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R9 290 - 290X flash

a lot of the early 290's could be unlocked to an x but if you have one of the later ones with non ref cooling i would say theres no chance of working
 
There's no risk involved. I dont know why people think flashing a card with TWO BIOSES is such a risky thing.

But to answer your question. Yes you can catch up in pure clock speeds. And yes, i think its worth it to flash the card.
 
a lot of the early 290's could be unlocked to an x but if you have one of the later ones with non ref cooling i would say theres no chance of working

was it not the case of them being 290x's anyway with just a gimped BIOS due to not being able to produce enough reference 290's for the demand at the time.
 
Im a little confused, I have ran Hawaii info to see if my card is able and this came up.

Compatible adapters detected: 1
Adapter #1 PCI ID: 1002:67B1 - 1682:9295
Memory config: 0x500036A9 Hynix
RA1: FA000005 RA2: 00000000
RB1: F8010005 RB2: 00000000
RC1: F8010005 RC2: 00000000
RD1: F8010005 RD2: 00000000

Am I right in saying mine isn't flashable? I read it has to match either of these below.

RA1: F8000005 RA2: F8010000
RB1: F8000005 RB2: F8010000
RC1: F8000005 RC2: F8010000
RD1: F8000005 RD2: F8010000

RA1: F8000005 RA2: 00000000
RB1: F8000005 RB2: 00000000
RC1: F8000005 RC2: 00000000
RD1: F8000005 RD2: 00000000

Maybe things have changed or I am missing something, or maybe I will just have to stick with the overclock. Any idea guys?
 
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I'd flash it personally, it won't break your gpu, it'll just enable the shaders or not and you end up with higher stock clocks.

Just double check both bios boot first as a precaution before you flash the bios.
 
There is a comment on the site I found those codes saying flash only if it's one of these. So I was a little worried I would do something wrong. If I flash it and it's wrong, is it easy to put it back. I can't brick my card can I?
 
LOCKED R9 290's will report R1: F8010005 or F8200005

UNLOCKABLE R9 290's will report R1: F8000005

So I would say its locked.
There is a switch to change bios, so if it goes wrong switch to the original and boot from that, then flick the switch back and reprogram it with your standard bios.
DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR ORIGINAL BIOS, if you do decide to flash it
 
I have an unlocked Powercolor. Worthwhile if you can, as it gives you the additional shaders as well as higher clocks. Don't expect it to clock much further, though, especially if the card has Elpida memory.
 
There is a comment on the site I found those codes saying flash only if it's one of these. So I was a little worried I would do something wrong. If I flash it and it's wrong, is it easy to put it back. I can't brick my card can I?

Not going to brick it flashing 1 bios as there is another one to fall back to if you brick bios 1, it is usually recoverable too, if you make a mess of 1 bios DON'T attempt it on the other one or you are running the guantlet of messing up twice.

Ati flash was the only tool that flashed mine-Winflash wouldn't actually write to bios even though it said it had.


There is a nice guide and all files here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25192219&postcount=1
 
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