Motherboard hangs on GPU check/Help with GPU flashing

[LAserman367]

Computer Type: Desktop

GPU: ASUS R9 270x DirectCU II

CPU: Ryzen 5 1600

Motherboard: GA-AB350-Gaming 3

RAM: LPX Vengeance 2x4gb 2800

PSU: Corsair CX550M / Some BeQuiet 550W non-modular PSU

Operating System & Version: Windows 7 Ultimate

Description of Original Problem: I recently ordered a new motherboard (AB350 Gaming 3) with a new CPU (Ryzen 5 1600) and RAM (LPX Vengeance). The motherboard has a little disco before boot where it tests the CPU, RAM, GPU (labelled VGA) and then Boot. For each test, a separate light goes on and if there's no problem the light goes out again. However, with my current GPU (ASUS R9 270x DirectCU II ) the light doesn't go out. With an older GPU (Zotac GTX470) the system boots fine and everything functions. Seems like a clear cut case of a dead GPU, however my R9 270x still works just fine on my older motherboard+CPU+ram combo (P7P55-M with i5 760). When the PSU gets power, the R9 270x shows green lights above where the power is connected and when I try to boot, the fans spin. Not sure if that helps, but I thought I might as well mention it

Troubleshooting:

I tried plugging it into a different PCI-E slot on the motherboard, however a friend said that was a bad idea since only the top one was PCI-E 3.0.
I tried using a brand new PSU (so I've tested it with two, both of which should be plenty to power the new system at 550W since pcpartpicker only rates it at about 350)
I updated my new motherboard's BIOS to the latest version.
I tried changing the PCI-E settings from Auto to Gen3, in case it didn't recognize the R9 270x as gen 3.
At friends recommendation, I tried turning off XMP but it was already disabled by default.
Messed around with various UEFI/Legacy boot settings but those seemed to change nothing

After someone else on another forum pointed it out, it seems to me this video from JayzTwoCents has the exact same issue I'm experiencing

At this point, I feel like the only troubleshooting step left is to flash my GPU bios, however I have some questions with the guide posted by Solaris17.

Firstly, I have no clue what bios file I should actually use. I was advised to take one off the TPU archives with the same "Graphics Card Info" as what shows up in GPU-Z, however there's currently no hard drive in my old system so I can't check the GPU-Z info without formatting again and reinstalling windows just to check. All I know is it's the "Asus R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 1120Mhz 2048MB GDDR 5", which seems to be the same as the bottom 4 BIOS files as far as I can tell.
However I noticed in some threads I checked that it's not recommended to use bios files from other users and instead should use the stock BIOS provided by the manufacturer (which I assume would be this).
Secondly, I noticed there are three atiflash version options in the flashing guide. There's the basic flash package, the "atiWINflash_274.zip" and "atiflash717(DOS).zip", since I'm going to be using a freedos bootable usb stick, I feel like the third is the correct one. But I'm not sure if that one is up to date and if it even matters if it is outdated, as the updates could simply be support for newer GPUs.


However, if you have any other ideas on things I could try, please do tell me so I can see if they help with my problem.

 

[MrGenius]

Sorry to leave you hanging for so long without a reply. I've been thinking about this for about a day now and haven't came up with any good ideas. After watching the JayzTwoCents vid and reading the comments I'm going to go with the motherboard(and/or CPU) incompatibility hypothesis. I strongly doubt it's a GPU BIOS issue. So I'm not going to recommend you mess with that. At this point I'm guessing Gigabyte needs to release a new BIOS version for that motherboard to solve the GPU incompatibility issue. And short of that...you're screwed. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[eidairaman1]

Try the 270 in another machine.

Pull the board out of the case and put on non conductive surface such as a wood or laminate countertop or table with the pcie slots facing the edge, take that 270 and insert it fully and squarely, do a clear cmos on the board, ensure all power connectors are plugged in.

 

[OneMoar]

vbios on the card isn't handling the uefi hand over properly

and make sure secure boot is off and if there is legacy/csm bios/option rom mode enable it

old card is old also jz could't trouble shoot how to microwave popcorn

 

[MrGenius]

As far as the vBIOS, there are things you could try. I can't imagine they would solve the problem. But they wouldn't do any harm if done correctly. You could deactivate the UEFI GOP functionality of the vBIOS. Or delete the UEFI GOP section from it entirely. You could also try updating the UEFI GOP version to a newer one. All of those things could be done to the original vBIOS. Without the risk involved with flashing a non-original vBIOS. Or you could assume the risk of flashing a non-original vBIOS and do that. Personally, that would be the last thing I would try. And I would only do it knowing that I could fix it if something went wrong.

I'm still going to insist that everything else should be tried before messing with the vBIOS. And that it's most likely a lost cause to do so. But if you decide you really want/need to try it, I will offer assistance.

 

[eidairaman1]

@MrGenius is Correct, it is easier to try the suggestions before messing with vbios code modifying/flashing...

 

[OneMoar]

its a 270x bin it , replace it
seriously driver support is marginal and its to slow todo anything other then run a few aging rpgs

 

[LAserman367]

Try the 270 in another machine.

Pull the board out of the case and put on non conductive surface such as a wood or laminate countertop or table with the pcie slots facing the edge, take that 270 and insert it fully and squarely, do a clear cmos on the board, ensure all power connectors are plugged in.

The 270x works just fine in my old system, like I mentioned. The power connectors are plugged in correctly, which is even easier to tell since the 270x has green/red LEDs to indicate this. I have cleared CMOS before on the new board, unless you were somehow talking about the old board. (I forgot to mention this in the troubleshooting part)

vbios on the card isn't handling the uefi hand over properly
and make sure secure boot is off and if there is legacy/csm bios/option rom mode enable it
old card is old also jz could't trouble shoot how to microwave popcorn

I can't find anything about secure boot in my BIOS. As for the Legacy/UEFI/CSM thing, it was the last thing I was messing around with trying to get it to work. (You can see the long reddit chain from someone trying to help me here) As far as I could tell it booted into legacy by default, I thought this because "setupact.log" shows BIOS as Detected boot environment and diskmgmt.msc doesn't show a EFI partition. (I'm not sure how accurate this is, I just googled how to check if my windows was UEFI or Legacy and it gave me these checks, as the original "msinfo32" option doesn't work on windows 7
Now for trying to boot it into uefi, I tried just setting Fast boot to on and VGA Support to EFI Driver, I tried setting VGA Support back to auto, fast boot to off, windows 10 to windows 10 ( to give access to CSM options) and CSM to Disabled. Then I tried the previous but with Fast boot on and VGA Support set to EFI Driver. If you have another setting configuration to try, I'd be happy to. But I don't know what else to try. Oddly enough for all these options the Zotac booted just fine, which the person helping me found odd since apparently the Zotac GTX470 doesn't support UEFI boots.

its a 270x bin it , replace it
seriously driver support is marginal and its to slow todo anything other then run a few aging rpgs

I haven't had problems with my PC being too weak for the nearly 4 years I've used it. Only now I've found the CPU start lacking so I upgraded it. If I buy a new GPU I'd most likely just pick up a second hand 280x or something for 90$ rather than buying a brand new one. I know it'd be a massive bottleneck for the 1600 but it should be enough to hold me over for another year or so until the GPU prices calm down. Plus, if I then sell the 270x for 60-70 which I'm considering I only end up losing like 20-30$ for the GPU to have my pc working again

As far as the vBIOS, there are things you could try. I can't imagine they would solve the problem. But they wouldn't do any harm if done correctly. You could deactivate the UEFI GOP functionality of the vBIOS. Or delete the UEFI GOP section from it entirely. You could also try updating the UEFI GOP version to a newer one. All of those things could be done to the original vBIOS. Without the risk involved with flashing a non-original vBIOS. Or you could assume the risk of flashing a non-original vBIOS and do that. Personally, that would be the last thing I would try. And I would only do it knowing that I could fix it if something went wrong.

I'm still going to insist that everything else should be tried before messing with the vBIOS. And that it's most likely a lost cause to do so. But if you decide you really want/need to try it, I will offer assistance.

There should be little risk, seeing as I still have a functioning second GPU if I just back on the vBIOS currently on the 270x no? As far as I understood you just plug that baby in the first slot and flash the second slot with the previous vBIOS file again to go back to where you started before you started flashing.

After watching the JayzTwoCents vid and reading the comments I'm going to go with the motherboard(and/or CPU) incompatibility hypothesis. I strongly doubt it's a GPU BIOS issue.

The reason I assumed GPU Bios could have something to do with it is the fact that jayz tested it with another card of the same make. Therefore it must be incompatibility with a specific model, not a line of graphics cards. And as such, I thought the GPU Bios might have some kind of identifier which had the incompatibility, rather than the hardware

 

[MrGenius]

There should be little risk, seeing as I still have a functioning second GPU if I just back on the vBIOS currently on the 270x no? As far as I understood you just plug that baby in the first slot and flash the second slot with the previous vBIOS file again to go back to where you started before you started flashing.

That would work, or rather should work. So long as you backup your original 270X vBIOS first. I would also test that atiflash can detect the card in that configuration, using the atiflash -i command, before flashing a different vBIOS. If the card is detectable there's a lot less risk involved.

The reason I assumed GPU Bios could have something to do with it is the fact that jayz tested it with another card of the same make. Therefore it must be incompatibility with a specific model, not a line of graphics cards. And as such, I thought the GPU Bios might have some kind of identifier which had the incompatibility, rather than the hardware

I'm not saying it isn't possible. It just makes more sense to me that the incompatibility is caused by some other component in the Ryzen system, since the card is working fine in other systems.

 

[eidairaman1]

Pull the board out of case and then insert the card. If that does not work. Put the card in the working machine and get GPU-Z write down correct Device ID, even get the correct info off the white stickers of the card, make 2 backups of the vbios, save them as something easy to remember for the name but keep extensions the same, modify 1 or find a non uefi bios that has your device ID, @infrared @MrGenius can explain this further.

 

[EarthDog]

The other systems it is working in... are they older or new?

I believe this is a UEFI compatibility thing and flashing may be required.

 

[LAserman367]

The other systems it is working in... are they older or new?

I believe this is a UEFI compatibility thing and flashing may be required.

The other system is much older
P7P55-M with a i5 760 like I mentioned in OP. I think it's 6 years old?
The P7P55-M seems to not have an UEFI option so that could still be it, but I don't know how to force the gigabyte board to boot in UEFI. All the settings I've tried so far seemed to not do it

Pull the board out of case and then insert the card. If that does not work. Put the card in the working machine and get GPU-Z write down correct Device ID, even get the correct info off the white stickers of the card

I'm confused as to what you mean by "pull the board out of the case", if you simply mean try booting it out of the case, I don't know how that would do anything and don't know if I even have a boot option directly on the motherboard. I'm fairly sure I've also tested the new system in two cases, including a brand new 200R, so I doubt it somehow has something to do with the case. If you mean something different, could you elaborate?

My old system's hard drive is currently in my new system with ~500 gigabytes of backup already back on it again, so if possible I'd rather not have to format that again. I noticed atiflash has an option to make a bios backup. Would I be able to get the info off that if I transfer that file to my laptop?

 

[EarthDog]

Oops.. missed that. But yes, non UEFI build, non UEFI compatible card and it works. Since you installed windows with UEFI, I think you are stuck? Not sure on that one.

Anyway, I would look for an updated BIOS on the ASUS wesbite for the GPU or reach out to them and see what they say.

 

[LAserman367]

Oops.. missed that. But yes, non UEFI build, non UEFI compatible card and it works. Since you installed windows with UEFI, I think you are stuck? Not sure on that one.

Anyway, I would look for an updated BIOS on the ASUS wesbite for the GPU or reach out to them and see what they say.

What do you mean non UEFI build and non UEFI compatible card?

Both the build and the r9 270x should be UEFI compatible, unless I have an old enough BIOS version, which is possible. But even then it shouldn't be a problem if the system currently boots in Legacy mode, no?

 

[eidairaman1]

The other system is much older
P7P55-M with a i5 760 like I mentioned in OP. I think it's 6 years old?
The P7P55-M seems to not have an UEFI option so that could still be it, but I don't know how to force the gigabyte board to boot in UEFI. All the settings I've tried so far seemed to not do it


I'm confused as to what you mean by "pull the board out of the case", if you simply mean try booting it out of the case, I don't know how that would do anything and don't know if I even have a boot option directly on the motherboard. I'm fairly sure I've also tested the new system in two cases, including a brand new 200R, so I doubt it somehow has something to do with the case. If you mean something different, could you elaborate?

My old system's hard drive is currently in my new system with ~500 gigabytes of backup already back on it again, so if possible I'd rather not have to format that again. I noticed atiflash has an option to make a bios backup. Would I be able to get the info off that if I transfer that file to my laptop?

put the card in the working machine and get gpu z and download the bios from the card via that program...


Taking the board out of non working system would isolate improper seating of the card in that particular board, some boards are sensitive to seating.

Very common issue across pcie and agp.

Another note to add, verify with gpu-z if that card has uefi option checked in gpu-z or not in the rig the card is working in.

Ive been doing this for about 20 years now...

 

[LAserman367]

put the card in the working machine and get gpu z and download the bios from the card via that program...


Taking the board out of non working system would isolate improper seating of the card in that particular board, some boards are sensitive to seating.

Very common issue across pcie and agp.

Another note to add, verify with gpu-z if that card has uefi option checked in gpu-z or not in the rig the card is working in.

Ive been doing this for about 20 years now...

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, just trying to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you or missing out on some terminology. I'll check both of these tomorrow

 

[MrGenius]

Save the vBIOS with GPU-Z or atiflash and upload it here(attached to a post in this thread). I can modify it a bunch of different ways to see if the UEFI GOP is the problem or not. Like I mentioned previously. I can make a copy with the UEFI GOP deactivated, a copy with the UEFI GOP section removed, and a copy with the latest UEFI GOP version for non-Vega cards(with Vega they've started using version 2.0, which in all experimental attempts is incompatible with earlier cards, except for one XFX RX 560 I've found that appears to come with it from the factory for some unknown reason). I could even make copies with every different UEFI GOP version available. From before or after the card was released(but before version 2.0). I checked and it has a really old version, 1.53. At least the BIOSes from the TPU database do. The only older version I've seen is 1.52. But there's later versions all the way up to 1.63 that will work with your card. I can't(don't know how to) extract the vBIOS from the flash packages on the ASUS website. So I don't know which UEFI GOP version they would have. So if you want, or need, me to mess with either of those(2 available for your card it looks like) you'll need to flash them, then save them, and then upload them here for me first.

 

[LAserman367]

"Accepted file types: zip, rar, exe, txt, pdf, png, jpg, jpeg, jpe, gif, apk, ogg, xls, xlsx, doc, docx"
Apparently can't attach the .rom file so I chucked it on Mediafire

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ihm66l5fh7j65m4/r9270xBiosOriginal.rom

I also attached images of the GPU Z screen before and after driver updates

 

[LAserman367]

put the card in the working machine and get gpu z and download the bios from the card via that program...


Taking the board out of non working system would isolate improper seating of the card in that particular board, some boards are sensitive to seating.

Very common issue across pcie and agp.

Another note to add, verify with gpu-z if that card has uefi option checked in gpu-z or not in the rig the card is working in.

Ive been doing this for about 20 years now...

I took the entire motherboard out, put it on a plastic cutting board ontop of the cardboard box (The motherboard was shipped as is, not inside another cardboard box, so the outside was scratched up and dirty.) I got to the VGA check light, GPU fans turned on and the light kept burning. No boot. It was seated as well as I could, with the I/Oshield like thing hanging off the side, because it was too tall to sit flush otherwise, and the hook thing from PCI slot engaged.

 

[eidairaman1]

I took the entire motherboard out, put it on a plastic cutting board ontop of the cardboard box (The motherboard was shipped as is, not inside another cardboard box, so the outside was scratched up and dirty.) I got to the VGA check light, GPU fans turned on and the light kept burning. No boot. It was seated as well as I could, with the I/Oshield like thing hanging off the side, because it was too tall to sit flush otherwise, and the hook thing from PCI slot engaged.

Proceed with using the gpuz info aka device ID. Your card has uefi enabled. Get 2 bios dumps, you can modify 1 of those bios dumps to disable uefi, or find a bios file from vga bios database here, use the correct matching device id so you dont brick your card.

 

[MrGenius]

It's got one of the weird "Customized" GOP sections with "Legacy parts". That I fully don't understand the point of. But it shouldn't matter. I can work around that. It's basically just some extra stuff added after the GOP section and doesn't get changed by deactivating or updating the GOP version. Well I could change it, but I don't know if it's a good idea to or not. I did one modification with it removed along with the GOP section. Which makes sense to me. But that could be a bad idea. So I made one with just the GOP section removed and left the extra whatever it is intact.

You original vBIOS isn't in the database. So you should upload it using GPU-Z so it can be added to it. There's one that's nearly identical. With only one hex value being different in the entire thing. It's the one with the same BIOS Version string(015.038.000.003.000000). Out of the 4 with the same device and subsystem IDs that one and this one have the most similar GOP structure to your original. With some strange bit added to the very end, like your original, that the other 2 don't have. So in theory they would be better candidates for flashing...under ordinary circumstances. But since they are so similar, to your original, they might not be better candidates in these circumstances. Since it might be that difference that's causing the problem. In which case this one or this one might be better(since they don't have that strange bit at the end).

So yeah, you could try flashing those. Or try the ones I've modified from your original. Ideally one of the 4 from the database or one of the 4 I modified will work. But if none of them do I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve. And there's always the one(s) from the ASUS site too. Which may or may not be in the database already. I have no way of knowing if they are or aren't. It looks like one of them is labeled as for the STD, not TOP, version. And yours is apparently the TOP version. So...maybe don't flash that one.

Side notes: Your original vBIOS has GOP version 1.52. So does the one in the database with the same BIOS Version string. The other 3 in the database have GOP version 1.53. I used the latest compatible GOP version(1.63) to update your original vBIOS GOP. GOP versions between 1.52 and 1.63 can be tried later if need be.

 

[LAserman367]

You original vBIOS isn't in the database. So you should upload it using GPU-Z so it can be added to it.

I just tried to upload it and GPU-Z said my BIOS is the same as this one and didn't let me upload. AKA the one you said was extremely similar to it.
Since I'm completely in the dark about all this STD TOP GOP stuff, is there any of the eight you would recommend me to try first? As in the one you believe has the highest probability of succeeding. Or am I basically just rolling a die at this point?
And three more smaller questions, how should I set up my bios settings to try these flashed GPUs. Should I just go back to the default settings? (Fast boot off, W10 Features set to Other) and should a r9 270x boot without a monitor? It would make the testing a lot easier as I could simply test over by the table instead of having to struggle with carrying it to my desk. As far as I've read it should be fine for making it to the boot.
As for the third, going back to one of my questions from the OP, does the version of atiflash I use matter? Do I just use the one included in the flashing package from the AMD flashing guide, do I just use the 2.77 version that comes up when you google atiflash or do I use the old ATIFlash 4.17 that comes up when you google "atiflash dos"? I'm not even sure if it matters, but just want to make sure.

 

[MrGenius]

I'm conflicted about which to flash first. I kind of makes sense to try the ones I modified from your original. Since they're mostly your original. But it also kind of makes sense to try the ones in the database first, that presumably haven't been messed with, and should work because ASUS tested them and they did. I honestly don't know which way to go on that. I'm still thinking that none of them are going to work any better than your original. But they might. And what else can you do at this point anyway?

On the motherboard BIOS settings, as far as I know none of that stuff works with 7. The Windows 10 stuff I mean. I could be wrong about that though. So I don't really know what you should do about that either. I don't think Fast Boot matters. It should work the same with it on or off. But I could be wrong about that too.

On which atiflash to use, use 2.77 if you can. ATIWinflash is just easier to use. I'm not one of the "NEVER flash from Windows" gang. In my experience there's no reason not to. Maybe some day that's going to bite me in the ass. But I doubt it ever will.

 

[eidairaman1]

I just tried to upload it and GPU-Z said my BIOS is the same as this one and didn't let me upload. AKA the one you said was extremely similar to it.
Since I'm completely in the dark about all this STD TOP GOP stuff, is there any of the eight you would recommend me to try first? As in the one you believe has the highest probability of succeeding. Or am I basically just rolling a die at this point?
And three more smaller questions, how should I set up my bios settings to try these flashed GPUs. Should I just go back to the default settings? (Fast boot off, W10 Features set to Other) and should a r9 270x boot without a monitor? It would make the testing a lot easier as I could simply test over by the table instead of having to struggle with carrying it to my desk. As far as I've read it should be fine for making it to the boot.
As for the third, going back to one of my questions from the OP, does the version of atiflash I use matter? Do I just use the one included in the flashing package from the AMD flashing guide, do I just use the 2.77 version that comes up when you google atiflash or do I use the old ATIFlash 4.17 that comes up when you google "atiflash dos"? I'm not even sure if it matters, but just want to make sure.

You will want to do the bios flash in the machine it is working in right now, does that other machine have a built in graphics adapter?

@MrGenius I only found 1 bios that is non UEFI here, the Device/Sub system may not match though.

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/163168/163168

 

[MrGenius]

I never checked the unverified list.

Which complicates things a little bit. Since there's like 18 of them that have the same device and subsystem IDs.

On the UEFI or no question, Legacy/Non-UEFI BIOSes are supposed to be the most hardware compatible. They're intended for troubleshooting compatibility issues where a "Hybrid"(Legacy + UEFI) BIOS is generally used. All UEFI vBIOSes are "Hybrid" at this point in time.