# [SOLVED] Locked Voltage



## Deathscreton (Oct 23, 2011)

So I've been looking around the interwebz for a few days now after receiving my Asus R9 270x in the mail. I hooked it up, and instead of playing games, I immediately went to MSI Afterburner to start tweaking with it when I noticed it had a locked voltage meter. Disappointed, I tried the GPU tweak that came with the card itself. Surprisingly, the Voltage was adjustable within this OC program. 

I went online and started searching, and everyone I came across either was able to overclock their card with the voltage being adjustable in MSIAB, or they were just as unlucky as I was. I found a few solutions, but nothing really worked for me. A lot of people said that the Beta version of MSIAB (3.0.0 Beta 17 to be exact) allowed for voltage changes, but I couldn't find anything else about it. 

I guess my question is, why does the MSIAB program not allow for adjusting voltage on an AMD card even when all the settings are set to allow so, but GPU Tweak allow for it? What's the difference? 

Is this a situation where I'm going to have to use a custom BIOS for the card inorder to get the speed and performance that I want? Any help would be appreciative. 

Comp Specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.0GHz Stable
PN5-e SLI Motherboard
8 Gigs of DDR2 RAM
ASUS R9 270x 
630w PSU SLI Ready.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

*Re: Locked Voltage*

It's because MSI After Burner is made for their GPUs, not Asus.

GPU Tweak is a program that is made by Asus for their own cards.


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## Deathscreton (Oct 23, 2011)

*Re: Locked Voltage*

So there's nothing I can do to increase compatibility with other vendor cards? This is just something I'll have to deal with? 

Andif that's the case, why am I able to increase GPU and memory frequency?


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

*Re: Locked Voltage*

I'm not sure why you are using MSI After Burner in the first place. It's not for you.

Besides, you should not OC the GPU. You could do it incorrectly or overheat it.


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

*Re: Locked Voltage*

MSI Afterburner is recommended on a few sites as the stablest overclocking software for a range of graphics cards, regardless of manufacturer.
But just because it works, doesn't mean you will have full functionality.


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## Deathscreton (Oct 23, 2011)

*Re: Locked Voltage*



Masterchiefxx17 said:


> I'm not sure why you are using MSI After Burner in the first place. It's not for you.
> 
> Besides, you should not OC the GPU. You could do it incorrectly or overheat it.


As Panther said, MSIAB isn't just for MSI, it's widely used regardless of the vendor who supplies the card. Which is why they have options for cards other than their own. And why not overclock? Overclocking the GPU is widely done, and can offer great performance boosts based on the cooler and card used. I've overclocked my cards before, namely the 6870 I had a while back and got more out of it than I originally paid for.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

*Re: Locked Voltage*

MSI states that the software is for MSI GPUs, not Asus.

Do as you please, but I would not recommend overclocking the GPU or using MSI After Burner.


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## Deathscreton (Oct 23, 2011)

*Re: Locked Voltage*

It's fine, after all the trouble I've had with overclocking the GPU anyways, I'd rather not throw 220 dollars out of the window. I'm happy with the performance I get stock since ASUS factory overclocked it anyways. I was just wondering why I couldn't get the voltage unlocked. I appreciate your help.


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## Panther063 (Jul 13, 2009)

You're welcome.
Just in case you want to try the new version of MSI's Afterburner, you can find it here, a new Beta version: MSI Afterburner 3.0.1 Download Stable Beta


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## Deathscreton (Oct 23, 2011)

So I was irritated about not being able to do this. As anyone is, just setting aside to fester doesn't work for me. 

I managed to unlock the voltage (Take that Chief) and even did some research on AB. It's an all around overclocking tool and profiles can be custom set for each card. However, doing so can and most likely will pose problems if you odn't know what you're doing. If you do decide to follow these instructions, you do so at your own risk and no one, including me and the techsupportforum are responsible for any damage you cause. 

What I had to do was run AB with some tool they have built into the program that searches the bus and devices connected to your system. I myself have an ASUS 270X Direct CU II TOP installed. Running AB with the /i2cd command will dump a file into your program directory with a list of devices. Eventually, you'll find a line that'll look similar to this inside the .txt file:

Scanning I2C bus 1...
Probing device 30...
24 99 D7 A9 D7 60 FA 30 00 08 83 00 65 7F 00 97 ...


That is what mine looked like, your's will most likely vary. After you find this, locate your profile folder, and find the config file. If you're only using one graphics card, you'll most likely only find one file. Input this line into the file:

[Settings]
VDDC_CHL8228_Detection = 1:30h

VDDCI is the voltage regulator for AMD cards(why it doesn't list the I didn't deem important). nVidia differs(It's labeled PEXVDD from what I could find). CHL8228 is the type of voltage regulator you have for card. Different cards vary in what type you have. You can check AIDA64 (I was told by someone that you could use this to view the type) or if you're lucky enough, find it online somewhere else. Afterwards, save the file, change it to a cfg file again (provided you changed it to a txt file for editing in the first place), restart AB and restart you computer(or not, I didn't) and voila, you have voltage regulation. I'm assuming that this can be done for other cards as well, but don't quote me on that. 

NOW this problem is solved. :|


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

> I managed to unlock the voltage (Take that Chief)


At least you got what you wanted in the end.


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