[SOLVED] Code 43 - want to verify the process before i implement fix

canadianjameson

Honorable
Dec 2, 2014
29
0
10,530
Hi all,

I know that there are a tonne of "code 43" posts and I have been through a bunch of them before coming here to post. I'm hoping that I can get some strategic advice, because I am a tad stuck../

So, for the context:

I bought a secondhand Asus ROG-STRIX-RX570-4G-GAMING Card (<-- URL from GPU-Z "Lookup" output). The guy didn't indicate that he used it for bitcoin mining but it's possible. There's no visual damage.

Here are the screenshots from GPU-Z:
aja.png

ef5.png

gf9.png


I'm not sure if the values in those screenshots re as they should be or not, so I'm guessing if not someone will flag that immediately.

I have read some posts that suggested that I should flash the card's bios, and so I did try that using AMDvFlashWin. Here's what I see when I load that up (sorry, for some reason it's not letting me insert pics...): https://www.dropbox.com/s/zw3xcpay1yvee2j/amdFlash.png?dl=0. Right away I see that there seems to be something wrong - the info there doesn't seem to match the info from the GPU-Z scans. Could the AMD thing be reading the onboard card and not the videocard? In any case these are the only two options I can find for the card's bios https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/?did=1002-67DF-1043-04C2-EF but neither will work for flashing =/

Additionally, I just found this post that recommended that I run a Display Driver Uninstaller and then reinstall the drivers...

So I decided to reach out and hopefully have someone with more experience tell me
A) Does the info in the screenshots indicate that the card has been flashed and needs to be re-flashed, and if so can someone help me find the right bios file because the two in the link above throw incompatibility errors when i try to load in their bios files
B) Should I follow the Display Driver Uninstall approach, and if so do i try to download a local copy of the appropriate card drivers to reinstall after? I tried to run the amd driver install software but keep getting ""No AMD graphics driver is installed, or the AMD driver is not functioning properly. Please install the AMD driver appropriate for your AMD hardware." I am looking for my drivers here but please let me know if I need to download something else.

I'm admittedly at my wits and and could use a little guidance. I really hope I didn't get burned on this buy

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers,


Jay
 
Solution
Amd nor Asus write bios files. 3rd party companies like Award do. But those files are tailored to the board, so an Asus vbios can and most often is slightly different to an AMD vbios.

If you look up Asus vbios, at techpowerup the numbers for the bios version match what the top gpuz report offered. The Dropbox pic looks to be the vbios After its flashed with an AMD vbios, which should work, but might get an error from the Asus board, especially if it's a custom pcb.

Also, if you read the first couple of sentences on that post, Op bought a card with a pre-flashed vbios, not a stock vbios. The referred to un-verified vbios are all the same version, just a different set of base clocks. If you feel like you must reflash, do so, but do so...

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Amd nor Asus write bios files. 3rd party companies like Award do. But those files are tailored to the board, so an Asus vbios can and most often is slightly different to an AMD vbios.

If you look up Asus vbios, at techpowerup the numbers for the bios version match what the top gpuz report offered. The Dropbox pic looks to be the vbios After its flashed with an AMD vbios, which should work, but might get an error from the Asus board, especially if it's a custom pcb.

Also, if you read the first couple of sentences on that post, Op bought a card with a pre-flashed vbios, not a stock vbios. The referred to un-verified vbios are all the same version, just a different set of base clocks. If you feel like you must reflash, do so, but do so with the verified techpowerup asus strix version.

Drivers aren't bios. Yes, definitely go to Asus and download their set of gpu driver files. Slap it on the desktop, then follow the instructions in DDU for a safe mode uninstall. Drivers don't affect the card like a vbios does (firmware) , drivers affect how the card works with the cpu and motherboard (software)
 
Solution

canadianjameson

Honorable
Dec 2, 2014
29
0
10,530
Hey - sorry for the delay here and thanks for the responses.

So to clarify - i don't know if I bought a card with a flashed bios or not. All i know is that I can't seem to get signal to more than one monitor at a time and I need to hook in my 3 monitors to be able to use this as expected. I want to simply re-flash the thing back to factory settings to eliminate that as a potential problem.

Whenever I have tried to install drivers from Asus the install hasn't really worked - it still shows up with an Error 43 in device manager.

Should I try the DDU first or should I try re-flashing the firmware on the card back to it's original settings? And if so what might I be doing wrong?
 

canadianjameson

Honorable
Dec 2, 2014
29
0
10,530
Maybe this will help. Here's the screenshot the guy sent me to give me the specs of the card before I bought it. There are differences between this and the screenshot i uploaded in my first post... might they help to either identify the problem or a potential path to the solution?
Q8CtbBM.jpg


I see that the driver version he was using seems to have been this one:
https://drivers.amd.com/drivers/radeon-software-adrenalin-2020-20.11.2-win10-64bit-nov18.exe from this link: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-20-11-2

Should I use DDU and then install this instead of the newest drivers?
Edit:

Decided to try. No joy. Still get this when i try to open the radeon software:
BKjpllz.png

and this
XlgXRHb.png
 
Last edited:

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
It's not the vbios. It's the drivers. 2 totally seperate things and it seems that you are mixing and matching them as related. They aren't. Bios is the settings of the gpu, drivers is how the gpu communicates with the motherboard/cpu. Not the same.

So DDU should have taken you through a safe mode uninstall, if done correctly. That should leave the and software as a blank slate. Make sure before you download the drivers from Amd that your Antivirus is Disabled. Make sure when installing, the Antivirus is Disabled. https://drivers.amd.com/drivers/radeon-software-adrenalin-2020-20.11.2-win10-64bit-nov18.exe

Shouldn't be an issue with that file, but being an EXE many Antivirus will tag it as exploitable software and quarantine it.
 

canadianjameson

Honorable
Dec 2, 2014
29
0
10,530
Hey,

So I understand the difference between the two - mostly - but the fact that the GPU-Z data is different between the two is making me scratch my head. Would the drivers affect the data outputted by GPU-Z? If yes, then I'll drop the question entirely.

Moving on to DDU. As I mentioned in my last posts, I ran it in safe mode and installed the drivers from a local install. I didn't disable the antivirus but i got no warnings or notifications of problems and the install completed and had me restart. But then I had the same issue. Are you recommending that I do this process again but kill the antivirus? Or is there something else for me to try?

Thanks
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
No. Drivers have absolutely zero to do with how gpu-Z works. The vbios has absolutely nothing to do with how it works either.

Gpuz is a reader. That's it. It reads the info. It's like driving your car and getting to a traffic light. You ask your 5 year old daughter what that is. She holds up a card that says 'traffic light'. She has absolutely nothing to do with whether that light is green or red or why you stopped in the middle of the road.

What's different about those two is one has a bunch of 'unknown' blank data. The reason for that is your gpu clock reads 0MHz, memory clock reads 0MHz, power draw is 1,525,615.7 Watts, which is physically impossible.

Have no idea what you have done to this card, but whatever you did do is so far left of sane, it's beyond the last reaches of insanity.

Look at the second picture, look at the values. They are impossible. How you can have a gpu work at 100% of 0MHz is beyond me.

What I suspect is that whatever you bought, wasn't in fact what you bought, but something else entirely, a fake card with a faked bios, and when you updated the bios to be correct to the card it should have been, it threw it off the wall.

Look at the pic the guy sent. Right side, halfway down. Bus interface pcie x16 3.0 @ x16 1.1

Pcie x16 1.1 hasn't been used since the K5 days, when pcie x16 first developed out of x8 AGP. There isn't anything in any halfway modern cpu, gpu, motherboard that's anything less than pcie 2.3 especially with AMD gpus, since that's when they changed their power delivery system. AMD is only backwards compatible to pcie 2.3. You need an old card of pcie 2.2 or older to work on pcie 1.1.

Seriously believe you got scammed. Either it's a hacked 560x or previous owner messed up the vbios himself and sold you a card with a half-baked bios.

One thing that's been prevelent with AMD is that they all say the same thing, Rx 500 Series, or Rx 200 series. Unless something has been changed by Asus bios, I don't ever remember them saying Rx 570 series.
 
Last edited:

canadianjameson

Honorable
Dec 2, 2014
29
0
10,530
Sigh - well that would be unreal... give that i have the guy's home address.

For the PCIE X16 1.1 could i have possibly put the card in the wrong PCIE slot? I don't think i did... but for the sake of hypothesis would that account for any of this?

Yes, I agree that the values are not possible. For clarity, I was never able to update the bios; both times i tried I got an error saying that there was a mismatch (I don't remember the error - i ca try to reproduce if helpful.

So I suppose i'm left with the following question: aside from assuming that the card is fake, what else can I do? Is there anything that I can test, change, or verify, to rule out - or confirm - that the card is fake?

Could I try contacting ASUS? Or are they likely to say this is out of warranty so go kick rocks...

Thanks,


Jay
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
The x1 slot is about a inch long. The x16 slot is about 4 inches long, no way you'd get those two confused 😉

The only way to actually determine a fake for real is to disassemble the heatsink from the pcb and wipe the paste from the top of the die. The die has laser etching and a specific code. Look up that code and it'll tell you which chip it is. Also, sometimes the model is printed on the motherboard itself, or on a sticker, but stickers are easily faked.

Almost all fakes come from China, so it's possible the prior owner didn't know, just passed on a card he knew didn't work right.

But yes, I would contact Asus tech support first before doing anything, they'll have other identifiers that may not require disassembly.
 

canadianjameson

Honorable
Dec 2, 2014
29
0
10,530
Okay so I'm now escalated to Level 2 tech support - but I can confirm that the card is authentic so we can rule out it being a chinese knockoff. I'll let you know how this proceeds... I really hope there's something that can be done without needing to send it in and pay $50 just to have them look at it...