Radeon Instinct MI8 issue

[kvic80]

Hi Forum Mates,

I bought a Radeon Instinct MI8 used, around 6 months ago. It came with a modded cooler: top of the aluminium frame was cut out and an 8cm fan was inserted. The fan was soldered to the bottom of the factory fan socket (not a nice solution). The BIOS was already modded (R9 Fury Nano), I attach this "original" modded BIOS. I tried it in a couple of games, it worked well. After that, I used it for mining RVN, it proved to be very efficient in this task. However the BIOS throttled it, every time it reached 74-75 degrees, it was downclocked. At first I swapped its fan to a more powerful one (still 8cm) and then I bought an AIO water block (ID-Cooling Frostflow X 120) and applied to the card. During this process I soldered off the wires of the fan. It worked for at least 1 month, the GPU never passed 55 degrees during mining, but then I swapped to a more powerful card in my one-card-mining-rig and used the card as a gaming card in my main computer. Sometimes I experienced freezing, comically not during gaming, but when using OpenSCAD. After a while one day my display remained black when switching on the computer. I took out the card, booted with the iGPU of my APU and realized that AMD radeon software was not running. I installed it once again as far as I can remember, put the card back and it gave signal again on its (originally) hidden displayport. But then again, display remained black after a few boots. I put it back to my mining rig, where HiveOS detects the card, however the mining programs do not detect it / say "Failed to list OpenCL devices on platform 0". I put it in a spare motherboard with Intel iGPU. When in the BIOS I force using the iGPU, I can install Windows, the card is detected as R9 Fury Nano and the appropriate AMD driver is detected and installed by AMD's auto detect program. After the reboot the driver says it does not work as expected and it quits. In the Device Manager there is exclamation mark near the card. In GPU-Z I can see it, however some of the information are missing, OpenCL support is disabled... see on the screenshots. After that I updated the BIOS successfully to an MI8 BIOS (unverified) found on TechPowerUp, but the issue is the same. What else should I try to make it work?

 

[Mussels]

If it was running that long at its thermal throttle limit, the card may well just be physically damaged


Other than going to the stock BIOS and verifying thermal paste and thermal pads are all in good condition, you can only try things like cleaning the PCB and a solder reflow - none of which are guaranteed to help at all

 

[delshay]

It's possible flash did not install correctly. Use a external programmer. Out of the bat you don't even have Vulkan API ticked off.

 

[kvic80]

If it was running that long at its thermal throttle limit, the card may well just be physically damaged


Other than going to the stock BIOS and verifying thermal paste and thermal pads are all in good condition, you can only try things like cleaning the PCB and a solder reflow - none of which are guaranteed to help at all

I read that R9 Nano has a maximum temperature of 85 degrees Celsius, so running on 74-75 degreess shouldn't be a problem I guess. "AMD claims that the Nano has a target GPU temperature of just 75°C and will typically operate at this temperature under load. In thermally constrained situations the Nano will allow the GPU temperature to rise above the target 75°C to its maximum 85° GPU temperature without compromising on fan acoustics or engine clocks." (R9 Nano review)
I will do some cleaning, maybe it helps, thank you for the response!

It's possible flash did not install correctly. Use a external programmer. Out of the bat you don't even have Vulkan API ticked off.

Situation was the same before BIOS flashing, so I don't think the issue is connected to it, however this card has dual BIOS, switching the switch to the other position does not seem to solve the problem
If I were to flash the BIOS with an external programmer, is this kit what I would need: CH341A programmer ?
And why is that all those checkboxes are empty? Do you know what does GPU-Z do in order to check support for these features? Why just OpenGL is present and not Vulkan for example?

 

[delshay]

Situation was the same before BIOS flashing, so I don't think the issue is connected to it, however this card has dual BIOS, switching the switch to the other position does not seem to solve the problem
If I were to flash the BIOS with an external programmer, is this kit what I would need: CH341A programmer ?
And why is that all those checkboxes are empty? Do you know what does GPU-Z do in order to check support for these features? Why just OpenGL is present and not Vulkan for example?

Then you may need to check motherboard BIOS settings or check device manager making sure it's not the default microsoft driver. I have the R9 nano card & it's an easy card to work with when it comes to motherboard compatibility.

Your card is detected, but something is missing. Perhaps you should do a DDU & clear out all old driver setup & start afresh. When troubleshooting any GFX card, I always select "driver only" from the optional menu. This cut's down complications what could be wrong.

 

[kvic80]

Then you may need to check motherboard BIOS settings or check device manager making sure it's not the default microsoft driver. I have the R9 nano card & it's an easy card to work with when it comes to motherboard compatibility.

Your card is detected, but something is missing. Perhaps you should do a DDU & clear out all old driver setup & start afresh. When troubleshooting any GFX card, I always select "driver only" from the optional menu. This cut's down complicating what could be wrong with the install.

Do you know what should I check in motherboard BIOS? There is no signal (neither on integrated HDMI nor MI8's DP) when iGPU is on Auto setting, only if I force iGPU.

 

[Mussels]

Do you know what should I check in motherboard BIOS? There is no signal (neither on integrated HDMI nor MI8's DP) when iGPU is on Auto setting, only if I force iGPU.

Try enabling CSM

UEFI is required these days for windows 11, but modded GPU BIOSes are known to break UEFI support

 

[delshay]

Try disable the IGP in the BIOS by selecting PCI-e as your first main display. This may be enough to get it fully up & running.

or remove the driver for the IGP then disable it in task manager. Don't worry you can enable it back later once the main GFX card is fully working. It will then download install an AMD driver other than the basic microsoft driver.