270x Downgrade bios to 7870 for M91p motherboard.

[MrGenius]

Hi guys

Could you be so nice and make change for me from 1002-6611 to 1002-6758 (R7 240 to 6670) . Hope 6670 works in M91p

They aren't the same GPU. R7 240 is Oland, 6670 is Turks. So it most likely won't work because of the drivers. Which most likely won't be the same for different GPUs. AFAIK this trick only works for rebrands(same GPU, different card name). The R7 240 is a rebrand of an HD 8570. But they both have the same Device ID. Meaning, you're SOL as far as changing the Device ID. And probably SOL altogether. Sorry. I could do that for you anyway. But I'd rather not waste my(and/or your) time on something that doesn't have much chance of working. Not to mention that I'm not feeling very well today. Ask me again tomorrow and I might reconsider.

 

[mcemsi]

Thank you MrG.

Do you see any chance for solution here? Any way to make R7240 work with M91p? Wiping out the whitelist from M91p BIOS is possible ?

 

[eidairaman1]

Hi guys

Could you be so nice and make change for me from 1002-6611 to 1002-6758 (R7 240 to 6670) . Hope 6670 works in M91p

What specific card is that?

Thank you MrG.

Do you see any chance for solution here? Any way to make R7240 work with M91p? Wiping out the whitelist from M91p BIOS is possible ?

You need a tool to get a bios dump or update to latest bios avsilable for the motherboard, look up removibg white list on your specific system on the net.

 

[mcemsi]

Something like this : https://s15.postimg.cc/pca3kxvfv/R7240.jpg

 

[mcemsi]

So guys ? Any possibility to make it work ?

 

[Darkyoutz]

Hello...
I followed this subject very curious and even modified my cards bios accordingly...until i stepped over your comment that it only works on same generation cards...
I have a R9 285 which not booting on this M91 machine and before is kill the card by flashing this bios, i was wondering if you could explain the arising issue when changing a DV EV ID of a R285 to a 7870
Thx for the details

 

[eidairaman1]

Hello...
I followed this subject very curious and even modified my cards bios accordingly...until i stepped over your comment that it only works on same generation cards...
I have a R9 285 which not booting on this M91 machine and before is kill the card by flashing this bios, i was wondering if you could explain the arising issue when changing a DV EV ID of a R285 to a 7870
Thx for the details

R285/380-X is tonga, not 7870 in any way shape or form, physically and electrically different chips.

The whitelist in mobo bios will need to be removed, google.com will help you find an answer.

 

[mcemsi]

The whitelist in mobo bios will need to be removed, google.com will help you find an answer.

Any address hint for this ?

 

[Darkyoutz]

I tried to find a whitelist removal, but noone as far i know made it happen yet...
if you know different, i take every hint.
I know that these baords are different...i would be interested to know how the driver might react on that change...or if it would just work...

 

[eidairaman1]

I tried to find a whitelist removal, but noone as far i know made it happen yet...
if you know different, i take every hint.
I know that these baords are different...i would be interested to know how the driver might react on that change...or if it would just work...

It won't work. The dev id and subsystem id have to match the hardware involved. 7870 is not Tonga in any way shape or form.

 

[zmas]

260x is not working with Lenovo M91p. I tried changing the device id to match that of HD 7790 (the simple method without the UEFI stuff) and still no luck. Any ides why? maybe the UEFI stuff are needed?

 

[MrGenius]

260x is not working with Lenovo M91p. I tried changing the device id to match that of HD 7790 (the simple method without the UEFI stuff) and still no luck. Any ides why? maybe the UEFI stuff are needed?

I have no idea why it wouldn't work. Other than the HD 7790 isn't on the whitelist. UEFI or not shouldn't matter. If it'll boot, it'll boot with or with a BIOS that supports UEFI GOP(and/or has UEFI GOP activated/deactivated).

 

[zmas]

I have no idea why it wouldn't work. Other than the HD 7790 isn't on the whitelist. UEFI or not shouldn't matter. If it'll boot, it'll boot with or with a BIOS that supports UEFI GOP(and/or has UEFI GOP activated/deactivated).

What I did was to change the device id from 1002 6658 to 1002 665C and alter the CRC. Maybe of significance is that the there was only one PCIR record at the top?
My thought is - becuase Windows and gpu-z still recognize the device as the original although the id is changed as the op said, can I change the id to a non-matching id like the one for the 270x which worked for the op?
Also - thank you MrGenius for still looking at this thread

 

[MrGenius]

What I did was to change the device id from 1002 6658 to 1002 665C and alter the CRC. Maybe of significance is that the there was only one PCIR record at the top?
My thought is - becuase Windows and gpu-z still recognize the device as the original although the id is changed as the op said, can I change the id to a non-matching id like the one for the 270x which worked for the op?

There would only be one instance of PCIR in the BIOS if there's no UEFI GOP module. Since that's where the other instance always is. It seems like there's a good percentage of 260X BIOSes that don't have UEFI support. Which yours is obviously one of.

I still haven't figured out why a card is reported as the original when these Device IDs are changed. But it doesn't really matter for the intents and purposes of this mod. So long as the M91p BIOS is seeing it as a different card, which it apparently does, that's all that matters.

On the non-matching ID, as in not matching the GPU, I'm not entirely sure if that will work or not. I have sort of figured out how to determine which bits of the drivers get installed for different GPUs. There's a config file that eludes to that. I haven't really looked into it much. But I could dig a little deeper and see what I can make of it. So I'll do that.

In the meantime, if you attach a copy of your BIOS I'll go ahead and do the patched UEFI GOP trick with it. So you can try that. I don't think it'll work. But you never know...it might.

EDIT: I figured out what I would try as far as modding the drivers to work with a device ID from a different GPU. You probably need to extract the driver files before installation(like with 7-Zip or whatever). Then go to Win10-64Bit-Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-2019-Edition-19.1.1-Jan10\Packages\Drivers\Display\WT6A_INF and open each of the Setup Information files(should be 2 of them, and I don't know which is used for what, so do both just in case) to change a bunch of stuff. Just copy and paste stuff to where it needs to be. I'm guessing that'd work anyway. For example:

Copy the stuff below [ati2mtag_R505], [ati2mtag_R505.Services], [ati2mtag_R505_SoftwareDeviceSettings] and paste it in place of the stuff below whichever spot you're going to try using the Device ID for.

R505 = 260X
R575 = 7850/7870
R57A = 7750

Then save it and put the whole drivers folder in C: and install it from there. If that doesn't work you might try using Device Manager instead. And installing all the other stuff(Radeon Settings etc.) separately.

You might also be able to change what the card gets detected as by changing AMD6658.1 = "AMD Radeon R9 260" to AMD6658.1 = "whatever you want it to be detected as".

I might have missed some stuff too. I haven't tried anything like this before. Well...not exactly like this anyway. I've messed with the Setup Information files to make my own AGP hotfix drivers for my HD 4650 AGP. Which is how I know about them.

 

[Shambles1980]

the white list in the mb bios is not easy to find (i know i couldnt find it) let-alone change safely "remove it or add more cards"
I was only able to get the gpu bios id modified because the card was simply a rebranded version of a card that was in the white list..

The easist way to get the mb to work with a gpu is to just use a nvidia card. Many more of those are supported.

 

[zmas]

There would only be one instance of PCIR in the BIOS if there's no UEFI GOP module. Since that's where the other instance always is. It seems like there's a good percentage of 260X BIOSes that don't have UEFI support. Which yours is obviously one of.

I still haven't figured out why a card is reported as the original when these Device IDs are changed. But it doesn't really matter for the intents and purposes of this mod. So long as the M91p BIOS is seeing it as a different card, which it apparently does, that's all that matters.

On the non-matching ID, as in not matching the GPU, I'm not entirely sure if that will work or not. I have sort of figured out how to determine which bits of the drivers get installed for different GPUs. There's a config file that eludes to that. I haven't really looked into it much. But I could dig a little deeper and see what I can make of it. So I'll do that.

In the meantime, if you attach a copy of your BIOS I'll go ahead and do the patched UEFI GOP trick with it. So you can try that. I don't think it'll work. But you never know...it might.

EDIT: I figured out what I would try as far as modding the drivers to work with a device ID from a different GPU. You probably need to extract the driver files before installation(like with 7-Zip or whatever). Then go to Win10-64Bit-Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-2019-Edition-19.1.1-Jan10\Packages\Drivers\Display\WT6A_INF and open each of the Setup Information files(should be 2 of them, and I don't know which is used for what, so do both just in case) to change a bunch of stuff. Just copy and paste stuff to where it needs to be. I'm guessing that'd work anyway. For example:

Copy the stuff below [ati2mtag_R505], [ati2mtag_R505.Services], [ati2mtag_R505_SoftwareDeviceSettings] and paste it in place of the stuff below whichever spot you're going to try using the Device ID for.

R505 = 260X
R575 = 7850/7870
R57A = 7750

Then save it and put the whole drivers folder in C: and install it from there. If that doesn't work you might try using Device Manager instead. And installing all the other stuff(Radeon Settings etc.) separately.

You might also be able to change what the card gets detected as by changing AMD6658.1 = "AMD Radeon R9 260" to AMD6658.1 = "whatever you want it to be detected as".

I might have missed some stuff too. I haven't tried anything like this before. Well...not exactly like this anyway. I've messed with the Setup Information files to make my own AGP hotfix drivers for my HD 4650 AGP. Which is how I know about them.

I don't understand the purpose of changing the drivers. If gpu-z recognizes the device as the original even after changing the device id, why change drivers installation? Or am I really offtrack with what we are doing...
I'll try to upload the bios I modified but it'll take some time because I need to disassemble the gpu from the Lenovo pc and put it back together in another pc for the flashing (with ATI flash, right?) as I did before (or can it be done on Lenovo?). Also note that VBE7 doesn't work with HD7790 or R7 260x so to check the device id I used https://github.com/OneB1t/HawaiiBiosReader.
In the meantime I'll share my experience with the drivers-
1) gpu bios unmodified - tried booting on the lenovo with the boot drive from previous gpu pc host which has all the drivers installed . **not working
2) gpu bios unmodified - gpu in Lenovo. manual install (because regular installation doesn't fulfill if it doesn't detect the gpu ) of the R7 200 series drivers from extracted packages (versions 19 and 14). **not working
3) gpu bios modified to HD7790 -same as 2. **not working
4) gpu bios modified to HD7790 - regular install of the drivers package - version 19 (adrenalin) says "components already installed". version 14 says "failure to load package".
I removed everything with AMD cleanup utility and then used Display Driver Uninstaller but that message "components already installed" is still there. *that's where I'm at now

As far as I understood- for the op the simple bios mod (device_id and crc chekcksum) worked. So I am hoping that changing the device_id to the one for HD7870 like he did will work, but he had UEFi or whatever and I don't although you said that it doesn't matter.

the white list in the mb bios is not easy to find (i know i couldnt find it) let-alone change safely "remove it or add more cards"
I was only able to get the gpu bios id modified because the card was simply a rebranded version of a card that was in the white list..

The easist way to get the mb to work with a gpu is to just use a nvidia card. Many more of those are supported.

You said before "
So far, i can only see a 260x as being actually in the whitelist. and i was Just downloading a 260x bios to try and grab the vendor id from that..
thats when i saw the reply.. " How do you know that? for me obviously it's not working.
Maybe I should just update the bios (the pc bios)?

 

[Regeneration]

Why don't you sue Lenovo for false advertising in a small claims court? The company has a branch in every country.

Detailed specifications for (4x3) Small form factor - ThinkCentre M91 (type 4471, 4477, 4485, 4496, 4503, 4514, 4554, 7023, 7035, 7079), M91p (type 4466, 4474, 4480, 4498, 4512, 4518, 7005, 7072, 7177, 7033)

https://support.lenovo.com/en/solutions/pd008634

Slots
* Two full-height PCI
* One low profile PCI Express x1
* One low profile PCI Express x16

Industry Standards
All systems conforms to the following industry standards:
* ACPI v3.0
* DMI v2.0
* IEEE 802.3
* JEDEC 240-pin DIMM memory
* SmBios v2.6
* PCI v2.3
* PCIe v1.0
* Serial ATA II/III
* PXE v2.1
* USB v2.0
* USB v3.0 (Optional by PCIe*1 adapter)
* AMT7.1

Couldn't find a single word about 'PCIe device whitelist'... and since the system doesn't work with all PCIe devices, as required by the specification and advertised by the vendor, this is false advertising, and you deserve a compensation.

 

[zmas]

Why don't you sue Lenovo for false advertising in a small claims court? The company has a branch in every country.

Detailed specifications for (4x3) Small form factor - ThinkCentre M91 (type 4471, 4477, 4485, 4496, 4503, 4514, 4554, 7023, 7035, 7079), M91p (type 4466, 4474, 4480, 4498, 4512, 4518, 7005, 7072, 7177, 7033)

https://support.lenovo.com/en/solutions/pd008634

Slots
* Two full-height PCI
* One low profile PCI Express x1
* One low profile PCI Express x16

Industry Standards
All systems conforms to the following industry standards:
* ACPI v3.0
* DMI v2.0
* IEEE 802.3
* JEDEC 240-pin DIMM memory
* SmBios v2.6
* PCI v2.3
* PCIe v1.0
* Serial ATA II/III
* PXE v2.1
* USB v2.0
* USB v3.0 (Optional by PCIe*1 adapter)
* AMT7.1

Couldn't find a single word about 'PCIe device whitelist'... and since the system doesn't work with all PCIe devices, as required by the specification and advertised by the vendor, this is false advertising, and you deserve a compensation.

There is a list of FRUs for ThinkCentre in the Hardware Maintenance Manual. There is a warning about replacing ROHS compliant FRUs, which brings to thought - maybe the BIOS declines the AMD gpus because they are not recognized as ROHS compliant? Is that possible MrGenius?

 

[Shambles1980]

hi again.
the mb bios needed to be updated to get the most recent whitelist for me..
if your mb bios is not the latest one the White list will not be the same, I can not verify the 260x any more as i dont have the system. But if i said the 260x was supported it was because lenovo or some one else who had the mb had confirmed it to work.
i know from personal experience that the 7870 worked though as that is what i used as a device id.. so all 7xxx id's should work (7790) but you will need to double check that your motherboard is on the latest bios..

So all i can say is please verify that you are using the latest bios on the motherboard. If not then that is probably the issue. But the only id i can 100% confirm is the 7870, which i tested as a 7850 was confirmed working by some one else..
any way here is the latest bios for the mb:

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/downloads/DS018245

p.s
Im not sure where i got the info that a 260x would work.. but i dont really see why a 260x would be on the white list and not a 270x If a 260x is on the white list after you update the bios then all is well any way.
But if the 260x is on the whitelist and not the 270x.. then i dont know which hd 7xxx cards are guaranteed to be on the whitelist either. (7870 is 100% on the list though)

 

[zmas]

hi again.
the mb bios needed to be updated to get the most recent whitelist for me..
if your mb bios is not the latest one the White list will not be the same, I can not verify the 260x any more as i dont have the system. But if i said the 260x was supported it was because lenovo or some one else who had the mb had confirmed it to work.
i know from personal experience that the 7870 worked though as that is what i used as a device id.. so all 7xxx id's should work (7790) but you will need to double check that your motherboard is on the latest bios..

So all i can say is please verify that you are using the latest bios on the motherboard. If not then that is probably the issue. But the only id i can 100% confirm is the 7870, which i tested as a 7850 was confirmed working by some one else..
any way here is the latest bios for the mb:

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/downloads/DS018245

p.s
Im not sure where i got the info that a 260x would work.. but i dont really see why a 260x would be on the white list and not a 270x If a 260x is on the white list after you update the bios then all is well any way.
But if the 260x is on the whitelist and not the 270x.. then i dont know which hd 7xxx cards are guaranteed to be on the whitelist either. (7870 is 100% on the list though)

I updated the bios and it's not working.

 

[Shambles1980]

I updated the bios and it's not working.

not sure what to say.. Try a bios id edit i guess.. And i dont really want to ask this as its a bit patronising but, you do have all the power connected to the gpu right?

p.s

reading your posts.. Im not seeing where / how you edited the device id.. (you dint change the vendor id instead of the device id right?)

 

[zmas]

not sure what to say.. Try a bios id edit i guess.. And i dont really want to ask this as its a bit patronising but, you do have all the power connected to the gpu right?

p.s

reading your posts.. Im not seeing where / how you edited the device id.. (you dint change the vendor id instead of the device id right?)

remember this?

I GOT IT!!! WHOOHOO!!!

UPDATE: I threw in a UEFI deactivated version just because I can(270xUEFI.rom is the one with UEFI activated, 270x.rom has UEFI deactivated). Let me know if you have any problems.

What the hell...brief tutorial.

How to change Device ID

Open BIOS rom with hex editor and search/find "PCIR" text string


You need to find all instances of PCIR(only 2)


The first 4 hex values after PCIR are the Device ID. For your original BIOS they are 02 10 10 68 = 1002-6810

You need to edit both instances to whatever you want the new Device ID to be. For yours you want 02 10 18 68 = 1002-6818(Device ID for an HD 7870)

Here


And here


Then you need to fix the CRC here


Use Anoraks AMD VBIOS CRC checker v1 to find a new CRC and change it in the BIOS. For yours you need to change 96 to 8E

Save the BIOS and your done.

New Device ID acquired

If you want to make a copy with UEFI deactivated change the hex value below from 00 to 80(vice versa to active UEFI)


Fix the CRC again and save the BIOS.

EDIT: Seeing as the UEFI didn't work after the edit I believe I've figured out how to fix that so it does. I think it's a matter of fixing the actual checksum. Which is not the CRC, though some tools see it as such. See my post below for how to fix the actual checksum...or something. I don't totally get it.

 

[MrGenius]

I don't understand the purpose of changing the drivers. If gpu-z recognizes the device as the original even after changing the device id, why change drivers installation? Or am I really offtrack with what we are doing...

I don't exactly know why you'd want/need to either. Maybe you don't. Whether or not GPU-Z recognizes the card as whatever may or may not have anything to do with it. It's the drivers that need to identify the card correctly to install the correct bits of the driver package for it. I don't really know how that works TBH. Which is why...

...I'm not entirely sure if that will work or not.

As in...maybe it will work...or maybe it won't(and/or you might need to mod the drivers).

So I am hoping that changing the device_id to the one for HD7870 like he did will work,...

Only one way to find out. Try it.

...but he had UEFi or whatever and I don't although you said that it doesn't matter.

Only one way to find out about that too. Try it.

- maybe the BIOS declines the AMD gpus because they are not recognized as ROHS compliant? Is that possible MrGenius?

I don't know how "possible" that is or isn't. But I presume AMD is just as "RoHS compliant" as anybody. Or they wouldn't be able to sell their products in a rather large portion of the world market that requires it.

 

[Shambles1980]

not sure how well that would work as one card is bonaire and the other is pictairn.
but i guess if it works out he same as it did for me. windows would see it as a 260x any way so drivers would be fine.

 

[zmas]

Update for all those still with us-
So I changed the device id again to a 7870 and it didn't work right away. Then I started installing drivers from Lenovo an intel and it didn't change much. After that I tried something else and guess what - the blame is probably on the ******* psu, because after moving the gpu connection to another rail from the psu it worked. I didn't suspect the psu before because the gpu fan was spinning.
Now I will not be flashing the gpu back to the original because it doesn't change anything regarding the drivers which is why I think that maybe for the op the device id mod didn't do anything either and it worked out because of something else,but I am not 100 percent sure. Still it's better to leave it as it is.
Thank you everyone and if you are buying a Lenovo prebuilt and planning on adding your own parts to the system be sure you know what you are doing.