R9 Fury Unlocking Simplified

As you probably already know it is possible to unlcok the R9 Fury from it's normal 3584 stream processor to 3776 processor, 3840 processor or even 4096 processors at which point it's basically a Fury X.

This guide is a simplification of this guide. When I was doing the process for the first time it took me close to an hour to get through it all. So this is my take on how to make the guide simpler.


First of all download this file  (dropbox mirror) and python 2(Python 3 does not work!). The filecontains all the programs and scripts that you need to unlock your Fury. You need Python to run one of the applications that makes flashing possible.
I hope that none of the software creators have a problem with me putting everything together and re-uploading it. If you do you can just leave a comment and I'll take it down again.

Unzip the folder to where ever you want. Then go to the folder CUinfo and run the program "cuinfo16".
And you'll get to see something like this:

If the last line says something like "X CUs are disabled by HW lock, override is possible at your own risk." You can try flash the card.

In order to flash the card first go into the ATiFlash folder and run the script called "BackupBIOS". This will create a file called: FuryBIOS.rom. Copy and paste this file(DO NOT CUT AND PASTE! THIS IS YOUR WORKING VANILLA BIOS IF THINGS GO SOUR YOU WILL NEED IT!) to the AtomTool folder. Then go back to ATiFlash rename the FuryBIOS.rom to FuryBIOS1.rom and then flip the BIOS switch on the top edge of your Fury. Now run the "BackupBIOS" script again. Once it's done flip your BIOS switch back to it's original position. Now go into the AtomTool folder and run the "makeroms" script. This will creat 3 files called:
3776spBIOS.rom
3840spBIOS.rom
4096spBIOS.rom

Copy these to the ATiFlash folder and run the script called "Flash XXXXSP BIOS" the XXXX stands for how many cores will be unlocked. First run the 3776 core script then restart the computer and check using GPU-z that you now have 3776 cores. If you do stress test the GPU by playing some games or running a stress test. If it's stable you can run the "Flash 3840SP BIOS" script. Then do the same that you did to check that the 3776 BIOS worked. If it does great and you can run the "Flash 4096SP BIOS" script. Then check that it worked the same way you check that the 3776SP and 3840SP BIOS worked.

If at any point the GPU is not stable just go into the ATiFlash folder and run the script that applies the previous BIOS that worked using the corresponding script. If the 4096SP BIOS didn't work flash the 3840SP BIO. If the 3840SP BIOS didn't work flash the 3776SP BIO. If the 3776SP BIOS didn't work run the "Flash Backup BIOS" script.

If the system fails to boot up after a BIOS flash flip the BIOS switch on your R9 Fury and boot up. Once windows is loaded flip the BIOS switch back to the broken BIOS and flash the last working BIOS the same way I explained in the previous paragraph.

If you run into any issues leave a comment down bellow. If you liked this guide please like and share this post potentially sign up for email updates about the blog.

The R9 Fury and Fury X volt modding guide is now up!

Thank you to Cooler Master for powering this blog with their amazing V series power supplies.

R7 260X VRM setup and full voltage modding.

I know I've already done 2 other post on volt modding the R7 260X. However none of them are complete and one of them is plain wrong and just like the saying goes 3rd time's the charm so here's a guide made after I actually went and tested everything. If you don't know anything about hardware volt modding do not try this. If you do something wrong your card will be bricked before your brain registers it(your brain takes 5about ms to process visual stimulus). I will make a post about volt modding basics some time soon but not now. Also I'm taking down the 2 old post because of the before mentioned reasons.
So lets run down the VRM setup of the R7 260X.

Here you have the important controller pinouts. For the FB Vcore a 22K ohm variable resistor from the pin to GND will get you a starting voltage of about 1.3V under load. For the FB aux a 22K ohm variable resistor from the pin to GND will give 1.05V under load. Cut the pins or the traces connected to the pins labeled ILIM to disable over current protection for that VRM.So if you cut ILIM AUX the AUX VRM from the first picture will no longer have a power limit.

The VRAM voltage controller is a super simple controller and does not have over current protection. All you need to do to get it under manual control is to hook it up to a 220K ohm variable resistor to get a starting voltage of about 1.585V-1.6V regardless of load.

I would like to thank techpowerup.com for allowing anyone to use their PCB pics.
Also check out my sponsor Silicon Lottery. They sort CPUs by overclocking capability. Right now you can get an i7 4790K, 5820K or 5960X in a variety of  frequencies from above average to extremely rare. For example a 5Ghz i7 4790K.

Cooling multi GPU configs [THEORETICAL]

Many Crossfire R9 290X and R9 290 owners bought the refrence blower cooler because "it gets better temps in crossfire". This is completely wrong. The refrence R9 290X hits 93C on the uber fan profile when on it's own. So if you put a another heat source bellow it it will hit 95C and have serious issues staying cool regardless of the fact that said heatsource is not dumping the majority of it's heat in the case because the R9 290X above it only has a 2C margin for warmer intake air.
The back of an R9 290/R9 290X gets stupid hot especially the VRM section which is also closest to the intake fan of the card above it. This results in the following happening:

With non reference coolers that dump the used air back into the case this is not an issue because the cards is operating around the 75C range when alone. This gives the non reference card a +20C allowance on intake air before it hits the same temp as the reference design.

Non refrence coolers also have about 2 to 4 times more air passing through their finstacks making the output air of a custom cooler rather cool typically in the 30-40C range depending on load and clocks. Now assuming your case has fresh air going to all areas at all times the 40C exhaust will be mixed with the cool outside air meaning that the top card will at worst be getting air in the 35C range meaning it will hit the 90s. This would look something like the image bellow:

Now I would like to remind you that this is purely theoretical and based on information from around the internet and my experience with my windforce cards. However if anyone is willing to ship me a pair of R9 290X reference coolers I have all the equipment to do full testing of this. If you can ship me a pair of R9 290/R9 290 reference coolers just leave a comment.

Another thing to note is that this only truly applies to really high power draw cards because the blower coolers do in fact keep in case temps lower than radial fan designs just this difference is not big enough to keep 93C cards from hitting 95+C.

I found great site for voltmodding parts

It has has next day shipping in many places. The selection includes some capacitors for motherboards and GPUs and has all the potentiometers you could need. The site is now listed in useful links.
http://www.rs-components.com/index.html

Air benching my WTF cooling R7 260X

My good old R7 260X from WTF cooling has gotten even more WTF and now does 1450+mhz on the core.

And this is the V mod I did on the GPU. I finally got my hands on a 10Kohm potentiometer so I got the core voltage under manual control. Unfortunately a 10Kohm potentiometer is not enough to keep the voltage in "safe" territory and so the card has a minimum 3D load voltage of 1.47V. The 3rd wire on the back is hooked directly to the + leg of one of the output caps and ends in crocodile clip to allow for easy measurement of core voltage with a DMM.  

                                               Here's a shot of the side of the GPU. You can see both the potentiometer and the crocodile clip behind it

The screws on VRAM in this and the shot above are there to cool the memory because in my first runs the memory overheated and crashed when above 1670mhz. That's a massive problem on a card that has an anemic 128bit bus feeding cores 896 stream processors running at 1450mhz.

And here's the card running in my main system. The Gelid heatsink did a great job and kept the core bellow 70C° throughout my benching session. The Hynix VRAM on the other hand was terrible and kept me bellow the 1600point mark in Unigine Heaven DX11 Extreme.

Voltmodding GPUs using the NCP and PCP 81022 voltage controllers

So HWbot recently launched this. I think the new division system is awesome and as someone planning to participate in division 5 I decided that I'll help everyone by compiling the available information on the NCP80122 controller found on the AMD reference design R9 285 and R9 260(X) cards.

So here is the NCP81022

The red pin controls the Vcore you can solder a 10K ohm variable resistor(VR) to this and the ground to get control over the core voltage.
The 2 green pins control the over current protection. By increasing the resistance between the 2 you will get a higher current limit. The only problem is that you have to find the resistor that these pins are attached to because I couldn't find a good enough photo and because R9 285 PCB designs differ quite a lot. If you want to completely disable over current protection just remove the resistor that these pins are attached to.
If soldering directly onto the IC's pins scares you(me too they are freaking tiny) then find the first resistor that the pin connects to and solder your VR onto the resistor. If you don't have a VR you can try using pencil.
All these mods are universally applicable to GPU using the NCP80122 or PCP81022 voltage controller.

Sources:
http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=75953
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_285_Dual-X_OC/4.html

WTF Cooling: R7 260X + Gelid Slim Hero + zipties

Here's a few photos of what I did to my R7 260X after I accidentally used CLU on it's aluminum heatsink.

I will be posting performance results soon if school allows.

GTX 590 el cheapo watercooling

So this how I decided to cool my GTX 590 for when I try benching it with an addon VRM. The coolers I used are Coolermaster Seidon 120Vs. I flipped the intel mounting bracket upside down removed the PCI-e slot bracket and used zipties to attach the coolers to the card.
Here's a Diagram of all the screw holes on the GPU's PCB:
______________________________________
|1       2                     3                4            5|
|       6       7                                 9     10    |
|                                8                               | 
|       11      12                              13     14   |
|__15______16______17_______18______20|
|           ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] [

The first unit has zipties going through holes 1, 3, 15 and 16.
The second unit has zipties going through holes 3, 5, 17 and 20.

On my first mounting attempt I managed to bend the PCB by tightening the zipties too much. Luckily I just had to redo the mounting. The end result of this is that the GPU takes up ALL expansion slots bellow it. I do believe that you could do the mounting slightly different and reduce the number of occupied slots to just 5 but for my purposes of running the card on a test bench this mounting proved most effective. Another thing that isn't necessary is removing the PCI-e slot bracket because you can have that attached by the DVI ports without having it take up screw hole #1. However even with the PCI-e bracket this is definitely not something you would want sitting in your tower case but it is great for open air test benches and it manages to run the card at 51C at stock clocks which is a 34C improvement over the stock cooler. The other good thing about this cooling method is that you still have enough space to attach addon VRMs like the EVGA E-power.