Lately vBIOS are more fashionable than ever. Bugs, errors and various updates are making many users have to “look for life” to be able to flash the firmware and thus improve their GPU. Specifically, NVIDIA users always find more options and manuals for this technique, so let’s balance the scale by explaining how to do it at AMD.
Updating vBIOS on a GPU shouldn’t be too difficult a task, but it is certainly dangerous. A power cut, a failure or a wrong BIOS model and we go from having a graphics card that gives us great moments to having an expensive or very expensive paperweight. For this reason, we are not responsible for any hardware or problem that may occur, since we insist that nothing should happen, but sometimes it does.
How to flash a BIOS on AMD graphics cards
Logically the first step is caution. Therefore, the first thing we must take into account is the fact that we have to make a backup of the original BIOS of our GPU, which although it could be found on the Internet, we already have it, so it is better to save it.
To do this, we will download the GPU-Z program and after which we will go to the button that is right next to the BIOS Version section, as shown in the image. We will click on it and we will give Save to file.
Once done, we will have to tell it where we want to save the BIOS image on our PC. We recommend doing it on the Windows hard drive, in our case in C :, but before saving, we are going to change the name of said file to something simpler, such as “Original”, “biosstock” or whatever we consider appropriate, but that it is easy and without spaces so as not to get confused when writing.
After that, we will have a confirmation message saying the size and file that has been created.
We need a program to flash the new BIOS
The problem with the flashing software for AMD GPUs is that it is more outdated than NVIDIA’s, so at this time the version for Windows (be careful with the downloads that there is a version for Linux and MSDOS) is 2.93 of the 15th of August 2019.
That is, it does not have official support for the RX 6000. Once the correct ATIFlash is downloaded , we will proceed to unzip it in C: or the Windows drive, always in its root, and we will give the folder a simple name, such as ATIFlash.
The next step is to go to the folder created with the program and execute it by double clicking on amdvbflashwin.exe after which we will have the program interface. As we can see, this program recognizes our graphics card the current BIOS version, the image size and its CRC, apart from additional information.
Choosing the correct BIOS is essential
Most of the errors when flashing a new BIOS is because the one that we have downloaded is not correct or is corrupt. The second will be indicated by the ATIFlash in its CRC, but the first is entirely up to us. The program does not distinguish between correct and incorrect, it simply understands whether it is possible to flash or it is not possible to flash due to some error in the file.
If we make a mistake when downloading the correct BIOS and flash, we can momentarily consider the graphics card dead, at least until we connect a second as primary and the “dead” as secondary and flash from two through there.
In any case, the BIOS model is the important thing, since it must share PCBs between cards to ensure that there are no problems. As an example, all those GPUs with a reference PCB must share BIOS, except for those that said PCB is somewhat improved and reaches more frequency, so in this case we could flash the highest to the worst.
What we have to do before flashing the BIOS that we have downloaded from the Internet (TechPowerUp has a giant BIOS database for GPUs) is precisely disable our GPU from the device manager. To do this, we will click on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of the screen by right clicking the mouse and then with the left click we will go to said device manager.
Once there we will go to the screen adapter section, and inside we will select our GPU with the right mouse button and we will click “Disable device”. After the typical message of if we are sure of what we are going to do and press yes, the screen will flash and return.
Last steps before the peak moment
Now we return to the ATIFlash that was previously open. We will click on the load image button and we will navigate through the folders and directories in search of the unit where we have saved the downloaded and new BIOS file. After which we will give the button that has just been activated and that is called Program.
From that moment there is no going back. If we have done everything correctly the bar will begin to move filling the rectangles slowly but surely. It may even get “caught” and Windows does not respond for a minute or two, but as a general rule this is a process more of seconds than that, of minutes.
When finished, ATIFlash will notify us with a success message, after which we will have to accept and then we will have a new message that will tell us if we want to restart the system for the changes to take effect.
In our case we have flashed a stock BIOS of a RX 5700 XT , since we have a dry RX5700. What we get is to increase the frequency as standard to gain some extra FPS. However and of course, we will not unlock the rest of the features of the model we intend to reach.
As we say and repeat, ITIGIC is not responsible for any problem that may have occurred following this tutorial, since the variables are practically infinite and depend on so many factors that it is impossible to control the process. So it is something that everyone has to take their risk.
