Is anybody else experiencing this?

[Ket]

I just went and bought a 2nd GTX460 for PhysX (overkill I know) and I modified its BIOS for clocks of 800/2000. Now, I've cleaned out the drivers thoroughly and then updated the BIOS using the following commands from DOS;

nvflash --eraseeeprom
nvflash -4 -5 -6 <filename>.rom

Rebooted, and installed drivers. Now whenever I open any program that tells me GPU and memory speeds they all say the clockspeeds are still stock (700/1800) I was wondering does anybody know if its possible the driver is overriding the BIOS clock settings?

[donmarkoni]

Are you sure you DID flash BIOS?
Once I was tired and trying to flash 3-4 times not noticing what nvflash was showing.
Then I used nvflash -- protectoff (IIRC) before flashing and did flash that time.

[kup]

--protectoff
-r
-4 -5 -6 newbios.rom

[Ket]

Yep positive. nvflash reports "update successful". I've tried the protectoff command and that didnt help either. I'll give the -r command a shot and see what happens

Oh, if it matters I'm using nvflash 5.95. Tried 5.93 and 5.91 with the same results. 5.88 won't work because it doesn't recognise the 460.

[josh1980]

Have you tried dumping your GPU BIOS and doing a file compare from the dump to your modified BIOS to see if they match? If they match then the flash was definitely successful.

[PiLsY]

Read bios with gpuz and check it back.

Why use it for physx and not sli?

[Ket]

@ josh, GPU-Z 4.5 doesn't support BIOS dumping on the card for some reason, I have to do it via nvflash. I'll flash then get a copy through nvflash and compare them.
@ pilsy, I can't do SLI on a 890FX, not without a "patch" at least So for now its a PhysX card.

[Ket]

Ok, I've just run nvflash 5.95 from DOS and took the following procedure;

nvflash --protectoff
nvflash --eraseeeprom
nvflash --protectoff (unneccessary perhaps, but done to be sure)
nvflash -4 -5 -6 kfam.rom
---------------------------
nvflash --save backup.rom

I then restarted and have checked both KFAM and backup.rom files with FBE, settings within the BIOSes are the same and their checksums match.

Heres a couple screens I grabbed with my phone, everything looks to be in order. Will install drivers and see what happens.

[ThugsRook]

all you did was modify your existing gpu bios and want to reflash it?

nvflash -j -y NEW.ROM

[Ket]

I'll try that. Just installed the drivers and it STILL says 700/1800 even though the BIOS mod settings are deffinately sticking.

Edit - -j didn't work either. Still 700/1800. Surely this has to be a driver issue? Completely cleaned (including registry) and reinstalled 259.32. Was using my customised 259.12s with the same results. This is bloody annoying. Theres nothing wrong with this card and I can't exactly return it citing modified BIOS clocks don't seem to work. I have successfully OCd this card with afterburner and nvidia inspector, so I know theres nothing physically wrong with the card either. It seems to me like some kind of driver clock lock is applying itself.

[[XC] Oj101]

I know this is XS but MUST you overclock your PhysX card?

[donmarkoni]

Try without erasing it first. Just protectoff and straight to flash.
Maybe, somehow, it restores original when it sees that BIOS was erased, as it seems there are some backup BIOS banks form what I've seen lately.

[Ket]

I know this is XS but MUST you overclock your PhysX card?

Yes I work on the phillosopy of if you can, then why not

Try without erasing it first. Just protectoff and straight to flash.
Maybe, somehow, it restores original when it sees that BIOS was erased, as it seems there are some backup BIOS banks form what I've seen lately.

I'll give it a try. I think I have tried that and it still didn't budge.

[kup]

What is Everest reading as your bios clocks? It looks like the system seems to have kept your clocks locked into the drivers/registry somewhere? DriverCleaner?

[Ket]

I have cleaned drivers out completely and reinstalled them 3-4 times now. I've just tried flashing the card again and atm clocks are holding. I don't trust it though so I'm going to uninstall drivers, totally clean them out, even completely reset my system BIOS, reflash the card with a few more tweaks I want to make anyway, and see if it still holds the clocks on a new driver install. It is nice seeing 800/2000 finally though in GPU-Z

[K404]

So.... what changed in your method?

Cant be the drivers????? They have no MHz info of their own

[josh1980]

So.... what changed in your method?

Cant be the drivers????? They have no MHz info of their own

I thought the exact same thing you did. Drivers couldn't be the cause for the frequency change. But then I realized that the drivers do have some control, and they could be changing the speed to the defaults and giving this result. Basically the computer boots up with the new GPU speeds, then when nvidia drivers load the frequency changes back to defaults. To us the GPU speeds never change.

[K404]

Do you mean the reference MHz for the GPU model or the default for the card (factory OC etc)

Are the reference MHz for each card supported by a driver included in the drivers data set? I've never seen any sign of it?

[Ket]

Indeed. The drivers override the BIOS settings basically. Oddly enough my system has just crashed for whatever reason, and clocks have been reset from BIOS modded 800/2000 back to 700/1800. Certainly looks like driver controlled clocks to me based on that.

[Zloyd]

Maybe its coz its showing 2d clocks and not 3d clocks ?

In the nvidia driver if you play with the power management settings it can do a lot of funky things like you are reporting ESPECIALLY as you arent running both cards in SLI. So whats happening probably is the phyx card is not in use so it goes to lower clocks. Set it to max performance and reboot and see if it holds the clocks.

[hema]

use XtremeTuner HD to flash your card via windows
this method is very safe

[kup]

Is it possible that your OC Utility was setting the clocks @ startup?

[Ket]

I uninstalled afterburner once I verified 800/2000 was fine. I'm using GPU-Z to verify clocks. Gonna test a couple things and will report back.

[CrazyNutz]

Have you tried the card in question by it's self, i.e. remove your older card from the equation.

Also what is the make/model of the card, I read somewhere about some makers gtx460 that sports dual bios/flash chips.

And also perhaps the bios structure is different, or its using a different 3d clock domain, and FBE is just not presenting it correctly. I have
nibitor 5.8 (support for 460) if you post your orig bios i'll check it out to see if there is anything strange.

[[XC] Oj101]

Yes I work on the phillosopy of if you can, then why not

Because you can't I'm sorry