I can't understand why my 2 extracted vbios differ

[Trotro_Rigolo]

Hello,

I just tried to extract the vbios of my PowerColor RX 590 Red Dragon with GPU-Z.
1st extract was done with the "save to file" option, and the md5 is as follows:
1b5b06767aa70d33be0583bdd4f90bd3
2nd extract was done with the "upload to online database" and the md5 is as follows:
ee3c9aa54285b9b925e783e8276ec228

I tried to review the hex dump and couldn't spot an obvious difference except at the end (seems like some padding was changed, I don't know)
Both extracts were done with the exact same GPU.

This is this one I have, Samsung VRAM:

PowerColor Red Dragon RX 590 Specs

AMD Polaris 30, 1545 MHz, 2304 Cores, 144 TMUs, 32 ROPs, 8192 MB GDDR5, 2000 MHz, 256 bit

www.techpowerup.com

Does anyone know why this happens? That makes it difficult to know if a vbios I see on the site is the same as the one I have on my GPU because I can't trust hashes such as sha1 or md5.

I attached the screenshot of the info of my GPU

Regards

 

[eidairaman1]

@W1zzard might be able to help

 

[W1zzard]

seems like some padding was changed

The padding affects the MD5

The BIOS database is able to ignore the padding and serial numbers (if exist) for the MD5 checksum, which is why you got "duplicate BIOS, link" even though the BIOS doesn't match your file bit for bit

 

[Trotro_Rigolo]

Ok so you confirm the only difference is a padding at the end ?
I didn't find a duplicate on the site, I uploaded my BIOS because my card has Micron support and I didn't find any Micron support on the site, even though I don't have Micron VRAM.
I just wanted to share.
But let's say I have a bios on my card and I want to know if that's the same as one I find on the site, I cannot really trust the hash?

 

[eidairaman1]

Ok so you confirm the only difference is a padding at the end ?
I didn't find a duplicate on the site, I uploaded my BIOS because my card has Micron support and I didn't find any Micron support on the site, even though I don't have Micron VRAM.
I just wanted to share.
But let's say I have a bios on my card and I want to know if that's the same as one I find on the site, I cannot really trust the hash?

Ok hash marks make no difference compared to what truly is in the file itself, micron HF, HFB, Samsung FB, FC FD, FE, etc.

Device ID and Subsystem ID and what ram is contained in the file are what matters.

I just found this file fyi look at its contents, bear in mind HF and HFB are not interchangeable, same for FB FC etc, they must be specified in the file to work...

Powercolor RX 590 VBIOS

8 GB GDDR5, 1545 MHz GPU, 2000 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

Here is a list of verified files

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

And a list of unverified files

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Trotro_Rigolo]

I just found this file fyi look at its contents, bear in mind HF and HFB are not interchangeable, same for FB FC etc, they must be specified in the file to work...

Yes it's the file I just uploaded, that comes from my card, it's not verified but it's literally the stock Powercolor 590 that supports both Micron and Samsung VRAM.

I spotted the hash mismatch after I had uploaded it, it was different from the hash I had extracted on my hard disk.


What does HF and HFB stand for?

 

[Ferrum Master]

I had the exact weird moments I could not figure out when flashing my 7900XTX as some TPU vbios refused to boot and some did and I could not understand the culprit. I flashed, then backuped back the flashed image via programmer and it differed. I ended up flashing a set of 5 ICs. And just binged soldered them on until the sucker booted. There are some claims at overclockers that GPUz does botch radeon vbios backups and those using a amdvbflash work better, but I don't think it is it.

 

[W1zzard]

There are some claims at overclockers that GPUz does botch radeon vbios backups

That was like 10 years ago when AMD changed their BIOS format in a non-standard way to add some extra data at the end, without updating the various standard ways to get BIOS size/check if more data follows

Ok so you confirm the only difference is a padding at the end ?

Send me your BIOS files to w1zzard@techpowerup.com

 

[Trotro_Rigolo]

That was like 10 years ago when AMD changed their BIOS format in a non-standard way to add some extra data at the end, without updating the various standard ways to get BIOS size/check if more data follows


Send me your BIOS files to w1zzard@techpowerup.com

Sent to you both files

Update:
What I did was to retry the same procedure:

Extract the vbios to my local hard drive
Upload the vbios to database

THis time is was refused since this file already exists:
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/210648/210648
The hash is the same as the file I extract to my local hard disk.

It's indeed the stock vbios of the RX 590 PowerColor RedDragon non OC model.

So what may have happened is a corruption of the file when trying to upload it.
Or maybe I put some extra comments?
Who knows, but this time the strange mismatch is gone.
I did it twice just to be sure.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yes it's the file I just uploaded, that comes from my card, it's not verified but it's literally the stock Powercolor 590 that supports both Micron and Samsung VRAM.

I spotted the hash mismatch after I had uploaded it, it was different from the hash I had extracted on my hard disk.


What does HF and HFB stand for?

The series of Ram, is coded that way, like Samsung based cards, they may be coded as FB, FC etc, it is what is typically labled on the ramchips silkscreen however micron uses a D9 code physically on their ram then you must use a decoder on their page to know if it is a -hf or -hfb etc.

 

[Ferrum Master]

That was like 10 years ago when AMD changed their BIOS format in a non-standard way to add some extra data at the end, without updating the various standard ways to get BIOS size/check if more data follows


Send me your BIOS files to w1zzard@techpowerup.com

But if it was the padding it should not cause some boot issues like in my case, we tried to discuss it in personal emails. I just trying different versions until those worked. They all should have worked by default, really all of them, but they ain't, so discussions raised even in 7900 thread, people had the same mixed results using a dedicated hardware flasher. It is something else really. But whatever, if you can cherry pick at least one working one, then it is all good.

We cannot do anything about it being a black box in reality. It is a really a handful few dozens of people who really do flashing using a programmer these days, so no wonders here.