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Help with converting FirePro W7100 to S7150

kino0924

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Hello everyone,

I’ve been working on a small project to build affordable VDI test bench for homelab and any fun stuff that I can do.

I was able to achieve this goal by modifying Tesla K10 into Grid K2 and it was successful.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/gener...a-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/)

After having some fun with GRID, I started to look for more functions.
Despite GRID works well initially, the worst limitation is that Im stuck with ESXi or XenServer.

I want vGPU with KVM but nVidia is greedy company who charges insane amount of price ‘per’ VM which is totally out of my control.

So I started to look for alternative option; MxGPU

I realize that AMD provides vGPU solution with utilizing industry standard(SR-IOV) not like nVidia.
Also, MxGPU can be used in KVM as well!

The particular model that has supports KVM is FirePro S7150
(https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/MxGPU-Virtualization)
I also found that promising report of utilizing S7150 with Proxmox as well
(https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/MxGPU_with_AMD_S7150_under_Proxmox_VE_5.x)

Ok, lets check ebay and how much it is… damn its too expensive ($500+@)
But oh wait, the card shape looks familiar, it is identicle to W7100!
So I got W7100 with much cheaper price and was hoping if I could convert this card into S7150 since they are identicle.

While I was waiting the shipment, I did some research.
W7100 comes with 1Mb flash and S7150 comes with 4Mb flash.
I also confirmed this by extracting BIOS from vender updates (HPE, CISCO)
W7100 bios is 122kb and S7150 bios is 371kb
I assumed that S7150 BIOS is much bigger due to vGPU support.
Soldering 1Mb chip to 4Mb chip is easy so I also ordered some M25P40

So I finally got W7100 from ebay but the seller sent some weird card.
What I got is Barco MXRT-7600 which is OEM version of W7100
I didnt really care about it but the lucky part is that it came with 4Mb flash.
I didnt have to do any soldering and was able to flash S7150

Before Flash
Code:
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 693b
adapter bn dn dID asic flash romsize test bios p/n
======= == == ==== =============== ============== ======= ==== ================
0 03 00 693B Tonga M25P40/c 80000 pass 113-C7670800-103

so I just flashed CISCO S7150 bios

After Flash
Code:
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tonga PRO GL [FirePro W7100]
adapter bn dn dID asic flash romsize test bios p/n
======= == == ==== =============== ============== ======= ==== ================
0 03 00 692B Tonga M25P40/c 80000 pass 113-C7630600-100

One thing that gets cray is that the Device ID changes to W7100 but not S7150
Device ID for MXRT-7600 is 0x693B
Device ID for W7100 is 0x692B
Device ID for S7150 is 0x6929

atiflash clearly tells me that its writing 0x6929 but when I reboot the system, the system reports 0x692B

Now, I am having wild guess that there might be some small difference in PCB just like how nVidia was setting their device ID.

w7100.jpg


This is high res picture from W7100 near BIOS chip.
It has some missing resistor spots that actually connets to BIOS chip
But, its just wild guess that I cannot confirm that it acts like nVidia.
I dont have S7150 nor money to get S7150 to compare the PCB.
So, I am desperately looking for someone who can take a high resolution picture of S7150 PCB.
OR, who knows why device ID is changing but not to 0x6929.

I am planning to share the result of modding it but I am blocked.
I attached Cisco s7150 BIOS if anyone interested to see whats in it.
I have experience with x86 reversing but dont know what to do with BIOS reversing at all


Thanks for reading it and I hope to bring affordable MxGPU to community.
 

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Read this thread for assistance, the problem may be mismatched device I.D.s preventing the flash.
 

kino0924

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do you still have the vbios for the MXRT-7600 is 0x693B
Yes, but my goal is to make it to S7150 not revert back to MXRT-7600

Read this thread for assistance, the problem may be mismatched device I.D.s preventing the flash.
Flash is happening.
After Flash, everything gets change to S7150 but only device id changes to something else
After flash, I made backup of the flash and its 100% same as what I flashed.
 
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Location
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Motherboard MSI E3 KRAIT Gaming v5
Cooling Tt tower + 120mm Tt fan
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Video Card(s) Asus GTX 970 Mini
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Audio Device(s) No need.
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Try another BIOS.
Could it be possible the Cisco Bios is the same as a W7100?
 

kino0924

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Try another BIOS.
Could it be possible the Cisco Bios is the same as a W7100?

As I said on the original post, atiflash clearly says that its flashing device ID 0x6929 when I loaded s7150 bios.
This is some kind of hardware lock, not human error.
 
Joined
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Messages
13,210 (3.83/day)
Location
Sunshine Coast
System Name Black Box
Processor Intel Xeon E3-1260L v5
Motherboard MSI E3 KRAIT Gaming v5
Cooling Tt tower + 120mm Tt fan
Memory G.Skill 16GB 3600 C18
Video Card(s) Asus GTX 970 Mini
Storage Kingston A2000 512Gb NVME
Display(s) AOC 24" Freesync 1m.s. 75Hz
Case Corsair 450D High Air Flow.
Audio Device(s) No need.
Power Supply FSP Aurum 650W
Mouse Yes
Keyboard Of course
Software W10 Pro 64 bit
As I said on the original post, atiflash clearly says that its flashing device ID 0x6929 when I loaded s7150 bios.
This is some kind of hardware lock, not human error.
Did you read through the thread I linked to?
Or are you making assumption based on it's title?
Either way, good luck, i'm out.
 

kino0924

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user@ubuntu:~$ sudo ./atiflash -ai 0
Adapter 0 (BN=03, DN=00, PCIID=692B1002, SSID=021B1137)
Asic Family : Tonga
Flash Type : GD25Q41B (512 KB)
Product Name : C76301 Cloudy Tau Master A1 GDDR5 8GB 256Mx16 300e/150m
Bios Config File : C7630600.100
Bios P/N : 113-C7630600-100
Bios Version : 015.049.000.016.007518
Bios Date : 12/15/16 19:47
ROM Image Type : Hybrid Images
ROM Image Details :
Image[0]: Size(65536 Bytes), Type(Legacy Image)
Image[1]: Size(59904 Bytes), Type(EFI Image)

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo ./atiflash -prod 0
Production SN Data not found on adapter 0

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo ./atiflash -isr 0
ISR Data not found on adapter 0

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo ./atiflash -biosfileinfo s7150.rom
Product Name is : C76301 Cloudy Tau Master A1 GDDR5 8GB 256Mx16 300e/150m
Device ID is : 6929
Bios Version : 015.049.000.016.007518
Bios P/N is : 113-C7630600-100
Bios SSID : 021B
Bios SVID : 1137
Bios Date is : 12/15/16 19:47


few more information that I got while I was poking with atiflash

I realize its missing Production SN Data and ISR Data but not sure if it is relevant
 

Knightrider45

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Can you post your MXRT-7600 bios im running across same but i cant get my to post and i think i have a bad back up.
 

seatrope

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Hi @kino0924 ! Thanks for the MXRT7600 bios share. really appreciated.

@Knightrider45 did you successfully reflash your MXRT-7600 with this BIOS?

I have a AMD W7100 but need to flash it to MXRT 7600. Noticed that the flash saved by @kino0924 was 122kb whereas the ones saved by GPU-Z are 128kb.. any issues with that size difference?

Thanks so much to both of you.
 

Krutav

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Hi @kino0924 ! Thanks for the MXRT7600 bios share. really appreciated.

@Knightrider45 did you successfully reflash your MXRT-7600 with this BIOS?

I have a AMD W7100 but need to flash it to MXRT 7600. Noticed that the flash saved by @kino0924 was 122kb whereas the ones saved by GPU-Z are 128kb.. any issues with that size difference?

Thanks so much to both of you.
In my experience with BIOS flashing the sizes of the BIOS file don't matter. Any updates on this? I was thinking of purchasing an R9 380 which has the Tonga XT chip, I'm wondering if that can be flashed into an S7150 for SR-IOV. And one more thing, the w7100 doesn't have the same chip as the S7150, rather it has the same chip in the dual gpu S7150x2 model, so use that VBIOS instead. (Tonga PRO GL)
 
Last edited:

kino0924

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In my experience with BIOS flashing the sizes of the BIOS file don't matter. Any updates on this? I was thinking of purchasing an R9 380 which has the Tonga XT chip, I'm wondering if that can be flashed into an S7150 for SR-IOV. And one more thing, the w7100 doesn't have the same chip as the S7150, rather it has the same chip in the dual gpu S7150x2 model, so use that VBIOS instead. (Tonga PRO GL)

I think flashsing to R9 380 will be possible but need someone to modify S7150 bios for 2GB or 4GB.
I made some changes on GIM driver to override PCI Device ID and it helped to create VF but with 0x0000 PCI Device ID

I initially passthrough this VM but because of 0x0000 pci id, radeon driver refused to install

Luckly, we have KVM where we can override pci device id.
After overriding pci device id to 0x692F, I was able to install driver in guest and 3D accel from SR-IOV'ed W7100
 
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How is the performance of the S7150 virtualized guests? Have you done anything with the Grid K2 (no charge for licensing)? I'm wondering if performance is comparable. I was able to passthrough the whole GPU to my KVM guests but for the most part they can't take advantage of the GPU because they don't recognize any display as being attached. It sounds like the AMD side of the field might be a little more appealing if performance is decent.
 

MakiseKurisu

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I think flashsing to R9 380 will be possible but need someone to modify S7150 bios for 2GB or 4GB.
I made some changes on GIM driver to override PCI Device ID and it helped to create VF but with 0x0000 PCI Device ID

I initially passthrough this VM but because of 0x0000 pci id, radeon driver refused to install

Luckly, we have KVM where we can override pci device id.
After overriding pci device id to 0x692F, I was able to install driver in guest and 3D accel from SR-IOV'ed W7100
So to sum up what you were doing, you flashed Cisco bios on your card and you could already see sr-iov'd devices in lspci? So to enable them in VM guest all you need to do is kvm device id overriding?
 

Krutav

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So to sum up what you were doing, you flashed Cisco bios on your card and you could already see sr-iov'd devices in lspci? So to enable them in VM guest all you need to do is kvm device id overriding?
On AMD, you can flash the correct vBIOS and get access to the functionality of another card. Now, the S7150 is old, and the RX 480 8GB is cheap. The RX 480 can actually be flashed to a Radeon Instinct MI6, so that you can unlock the features of the Radeon Instinct SR-IOV which is more advanced and newer than the S7150.
 

MakiseKurisu

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On AMD, you can flash the correct vBIOS and get access to the functionality of another card. Now, the S7150 is old, and the RX 480 8GB is cheap. The RX 480 can actually be flashed to a Radeon Instinct MI6, so that you can unlock the features of the Radeon Instinct SR-IOV which is more advanced and newer than the S7150.
I saw some of your comment on eevblog. So it seems to just flash and reboot without need any other modification? The problem is that I cannot find a MI6 BIOS available.
 

Krutav

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I saw some of your comment on eevblog. So it seems to just flash and reboot without need any other modification? The problem is that I cannot find a MI6 BIOS available.
Yeah, with the same chip the only real difference is the vBIOS. If you can't find an MI6 BIOS, what I would suggest doing is going to an enterprise vendor site like HPE or Dell and looking for a GPU BIOS update. I did this for some other datacenter cards, and maybe you can find it too. Except I did not find any either. So what I recommend at this point is buying an MI6, dumping the vBIOS, and returning it.
 

MakiseKurisu

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Yeah, with the same chip the only real difference is the vBIOS. If you can't find an MI6 BIOS, what I would suggest doing is going to an enterprise vendor site like HPE or Dell and looking for a GPU BIOS update. I did this for some other datacenter cards, and maybe you can find it too. Except I did not find any either. So what I recommend at this point is buying an MI6, dumping the vBIOS, and returning it.
And I actually looked around to see if I can buy one. Damn at best I can only find some MI25. There is just no listing for either MI6 or MI8. Tough luck.

I guess the most practical for now is still W7100 mod, which is why I'm interested with OP's work.
 
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psyssors

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Not sure if I can help but I have successfully done the following:
  1. Flashed w7170m (390x MXM) to s7100x (s7150 MXM) and vise versa
  2. Modified VRAM timings and clock frequencies for both VRAM and GPU cores using hex editor
  3. Used MXM to PCIE adapters so cards can be used on desktop
I am looking for a way to modify BIOS so that it defaults to the to the lowest voltage states (825mv) for both core and vram so that it does not need to be set in software. If anyone is familiar with hex editing voltages on these bin files I would be grateful for your input.
 

topdiggy2

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Not trying to hijack this thread or anything. but, I was wondering if any of you know how to write a customized bios for crypto mining on these s7150x2 cards????

And I actually looked around to see if I can buy one. Damn at best I can only find some MI25. There is just no listing for either MI6 or MI8. Tough luck.

I guess the most practical for now is still W7100 mod, which is why I'm interested with OP's work.
if you still looking for AMD Instinct MI8 cards (fiji) i know where some are!
 

tizioc065

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good evening ! I instead made the s7150 to w7100, but I need to have 2 dport outputs and the s7150 only 1, I soldered another dport but it doesn't work because some mosfets are missing on the pcb, could you attach high-resolution photos of your w7100? in the areas where I scored and also on the opposite side! if you still need them I can take all the photos you want on the s7150!
 

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