KGB - Kepler BIOS Editor/Unlocker

Hey nutz, you might be able to help me out :D I'm getting infinitely annoyed that I can't mod the vBIOS on my 7950 as I want to so I've started looking at the vBIOS on my card in a attempt to try and figure out what is where (I might take this a step further and start developing a new Radeon vBIOS mod tool - but we'll see. The encryption is strong.) Problem is I'm a mainboard BIOS / UEFI modder so all of my tools except a basic hex editor only work on those, just wondering if you could tell me what tools you used to look and the vBIOSes of these kepler cards :up:

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Originally Posted by Ket

Hey nutz, you might be able to help me out :D I'm getting infinitely annoyed that I can't mod the vBIOS on my 7950 as I want to so I've started looking at the vBIOS on my card in a attempt to try and figure out what is where (I might take this a step further and start developing a new Radeon vBIOS mod tool - but we'll see. The encryption is strong.) Problem is I'm a mainboard BIOS / UEFI modder so all of my tools except a basic hex editor only work on those, just wondering if you could tell me what tools you used to look and the vBIOSes of these kepler cards :up:

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Hex editor is the tool, followed by a lot of exhausting research :) Once you know some info about the structure of the bios (from your research) then you pretty much have to make your own tools if they are not readily available.

My approach is to document every default setting on a card (i.e. clocks, voltage, fan, etc..) and then try to find the values in the bios with the hex editor. If you have some of this info about your card i can try to find the values for you.

Well, I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible right now so mainly I started looking for the 3 primary things people would want;

GPU Voltage
Memory Voltage
Clock speeds

I started by looking at the 2 different vBIOS versions that came with the Vapor-X I have as differences would be minimal, but so far I haven't really spent much time on it, mainly because my eyes aren't that great so they get screwed up easily if I have to look at things like lots of code in a hex editor so progress will be slow. Thats why I was asking if they was any specific tools, now I know there isn't, progress will probably take even longer due to my decidedly dodgy eyesight.

I'm trying to change the fan minimum for a Gigabyte GTX 660 OC with this BIOS. I am hitting a problem with the original checksum. It calculates a different checksum every time I run the program. The CFG file is untouched. All I want to do is change the fan miminum, while keeping everything else stock. Thanks!

Code:

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d:\Temp\A>kgb.exe Gigabyte.GTX660.2048.120824.rom

Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found 2c60b

Checksum: Bad (In ROM: 00  Calculated: 06)

Oh no, Bad checksum.


d:\Temp\A>kgb.exe Gigabyte.GTX660.2048.120824.rom

Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found 2c60b

Checksum: Bad (In ROM: 00  Calculated: 56)

Oh no, Bad checksum.


d:\Temp\A>kgb.exe Gigabyte.GTX660.2048.120824.rom

Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found 2c60b

Checksum: Bad (In ROM: 00  Calculated: 88)

Oh no, Bad checksum.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bkraptor

I'm trying to change the fan minimum for a Gigabyte GTX 660 OC with this BIOS. I am hitting a problem with the original checksum. It calculates a different checksum every time I run the program. The CFG file is untouched. All I want to do is change the fan miminum, while keeping everything else stock. Thanks!

Code:

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d:\Temp\A>kgb.exe Gigabyte.GTX660.2048.120824.rom

Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found 2c60b

Checksum: Bad (In ROM: 00  Calculated: 06)

Oh no, Bad checksum.


d:\Temp\A>kgb.exe Gigabyte.GTX660.2048.120824.rom

Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found 2c60b

Checksum: Bad (In ROM: 00  Calculated: 56)

Oh no, Bad checksum.


d:\Temp\A>kgb.exe Gigabyte.GTX660.2048.120824.rom

Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found 2c60b

Checksum: Bad (In ROM: 00  Calculated: 88)

Oh no, Bad checksum.

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ok it looks like KGB is finding the wrong BIOS end. I look at this bios and get a fix in.

So after flashing my Gigabyte now I have to underclock the Core because if I leave everything "stock" when I test with Kombustor I was getting over 1220Mhz and the card was freezing almost immediately.
I am currently testing -117Mhz Core to keep the max speed showing in Kombustor at 1111Mhz (which is the max boost for the highest OCed gigabyte card) and that is working fine so far.
I have not touched voltages at all.
So is this to be expected?

Doesn't seem right - every card is different though. My 660 Ti (reference) had no issues with the default 1200 and is fine all the way up to 1306 with 1.212v.

I would revert back to the stock bios if I was you.

With the stock Bios it was even worst. The Gigabyte seems to have about 200Mhz boost. Right now after doing the 670 overclock guide it got to a max speed of 1163 and + 400mhz on the ram which scored me a 8800s 3Dmark11 and is stable playing all games I tried with 3D vision on. Not the greatest card by any means but I am not getting much more out of it.
Basically when doing the OC, I never got any issues with the speed dropping at any time, always a flat line at 1163 yet trying to squeeze anything else from it will just freeze Heaven benchmark. Oh well :)
I wonder how the evga I got coming in will do with it. I am not sure how card with different speeds and boosts etc work together.

Anyways, that is where it ended for me.

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Originally Posted by shaolin95

So after flashing my Gigabyte now I have to underclock the Core because if I leave everything "stock" when I test with Kombustor I was getting over 1220Mhz and the card was freezing almost immediately.
I am currently testing -117Mhz Core to keep the max speed showing in Kombustor at 1111Mhz (which is the max boost for the highest OCed gigabyte card) and that is working fine so far.
I have not touched voltages at all.
So is this to be expected?

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When you unlock it your card will boost higher. This is normal, and it is common for it to boost past the stable point. You'll either need to up the voltage or cap the boost by setting Max_Boost_Freq = 1111

I was able to get a max stable OC of 1163 I was just surprised that is as high as my card can go compared to so many that go to 1200 and 1300 but that is the luck of the draw as always with OCing I guess :)

If it work on the 660, will it work on the 650TI ? they are the same GPU but with some cut SP.

My stock EVGA 680 SC is boosting to ~1220 which is unstable. I'm just trying to lower the clocks and reflash (hate RMAs). So I grabbed my rom with gpu-z and edited it with this KGB and also with Kepler Bios Editor 1.1:
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...0-650&p=213818
But they don't detect each other's BOOST changes (ie, edit with one, check with the other). What's up with that? [Fan %, power, and voltage do correlate between the two.] I'm a little nervous to flash this $500 card. I've flashed 260 and 560 cards without problems, but they weren't worth as much either. KGB shows 1280.5 as max boost from the rom dump!!! Kepler Bios Editor shows 1150 which is what EVGA claims. I think there's a custom index table you need to take into account possibly? KeplerBE shows me a big table with 1280.5 as the highest value.

(In the mean time, I use software solution -25 core, +200 mem with MSI AB. And I read this whole thread, whew!!!)

kepler bios editors sucks the big one. kgb or vdt are the way to go if you dont know how to use a hex editor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xorbe

My stock EVGA 680 SC is boosting to ~1220 which is unstable. I'm just trying to lower the clocks and reflash (hate RMAs). So I grabbed my rom with gpu-z and edited it with this KGB and also with Kepler Bios Editor 1.1:
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...0-650&p=213818
But they don't detect each other's BOOST changes (ie, edit with one, check with the other). What's up with that? [Fan %, power, and voltage do correlate between the two.] I'm a little nervous to flash this $500 card. I've flashed 260 and 560 cards without problems, but they weren't worth as much either. KGB shows 1280.5 as max boost from the rom dump!!! Kepler Bios Editor shows 1150 which is what EVGA claims. I think there's a custom index table you need to take into account possibly? KeplerBE shows me a big table with 1280.5 as the highest value.

(In the mean time, I use software solution -25 core, +200 mem with MSI AB. And I read this whole thread, whew!!!)

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There is a difference between Boost Clock, and Max Boost.

The one that you see in Kepler Bios Editor 1.1 is "Boost Clock". This will not help you in your situation. Because as you see the cards will boost higher than this setting anyhow.

The one that you see in KGB is "Max Boost". This is the maximum that your card will boost to (unless you add + to your clocks in software) This will help your situation since your card is boosting too high 1220mhz and its not stable, if your set the max boost in KGB to say 1180 your card will not boost to 1220 anymore.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CrazyNutz

There is a difference between Boost Clock, and Max Boost.

The one that you see in Kepler Bios Editor 1.1 is "Boost Clock". This will not help you in your situation. Because as you see the cards will boost higher than this setting anyhow.

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Ah thanks. Yeah, since day one of Kepler, I never understood why everyone's cards boost higher than what the spec suggests. There are low-spec cards that boost higher than high-spec cards. It seems like a bad way to market hardware ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CrazyNutz

The one that you see in KGB is "Max Boost". This is the maximum that your card will boost to (unless you add + to your clocks in software) This will help your situation since your card is boosting too high 1220mhz and its not stable, if your set the max boost in KGB to say 1180 your card will not boost to 1220 anymore.

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Thanks again. Though somehow I overlooked that my MSI AB power slider was jacked up (everything else was +0), so I get to re-test now, before taking the reflash plunge.

edit: Ugh, it crashed in 2 minutes with power limit 100%. Crash was logged at 94% power utilized, 98% gpu usage, 78C, 1.15v, 57% fan, 1202 core, 60 fps. I'll have to play with the core drop required over the next week before flashing.

Looking at a stock asus rom, I think I might use kepler bios editor to just shift the entire boost table on my evga to be less aggressive. That's the root problem really -- the table is much more aggressive than a stock rom.

When you say KGB "unlocks", does it do something beyond changing the max voltage and max power level?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xorbe

Looking at a stock asus rom, I think I might use kepler bios editor to just shift the entire boost table on my evga to be less aggressive. That's the root problem really -- the table is much more aggressive than a stock rom.

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That should work fine for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xorbe

When you say KGB "unlocks", does it do something beyond changing the max voltage and max power level?

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No just voltage, power, fan, and max boost

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CrazyNutz

ok it looks like KGB is finding the wrong BIOS end. I look at this bios and get a fix in.

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Thanks for looking into this issue. Until a fix is released, can you share the details on how to manually edit the binary file in order to change the minimum fan speed?

This isn't working for my GTX 660. When I run the program to look at my BIOS it says:

Code:

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Kepler Golden BIOS Tool (Beta v0.6.1) by CrazyNutz @ XtremeSystems
WARNING: Use at your own risk!

BIOS start found 0600

BIOS end found f5ff

Checksum: Good! fe

Model: GTX 660  Device ID: 11C0

Found power offsets 832f

Found fan offsets 83a9

Found voltage offsets 7649

Hmm? Could not find max boost offsets.

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Any ideas what I can try? This card is a EVGA 660 SC (the Best Buy exclusive one with higher clocks)

Just wondering does anyone understand and can control the link between voltage and boost tables?

I want to be able to choose the voltage I want (any voltage) and choose the boost I want (any boost). If I run 1.175v I cannot boost over 1228 with 1 card, and 1254 with the other. I will use a hex editor if needed that's how I've modded my base freq, mem freq and 100% board power target but I want exact control over voltage vs boost.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CryptiK

Just wondering does anyone understand and can control the link between voltage and boost tables?

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I wanted to ask this exact same question! It's got to be a combination of the 45-entry boost table, the current sense resistor reading, some hidden "asic quality" type of value, and the max boost value.

Update: before 1.15/1215 (and crashing), after flash 1.15/1176 -- success, thanks to your info, CrazyNutz! Used KGB to also change the max power to 150% and max voltage value to 1.187, and kepler bios editor to change the boost table and memory speed to 3348. It seems stable now at "stock", or with extra power slider (1.187/1189) ... though that's kinda useless for my particular card, lol. Important thing is that it doesn't crash at default settings.

Crazy nuts - have you found or seen the relationship between the voltage levels and the allowed boost levels? Setting 11875v and up no matter how you do it (hex editor/this tool etc) causes the card to boost to the max boost level. However at stock (11500v) it boost to a predefined level which is different between cards and seemingly tied into asic quality or some measure of chip quality. One of my cards boosts to 1228 the other to 1254 for example. I want to know how to control what the cards boost to at voltages less than 11875v (ie: 115000, 1.16250 and 1.17500v). Can this be done and if so how?

I believe this is being referred to as 'kepler boost' value and is the value added to the advertised boost frequecny which results in an individual cards actual boost frequency.

Any help would be appreciated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boulard83

If it work on the 660, will it work on the 650TI ? they are the same GPU but with some cut SP.

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Crazy ? Any support for GTX650TI ?

Can someone PLEASE go over the steps for a eVGA 690? I tried to mod the bios file a few months back but to no avail, im pretty sure u HAVE to moddify BOTH bios files from GPU 1 and 2 and simply using GPU-Z will only give you 1 bios for gpu 0. Using nvflash i can get both GPU 0 and GPU 1 bios files but then id like a quick run down on what to do as i dont wanna brick a thousand dollar card. Thanks to anyone with some input!!

Having some issues with my bios from cards, 660 ftw sig 2 having issues attaching my bios rom's on here. ill post them when i figure out how hehe

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Originally Posted by Boulard83

Crazy ? Any support for GTX650TI ?

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send me your bios, i'll check it out