[MOVED] Hacking NVidia Cards into their Professional Counterparts

[eos]

I just wonder if there will be a backlash from Nvidia...

Of course there will. I think the logic will change.
But most likely not before the next generation cards arrive.

Selling modded cards will be simply illegal...

[amigo]

Selling modded cards will be simply illegal...

You obviously haven't checked eBay then...

[natiss88]

I just wonder if there will be a backlash from Nvidia...

Of course there will. I think the logic will change.
But most likely not before the next generation cards arrive.

Selling modded cards will be simply illegal...

i think they will be forced to modify the gpu core to avoid completely mods.. but it will be expensive.

[eos]

i think they will be forced to modify the gpu core to avoid completely mods.. but it will be expensive.

I don't think so.
Even Intel, owning all its fabs, doesn't do that.
They will make modding harder and bricking easier... That will do it.

You obviously haven't checked eBay then...

I meant as a business model.
For example: building a business on selling Hackintoshes...

[eos]

Looks like "F" is default value for 4 symbol.
and "B" is default  value for 3 symbol.

I other words, if I remove the resistors in all positions - 1,2 and 3 - I'll get a 11BF part, aka GRID K2.

Now my last question: does going GRID (or Tesla) disable the outputs?
Or will that happen only after the appropriate BIOS is installed (if it can be installed)?

[InitialDriveGTR]

I've never been shy of doing hardware mods as easy as changing out resistors. Anyways, I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10... I simply removed resistor 2 as per verbigbadboy. Will post back in a bit on the question of whether or not those cores got enabled. I still need a K10 BIOS, so if anyone with access to a real K10, it would be a huge help if you could share that, as I highly doubt I will find it on the internet...

Edit: used GPU-Z

[natiss88]

i think they will be forced to modify the gpu core to avoid completely mods.. but it will be expensive.

I don't think so.
Even Intel, owning all its fabs, doesn't do that.
They will make modding harder and bricking easier... That will do it.

what i intended is exactly what intel does to differentiate cpus..
for example, 3770-3770k.
they can make the same silicon, but something changes inside.

we only have to wait and see...

[natiss88]

... I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10 ...

glad to know that everything worked for you.
have you tried some benchmarks/tests to see if you gain something?

[verybigbadboy]

Looks like "F" is default value for 4 symbol.
and "B" is default  value for 3 symbol.

I other words, if I remove the resistors in all positions - 1,2 and 3 - I'll get a 11BF part, aka GRID K2.

Now my last question: does going GRID (or Tesla) disable the outputs?
Or will that happen only after the appropriate BIOS is installed (if it can be installed)?

Hi,
Tesla disable outputs.
Grid not disable outputs.
I not tried to change bios.

[amigo]

I've never been shy of doing hardware mods as easy as changing out resistors. Anyways, I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10... I simply removed resistor 2 as per verbigbadboy. Will post back in a bit on the question of whether or not those cores got enabled. I still need a K10 BIOS, so if anyone with access to a real K10, it would be a huge help if you could share that, as I highly doubt I will find it on the internet...

Please do some tests first before replacing the BIOS because you might not get that much of a difference changing ROMs, actually it might degrade your performance due to more conservative settings for the high-end line.

I think it's the features that have become enabled that makes the difference, for example unlocking the virtualization pathway, which driver and applications check/look for.

[eos]

Hi,
Tesla disable outputs.
Grid not disable outputs.
I not tried to change bios.

Thank you, verybigbadboy.

And thanks to gnif for showing us the way.

My soldering skills leave much to be desired but I just love the chance to "stick it to the man"...

[victorngcm]

I've never been shy of doing hardware mods as easy as changing out resistors. Anyways, I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10... I simply removed resistor 2 as per verbigbadboy. Will post back in a bit on the question of whether or not those cores got enabled. I still need a K10 BIOS, so if anyone with access to a real K10, it would be a huge help if you could share that, as I highly doubt I will find it on the internet...

Edit: used GPU-Z

Yeah ~~
I can only find K5000's Bios....is this one correct?
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/129867/NVIDIA.QuadroK5000.4096.120817.html
then use NVFlash to flash the bios into the card?

I still working on finding K10...

[gnif]

I've never been shy of doing hardware mods as easy as changing out resistors. Anyways, I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10... I simply removed resistor 2 as per verbigbadboy. Will post back in a bit on the question of whether or not those cores got enabled. I still need a K10 BIOS, so if anyone with access to a real K10, it would be a huge help if you could share that, as I highly doubt I will find it on the internet...

Edit: used GPU-Z

Yeah ~~
I can only find K5000's Bios....is this one correct?
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/129867/NVIDIA.QuadroK5000.4096.120817.html
then use NVFlash to flash the bios into the card?

I still working on finding K10...

You are much better off getting your original BIOS and using a hex editor to update its device ID, then use the KGB voltage mod tool to fix the checksum, don't bother with the voltage mod stuff. I highly doubt that the BIOS controls the number of cores available, this will either be another hardware strap, or burnt out fuses in the GPU.

[winjet1]

I've never been shy of doing hardware mods as easy as changing out resistors. Anyways, I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10... I simply removed resistor 2 as per verbigbadboy. Will post back in a bit on the question of whether or not those cores got enabled. I still need a K10 BIOS, so if anyone with access to a real K10, it would be a huge help if you could share that, as I highly doubt I will find it on the internet...

Please do some tests first before replacing the BIOS because you might not get that much of a difference changing ROMs, actually it might degrade your performance due to more conservative settings for the high-end line.

I think it's the features that have become enabled that makes the difference, for example unlocking the virtualization pathway, which driver and applications check/look for.

So the hardware mod opens up those virtualization pathways, not a BIOS re-flash (or edit)?

[victorngcm]

I've never been shy of doing hardware mods as easy as changing out resistors. Anyways, I just turned my EVGA GTX 670 FTW into a K10... I simply removed resistor 2 as per verbigbadboy. Will post back in a bit on the question of whether or not those cores got enabled. I still need a K10 BIOS, so if anyone with access to a real K10, it would be a huge help if you could share that, as I highly doubt I will find it on the internet...

Edit: used GPU-Z

Yeah ~~
I can only find K5000's Bios....is this one correct?
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/129867/NVIDIA.QuadroK5000.4096.120817.html
then use NVFlash to flash the bios into the card?

I still working on finding K10...

You are much better off getting your original BIOS and using a hex editor to update its device ID, then use the KGB voltage mod tool to fix the checksum, don't bother with the voltage mod stuff. I highly doubt that the BIOS controls the number of cores available, this will either be another hardware strap, or burnt out fuses in the GPU.

gnif, Thanks for your inspiration!!
I understand what you are telling about the BIOS but hex editor and KBG voltage mod tool is out of my knowledge...Seems I may need to stop here and wait for experts

However, if i use a GTX 680 4G and hard-mod it to K5000. The hardware config. are the same. Could I get the functions after I install K5000 driver?

[gnif]

gnif, Thanks for your inspiration!!
I understand what you are telling about the BIOS but hex editor and KBG voltage mod tool is out of my knowledge...Seems I may need to stop here and wait for experts

However, if i use a GTX 680 4G and hard-mod it to K5000. The hardware config. are the same. Could I get the functions after I install K5000 driver?

No worries. Yes, that is the entire point of this mod.

[amigo]

I understand what you are telling about the BIOS but hex editor and KBG voltage mod tool is out of my knowledge...Seems I may need to stop here and wait for experts

I've highlighted for you in blue the portion of the ROM file (in this case EVGA GTX 680 4GB) that contains the Device ID to be changed. Bytes are in the Little Endian order (least significant byte first, indicative of Intel platforms) so DE 10 80 11 translates to 10DE (NV Vendor ID) 1180 (GTX 680 Device ID).

The red highlight just shows the beginning of the actual VBIOS image, the sequence 55 AA is a header so you know you are in the right section, beside seeing all the text around there, too.

Once you've done the editing (any hex editor would do, ie. HxD), get the KGB tool (https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsxyvofr1idazhm/kgb_0.6.2.zip) to fix the new ROM image checksum (very important).

Also, always remember to backup your original ROM image first.

[victorngcm]

I understand what you are telling about the BIOS but hex editor and KBG voltage mod tool is out of my knowledge...Seems I may need to stop here and wait for experts

I've highlighted for you in blue the portion of the ROM file (in this case EVGA GTX 680 4GB) that contains the Device ID to be changed. Bytes are in the Little Endian order (least significant byte first, indicative of Intel platforms) so DE 10 80 11 translates to 10DE (NV Vendor ID) 1180 (GTX 680 Device ID).

The red highlight just shows the beginning of the actual VBIOS image, the sequence 55 AA is a header so you know you are in the right section, beside seeing all the text around there, too.

Once you've done the editing (any hex editor would do, ie. HxD), get the KGB tool (https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsxyvofr1idazhm/kgb_0.6.2.zip) to fix the new ROM image checksum (very important).

Also, always remember to backup your original ROM image first.

Woooo!!!
I am getting smaller in this...You guys are awesome
So, Should I change the "DE 10 80 11" of the GTX 680 to "DE 10 BA 11"which is K5000 's ID?
What else to do? Sorry that I am just a newbie on this

[amigo]

So, Should I change the "DE 10 80 11" of the GTX 680 to "DE 10 BA 11"which is K5000 's ID?
What else to do? Sorry that I am just a newbie on this

Correct. You need to make sure your checksum is valid before flashing. Even if you manually do this (256 possibilities) still ned to verify it
in some BIOS editor like KGB or Kepler Bios Editor (http://rghost.net/43828722) or Kepler BIOS Tweaker (http://ul.to/5vuhxe60)

Then do some tests, before and after changing the BIOS. Actually should've run some tests before modding, too.

Real credit goes to gnif and verybigbadboy for original disclosure of their findings. The rest is application of existing knowledge.

[eos]

Summary table...

[gnif]

I want to make a few things clear.

YOU DO NOT need to modify your BIOS at this point in time, the driver DOES NOT check the Device ID in the BIOS. Unless NVidia smarten up and start checking both there is no need to do this.

To unlock your cards additional features just modifying the resistors is enough.

A GTX690 is two GK104 GPUs connected via a PCIe bridge/expansion chip, they present to the computer as if you had two separate cards installed.
A Tesla K10 is identical, but has larger ECC RAM chips.

Thus, you can mod ANY single GPU card into a Tesla K10 if you can change its Device ID, but obviously you will only get the single device.

In theory 2x GTX680s in SLI converted to K10s would perform faster then a GTX690 fully converted into a K10 as they would have less latency due to the lack of the PCIe bridge/expansion chip on the GTX690.

Changing the card's device ID does not make the driver try to use additional RAM on the card, the RAM amount is configured by hardware straps on the board also.

Flashing the BIOS to the BIOS of what you turned it into is NOT a good idea, as you will start to use the memory and GPU timings contained in the other BIOS, either causing instabilities, bricking your card, or just giving a performance loss. If you insist on changing your BIOS to match the Device ID that is has been modded to, mod the BIOS on your card as per THESE instructions, and be sure to KEEP A BACKUP.

A side note, the two GPUs on the GTX690 have independent BIOSes, and they are DIFFERENT, if you decide to mod the Device ID in the bios you need to do each one independently.

But again I say, there is NO need at current to mod your BIOS at all

[gnif]

I would also like to post a BIG THANKS to everyone that has donated so far, we are at $300 with $700 remaining at the time of this post.

I plan to video the modification of the GTX690 with before and after benchmarks which will be posted on YouTube. I will also record the process of finding the hardware straps for the other GPU through deductive reasoning and simple testing that is relatively safe to the hardware. So if you want to see this, throw a little into the pool so I can get a card I can safely do this on.

Once we have all the information all figured out I will trawl through this thread and compile everything into a single post making it easy to reference.

[beaker7]

Summary table...

K20x is PCI-E 2.0 x16.  I've got one here.  Last minute change by nVidia.

I would imagine the k10 and k20 are as well.

Hoping to turn some Titans into K20x

[InitialDriveGTR]

Well right now I have no idea how to actually test the K10, nor to see what hardware is enabled/disabled, as GPU-Z has a lot of missing information. What resistor values would I need for a GTX 680?

[amigo]

Well right now I have no idea how to actually test the K10, nor to see what hardware is enabled/disabled, as GPU-Z has a lot of missing information. What resistor values would I need for a GTX 680?

You can't just turn GTX 670 into GTX 680 (I'm presuming you are talking about your GTX 670 unless you also have a 680). You could change the Device ID but that will not bring the rest of the features out.

As gnif and myself pointed out in previous posts, the number of Shading Units etc would be setup either in another hardware strap, or burnt out fuses in the GPU. The former might be fixable while the later is most probably not.