Help With Volts in NiBiTor

Ducky Spud · 15 Aug 2009 at 21:59

Hey. Ive never overclocked my GPU before and have been messing round with Rivatuner and ATi Tool for testing. Im using a GTX275 and can only get the core upto about 670 (633 stock) before it starts showing artifacts after a few minutes.

Looked around with the good old help of google and managed to find some thread where sombody ahd similar problem (couldnt get over 690 I think it was) but flashed the BIOS with a modded voltage and got it working upto 730 or so.

So basically thought I'd have a go. Stock core voltage is 1.17 and he upped his just to 1.18 which is apparently what the GTX285 uses. However, in Nibitor I can only choose 4 voltages, 1.05, 1.1, 1.12 and 1.17. Also had a look in the Voltage Editor Table in there but that just straight up confused me so I left it be haha.

Basically just wondering how to get a voltage I want rather than the 4 that are there? Never flashed the GPU BIOS before so any help is appreciated, but its mainly the voltage problem

JonJ678 · 15 Aug 2009 at 22:12

I'm pretty certain the 2*0gtx family can't be voltmodded through bios, or at least it couldn't be a year ago. There's a thread at xtreme about trying hardmods with them, seemed to be fairly successful.

nvflash is fairly obvious, I don't think you'll need help using it.

One thought is that evga released a tool to increase the voltage through software, which suggest it may now be possible to mod it through the bios.

Sorry for not being more helpful. GPU folding at home is a superior stability test if you want to push the card harder, I'm furmark stable at 750 but folding stable at 725 (different card)

Your best shot thinking about it is to download one of the evga ssc or similar overclocked bioses for your card and work from that. mkvtech are likely to have some available for download. Obviously ymmv and at your own risk etc, your card may overheat if you overvolt it

Ducky Spud · 15 Aug 2009 at 22:24

Nice one, I'd not thought of downloading some from mkvtech!! Got some for a BFG GTX275OC which include the 1.18V

Will try to flash to these BIOS, the overclock is pretty small and my cards run at faster than that before so should be fine stability wise, just the voltage. Know theres the risk of overheating but should be fine I think, my temps aren't bad at the moment.

Thanks for the help, not what I was after originally but works good haha

JonJ678 · 15 Aug 2009 at 22:33

Sounds good to me. You can change the vendor id in nibitor to match your card, so it doesn't have to have bfg written on it in software. I've got an evga fx3700, and evga never made these

Good luck with the overclock, I hope you see improvement. Are you clocking purely in software, or burning the results into the card? The compromise of flashing with conservative clocks and tweaking in software sounds like a good one to me

Ducky Spud · 15 Aug 2009 at 23:08

Yea, set mine back to ASUS lol. Dont know why, just want it to match the card lol.

I was doing it purely in software but obviously cant edit the voltage so like you said, flashing quite conservative clocks and then just see what I can get with software again. May eventually flash again with higher clocks, but just got to try and get this to work first haha.

One question, well 2, but this first. When I boot from disk and am about to flash the BIOS, should I type:

nvflash -4 -5 -6 file.rom

or

nvflash --protectoff
nvflash file.rom

Most places show the first but the guide on toms hardware shows the second way of doing it.

Also having trouble creating a bootable USB drive, anybody have a good link to a guide? Thought I'd done it, then plugged in again to copy over nvflash and the other files and it just said its corrupt and needs formatting

not what I wanted lol

JonJ678 · 15 Aug 2009 at 23:15

I used nvflash -4 -5 -6 but there are probably words that can be used instead. At least one of those options won't be needed since you're flashing a 275 with a 275 bios, but including all three isn't going to cause any problems.

It's sensible to back up the current one first, either through gpuz or nvflash.

As for bootable usb stick, I'm assured that it's easy and at least that it's possible. I had no luck with it, and used a floppy drive. I am proud to be one of very few people on here with a floppy drive but no optical drive in his computer

Good luck with the usb option, I'd suggest borrowing a floppy drive from somewhere

Ducky Spud · 15 Aug 2009 at 23:54

Yea, most places seem to say use the nvflash -4 -5 -6 so thats probably what I'll do

Already got a backup of the originals, was pretty much the first thing I did! Im broke and cant afford to make stupid errors with my £150 card lol

Yea, seen loads of places sayin its possible but Im not having much luck. Was sure I had a guide of how to make one in a CustomPC or PC Format mag, but cant find that either... maybe left it at uni. Got a dead old PC under the desk thats got a floppy drive, may have to temporarily use that for a while. Will sort that tomorrow though, too late now haha

I think your possibly the only person since the 80's with a floppy drive and no opticals haha, a rather odd setup these days!

Ducky Spud · 16 Aug 2009 at 01:52

Managed to flash the BIOS!!! Testing at BFG OC clocks now just to check its stable, it could manage these clocks before but just making sure

been going nearly 3 mins so far and seems fine

Then to see if the volt mod worked and I can go any higher than before!

Oh, and did it using a USB boot disk, easy as anything, too like 30 seconds to make... but about 2 hours trying to find the right program and files lol

JonJ678 · 16 Aug 2009 at 03:06

Sounds good mate. Care to share the link for it? It would probably be useful to get rid of my floppy drive at long last

Hope it goes higher than it did before

Ducky Spud · 16 Aug 2009 at 11:55

Well it wont go any higher than before lol. Looked around on the mkvtech forums and found a thread about altering the volts on a 275. Apparently its impossible without choosing a VID from the voltage table and testing it to see what you get, using a multimeter to see the results... not ideal and nobody has done it yet so we dont know what's what haha. Theres apparently one card (a Galaxy or somthing?) which you can change it easier on because it uses a different voltage regulator. So yea, dont think my voltages have changed

As for making a bootable USB, I found this guide and downloaded the files it says at the start. Was easy as pie after finding that page

JonJ678 · 16 Aug 2009 at 12:06

Cheers for the link.

Oh well, I was concerned that this would be a problem. Perhaps extreme have a working hardmod for it. It's all good learning though