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Changing 8800gt into quadro fx 3700.

Ive got a guy wanting me to try flashing his 9800GX2.

From what I can see the GeForce 9800GX2's workstation counterpart is the Quadro FX4700x2.

Before I do this I need to know that all steps I take will be undoable - so I will need to take a copy of the existing Geforce BIOS right ? How do I go about doing that ?

I suppose the success of all this depends on wether or not I can source the 4700x2 BIOS's from someone.
 
Maynard put considerable effort into this a few posts back but without success in the end.

A copy of the existing geforce bios is no effort at all. The problem is finding out what the id number needs to be set to without a quadro bios, informed trial and error would probably do it if you're patient but it'll take a long time.

If you can source the 4700x2 bios you can just downclock that and flash across, no problem at all. It's a big if though, quadro owners don't tend to upload their bios into the public domain. Its possible Skyline has access to relavent graphics cards, perhaps begging him will persuade him to dl one using gpuz and email it out. I'll see if he offers before I risk anger by asking though

Maynard V may show up again in the near future, he's the guy you want really. Failing that he's been fairly detailed in his approach. I think it fell down in that the 9800gx2 is not two 9800gt but something slightly different, so flashing with the fx3700 bios twice didn't work for him
 
Yeah I can understand the BIOS being hard to find - anyone willing to spend £2400 on a FX4700x2 wouldnt really want others to get one for £200.

The way they are built is identical though, well it certainly looks that way after researching things. They are two 9800GT cards bundled together in one unit - sharing the same heatsink and connected via an internal SLI bridge.

How would I go about finding the correct id number through trial and error ?

If I can find the right BIOS's (one per card and another for SLI right ?) then i will be more than willing to test this all out.
 
Thought I would ask this in this thread as you all seem 3d app savvy


I've got 3ds max 10 demo running atm but I can't get the viewport hardware shading/ shadows to work with my 8800gt

reading a little up on it I learn that I need sm3.0 or better ( the 8800gt has sm4.0 afaik)

when i run the video hardware diagnostic in max I get this

////////// Review GPU Feature Support ////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Graphics Vendor Information: Direct3D 10.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT )
GPU Shader Model Support: SM1.0
Maximum pixel shader instruction count: 0
Viewport Shading Quality: None
Real-time Sun and Sky: Not Supported
Real-time Architectural Material: Not Supported
Click to expand...

I've got the lastest NV driver running, I can't understand whats going wrong , why's it saying I've got sm1.0 :confused:
 
@BIGBC, while I agree with you in theory the practice doesn't support you. Maynard V put considerable effort into this with a 9800x2 and failed. The most likely approach is using one based on the fx3700 bios in this thread, flashing the cards seperately and leaving the sli chip alone. However this did not work, Maynard believes because the 9800x2 has an awkward number of shaders and doesn't have a direct quadro equivalent. This is probably solvable by changing something in the hex, but I don't know where to start I'm afraid.
Trial and error: pick a number, try it and see. Will take a long time. Id start from the numer for the fx3700 and work up in hex

@sambo_joseph, I don't believe so. I haven't bought one yet, though I intend to. This is one of the rare cases where we actually know the relevant Id number, as a HP fx5800 bios is available online. So taking your bios and changing it should work. Flashing directly to the HP one didn't, we're unsure why not. You'd be the first to succeed in this if you try it.

@JBuk, this is a difficult one. You can probably predict my proposed solution. Two potential causes for the problem. Either the demo doesn't support the more exciting features, in which case spec viewperf will enlighten you. Or the issue is that geforce drivers do not support this, which I suspect to be the case. If so you have the good fortune to have the card on which this process is tried and tested :)
 
I am willing to sacrifice my 280 for the sake of this thread.

JonJ678 if you have the time can you give me some clear instructions as to how to do this. I read maynard's post on the last page but wasn't 100% clear on it. Any help would be much appreciated.


:D
 
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Ok, just had a go following both JonJ and Maynards instructions but it doesnt seem to be working as of yet.

I changed the bios of the 5800 to match that of my 280 in nibitor. I then flashed my card to the 5800 bios and was successful. My screen then went crazy (as was expected) and i then procedded into windows and blindy tried to install the quadro drivers. An error message came up which I couldnt read but I am assuming it is telling me that it cannot find a quadro card in the machine. Then the setup window closes.

I have flashed back to my original bios now and am reviewing the details in nibitor. I've found that in my 5800 bios file that the device is set as a 280 GTX, but I cant see quadro fx 5800 on the list!! I only have AGP FX5800

HELP

I have a feeling this could work if I spend enough time on it
 
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@JonJ
I would never have expected flashing them sepperately to work as the computer cannot address the second one without the SLI bridge in place. I would have thought the first card should be useable/recognisable though . . . Unless the GPU's used within the GX2 are different to the FX3700, which I havent really looked into.
When I was browsing through the feature lists my 9800GX2 seemed to match up perfectly to the FX4700x2, will have to look into the shaders again.

Have tried looking around for the 4700x2 BIOS'but with no joy so far.
 
@sambo I do indeed, and have added you. You might want to take it off the public forum to decrease the spam headed your way. I see you're online :)

My suspicion is also that the 280 will work and we're just missing one step for it. I am more than happy to work with you on this one, I'll look out for you online.

@BIGBC that's an interesting point. it should indeed be possible to use it as a single fx3700. What I would suggest is getting copies of all three bios files from the card and putting them in a safe place. Flash the first bios to that of the fx3700, the second to a zero file and the sli chip also to a zero file. If you tell me the exact number of bytes of each file I can make these for you, I literally have an appropriately long list of 0000 in mind.
If this works, then it qualifies as proof of concept as it were and we can go from there.

Finally,
http://rapidshare.com/files/270603257/fx37jon.zip.html
MD5: 9BC723B51CE76DFD40E6895BDFB0BCD7

It wont last long but that's the exact rom I'm using. Cheers all
 
Cheers Jon, ill take a look at it all.
All I need is the go-ahead and funding from my mate and i will start playing. You can be sure I will keep you up-to-date.
 
Conclusion with the 280gtx is that nibitor isn't up to date enough to cope. I'm going to have to get in contact with whoever writes it and try to work with them on it. It would be really, really helpful if anyone can throw a non-hp fx5800 bios my way. Just dump it from gpu-z. It's worrying me no end that the 280gtx and hp files are slightly different sizes.

Sounds good bigbc. I think zeroing out the sli chip should stop the card detecting the second cards presence, but this is an educated guess more than anything else. A good thing to check is whether the two main bios files on it are identical or not, and if they differ, how they differ

8800gts is giving difficulties, but this is not unexpected since it's not exactly the same at the 8800gt. Hopefully will have resolved this soon. Sorry mate, didn't realise messenger had thrown me out. Fighting with it at present
 
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JonJ678 said:
@JBuk, this is a difficult one. You can probably predict my proposed solution. Two potential causes for the problem. Either the demo doesn't support the more exciting features, in which case spec viewperf will enlighten you. Or the issue is that geforce drivers do not support this, which I suspect to be the case. If so you have the good fortune to have the card on which this process is tried and tested :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply

I have found the problem and it's because even though 3dsmax 2010 can use the dx10 driver it doesn't fully support it so some of the newest features do not work. Simply reverting back to the dx9 driver made everything fully functional :)


I'm not sure about changing my card as the performance increases don't look that much, a few years ago when I converted my 6800gt (iirc) the increases were pretty substantial but these days the viewports are pretty nippy anyways
 
Got to love simple solutions. I'm glad going to dx9 solved the issue for you.

Obviously your choice JBuk, though since you have an 8800gt if you have a floppy drive it will take minimal time. If it renders quite fast enough already then stick with geforce drivers, they're probably better for games anyway

Cheers
 
Support for WGL_NV_gpu_affinity and Quad buffered Stereo?

Hi someone can confirm that WGL_NV_gpu_affinity extension is supported on
OpenGL.. I Know it's supported on Quadro cards and is very useful for multiGPU rendering..
Please someone who has bios modded the card test with the extension
GPU Affinity Checker at:
http://www.equalizergraphics.com/downloads/tools.html

Also someone can check if at Control Panel they have some Workstation tab or
at same place some option called OpenGL Stereo?
I don't mean 3d Vision drivers
 
Well guys, glad to see that this thread is alive, and getting more support along the way, hopefully we can get some of the things we direly need too. I firmly believe that getting an actual FX4700x2 BIOS would be a giant step in the right direction, as well as another FX5800 file for comparison reasons... Though a big reason that just editing the device ID in Nibitor doesnt work so well is based on the beliefe that there's a second section in the bios file that also denotates the Device ID, and know which section, and knowing what to change it to is the big mystery here... Only solved in a brute force way... Edit, try, evaluate, and re-edit as many times as needed (a lot)... This is why a true Quadro files are worth thier "weight" in gold... All device IDs set to what they need to be... Though unless someone can convice a OEM to cough one up, which I tried with photoshopped pics and elaborate stories, to no success... Best bet is to have someone working for a company, loyal to our cause who didnt pay for the quadro in the machine, which I have no Idea why I didn't think of it untill just now to ask a buddy of mine who works for a mining corp, to see what his machine runs for a GPU and MAYBE he'll pull the BIOS off of it if I ask him... Though as an intern he wonk be back there for another couple of weeks, and maybe my college that Im attending for some extra classes, will have at least one machine with a decent quadro in it, I will definately pull all the BIOSes I possibly can, and sell them for 25$ a pop... Nah.. Just kidding... I'll post them... So It'll be a little while till I can do that... But till then... I'll see what else I can conjure up, and if anybodys got and questions for me... Let me know...

-Maynard
 
Yeah Maynard, I think the next step is to find real BIOS's. I have looked around a fair bit but found nothing online (no surprise really). Might try getting in touch with some of the manufacturers though I doubt Ill have any luck. My dad is needing a new workstation built for CFD and has a pretty high budget so I might be able to use that as a reason - and if not he might agree to me buying a FX4700x2 for him.
Its a whole lot of maybes atm though.
 
Ok, so a bit of an update...

I went to my old techincal college, and went to the engineering and drafting division, and played around on some pcs, found they were all the same, featuring nvidia's quadro fx 580's... The cream of the lowest crop... I pulled the bios off any way, As Im not sure what it would match as far as a geforce goes, if it matches anything, and if it hasn't been officially released on mvktech or something similar... Tomorrow, Ill poke around at my new college, and see if there budget was a little bigger, if they have anything that is...

-Maynard
 
I'm working on befriending a cam researcher at uni, the ones in our lab are terrible agp things which nonetheless let the systems run solid edge reasonably smoothly.

Just finished working on a gearbox, and can confirm that at stock speeds an i7 + modded 8800gt cannot cope with what I'm asking of it. Boo
 
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