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Bios Flashing Guide for the 6800 Video cards.

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CandymanCan

Disabled
Joined
Aug 14, 2003
Location
Woodbridge, Va
First things first. I will not take any responsibility if you screw something up and kill youre card. This is soley youre problem not mine. READ THE WHOLE GUIDE. Any questions just ask in the thread or Page me I will try my best to help.

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Updated Information Concerning the 6800NU Video card's. Gigabit and Shuiends have found a script made by Alexey Nicolaychuk aka Unwinder to Perm unlock all the extra pipes and Vertex shaders to = 16/6 like the GT's and Ultra's. First read everything i wrote to learn how to flash youre card, then on the bottom of this post will be the intructions on how to unlock the extra Pipes and Shaders on youre NU. A side note, once this mod is done thier will be no more need for you to use riva tuner anymore cuss the pipes will be unlocked even when you reinstall youre pc.

(All Credit goes to Gigabit and Shuiends for finding this info and writing the the How to guide for it, so thank them guys, and for Alexey Nicolaychuk aka Unwinder (who made this script and Riva tuner)


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Since alot of you are still asking how to flash youre video card's and that the current Nvidia flashing sticky is way to old and outdated i will make a small guide on how you can acomplish this.

Make sure youre video card is the Nvidia refrense board. Most companies use the refrense design and they tend to have better results after flashing. The non refrense boards flash but tend to have problems.

Also take note, flashing to the Ultra also changes youre memory timmings to the looser Ultra Timmings, this may have Undesierable results where youre card may overclock higher but also score less in 3dmark. If you really want youre card to be reported as Ultra and Dont care about 3dmark scores not being as high as they should be then go for it. If you simply want a higher overclock, then just mod youre Current bios which is explained below with a higher voltage. :thup:

First you need to go to this website , thier you can download all the known bios's for most of the 6800's including the LE's, NU's , GT's, Ultra's, Ultra Extreme, and the new PCI-E cards. The website has bios's for all those card and the ones from each brand name, Pov, PNY, Abit, Evga and so many more.

To find the bios you want just go the downloads section click on Nvidia download section then Nvidia Bios files. Also in the Nvidia Download section thier is a Nvidia Utility section for the bios editor and the program you need to flash youre card with. The editor tool is called Omni extreme edit, the flashing tool is called Nvflash. (EDIT) You can also Use NIBITOR 1.9 or later, i suggest since its newer you try using that instead.

Which ever version you use is up to you, but the versions for the flasher that support the 6800's are the versions 4.42 and above.

Omni2.jpg


Once you download the bios you want you may edit it with the Bios editor , change voltages, the clocks, you can change the clock you want youre card to run @ 24/7 so you dont have the overclock using a windows based program that resets the clocks everytime you change a driver or reinstall youre computer (whatever you set you memory @ make sure its the clock x2 dont set it @ 700 if you want youre memory to run @ 700, you need to set it to 350 cuss 350x2=700). You can change the memory timmings as well for some cards and bios's. Once you edit whatever you want to change in the bios, click on File then save bios (make sure you have a floppy ready) and save the bios to the floppy. You should save it using a short name that you can remember dont make it to long.


After that is done download the Nvflash program i use version 4.42 (if youre just editing youre card's Bios be it a GT bios or NU bios, and you arent flashing to the higher model DL NVflash 5.08), extract the 2 files called Nvflash.exe and cwsdpmi.exe to youre floppy with youre bios. Also to be safe make sure you keep a copy of youre Original bios so if the flash goes bad you can reflash youre card. To get the bios from youre card just reboot the pc with youre floppy that has the nvflash program on it and go into DOS to where you have the A:/ prompt (DO NOT do this in the windows DOS program this needs to be in real DOS mod, in order to get in thier you need to make a Bootable Floppy Disk or CD in windows) then type in Nvflash.exe -b Original.rom this will save the bios thats on youre card.

To flash youre bios thier are all kinds of commands to override things with (to get the commands go into the Info.text file that is in the Nvflash Utility i can only tell you a few commands because each card is diff). If youre using nvflash 4.42 and are flashing say youre GT to Ultra or NU ro GT or LE to GT ect ect you can type in Nvflash -p -u -2 Bios.rom (The word Bios in Bios.rom is actually the name of youre bios you saved to youre floppy so if you named it 6800Ultra then type in nvflash -p -u -2 6800Ultra.rom) If you are only editing a say GT bios for youre GT to have 1.4vcore or more then just type in Nvflash.exe Bios.rom. It will or should say press Y if you wanna update the firmware press Y

I hope this helps. If you have any problems when flashing read the Info.text that came with the Nvflash program it gives you commands to override things like mismatches so you can flash youre card without hassles. If youre wondering how safe this is i cant give you real a good answer to that, it seems pretty safe i made a Poll asking if anyone has had any bad flashes and so far no one has bad flashes (meaning dead cards). Some people have had good flashes but problems with 3dmark or video games. If this arrises, re flash youre card with youre stock Bios that you saved

If you do have a bad flash you can use a PCI card to reflash youre 6800


For those of you who missed the link go here for all youre utility and Bios needs
http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

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WARNING: It is not our responsiblity if you use this patch and kill your card.


Tools that will be needed

1.) Riva Tuner (The latest on www.guru3d.com)
2.) Youre Original Bios
3.) The Script (below)


How to patch your bios to unlock your pipes and shader's
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1). Frist you need to back up your bios with nvflash 4.42, Or Any version after 4.42
(do not use this script if your card is not 100% unlockable because this script unlock's all 16/6 pip's and shaders Perm)

2). Take your bios rom and put it in a folder on your desktop. (not a compressed folder)

3).Now you need to copy this script
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Common]
SrcFile = *.rom
BakFile = %filename%.old

PlugIns = ,BIOSChecksumGenerator

Src0 = 5F 10 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00
SCM0 = FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst0 = 5F 10 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4). Ok now that you have this.You need to go in to start -> programs -> rivatuner -> patch scripts folder. Then goto nvidia - > nv40biosswunitsmaskeliminator folder. Now you looking at the patch script.

5). Now right click on the script to open the menu, and go to open with, and click note pad.
When it opens delete all the script you see.And then paste the script above into to patch and click save.Ok now the patch is ready to patch your bios.

6). Now left click the patch script. It will open and then it will say continue, click it. Now a box opens to show you the RT folder. Take it to desktop by scrolling to it.You should see the new folder (what ever you named it) open it and click your bios rom and then click open. It will give an error saying bios version does not match. Click continue anyways. That will merge your bios and the script to gether.


7). Now flash that bios to your card and have your 16 pipes and 6 shaders opened


Note:This is for people that know that there cards are 100% moddable. If you cant open a set
of pipes or your shaders do not use this script on your bios. We will be figuring out how to
modify this for you guy's that cant open 16 pipes and 6 shaders.

Written by Gigabit and Edited by Shuiends


For anymore Help with unlocking the NU's, go to this Link or Ask the question here in this thread.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=346099
 
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Should i uninstall my drivers frist before flashing? Also when i make a backup bio's it comes out a bin file not rom so what is this?Is this why i cant get it to flash.I flashed my old FX5900 with no problem but for some reason i cant get this one to flash.
 
If it come in a .bin file see if Omni extreme will open it up, if it does just resave it to the floppy and it should save it as .rom then.

If that doesnt work look on the back of youre card for the Bios version and just download it @ the website i gave. Thier they have 2 versions for the EVGA 6800 NU, the rev .01 and .02, either one will work but if you wanan keep youre bios just download the one that youre card has be it rev .02 or .01 and edit that and flash it

http://www.mvktech.net/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=selectfolder&filecatid=51
 
I backed up my original bios and it came out a .bin file. It worked fine though, make sure you type 'nm vidbios.bin' for example..
 
I don't know if I did it 100% correctly, but I flashed my BFG 6800 GT OC and I see no improvement (I changed the 3d to 1.4V... and the core to 400). I left the mem as is b/c I figured I can use the tools to OC them. I don't need my card booting at higher than 400mhz if I'm not going to game. I like it to change WHILE I'm gaming.
 
Alright, the nvflash 5.10 didn't do it for me (maybe I did it wrong), so I went ahead with the nvflash 4.42 just as you did Candyman and it worked. Only thing is that I want to still be able to use the OC utility in windows. I set my card to be flashed to 400/1.1 @ 1.4V, but then I want to be able to OC it in windows to 430gpu (optimal can detect that now). Only thing is that it keeps defaulting back to my modded clocks (400/1.1). Any way to fix this?

I don't want my computer booting the card at 430 if I'm not going to be gaming. I want it to be 430 for 3d ONLY! Any suggestions?
 
Coolbits sometimes doesnt save the speeds you want, did you just select youre clocks for 3d for 430, and click on on the little tab saying save during reboot ? If that didnt work then youre ganan need to use another ocing program, cuss it does this for some people coolbits is buggy.

I use Powerstrip it saves them during reboots no problem 3d or 2d doesnt matter, whatever you select for both it will save and boot with that.

For me i set my 3d @ 450/1160, and 2d stays @ defaults
 
Powerstrip doesn't have a "test" button though =(. Seems very risky to me without the test button. Anyways, I even tried 420/1.0 and when I loop the nature test on 3dmark03 build350 (newest one, also newest nV drivers) the system loses video signal and I have to turn off then on to get the computer to work again; otherwise I hear the computer fans and all running, but video signal is lost.
 
"Warning: cannot open swap file c:\cwsdpmi.swp"

It says that whenever I do the bios flash with nvflash v4.42. Is that bad???
 
g0dM@n said:
"Warning: cannot open swap file c:\cwsdpmi.swp"

It says that whenever I do the bios flash with nvflash v4.42. Is that bad???


That happens to me also and i heard about this happning to others, i just ignore it i dunno exsactly what that means but the person i learned flashing fron says to ignore it. Or you can use another flashing version like the 5.10 and look i nthe Help file that comes with it and look at the commands in thier like the -p -u -2 ones i posted and when you try to flash and it gives you an error look in the help file for how to bybass the erro and type that in next time.

If youre having problems after youre card is flashed tho then that means youre card doesnt like it. Just reflash back to youre stock bios. Or try a diff Bios.

The test button isnt Necassary, if you know how high youre card can overclock 2 then you dont need to test it everytime. Sometimes even when coolbits tests my OC'S and it allopws me to apply them they arent stable and artifacts during 3dmark. The only real way to test youre overclocks is to just overclock slowly like a cpu then run 3dmark03 or 05 through a bunch of loops and if it doesnt artifact jerk or lockup then those clocks are pretty safe.

Also coolbits says my card can only do 450/1160 and it wont let me go higher when i test it but powerstrip i can do 463/1200 and run 3dmark03 05 and HL2 for hourso n end without any artifacts jerks or lockups. Thats all i need to know that those OC'S are stable.
 
How do I try a "different" BIOS. I have a BFG 6800 GT. I thought I'm only aloud to mod the BFG 6800 GT Bios's. I can use a different brand's BIOS?!?!
 
Yea i used the Nvidia GT and Ultra bios. I dunno if you can use a leadtech or some other brand like that but you can use or try Nvidia's bios's
 
Ok, just a few more questions. What exactly do I type for a command to flash in the prompt? am I supposed to type all of the nvflash -p -u -2 bios.rom, or just one of those? I have my bios and all that set up, just dont want to jump into the flashing and mess something up if you know what I mean. Quick response would be awesome!
 
WheaT said:
Ok, just a few more questions. What exactly do I type for a command to flash in the prompt? am I supposed to type all of the nvflash -p -u -2 bios.rom, or just one of those? I have my bios and all that set up, just dont want to jump into the flashing and mess something up if you know what I mean. Quick response would be awesome!

Yes, you are supposed to type all that stuff in, but use the newest nvflash... version 5.10. Instead of nvflash -p -u, type in nvflash -5 -6 [biosname].rom ([biosname] of course would be the name of the bios you are going to use).

------------------------------------------------

So anyways, I flashed my card to 1.4volts and was able to hit 420+mhz, but if I were to run a loop test of nature or troll test on 3dmark03 I would lose video signal. It would loop like 3-5 times with no artifacts at 425mhz, but I would lose video signal, and the fan on my NV5 would shut down. The computer would still be on, but no video and the fan is stopped... weird, huh?

CandymanCan said:
Yea i used the Nvidia GT and Ultra bios. I dunno if you can use a leadtech or some other brand like that but you can use or try Nvidia's bios's

It worked when I tried different brands. I tried MSI bios and I think maybe Gainward... I was able to 3dmark, but same problem with the fan shutting down and video loss. I think my card hates 1.4V, which truely sucks b/c I bought the NV5 for raising my voltage.

Any clues? Should I just give up on my OC on my BFG 6800 GT??? =( I mean I could OC better with 1.4volts, but I just keep getting that video signal loss and fan shutdown.
 
Well if you keep that getting problem then i would just flash back to the stock bios for youre card. Not all the flashs are 100% sucessfull, iv heard alot of people flashing without problems, but some people when they ran 3dmark they had problems. Im guessing its just the luck of the draw, some people it will work some it wont. It might also have to do with the brand of the card im not totally sure. I do know if youre card isnt the Refrense Nvidia Card then you will have problems. For PNY for exsample the green card (refrense board )seem to flash without problems, the blue ones tend to flash but end up with some problems that you or other's describe. The good thing is that the 6800's seem to flash really easy so if you end with some problem after flashing reverting back to the stock bios is simple to do.

Try doing this. If youre card is already flashed, download the nvflash 5.08 version and type in nvflash Bios.rom (Bios being the name of the youre file) This will double check and ensure the first flash went smoothly. The command -p -u -2 is only to bybass the mismatch error's of the GT and Ultra bios's on the 4.42v, once you flash youre card to the Ultra or Modded GT, download Nvflash 5.08 and type in what i said above (Nvflash Bios.rom) this may fix some of the problems.

Also whatever you do type in for flashing the bios if you gives you some Mismatch error saying it cant flash then write down the error look in the help file for the flash tool youre using and find what the command is to override the error. Also iv been updating the Guide with some new Info. If you want to flash youre card to an Ultra be warned the looser timmings may actually affect youre 3dmar scores the results being a lower score then expected even tho youre overclock is higher. It might be better to just Mod youre or another Bios for youre brand of card GT or otherwise with a higher voltage so you can try to get a higher overclock. I never had problems with my Ultra bios i just reflashed to an Edited GT bios cuss my 3dmark score was kinda on the low side.


You said you tried MSI and such Bios's have you tried just editing youre own bios or another BFG bios ?
 
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How come you say use v5.08 and not v5.10? I've tried with 4.42 AND 5.10, not 5.08... what's so special about 5.08?
 
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