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Geforce 6800 GT to Ultra BIOS flash guide!

 
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devilhood
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Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 697
Location: Cydonia

PostPosted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:47 pm    Post subject: Geforce 6800 GT to Ultra BIOS flash guide! Reply with quote

Geforce 6800 GT Flash Guide to Ultra by Pawel Osmolski
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I have pre-compiled a small archive consisting of everything you will need to overclock and flash your nVidia 6800 GT to an Ultra: http://www.devilhood.com/private/nvidiabiosutils.zip
Here is a short but straightforward guide on how to flash your GT card.
Right, so every GT model produced is actually based on the 6800 Ultra reference board, the only catch is that they either have a single molex connector and(or) have the clock-rates reduced to either 350/1000 or 370/1000 depending on the model.
That reads as xxx Core GPU and xxxx Memory.

Read this through carefully before attempting anything!
My card at the moment is a BFG 6800 GT OC.
I used nVFlash 4.42 at DOS using a bootable floppy for the flashing process.

To flash your card to a new BIOS:
NVFLASH -p -u -2 XXXXXX.ROM
(where x = the rom name)

for DOS purposes you could rename the ROM to something short like NVULTR01.ROM
To backup your current gfx card BIOS, all you need to type is NVFLASH -b MYBIOS.ROM

You will also need to prepare a RECOVER.BAT file that will reflash back to your original ROM:
NVFLASH -p -u -2 MYBIOS.ROM

This is just in-case everything goes wrong and you get a black screen, better to be safe than sorry!
If you don't know what a BAT file is, or see it as a pointless endeavor, just write down the above command on a piece of paper instead ;-o
nVFlash 4.42 is the only version that allows users to flash a card regardless of the Board ID. Meaning that you can safely flash from a GT to an Ultra or vice-versa.
When something does go wrong, don't panic, the only thing that could happen (unless you flash to a rediculously high clock rate or increase the voltage too high) the screen would simply go blank, so just as long as you have your computer booting the floppy, you can simply load up the BAT file you made earlier, or type the command itself and it will start the flash process. Remember that you will still need to confirm any flash attempts by typing 'YES' after it prompts you.
Before attempting to flash your BIOS however, make sure you uninstall any nVidia drivers on your system, Windows will load up as normal after flashing, it will redetect your card and then I recommend installing the 67.02 Forceware drivers.

nVFlash 4.42 : http://whitebunny.demon.nl/download...vflash_4.42.zip
6800 Reference Ultra BIOS : http://www.mvktech.net/index.php?op...d&filecatid=303
I pasted a link to the nVidia reference Ultra BIOS as it is the most stable, a lot of people report of juttering and graphical pauses with other BIOS'
I'd personally recommend using one of the BIOS' included in the archive instead, which I manually edited to support 1.4v for both 2D and 3D modes.
I also provided a BFG 6800 Ultra BIOS which is clocked at 400/1100 instead of the higher 425/1100 standard.

If you're not using water cooling, I recommend getting hold of the NV Silencer 5 as it provides much better heat dissipation than most stock coolers, it's also very quiet. Modding the bottom area of your side-panel to take a YS Tech 80mm fan or a 120mm helps greatly too, or you can just tie one to the side of your gfx card using wire. This will reduce the ambient temperature around the card. The alternative and more expensive solution would be to go with water-cooling.
If you experience any graphical artifacts with your newly updated card, try adding an additional +0.1 volts to your AGP card on your motherboard BIOS settings, the only other suggestion would be that your PSU is no good.
If you experience complete lock-ups, garbled screen, flash back to your original BIOS as this is usually a tell-tale sign that your card cannot cope with the specified clock rates or running at 1.4v.
Anything from 430 Watts onwards by Antec, OCZ or Enermax will suffice, just as long as you have a minimum of 20-30 amps total power on the +12v rail.
Do not use Q-Tec PSU's or any PSU that is unbranded.
If you try and overclock with a poor PSU, you risk burning it out and damaging your hardware, I learnt this from personal experience Wink
Remember, whether the card is a GT or an Ultra, it will require a lot of juice!
I will not be held responsible for any damaged equipment as a result of reading this guide Razz

Enjoy, and Good Luck!

Pawel.


Last edited by devilhood on Tue Nov 30, 2004 4:50 pm; edited 3 times in total
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FX5900
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Joined: 07 Jun 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dude, I own a BFG 6800 Ultra. I admire your card but if you really want what I own, just go out and buy it. You will not regret it.

Hacks like this work on some cards, not on others and can make your card unstable. If you want instability, go buy an ATI card. Wink

Now if you can flash a X800 Pro into a 6800 GT, you might just save the world.
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devilhood
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Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 697
Location: Cydonia

PostPosted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 3:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FX5900 wrote:
Dude, I own a BFG 6800 Ultra. I admire your card but if you really want what I own, just go out and buy it. You will not regret it.

Hacks like this work on some cards, not on others and can make your card unstable. If you want instability, go buy an ATI card. Wink

Now if you can flash a X800 Pro into a 6800 GT, you might just save the world.


I have yet to know a 6800 GT user personally that has had a regretful flashing experience Smile people just need to make sure they have a good PSU.
The GT is an Ultra essentially, so I saved myself an extra 100 pounds in the long run.
All hail BFG.
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