Modding/ Replacing Bios?

[willhub]

Hi.

I am just wondering, could replacing the Bios of my 8800GTS with another one actually boost performance / increase overclocking potential, also is it very risky modding the bios and is there any programs to just tweak bios settings?

 

[willhub]

Yes bios modding can increase the performance of a graphics card.

Say you have an stock XFX card & use the bios of an preoverclocked XFX card - immediate improvement (provided your card can manage those clockspeeds).

Also you can mod the bios to loosen the memory timings to increase the speed of the ram.

And yes bios modding can kill your GPU if you do it wrong.

Try to have PCI card on standby to see if you can revert to your original bios (which you should make a backup copy of).

So these Evga cards that cost loads, like 300+ for an 8800GTS, will that have better memory timings than my Gainward because I wouldent mind flashing to an Evga.

Also whats the risk? What is the main things that cause the Bios mods to go wrong? Is it higher risk than flashing motherboard Bios? I do this quite abit from Windows and have never got a problem.

 

[willhub]

There's loads of bios versions here

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

I've flashed loads of various cards and on occasion had one act weird after. Just backup the original bios and you can blind flash back or use (which is what I do) a cheap PCI graphics card to temp boot and fix it.

Why would a Bios flash go wrong?

 

[willhub]

If I flashed to this EVGA 8800GTS 640mb Bios, will it really give me a performance boost?

 

[willhub]

Same hardware? Are the clocks/timings faster? Then yes.

If a Bios flash went wrong, and I had a PCI card here, would I deffenitly be able to fix the 8800GTS or could it be done forever?

Would you recommend doing it withought a PCI Graphics Card spare?

 

[willhub]

Definitely, like 100%? No.

Probably, like I've never lost one? Yes.


No I wouldn't, I hate blind flashing. But you can get away with. Just practice a bit first.

It is possible to kill your card permananetly after a bad bios flash.
I know of someone who did this with an X1800XL.

You dont need a PCI card as you can do it blind, but its much easier with a PCI card so you can see what you are doing.

How does bios flashing damage a card forever if you can just... flash back?

 

[willhub]

There is so many Bios's for this card, which one you think I should use?

 

[willhub]

The latest rev o4

Grab a rev4 bios and mod it to the clocks u want

EVGA rev04 bios?

I jsut thought, if one day my card dies, then that means I am screwed as I woudent be able to get the Gainward Bios back on and I wouldent be able to RMA it

 

[willhub]

If your worried dont flash it always back up your original bios so if u get a bad flash or need to rma theres not a problem

I know but if I need to RMA its obviously because the card is dead or tons of artifacts so I wont be able to flash it back lol.

And why the Rev04 bios, there is a Rev 05 bios :S

And I use NVFlash right, I downloaded that, its just 2 .EXE's, are these what I burn onto CD?

http://www.mvktech.net/content/view/15/37/

Would I be using:

2. a:nvflash -5 -6 file.rom [Enter]

Standard Flash (same card, same firmware)

 

[willhub]

use the latest rev bios, as for doing it with cd , u can, but i have no idea how to lol

I will use CD then, but with floppy disk do you just put those 2 .EXE's into it then its ready?

What commands do I use, this guide: http://www.mvktech.net/content/view/15/37/ is not much help coz there is no tut for 8 series.

 

[willhub]

Got a bootable USB flash drive?

I have 2, dont think there bootable, dont know how to check?

Anyway ya found a floppy disk...

So when it loads, I have the modded bios: EVGA.8800GTS.PCIe.640MB.Rev.04.rom

And the backup Bios: (How do I get the backup?)

The I type into the CMD: a:nvflash -5 -6 EVGA.8800GTS.PCIe.640MB.Rev.04.rom


That right?

 

[willhub]

Flashed a few different cards and never heard of this , ive had a evga and currently got a bfg bios on my Asus 8800gts

Did the BFG bios actually give better performance?

 

[willhub]

I just used that bios because it was rev4 and set the clocks to evga ko speeds, gained around 550 points in 3dmark06

Hmm, I will try later on, gotta wait for my parents to bring some floppy disks home.

What about game performance?

 

[willhub]

Why is it not recommended to flash the bios using a CD?