Help editing an nVidia GPU BIOS? (remove 2D)

[K404]

Hey. I have an nVidia 9-series card that has power-saving 2D clocks. Telling Rivatuner to force performance 3D doesn't work (never has for me, on ANY card)and if I change the number of performance levels in nibitor, I don't get the result I want.

Is there a way to completely remove the 2D clocks? I think it's a BIOS-level problem? I want full 3D clocks all the time

Attached is the BIOS, if any one wants to have a look.

Cheers

[K404]

I had what I thought was a brainwave and set the 2D clocks to 0-0-0, but the card stills "sees" intermediate values and uses those

[Hondacity]

try thermspy

[K404]

I thought that was Fermi only, but i'll give it a shot... nothing to lose

[Ket]

Done. 3D, throttle and 2D clocks are all the same. Just flash the new vBIOS to the card.

[K404]

Thanks Ket I appreciate you making the effort but..... it doesn't help once I start overclocking.

I had a play with Thermspy. I think i've figured out how to get it to do what I want.... there's more to it than just turning off Adaptive Clocking and I found that out tonight by accident..... not that i'm complaining

[Hondacity]

you talking about thermspy or something else?

[K404]

When I mention Adaptive clocking? Yea, I mean Thermspy I turned Adaptive Clocking off but the GPU was still moving to 2D clocks when it wasn't happy. I clicked the "P0 Max 3D" button and that seems to help keep the card in 3D mode

[Ket]

The modded vBIOS uses only 3D clocks for everything. I'm not sure what you mean by your overclocking comment but its very likely the card either A: is at its max already, or B: needs a bloody good clean and remount of the HSF & TIM.

[K404]

So if I increase the clocks to 900/1300MHz in Rivatuner, do the idle MHz increase to 900/1300MHz too? I guess the answer is no because that would need a program to hot-flash the BIOS chip every time I change MHz....?


The core is not at its max and the cooling does not need a clean, nor a remount

[Ket]

What are the max clocks the card is capable of? I'll mod the BIOS then all you have to do is flash it and forget all about rivatuner. When you change clocks in rivatuner they will only apply to 3D, not 2D.

[K404]

I can adjust MHz in nibitor myself These are workarounds anyway. How can 2D mode be removed from a BIOS? Entering 0-0-0 doesn't work.

[Ket]

You would need to remove the performance table itself, but its far easier to just change the 2D table clocks to that of the 3D clocks and adjust voltage, which is what I did. If things aren't right remove rivatuner completely and use nvidia inspector.

[K404]

I don't know nV Inspector that well. Does it have more options for controlling 2D and 3D mode?

[Ket]

Yea it has a lot of options. I don't know why you would want to twat around messing with 2D/3D clocks though when its so much easier to mod the vBIOS and be done with it.

[K404]

Because the only thing I want to twat around with under LN2 is bench MHz... not adjusting the BIOS 20 billion times and reflashing. If a card gets stuck in 2D mode, that usually means a restart.

[Ket]

I would recommend a full uninstall and registry cleanup of anything nvidia related, reinstall driver and switch to nvidia inspector. I've never had a GPU getting stuck in 2D or 3D clocks.

[K404]

Then maybe you've never pushed hard enough or monitored your clockspeeds?

[Hondacity]

When I mention Adaptive clocking? Yea, I mean Thermspy I turned Adaptive Clocking off but the GPU was still moving to 2D clocks when it wasn't happy. I clicked the "P0 Max 3D" button and that seems to help keep the card in 3D mode

good info thanks

[Ket]

Then maybe you've never pushed hard enough or monitored your clockspeeds?

I monitor clockspeeds a lot when I'm OCing, and clearly you haven't looked at my sig How many people can you name that have a GTX460 with a GPU running @ 900MHz 24/7? Thats even me being pretty conservative with the GPU. I hardly think your one to snipe either when you can't even use nvidia inspector and are novice enough to just put "0" in a lot of clock fields in the vBIOS.

[ZenEffect]

Ket,

alot of overclockers arent exactly "power users."

alot of "power users" arent exactly power users either, they just think they are.

software developement or tool usage isnt an extreme overclocker's strong suit most of the time, but understanding of hardware and how it reacts to different variables is. the end user requirements between a 24/7 overclock and extreme overclocking are radically different. if given the same tools, i would almost guarentee k404 would produce consistantly higher scores. calling him a "novice" after the years of demonstrated experience is uncalled for. when was your last subzero session? in this respect, it is you that is the novice as you dont seem to understand the requirements that are necessary when going subzero.

locking 3d all the time.

a.) produces higher score as the initial clock is set to the max p0 state at all times instead of throttling up at the beginning of the bench
b.) produces less temperature swing when exiting the benchmark because power state does not throttle back down
c.) (and i bet k404, you didnt think of this) you hit p0 state again (to reset back up to user defined clocks... thermspy is soooo useful for this) after failing the benchmark and getting stuck into the safety clocks

do you even have thermspy? why would anybody be impressed with your sig?

k404, if you need anything done bios or software side, pm me and lmk. i wont be touchy, disrespectful, and all butt-hurt when if I dont understand the concepts presented before me

if you get stuck in 2d, reapply state p0 and it will return to the user defined setting. if you leave thermspy open though, the constant calls to thermspy will reduce your score. apply and close it. if you get throttled back to safety clocks, open thermspy again and re-apply p0 then close again.

[K404]

novice enough to just put "0" in a lot of clock fields in the vBIOS.

A normal GPU BIOS with no 2D clocks has -0- in the 2D fields. I had an idea, I tried it, it was wrong. Wrong, but a logical train of thought, wouldn't you agree?

Every card i've had with 2D & 3D clocks has given me some form of trouble when on the edge. (G71 & G92.) The G71 cards, I blamed on the PWM because it was a big problem for me with the 7900GS/GT. I can show you a video where the card idles at 3D MHz and drops to 2D under load. When I drop the load, the clocks come back to 3D.... maybe that ties in to what Zen is saying (thanks for your post bro!) If you aren't using Rivatuner monitoring, you might never know it's happening.

[ZenEffect]

im pretty sure you are right when you think its the pwm on 7900gt. i came to the same conclusion when i found out i could run it without the pcie power connector and fps would be all over the place. when pwm kicks out under high load, i think, there is a safety feature that trips ocp but doenst stop the card, thus the ability to run off of mobo power or pcie power.

i think that 0 is represented incorrectly, it should be NULL to avoid confusion, or alternatively 0 = NULL by your logic.

i cant get the "more" stuff working on fermi. my version is probably too old otherwise id be using thermspy exclusively

[Nikolasz]

I dont think Mr.Ket is an issue here.

I had problem, and i fix it by my self, and i use plain logic to do what i did..

I copy from section 7 to section 3. Now 2d(section3 and low power3d(section7) clock is same. While in need, power3d (section15) is for games or fermi usage.

But thats my gfx. Was my problem.

[K404]

FBE.... The only download site I knew of it for it was megaupload and the software has no future, so I'm not going to add it to my software selection.