yes i finally figured it out. Apparantly the version that i had downloaded was not the plus version ... even though it said plus on the details. Once i had the version that unpacked as 293plus ... every thing worked. I still struggled getting the right bios...but I ended up using an AMD bios for a 5700XT from the tech power up website, and that has worked for me. (the first one i tried from there bricked it)
getting 51.9Mh/s @97Watts