Trying flashing BIOS on 6900XT as last chance for saving it

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1

Hi everyone!

Pretty much what I said in the title but I will try to provide further details.

THE PREMISES

I recently bought this used graphic card and after solving (thanks to this forum) some troubleshooting issues, everything was working smoothly, I just didn’t had the time to benchmark the card but I could try it in games and it was awesome, both for temperature and performances.

THE PROBLEM

Yesterday, quite suddenly, the PC shut down out of the blue, while I was doing stuff on internet and light working.

I also couldn’t reboot it before switching off and on again the PSU, but this problem did not shown up anymore later. Anyway, switching on the system gave no video output and motherboard VGA signal on. Also, no led on the GPU ever went on again.

Now, actually I’m quite worried (and frankly almost resigned) that the card has died, for no known reason, but here’s what I’ve done.

THE TROUBLESHOOTING

  1. Disassembled the card in all its parts, deeply cleaned it up and changed the thermal paste (old one was effectively dry) but didn’t replace thermal pad as I didn’t have any and they were in good shape

  2. Reassemble everything and mounting it on the system - zero changes: no video output and VGA led on mobo

  3. To check that everything else was not causing the problem, I switched to my old graphic card (which is nvidia, so I used live USB version to change drivers) and I could get all working - this is what mainly leads me to think the 6900XT is dead :cry:

A NEW HOPE

Trying to think what’s left that does necessarily involves the card’s death, I thought that the HDMI port on the GPU could have gone off for some reason, even though this does not explains why no led turns on on the card and why the system should have shut down in the first place. Or maybe, one of the cables from the PSU (not needed for the old GPU) is faulty (even though it is new (the entire PSU) and it was working fine. So, looking for hope and solace on youtube, I just went through this video in which they just switch the BIOS on an apparently dead GPU (with the button present on it, as it is in my case as well), and it suddenly REVIVES!! :star_struck:

To cut it short, simply switching the button doesn’t seem to work, but maybe being able to flash the right bios on the right switch position, could really make the trick. Problem is that I have no idea how to do that and programs needed (as from tutorials) to do it are only compatible with windows.

THE QUEST

In the end, is there anyone who has some idea about how to do it, or even better, has done it on his/her GPU?
I would thank anyone for the help and for the patience of reading all this as well

For proof of very high efforts level I report the testbench I’ve set up for the occasion :rofl:
testbench

2

Buying a second hand GPU is a gamble as you don’t know if it has been a part of mining farm.

You can use Hirens BootCD [ 1 ] if you cannot find anything else.

3

Thanks for the advice!

I looked a bit through it and… it is something like a Windows10 LiveUSB version, right?
I understood that it comes with several preinstalled software for hardware/software checks and backup, but I didn’t get whether I can install in it additional applications or not.

Thanks a lot!

4

It is based on Windows PE - you cannot install it but you can use it to troubleshoot - and in particular install and run certain tools to update firmware.

The installation of any kind of tool will be temporary - the nature of an ISO :slight_smile:

Whether it will work for your project - I have no idea.

5

I’ve tried it and though having the graphic card on the secondary PCIe compatible slot, GPU-Z does not see it, but device manager seems to!

Problem is that it lists that among unrecognized devices due to absence of drivers, so I rebooted in Manjaro to install them (because amd software could not be installed in Hirens due to lack of storage space (is it installed in cache memory?)).

Will these conflict with nvidia drivers for the primary graphic card?
And how can I install them through terminal? I usually would

sudo mhwd -f -i pci video-linux

but this would maybe install open drivers for the primary card?

6

You could try and see if FWUPD knows about your video card. Its a last straw effort, but worth a shot.

It should come preinstalled with Manjaro and the Github page has an easy to follow workflow of commands.

7

No - AMD has kernel support

Installing drivers in Linux will have no effect on Windows PE

8

Thanks a lot!

Even though, sadly, using the command

fwupdmgr get-devices

which should list all the devices of the system (and it does, as it shows the other GPU, the CPU, etc.), could not detect it :cry:

So this should mean that in theory, drivers does not need to be installed, right?

Don’t know if there’s any chance left then…

I guess I should leave any hope aside and call it quits…

Thanks for all the help

9

Without any warrants of any kind

10

Thank you, but amdvbflash does not detect the video card as well…

11

It is also an old binary - could have change for newer cards

12

I already looked for it as it is the Linux version of AMDVBFlash, downloadable at Techpowerup website, but this is the only one I could found (the same of your link) so…

13

Maybe you have to come to terms with the fact, that your GPU died in the mines and you got “scammed”.

Other then using fwupd to update all your other firmwares and hope for the best or a IRL slot / bios config issue … i dont know anything else that would cause this.

A few random thoughts :

  • Unplug PC from power / the wall … literally pull the plug out of the wall
  • After unplugging, hold down your power button for 10s to get the rest of the electricity out of the system
  • Remove CMOS battery from motherboard
  • Wait 10min
  • Reinstert CMOS battery
  • Plug everthing in again and start again

.

  • Maybe your video card is in the wrong spot on the motherboard. Plugging a PCI Express 3.0 card into a PCI Express 2.0 slot will not work. Consult your mainboard manual.
14

I thank you a lot for the effort but these were amongst the preliminary attempts I’ve applied to try figuring out what was going wrong.

Anyway, the fact that the system works perfectly just using another graphic card tells me that the problem is that one.

Furthermore, I’m getting to the conclusion that a short circuit of some sort must have happened OR the main chip just burnt due to improper previous utilization, which caused the pc to shut off in the first place.

Shame on me that I trusted the vendor at all…

15

You can always try to “cook it” as a last resort if you have given up on it.

It most likely wont fix your issue, but it could be worth a try if you are going to throw it away anyway.
Then again, its so dumb it might actually work.

16

I’m currently trying to make use of the warranty on this product, if it is somehow possible in anyway, but if it is not, I will try that, and if that works, man :joy: I will cry for laughing

17

I have an old r290 that died just like you describe, I don’t have the equipment for it (DO NOT DO THIS IN YOUR NORMAL OVEN, the fumes from the process are very toxic and will go into food cooked in that oven!!!) but if I ever get access to an industrial oven or something that can keep the temp range, and I will never use for food, I will do it as well.

The temperature is very important here and “normal” ovens usually can not keep the temp perfectly.

If you manage to do this (if you cant get a refund) PLEASE come back with info on how it went. It would be a glorious reading experience.

Good luck!!

18

If that is going to be the case, I will for sure!

Sure! I was thinking about going to the scrapyard to salvage some old but functioning little oven to use it for the purpose

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