Bios flash success

[PP Mguire]

Modified and flashed the bios on my 7950GT for a permanent OC of 685 and 770. Heres a shot of GPU-Z for ya.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v701/pp_mguire/VideoOC.jpg

Runnin stable.

 

[!TIMMY!]

nice

what cooling u got?

 

[Yeungster]

Whats the advantage of flashing the card, other than it being a permanent thing, than overclocking it using RivaTuner and setting it to run at startup?

 

[FarFarAway]

Well flashing is permanent and not OS-related whatsoever which means that the card will have a permanent OC on it, like buying a factory clocked card

 

[PP Mguire]

Yes thank you Kempez. See i run a triple boot system. And i use Coolbits instead which uses a registry entry. Well for some reason when i OC on one HD (OS) and switch to another one say from Internet drive to Games drive it will downclock back to stock. It gets annoying when your in a hurry really. Not only that but my clocks are that way on any machine without having to worry about that stupid test. Also, i tightend my memory timings so i dont have to OC to GTX speeds to get the same performance. Also, i made my own boot up thing. Idk how id be able to show you it though. It dosent stay long enough for a picture.

And im using my stock passive cooling with an 80mm blue LED fan zip tied to it. Heres a pic of it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v701/pp_mguire/Desk.jpg

Another thing is i can also up the voltage on the core and get even higher clocks if i wanted to. Needless to say, i pwn the 7900GTX now.

 

[Toxcity]

Very impressive PP!

Does it have any performance gain over software overclocking?

 

[!TIMMY!]

Very nice, I found understanding video card ram timings confusing, but it is just like normal memory.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yea it is, just dont get carried away with it though. Youll have to wind up like me and reflash the bios back to the original.

And no its the same OC. Theres nothing different its just permanent. One thing i did notice is that when you software OC from stock you can only take your slider so high. Well when your stock is the OC you want, you can take it even higher. The performance gains from my current OC though are incredible.

 

[Pyr0]

Another thing is i can also up the voltage on the core and get even higher clocks if i wanted to. Needless to say, i pwn the 7900GTX now.

nice mod m8, i've done this to my past few nv cards

i'd be very surprised if modifications to the voltage levels in the BIOS actually worked tho.

hard modding the GPU core of the 79-- series of cards was very easy to do and just needs a conductive pen (i did a 7900GT and a 7950GT)

attached is a pic of the mod on my 7950GT

my card isn't a brilliant overclocker, but with a little extra voltage, runs quite well

with this small mod, i now get 1.558V for GPUVcore (measured with multimeter at point shown)

the gpu core will now clock to over 710MHz without artefacts and loads at around 70C using a zalman vf900

(pretty sure it might go a little higher with better cooling)

[edit] or in the third pic i have removed the conductive ink from the set of pads on the left (+0.05V), leaving me with 1.507V for VGPU which gets me to around 696MHz for core clock and a 66C load temp

 

[Hatman]

Im already making plans in advance hehe, am selling my GX2 on ebay for £150, they go sooo easily.

Then ill just get the new 8800gt which should eb under £200, Ill try to pick one up with a big dual slot cooler though for some nice overclocks, BIOS flash it a bit higher hehe. The 65nm should make it an OC god.

 

[PP Mguire]

@ Pyro. Thanks man!! If i get the balls too (psh of course i do, modder friendly warranty!!) ill deffo do this. According to my bios and GPU-Z im running 1.35v on the core. If i can get up to 1.4 or 1.45 im sure to make it over or at least 700mhz. See im running stock cooling with a massive OC from 570-685 already. Ill elave my stock at 685 and mod the voltage and just OC from there. THink it will work?

Then ill just get the new 8800gt which should eb under £200, Ill try to pick one up with a big dual slot cooler though for some nice overclocks, BIOS flash it a bit higher hehe. The 65nm should make it an OC god.

If you wanna OC hardcore i suggest the HD2900pro. The HIS one is already highly OCed, has a 3 pipe cooler instead of the XTs 2 pipe stock and can easily be flashed to run as an HD2900XT. With that being said, can prolly OC even higher too and will make mince meat of that 8800GT. Or you can buy the HD2950pro when it comes out with its single slot cooler, take less heat and power, and OC it even more (It already outperforms the XT) with its GDDR4. Your choice mate.

 

[Mr. Smith]

Pyro - do you know where to do this mod on the 8800GTS?

Ic an bench at 700mhz on the gpu (stock is 560ish) so with this mod I could get some crazy OC'in on the go

Edit: For the record flashing the bios gives better performance than software OC, I have some graphs somewhere to prove it. Will attach later

 

[Pyr0]

PP, my BIOS show 1.35 as stock voltage too, but when measured under 3d load it's actually around 1.45V... i'd check that first

Mr Smith, this mod will not work for the 8800 cards...

apparently it is possible to pencil mod the cards core and mem, but it is not very advisable to try it on the core as the size of the resistor is rather small ( in value), the ammount of graphite needed is tiny and getting the values you want is rather difficult (too much graphite and *POOF*)

http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/8800GTS_320MB_Pencil_Voltage_Mods/4641.html

if you have any soldering skills, you would be much better off attaching some multi turn pots

 

[PP Mguire]

Im totaly lost here cause idk where id even begin to test. So let me get this straight, all i gotta do is use a conductive pencil and put some where you did? On those 2 spots? Or is there more to it?

 

[Pyr0]

to check the voltage i just measure between pci-e ground and the spot i marked in the first pic above.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/116/images/pcie.jpg

if you're going to be adding more voltage, be careful and keep an eye on temps, but basically, yeah, i put a drop of conductive ink on those spots and it increases the voltage to the core

i originally found the mod on Xtremesystems, there's a load more info on there



red=+0.05V, yellow=+0.1V and purple is +0.2V

i would try just connecting one set of points at first and see if/how it makes any improvements on clock speeds

good luck and be careful to just connect those dots and nowhere else :nono:

(and don't blame me if things go badly )

this is the paint/ink i'm using:

 

[PP Mguire]

Thank you very much. And im not worried about my temps at all. So thats not a problem actualy Im just afraid of not doing this right.

BTW what is that program you are using?

 

[Pyr0]

you're welcome m8

the apps showing in the screenshhot above are

Real-Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting (rthdribl for short)

http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/

and of course RivaTuner for hardware monitoring and/or overclocking (OT: which adds separate shader clocking for nvidia 8-series cards from version 2.04)

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

 

[PP Mguire]

Ok ill get that top one and play with it. I have Rviatuner already. I use it to monitor as well. My dad said he dosent have any sliver conducter cause its pretty exspensive. Can i use anything else on it?

 

[Pyr0]

not too sure to be honest

i guess if you used a heavy enough pencil (2B? 4B?) and made sure there was continuity between the points with a multimeter it *might* work, but you would need something to seal and stop the graphite from moving or blowing/falling off

i bought that little bottle/vile for about £5 but i have to use a sharpened matchstick or toothpick to dip n draw.

it was marketed to be used to repair the heater traces in car windows, not sure if that might help

- try a car parts store or something maybe <shrug>

a quick froogle search shows these circuit writer pens which look quite good

not much more expensive than the paint i have but probably much easier to use

http://www.mcminone.com/product.asp...&product_id=200-175&CMP=datafeeds&ATT=froogle

not too clued up on american shops, but you may be able to find something similar in radioshack if there's one nearby

 

[PP Mguire]

I used to work at a Radio Shack so i know they dont have anything like that. Ill just get myself some of that paint or see if Frys carries the pen. Can i use solder?