B56A6D46C0551017BE8E060C006AE6000C081420EA8900AB030000001B162C31C0313F17
2:2000,777000000000000022AA1C00B56A6D46C0551017BE8E060C006AE6000C081420EA8900AB030000001B162C31C0313F17
2:2250,777000000000000022AA1C00B56A6D46C0551017BE8E060C006AE6000C081420EA8900AB030000001B162C31C0313F17

P.S - I will post a bunch more information when I have time, but this is the best I can do right now. I have tested this and it is working for ASUS DUAL RX580 8G OC Edition + XFX Superclock RX580 8G - I was able to get 27 MH/s pretty standard, but these changes give me another 2-3 MH/s!!!! Enjoy!

If I had one I'd try it, but I don't sadly but thanks for sharing.

 

[chawks2]

If I had one I'd try it, but I don't sadly but thanks for sharing.

These timing updates DO NOT appear to work with the "MS-V34113-F1 Samsung" memory. When I have more time I will futz to determine the issue.

ALL cards tested with memory starting with "113/115-x-xxx-xxxx-SK Hynix / Unknown" this 100% gets you 30 MH/s. Back to the drawing board.

 

[gsrcrxsi]

you need to manually adjust timings for each card. you cant just apply the same settings to different manufacturers cards or even the same card with different memory. you can only flash the same bios to multiple cards if they are the same exact card model, AND have the same exact memory config (checked with PBE, GPUz only reports 1 memory type, some cards have 2 or 3 memory manufacturers on the same card).

download Polaris Bios Editor.
dump your bios with ATIwinFlash or ATiFlash command line tool (CLI is better if you have more than 2 cards)
open bios with PBE
click the "1-click timing patch" button. this will copy/paste your 1500 timing values to 1625/1750/2000 fields.
save modded bios as some other filename
flash bios back with ATIflash
OC the memory with software tools, either the miner software like Claymores or using Afterburner or some other OC utility.
profit.

 

[ZL1]

you need to manually adjust timings for each card. you cant just apply the same settings to different manufacturers cards or even the same card with different memory. you can only flash the same bios to multiple cards if they are the same exact card model, AND have the same exact memory config (checked with PBE, GPUz only reports 1 memory type, some cards have 2 or 3 memory manufacturers on the same card).

download Polaris Bios Editor.
dump your bios with ATIwinFlash or ATiFlash command line tool (CLI is better if you have more than 2 cards)
open bios with PBE
click the "1-click timing patch" button. this will copy/paste your 1500 timing values to 1625/1750/2000 fields.
save modded bios as some other filename
flash bios back with ATIflash
OC the memory with software tools, either the miner software like Claymores or using Afterburner or some other OC utility.
profit.

this, it works every time

another solution is to use PBE's inbuilt optimizer, sometimes it yields even better results

and if the driver wont recognize the bios, easy fix

 

[chawks2]

you need to manually adjust timings for each card. you cant just apply the same settings to different manufacturers cards or even the same card with different memory. you can only flash the same bios to multiple cards if they are the same exact card model, AND have the same exact memory config (checked with PBE, GPUz only reports 1 memory type, some cards have 2 or 3 memory manufacturers on the same card).

I am sorry but you are incorrect. I have done this for 3 cards and it works beautifully. You are right you cannot just take a BIOS from one card to another. BUT you CAN take the BIOS settings and duplicate them for the card. Which is what I have done and it works 100% as long as you are using the same memory per card. Amazingly it also solves the issues of heat and power also.

If you take those timings I posted earlier you are GUARANTEED to get 30 MH/s as long as the memory IS NOT the Samsung. (must be the Hynix variant)

I will post more information when I have the time, but it does work and will work as I have stated.

 

[87dtna]

So, is hynix ram better on AMD cards? For my 1070's, the samsung ram overclocks wayyy better than the hynix does.

 

[gsrcrxsi]

you need to be very careful. its too easy for someone to read your post and think they can just copy/paste settings without knowing what they are doing.

I gave more precise instructions that are more fool proof and helps avoid ending up with a bricked card.

i will also reiterate the need to not simply use GPUz to check what kind of memory you have. (I know you didnt say that, but thats what most people do). GPUz will only tell you the first memory manufacturer. I have one card (RX580) that GPUz reports as Hynix, but inspection of the stock BIOS with PBE reveals that it actually has a mix of Hynix/Elpida/Samsung, each with their own sections for memory timings.

In cases like this it pays to be paranoid and check every detail.

 

[gsrcrxsi]

So, is hynix ram better on AMD cards? For my 1070's, the samsung ram overclocks wayyy better than the hynix does.

Samsung seems to have the better reputation among miners, but i think silicon lottery is the true king.

I've seen guys with AMD cards and Samsung memory that couldnt get more clocks or hashrate at all from stock, and my hynix cards (570s and 1 580) do pretty well.

and my EVGA 1080 FTW2 has Micron memory, which doesnt seem to have a great reputation, but I had no trouble overclocking the ram +1000

 

[87dtna]

Interesting. I run +900 on my samsung 1070, +1000 seems slightly unstable and crashes every once in a great while so I just leave it on 900. I only got +500 on my hynix 1070, definitely the worst clocking ram on a 1070 I've ever had.

 

[gsrcrxsi]

I'm actually +1200 from "stock". the card shipped with "10Gbps" memory. but a little while later, EVGA released a BIOS update to bump the card to "11Gbps" (+500MHz). I'm now stable at +700 from that. more and it gets unstable.

 

[chawks2]

So, is hynix ram better on AMD cards? For my 1070's, the samsung ram overclocks wayyy better than the hynix does.

I do not know the answer because I have been unable to get the timings from the Hynix memory to work on the Samsung variant. I will tell you this. The 4 cards I have, ALL of them have the EXACT SAME memory timings EXCEPT the values @1750,2000,2250. Changing just these values to the ones posted (from a Sapphire Nitro) moves the hash rate from 27 MH/s to 30 MH/s. (Claymore expresses the highest hash rate with core clock @1135 & mem clock @2150 - I am sure you can get higher, but when I went above this in my setup artifacting began to express itself)

If I leverage cybergator (forgot his name) guide where you take the strap from either the 1625/1750 of the stock memory timing values, I do not do any better than 27 MH/s. This is a very interesting find if you ask me. It means we can target the cheapest possible card and just change the strap timing (at least the Hynix for now).

To go a little further down the rabbit hole, the Sapphire Nitro also has interesting power and temperature settings, which I have also applied. It drops the temps on the cards from the mid 50s to the mid 40s. I MUST post the work I have done, I will, just give me some time lol.

 

[Johan45]

you need to be very careful. its too easy for someone to read your post and think they can just copy/paste settings without knowing what they are doing.

I gave more precise instructions that are more fool proof and helps avoid ending up with a bricked card.

i will also reiterate the need to not simply use GPUz to check what kind of memory you have. (I know you didnt say that, but thats what most people do). GPUz will only tell you the first memory manufacturer. I have one card (RX580) that GPUz reports as Hynix, but inspection of the stock BIOS with PBE reveals that it actually has a mix of Hynix/Elpida/Samsung, each with their own sections for memory timings.

In cases like this it pays to be paranoid and check every detail.

Are you certain the card has mixed ram OR does this BIOS cover all the vendors cards which may be produced with any of the three ram ICs depending on availability. I have had quite a few cards apart and have never noticed differeing RAM IC on the same card.I will say I wasn't looking either. This just seems to me that mixing ram would create a very messed up(un stable) enviroment.

 

[deathman20]

Are you certain the card has mixed ram OR does this BIOS cover all the vendors cards which may be produced with any of the three ram ICs depending on availability. I have had quite a few cards apart and have never noticed differeing RAM IC on the same card.I will say I wasn't looking either. This just seems to me that mixing ram would create a very messed up(un stable) enviroment.

I'd say the same thing. Every card that I've taken apart I've never noticed different ram on the same card. Its that one thing on the checklist that just got to look at IMO if taking the heatspreader/heatsink off. If they did that they'd be causing trouble IMO because of timing, voltages and just not the "same" package.

Now I see it all the time where there is all the manufactures of ram are listed for a card and all the timings associated with it for various speeds.

- - - Updated - - -

Samsung seems to have the better reputation among miners, but i think silicon lottery is the true king.

I've seen guys with AMD cards and Samsung memory that couldnt get more clocks or hashrate at all from stock, and my hynix cards (570s and 1 580) do pretty well.

and my EVGA 1080 FTW2 has Micron memory, which doesnt seem to have a great reputation, but I had no trouble overclocking the ram +1000

I don't think its silicon lottery per say with the brands specs its the timings with the various vendors that seem to play better on one card vs another.
AMD does better with Hynix Ram chips...
Nvidia does better with Samsung Ram chips...

Speed wise, my hynix ram has no problem doing +800 or +1000 on my 1060's. Yet someone with Samsung ram can do half the speed and yet some how get 20% more hashing power with Eth. Its all about the timings.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm actually +1200 from "stock". the card shipped with "10Gbps" memory. but a little while later, EVGA released a BIOS update to bump the card to "11Gbps" (+500MHz). I'm now stable at +700 from that. more and it gets unstable.

Now forgot what my 1080TI has but I know I can run it +800 from stock. While its 11Gbps out of the box its probably very similar to yours. Really doesn't seem to benefit from the additional overhead so I keep it a little lower but that is cool. I was going to say I could be +1300 on mine if I was saying 2D P-State vs 3D P-State on the card. Think jaws would drop if I messed that one up

 

[gsrcrxsi]

Are you certain the card has mixed ram OR does this BIOS cover all the vendors cards which may be produced with any of the three ram ICs depending on availability. I have had quite a few cards apart and have never noticed differeing RAM IC on the same card.I will say I wasn't looking either. This just seems to me that mixing ram would create a very messed up(un stable) enviroment.

I’m certain.

I have 2 cards that are the same model/sku.

MSI RX 580 4G Armor OC

If you look at the stock bios from each card in PBE, one card has 2 types of ram (Hynix/Elpida) and the other card has 3 types (Hynix/Elpida/Samsung). Furthermore, the memory timings section has 2 (or 3) separate sections for memory timings. When you click the timing patch button it reports to you that it is changing timings for 2/3 separate memory types.

With the increase in ram shortages, it’s increasingly common for video card manufacturers to have mixed ram on board.

 

[Johan45]

I’m certain.

I have 2 cards that are the same model/sku.

MSI RX 580 4G Armor OC

If you look at the stock bios from each card in PBE, one card has 2 types of ram (Hynix/Elpida) and the other card has 3 types (Hynix/Elpida/Samsung). Furthermore, the memory timings section has 2 (or 3) separate sections for memory timings. When you click the timing patch button it reports to you that it is changing timings for 2/3 separate memory types.

With the increase in ram shortages, it’s increasingly common for video card manufacturers to have mixed ram on board.

Not trying to start a fight but I recently did a reveiw for the 1070Ti Titanium, I know all chips on board are micron. I took pics but if you check the data base at TPU they list support for all three types of GDDR5. I still have a hard time believing that they mix chips on one board and likely won't until I see it. You know "pics or it didn't happen"

GPU Device Id: 0x10DE 0x1B82
Version: 86.04.85.00.9D
GP104 PG411 SKU 10 VGA BIOS
MSINV330MH.311
Copyright (C) 1996-2017 NVIDIA Corp.
GP104 Board
Connectors
1x DVI-D
1x HDMI
3x DisplayPort
Board power limit
Target: 180.0 W
Limit: 240.0 W
Adj. Range: -50%, +33%
Thermal limits
Rated: 83.0C
Max: 92.0C
Memory Support
GDDR5, Samsung
GDDR5, Micron
GDDR5, Hynix
Boost Clock: 1683 MHz

 

[gsrcrxsi]

this isnt looking at a list of available manufacturers on a website.

this is hex values for memory present in the BIOS. with different BIOS's from the same sku having different memory configs.

 

[EarthDog]

With the increase in ram shortages, it’s increasingly common for video card manufacturers to have mixed ram on board.

This would be a first that I have seen. I would like to see pictures of this card with mixed ICs on it. Just because there are entries in the BIOS for it, doesn't mean they are using more than one on the card itself. They could be for other cards using other ICs because of what you said, the shortage, but not mixed.

The only way to really tell is to take a pic of the memory ICs on the card.

I just find it hard to believe they would mix two, nonetheless three, ICs on a card. We say not to mix and match ram for a reason, I couldn't imagine doing this on a GPU with 3 different types. It makes no sense to me why they would do that.

 

[gsrcrxsi]

Then why would one bios have only 2 entries where another bios has 3? They are the same sku.