[help!] 6800 core image needed!

[fafnir]

thread void

see the last post

[Cybercat]

The only camera I have is utter crap, and wouldn't do you any good.

[equilibrium]

got this from a friend :)

it's a leadtek 6800nu
http://eq.equk.co.uk/uploaded/6800/leadtek/6800chip.jpg

[Sidebinder]

I think that the pipes might be locked similar to how intel locks their multiplyre. Through the core.

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by fafnir
no, its not

i've got me a working 16 piped 6800 on my hands right now, and all that was changed was the bios

its the bios

basically what it boils down to so far is that there's a part in the bios that nvflash doesn't apparently touch or erase, hardcore tools and/or soldering is needed to get the last part, and then the 16 pipes are good


_


So you made the mod??? You've got the extra four pipes working? HOW??? :slobber: :slobber: :)

I can't wait! I'd like to try it!

(Did u test it? Artifacts?)

[Desmondo]

I hope you are gonna be back soon with some info:cool: :D Oh boy, can't wait:slobber: :thumbsup:

[equilibrium]

sounding promising :)

I was going to order a 6800nu yesterday but didn't bother on waiting for the outcome of this 16pipe mod :)

:slobber: :slobber: :toast:

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by fafnir
no, you don't understand

we've been trying at this for such a long time already, its just that rivatuner came out with the software version of exactly what we're been trying to do all this time

first there was the "xbitlabs" article, a bunch of misinformation

then there was the few select brave individuals here along with me who's tried to flash the 6800 ultra bios onto the NU straight

then there was the hint of software modding

and now after perfecting the method of bios flashing, its here

but the software modders are there also



its a definite sucess, all you're missing is the method, not the outcome, as you see it can be done

i'm still in the last stages of testing the hard flashing method without soldering anything, same as before, but added a hardcore erase step between the bios Cybercat has tried to flash and Cybercat actually flashing the bios

its this step that makes or breaks the process


e.g. before:

1. get bios

2. mod bios

3. flash bios

4. still 12 pipes


now:

1. get bios, getting the entire bios image, rather than just the 64k, e.g. ~200k?

2. mod bios

3. erase card bios

4. flash new bios, but pull the power before it finishes

5. erase (corrupted) card bios (again)

6. flash new bios


almost the same, but i'm still trying to figure out where exactly to cut the power for the whole thing to corrupt, as some times it works and sometimes it doesn't work

but i've only got two cards to try this on, so i don't know


and also, flashing the 6800 GT into a NU does make it a 12 pipe card,

so its definitely here


the only piece missing is the 6800 LE bios, as someone needs to confirm this and the differences between the 6800 LE and the 6800 NU


its done and its working, but i don't know yet

and yes, both the cards i've tried (belongs to friends) do work without either artifacts and/or issues, though one of them does artifact like crazy when overclocked the slightest bit (350 mhz is no go), where before it was fine up to ~380 mhz with a bios that gives 1.4v


too early to tell if the odds or rates are good


_

Sounds interesting and promising;)

[Sidebinder]

I will try a bios flash when ever it is proven to work. :D

[xtremetheme]

I will try to add support for these large bios files in my editor if i see one.

[Sidebinder]

fafnir, so in other the words, the bios mod is a no go as of yet?

[Desmondo]

If the pipes aren't hardlocked, then the "switch" MUST have be in the bios somewhere... Modding the GT/Ultra bios I think is not a good idea too even if the mem speed is set to eg. 700Mhz. The memory timings are different... so modding the Nu bios somehow should be a solution. Comparing lots of bioses would show the differences and then...:D Maybe we are going to have a switch in the next realise of OmniEditor;) (Dreaming is good :slobber: )

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by fafnir
the key **IS** the 6800 LE bios, as that when compared against the 6800 nu should be completely the same, minus the part about the pipelines

elusive, as i'm still trying to talk the editor of tbreak.com to give me a bios dump from his 6800 LE

_

Good!;):thumbsup:

[Sidebinder]

To bad, I don't know how to write bios code. If I did, we would be there by now. I guess the only thing to do is wait for this illustrious Rivatuner softmod. :slobber:

[xtremetheme]

Well 6800GTs have full pipes and flashing suche one onto a 6800 should enable the pipes if its set only in the BIOS.
But from reports of people that doesnt seem to work.

[Cybercat]

Very interesting, although somewhat confusing.

So we have to flash the BIOS twice, erasing the original one first, flashing the card with the modded BIOS, but cutting it out before it can finish, erase the corrupted BIOS, flash with the modded BIOS again.

Do I read that correctly?

[equilibrium]

surely if you pull the power while flashing and corrupt the bios, you would need to blind flash/ pci flash the new bios as old is corrupt?

sounding interesting, will be nice to see this rivatuner thing also. Be nicer to have a BIOS tho as it'd be set perminantly and it also would work in linux :toast:

[Cybercat]

Originally posted by fafnir
if someone doesn't mind submitting a gt bios i wouldn't mind editing it for the right clockspeeds



Would one from XFX work? (http://www.mvktech.net/request.php?540)

BTW, the command to erase your card's BIOS should be A:\nvflash -e
I think.

[Cybercat]

I'm game.

EDIT: Says file is corrupt or something. No big deal, I can edit one myself.

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by Cybercat
I'm game.

EDIT: Says file is corrupt or something. No big deal, I can edit one myself.

Good;) Good luck! :slobber: :D (I hope it's going to work)

[Cybercat]

Bad news. After the flash, the image was extremely corrupted, even at POST. System was also unstable. I erased the modded BIOS with nvflash v5.08 and flashed the card back to my original, and it's OK. But this probably means that my card's four last pipelines are defective.

EDIT: If anyone else wants to try this, here's the URL for downloading nvflash v5.08:

http://hardwarespirit.com/files/tools/nvflash-5.08.zip

The command for erasing your card's BIOS is "A:\nvflash -e".
You must have a PCI graphics card to do this.

Restart and use nvflash v4.42 (http://www.mvktech.net/request.php?41) to flash the card with the modded BIOS (fafnir will have to supply a new one). Command is "A:\nvflash -p -u -2 biosname.rom" Whatever the BIOS file is called is what you put at the end.

[equilibrium]

did you try putting the clocks down as fafnir suggested to see if the other pipes might run at a lower speed? :)

all this talk is making me want to go out and buy one just to try out some bios's :) would own if this is possible :toast: I was thinking of getting a msi to try as in that rivatuner article they said they tested a msi and it worked but I guess it may just be a matter of luck

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by equilibrium
did you try putting the clocks down as fafnir suggested to see if the other pipes might run at a lower speed? :)

all this talk is making me want to go out and buy one just to try out some bios's :) would own if this is possible :toast: I was thinking of getting a msi to try as in that rivatuner article they said they tested a msi and it worked but I guess it may just be a matter of luck

Indeed its no point using the card 16 piped at 200Mhz...:rolleyes:

[Cybercat]

I just ran it at 325/350.

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by Cybercat
I just ran it at 325/350.

I think there is STILL possible that your card has 16 working pipes! Corruption I think could be because of GT/Ultra memory timings (GDDR3) are different and more agressive. (And there should be more differences too.)

[Cybercat]

Well, if anything it may have something to do with how I modded the BIOS, or how the OmniExtremeEditFX program works (there was no way to set the Thrtl. voltage), or the fact that perhaps the XFX BIOS is more picky. Who knows, but I won't really try again until someone else gives it a shot.

[Desmondo]

We've got this reply:D

"Patience. Please don't be so excited about this feature. Probably, it will not work on all 6800 boards. I've developed it on Leadtek A400 TDH and there are no problems when switching between 8/12/16-pipe modes on my test rig. There are also no problems in switching 16-pipe GF6800 Ultra to 12/8-pipe mode on Digit-Life's test boards. However, there were already two graphics cards (ASUS and Galaxy 6800, both reports from the same beta tester), which don't react on pipeline configuration register reprogramming performed by RT. So if it is not the tester's fault, then pipeline count seem to be hardwired on some boards. We don't know yet if it is per-vendor or per-GPU based. So beta testing continues and we've cheching new boards/brands and investigating this question deeper.
So if you can/wish assist with testing - let me know. Take a note, that I'm talking about experienced RT users, which used NVstrap before. I need the people I can trust, not newbies who just wish to leak new version."

__________________
Alexey Nicolaychuk aka Unwinder, RivaTuner creator

[Cybercat]

I took the original XFX BIOS that I linked you to, and used OmniExtremeEditFX v1.3 to set the core to 325MHz, and the memory to 350MHz. Also, I set the 2D voltage to 1.1v and 3D voltage to 1.4v (wasn't able to set Thrtl.).

I then booted up to DOS mode. Using v5.08 I erased the BIOS to my card. Using a old PCI card I used v4.42 to flash it with the modded BIOS that I made. I shut down the computer, took out the PCI card, hooked the monitor to my card, and turned the PC on. Instead of seeing normal characters on the screen during POST, they were all just fuzzy blocks, with random placement. There weren't any lines, just flickering fuzzy boxes in place of characters. Most of them were white, some were blue, yellow, etc, and they were all over the screen. I allowed Windows to boot up and the there were then lots of vertical lines on the screen, and a sort of double-vision effect. It was very glitchy and hard to make out. Eventually it went into the BSOD and I shut it down.

[Cybercat]

Arg, all the BIOSes are giving me this corrupt file BS and I can't open them. I tried opening them on my dad's computer and they that they're empty. :confused:

[Desmondo]

Tomorrow if everything goes OK I'll post an XFX 6800LE bios here! (Unbelievable, isn't it?;) :) ) See you soon:thumbsup:

[Desmondo]

And as I promised (earlier then I expected;) ):

The XFX 6800LE bios , fresh and clean:banana: :


Thx to ruff97 sending the bios for me.

[edisonwu]

is that what you need?

[Cybercat]

I downloaded Desmondo's 6800LE BIOS, then I downloaded a Leadtek 6800 Ultra BIOS (5.40.02.15.00) from mvktech.net and modded the clockspeeds to 200/300 with OmniExtremeEditFX v1.3. I then booted up to DOS mode.

Using nvflash v5.08 I erased my original BIOS, then put in my PCI card and restarted. I then used nvflash v4.42 to flash my card with the 6800LE BIOS. With the PCI card still inside and connected to the monitor, I reflashed my card with v5.08 and the 6800LE BIOS. I turned off the computer and took out the PCI card. The system then booted up fine. The 6800LE BIOS has its own POST screen showing that it is indeed the 6800LE BIOS. After installing the drivers (beta 62.20), I clocked the core to 325MHz (memory is already at 700) and ran 3DMark03. Here are my results:

Game 1: 231 FPS
Game 2: 67.2 FPS
Game 3: 57 FPS
Game 4: 46.4 FPS
Score: 8653

Here are my results from my original eVGA 6800 BIOS (taken from the other thread):

Game 1: 227.7 FPS
Game 2: 67.4 FPS
Game 3: 57.1 FPS
Game 4: 46.4 FPS
Score: (not recorded but it is usually around 8600)

I don't think I was using the beta Foreware 62.20 drivers when I took those results, but the conclusion is obvious: my card does NOT run with 4 pipes disabled with the 6800LE BIOS.



Now onto the 6800 Ultra BIOS. I went straight from the 6800LE BIOS to this one. Again I used v5.08 to erase the 6800LE BIOS, and then restarted with the PCI card, using v4.42 to flash with the modded Leadtek 6800 Ultra BIOS. I then restarted with the PCI card still in place, and reflashed using v5.08. I then turned off the system and removed the PCI card. Upon starting up, the motherboard POST screen had slight corruption, with little dots scattered here and there. The next screen that shows up with my motherboard is the SATA RAID POST screen, and it showed no corruption at all. The screen after that is a sub-POST screen, showing IRQ information and so forth, and then boots usually boots off of the floppy drive directly from there. This screen was also perfectly normal. Then it got into the Windows XP (Home edition) load screen, and there tons of blue dots everywhere streaming down vertically. The letters and such also had "shadow" made up of blue dots. When it got onto the desktop, it was perfectly fine. I installed the drivers, and then restarted the computer. Everything was the same as before until it got to the desktop again, then there was a black screen with solid white vertical lines going down the screen, and blue dotted vertical lines going down the screen like during the load screen. After this, the screen just went blank, and I had to restart.

[Desmondo]

Originally posted by fafnir
i don't get it, what am i missing?

how come this isn't working?

i do also have to apologize for taking up so much of your time


i know its here, in the bios, i've got a freak accident of a card with me here that now has 16 pipelines and is a ddr1 card (nvidia ref, eng sample, same cooling)

and every last bit on the card should be identical to your evga, though the core on this thing says "eng sample" and someone used a sharpie and wrote nv40 on the otherwise unmarked shim


i don't understand why this is so


i know there are no additional switches anywhere on the card, and if there so, the last place left is the small group of resistors right in the dent of the core sink outline, e.g. left of the core on the front side and directly behind it on the back


but those are unmarked, and i won't have anything to compare them with, since the cards are different


this is getting harder and harder for no reason at all


i'll try flash my gt with the LE bios soon and see if i can lose 8 pipes


and so much for the ram timings


and cybercat, did you know you are at exactly where the xbitlabs people have failed?

e.g. screen corruption


maybe a ticker bomb in the ultra bios itself, but i'm going to doubt that because it doesn't make sense that you can't lose the 4 pipes to a LE


also, could you post a copy of your original evga bios

sorry and thanks again for the time


but i'll find out why though



_

Alexey (the author of RivaTuner) says that I have 2 dead pixel dyads on my card and the extra 4 cannot be enabled. (This is relplyed after I send him my bios...) I still don't beleive it that he read this form my bios :( (Until I try it for myself).

[Gwar]

Here...grab it fast..Im only hosting it for an hour or so..
ULTRA..
http://home.comcast.net/~xgwar/N345.ROM

Ultra extreme..

http://home.comcast.net/~xgwar/N346.rom

[aoc007]

Wouldn't you still need a floppy to flash it?

[Niark]

Hello, if you still need core pics, here's mine
http://chickendip.free.fr/photos/6800CORE.JPG

it's a GF6800 NU model : MSI NX6800 TD128

the card is running currently flawlessly @ 380/750 ( the autodetect thingie found 386/786 ) , but i'm waiting for a better cooling system in order to increase more

[Cybercat]

I ditched my eVGA 6800 and got a Leadtek one now. Overclocks amazingly well. I'll wait to see if Niark flashes his card, and whether his results vary from mine before I try it myself again.

[Niark]

i'll try to grab a card at work ... the only place left where pci cards can be found ...

i'm a bit anxious, i just burnt a 9800pro and took the GF6800 to replace it :o

[Niark]

ok, results of the test
1)
erased with 5.08 , then flashed with the reference Nvidia ultra bios (from mvktech) modded to 200/300 with 4.42

no POST, VGA beeps , looks like the card can't run @200Mhz

2)
erased then flashed again with same bios modded to 300/300

card boots with a lot of artifacts,like 1/2 vertical line was pink/yellow
windows boots, finds the card but ends with a BSOD, but unreadable

3) flashed without erase back to the original msi bios : card is back to normal , around 9.5K 3dmark03 ( crappy 3.06/133 P4 )

[Cybercat]

It's probably safe to assume we should all wait 'til the next RivaTuner.

[Desmondo]

Sry guys for posting this pic here, but i don't have any other opportunity... :( THX;)

[Jethro]

my 6800NU core looks identical to a dead 6800GT core ive got here. Mine seems to have taken to the softmod currently @ 390/900 with 1.4v.