6600 (Non-GT) Volt Mods

[seaman]

Yes all of you can use a Sparkle bios.Or Asus one,or MSI.
Moded bioses for voltage just don't work for me.They don't change voltage for real.
For Leadtek,you will see an improvement in core overclocking.
For Palit.I don't know since there is no molex conector.Same problem like Inno.AGP is limited to max 40w power supply to the card and rising AGP voltage in bios does not help overclocking,but it is ment for something else,concerning Northbridge_AGP link.It might help stability,though.
I currently run my Sparkle at 600/780 with changed timmings.

[maturin]

Thanx Seaman,
wow nice clocks, but I think you have 3.3 ns mem on your sparkle, my Palit(Peak) have samsung 4.0 (good OC) by with I can reach 700 mhz but without significant improvement from 663 that is the optimal. Also sometimes I have some artifact due to memory (I suppose).
Do you think that using more relaxed timings could give any improvement?
If so how can I change them (nibitor?) and what timings are alright for me?
Thanx again for eventual answer, I follow your posts and have to say you are making a very good job.

[wedfighter]

Yes all of you can use a Sparkle bios.Or Asus one,or MSI.
I currently run my Sparkle at 600/780 with changed timmings.

What timing do u use to reach the 780 for mem clock?
can u post the timing for the mem?
n what type of memories do u use? Hynix 3.6ns,4ns or the Samsung one?
mine is Hynix 3.6ns, i'll attempt to do the same timing as u did, hopefully it can fly my mem clock about 750 or something near it
n what voltage do u use to run core @ 600 ?
many thanx Seaman...

[seaman]

Sorrry guys, network was down yesterday and couln't answer.
Use the bios that I posted here:
http://www.mvktech.net/component/opt.../limitstart,0/
and you will have modified timmings.You can see timmings in RivaTuner if you need.I don't like the way new NiBiTor works with the timmings and I'm not sure it really change them.Better use that bios but be carefull that is clocked 500/700.Reduce this values if you think your card can not do them,otherwise you will not be able to enter in Windows after flashing.Don't mess with the timmings.
I must tell you that my card is voltmodded to 1.5V for core and 2.72V for memory.
Good luck

[seaman]

Memory is Hynix 3.6

[wedfighter]

The sparkleultra bios has the same memory(s) timing with my Leadtek 6600, are u use that timing to oc ur mem @ 780?

[seaman]

Don't use nibitor to read timmings.It shows allways same timmings,and never changes anything if you try to choose other set.
Yes,I use that bios like it is,and RivaTuner detects other timmings the usual with Sparkle bios.

[wedfighter]

Just testing the Sparkle Ultra BIOS on my Leadtek,n it's rocks mann..
my highest clock reach 600 for gpu and 800 for mem (artifacts free)
n looks like it can even go higher if i replace the stock cooler, n put a ramsink on my Hynix 3.6ns..
btw how do we read the timing with Rivatuner? Can u explain it?
Thx Seaman for ur help!

[seaman]

Open RivaTuner-Main-Graphics Subsystem diagnostic report-check NVIDIA graphics processor registers and reopen RivaTuner.In the report for processor registers you will see NV_PFB_TIMING0,1,2 and the values for timmings with this bios,wich are different for other bios.
Normaly,when modify timmings with NiBitor,RivaTuner should show timmings you intend to use,but for me,allways showed same timmings.That is way I said,that NiBiTor didn't modify the timmings for real.
And yes,I can go about 614/810,but is important to test card for long time in most demanding games to make sure that are no artifacts.
Is no need to push voltages beyond 1.6/2.75V,since there is no important gain in clock speeds or performance.600/800 artifact free will be ideal for this card,to be able to use some AA and AF in demanding games in resolution higer than 1024/768.
Now that we riched the limits of this card,is time to save some money and buy some 256bit cards,wich will are the only able to run at high resolutions with 4xAA.Anyway we acomplished the goal of being at least equal to 6600GT card.

[maturin]

hello boys,
I flashed with sparkleultra too, good job! I can reach 700 with memory and 540 gpu, more clock cause artifact or temporary block. I suppose it dipend by the lack of power ( no molex on my card). I think no more can be done with my card (until I find a Vmod that match my card), but I think that the VGA slot do not give enough power to my card.
I have some questions for you:
1) what temps tou have idle/load? (mine 47/63. Maybe too much?)
2) do you run your card at the same freq. 2D/3D ? Or you have different clocks ?
3) does this bios (clocked 500/700) have to be underclocked for 2D ?
4) what scores you reach with 3Dmark05 and Aquamark3 (mine 3150 and 6500 with an athlon-xp 2800 @ 2200mhz)

Thank you for the answers and help.
Greetings from Italy

[Decimus]

Hmm, I´ve flashed the Ultra bios, but on my Asus 6600 non GT it seems bad. Only blue screen in windows and VGABIOS says ther is an error. And in the beggining of start sequence of computer it says that my card has 256 MB memory. So, my question: this bios can be put only on sparkle 6600 non GT?

[maturin]

I got a PEAK (PALIT) 6600 AGP 128 mb (non GT) and it works.
I don't know if it works on Asus, I'm sorry.
Try to flash again or flashback original bios.
Bye

[Decimus]

can you describe, how do you flash this bios? I use nvflash last version and command nvflash -4 -5 -6 bios.rom BTW: with 1,4 V my card do 540/720.

EDIT: I´ve copyied the timing settings from sparkleultra.rom to my asus bios.rom, but no change. It is strange. Maybe is actually memory mod needed.

[maturin]

I used the same commands (nvflash -4 -5 -6 bios.rom).
Maybe your card is not compatible with this bios (are you sure it is for a 128 mb VGA?)
I can reach almost your same clocks (540/700) but I don't believe the bios make any Vmod, so I think the card run at stock (1.3V), but I cannot measure since I have not a device to measure and I don't know where to measure (my card is different from the ones Vmodded found on the net and I'm not expert in electronics).

Two question for you:
Did you make any Vmod or only flashed with a bios with higher voltage table?
Do your memories are 4.0 or 3.6 ? (mine 4.0 @ 250 mhz stock)
Bye

[trans am]

Awesome thread! THanks Conrad. I just bought a cheap refurb 6600 Leadtek from newegg for $66.00!!

I have never vmodded before, so I figure I should practice on this thing before breaking my x800xt.

I am going to radio shack and I should prepare a shopping list. Here is the card I bought. I'll post a more pics when this sucker is finished.

Here's a link to newegg. I don't think they have the 128mb anymore, but 256mb is better and still only $10.00 more!
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2E16814122203R

[seaman]

Well,I have AthlonXP 2500+@2.32GHz.
I can get about 3450 in 3DMark 2005 with all the programs running in background.
Temp dependes on vcore.I have an old socket A cooler fitted on GPU.
At 1.5V temp are 42/57.
At 1.65V temp are 44/62.

For those who seems to have problems with this bios,I can suggest erasing completely the eeprom.But is very DANGEROUS.
Also keep in mind that every bios flash must be acompanied with reinstalling the drivers,I mean unistalling and reinstalling.
When you are going to flash a new bios for testing purposes,better unistall drivers first,reboot and flash new bios.
To compltely erase eeprom use only nvflash 5.12 with command nvflash -e.As soon as eeprom is erased,flash new bios with command nvflash -4 -5 -6.
DO NOT REBOOT computer after erase eeprom otherwise you loose your card.
After flashing new bios,reboot and as soon as you are in Windows,cancel new hardware wizard that appears and do a cleaning of old driver using Driver Cleaner.Now you are ready to install new driver.
Hope this helps!

[wedfighter]

I just wanna know, how far we can push the core voltage? Can we feed it up to 1.8v?
so far i've just done a vmod to 1.58v n it can fly the gpu core to 600, i wonder to push it somewhere 650 or even 700, so anyone know how far this NV43 can hold the max voltage we fed?
The memory bandwith is suck problem, this card is so limited by the lack of memory bandwith, so far i've done a vmem mod @ 2.79v n it can went up to 800 for memory, i believed if we can push it something like 850, we'll gain a lot of performance boost, cmiiw
Just testing with my Leadtek 6600 @550-750 it scores 8175 at 3DMark03
i'm using Clawhammer 2800+ @ 2550 DFI LPUT NF3 250Gb
Does anyone ever seen the 6600 (with DDR1) can score 9k in 3dm03?

[seaman]

Didn't try 1.8 but i think it is not gonna take that much.I tried 1.68V and I can tell overclocking is not better than at 1.6V.Limit is somwhere around 620,than the artifacts appear,no matter what voltage you use.There are limits to the GPU and you can not cross them just by boosting the voltage.
For the memory also,since is designed to be used at 550Mhz.For me,even supplying 2.9V,didn't give a clock much higher -about 810 seems to be the limit artifact free.
You have to consider,that there are also some protection circuits that will not let you feed how much voltage you like on the core and memory.
And,no we can not get a lot of performance if we go up to 850,just a little.
This memory is low specification and the timmings we use to be able to overclock,make it even slower.
Lets just accept clocks around 600/800 and make sure we don't encounter "stress test transitions L1>L2".

[uKER]

I have a 128Mb Chaintech 6600 AGP with crappy 4-ns Hynix chips (500MHz DDR), and it seems it doesn't like any other 6600 BIOSes out there (at least none of the ones from MVKTech.net). After a forced flash (using -6 -5 -4), what I get is a garbled text mode, and it only gets worse from there, so I'm pretty much stuck with my stock BIOS.
Any ideas?

[seaman]

I have a 128Mb Chaintech 6600 AGP with crappy 4-ns Hynix chips (500MHz DDR), and it seems it doesn't like any other 6600 BIOSes out there (at least none of the ones from MVKTech.net). After a forced flash (using -6 -5 -4), what I get is a garbled text mode, and it only gets worse from there, so I'm pretty much stuck with my stock BIOS.
Any ideas?

Did you try a complete eeprom erase as I described above?
Sounds strange what happens to you with another bios.This happens to me if I flash a GT bios on my card.

[trans am]

lol I am curious to see what this sonofa ended up clocking at?

[seaman]

Hey,I did see this picture couple of months ago.
If it is yours,you will have problems with the cooling of memory modules in the back of GPU heatsink. As I can see GPU fan does not blow on them,and an uneven cooling is like a bad cooling.
Now I remeber -I saw this picture on a russian site.

[maturin]

I put my ex athlon-xp 2800 heatsink with a 6000 round fan (noisy) and temps went down from 47°/64° to 39°/47° (idle/full load). Bios flashed with Sparkleultra from Seaman.
Nice job, but no much gain in OC 535/695 artifact free.
I think my VGA cannot go higher.
Someone have some ideas about how to go higher?

X seaman:
If you use the same bios, have you measured the real voltage of your card without Vmod? Does this bios really change the voltages or only it gives more relaxed memory timings?
It is strange that my GPU cannot go over 535 while the memory reach 700 (samsung 4.0) and now the temps are really low, so it is not a problem of overheating.

CIAO

[seaman]

No,this bios does not change any voltage.It just give best timmings for overclocking the memory.
My card's voltage without voltmod are:
GPU 1.36V in 2D and 1.41V in 3D
Memory 2.58-2.59V
Problem for you could be the voltage and missing Molex conector.

[Cybercat]

lol I am curious to see what this sonofa ended up clocking at?

lol, yeah that's mine. Seaman actually outclocked me with his card I believe. I hit 585/740. Didn't mess with timings or anything, using stock BIOS. I actually bought a refurb Leadtek 6600 just like you did.