Hacking Nvidia's Drivers!

[Adr1an_]

 

I will give it a go this evening, will test a few resolutions and come back with the result.

[IReallyAmBatman]

36 minutes ago, Adr1an_ said:

 

I will give it a go this evening, will test a few resolutions and come back with the result.

Enjoy Resolutions shouldn't matter anymore, it doesn't use image search anymore.

[poorboy]

On 4/9/2019 at 4:27 AM, Adr1an_ said:

Are you saying that you got the nVidia control panel to work with your Gigabyte P106?

Yup, I get nVidia Control Panel that shows up when nVidia cards are used as a rendering device like in Optimus-enabled laptops and eGPU laptops.

[Adr1an_]

Elaborate a bit, what drivers are you using? How did you installed them (in detail). The nVidia control panel is very important to have, it saves a lot of hassle with the apps that have the exe hidden somewhere. Or did you added another nVidia video card just to get the control panel working?

 

 As a side note, I didn't got yet to test IReallyAmBatman's last mod as I've been doing a very different type of fiddling using my trusted dremel

 It would probably require trimming a bit of plastic from the cable itself in order to be able to fully insert it, but hey, now it only needs a bios update in order to work like any other video card

[Adr1an_]

Make sure you wear protection glasses when doing it, as the damn bracket is really tough. Take your time if you want the job to look decent and after you're done MAKE SURE YOU FILE OFF THE LITTLE METALLIC DEBRIS STILL ATTACHED TO THE CUTS. I cannot stress this hard enough, you don't want that stuff falling on the motherboard and shorting it out.

[poorboy]

1 minute ago, Adr1an_ said:

Elaborate a bit, what drivers are you using? How did you installed them (in detail). The nVidia control panel is very important to have, it saves a lot of hassle with the apps that have the exe hidden somewhere.

I'm using 416.34, I was able to get the nVidia control panel to show up both when modifying the drivers as per Linus' original video, and as per the Chinese github instructions that I had shared ages ago in this thread. IIRC you were the one that was modifying the driver right alongside me when we were first figuring this stuff out, haha.

[Adr1an_]

1 minute ago, poorboy said:

 IIRC you were the one that was modifying the driver right alongside me when we were first figuring this stuff out, haha.

Nope, it must have been another fellow   Anyway, I must try that one too, it means they first disabled the nvidia CP use and only then  managed to nerf the driver for good lol.

[Adr1an_]

3 hours ago, poorboy said:

I'm using 416.34, I was able to get the nVidia control panel to show up both when modifying the drivers as per Linus' original video, and as per the Chinese github instructions that I had shared ages ago in this thread. IIRC you were the one that was modifying the driver right alongside me when we were first figuring this stuff out, haha.

Can you post your modified 416.34 inf files? I must be doing something wrong (not sure what) since I keep getting the error about not having a display connected to the nVidia card. (did the whole thing twice, uninstalled drivers, safe mod DDU, the works). I get the gpu activity tray icon, but the damn CP won't work (even added it to the high power app list lol)

[poorboy]

1 minute ago, Adr1an_ said:

Can you post your modified 416.34 inf files? I must be doing something wrong (not sure what) since I keep getting the error about not having a display connected to the nVidia card. (did the whole thing twice, uninstalled drivers, safe mod DDU, the works)

Here, lemme know if this works, I have like a bajillion of them.

nv_dispi.inf

nvaci.inf

[Adr1an_]

Thanks, but unfortunately no joy. Went trough the whole thing, uninstalled both nVidia and Intel gpus, then safe mode, DDU both, restart, safe mode, DDU both again, then installed nVidia driver (disabled signature check) - restart- then Intel driver, restart.

 Still won't load the nVidia control panel, says no display attached.

 

 Do you remember the exact sequence that you used? maybe installed Intel first then nVidia?

[Adr1an_]

Guys, I'm wondering whether one of these could be the answer to all these nVidia Control Panel troubles?  The video output is disabled trough BIOS, but the card may still sense the adapter as a connected monitor. Hmm...

[poorboy]

On 4/12/2019 at 2:15 AM, Adr1an_ said:

Thanks, but unfortunately no joy. Went trough the whole thing, uninstalled both nVidia and Intel gpus, then safe mode, DDU both, restart, safe mode, DDU both again, then installed nVidia driver (disabled signature check) - restart- then Intel driver, restart.

 Still won't load the nVidia control panel, says no display attached.

 

 Do you remember the exact sequence that you used? maybe installed Intel first then nVidia?

I would install the Intel driver first. Make sure your iGPU is set as the primary GPU in your mobo's BIOS.

[ItsUsmanAli]

Can i do it with Gtx 950??

[Eddownz]

I've been looking at the P104-100 which is said to be a 4gb 1070 or 1080 (not sure). Well I think some russian guy has turned it into 8gb and got it to fully work just like the p106 has done.

 

Can someone who speaks russian try to translate how he did? 

 

Also, would it then be possible to SLI with the 1070 using the sli bridge which they both have? 

 

Russian link of working 8gb p104-100

 

https://youtu.be/1-WCUTZ41uo

 

https://youtu.be/FxGZIvCKwTo

[Mirror Reaper]

2 hours ago, Eddownz said:

I've been looking at the P104-100 which is said to be a 4gb 1070 or 1080 (not sure). Well I think some russian guy has turned it into 8gb and got it to fully work just like the p106 has done.

 

Can someone who speaks russian try to translate how he did? 

 

Also, would it then be possible to SLI with the 1070 using the sli bridge which they both have? 

 

Russian link of working 8gb p104-100

 

https://youtu.be/1-WCUTZ41uo

  

https://youtu.be/FxGZIvCKwTo

5

according to his video, the card is using just PCIe x4 1.1 at that point a gtx 760 is better i think. He got 30/40 fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

[dartraiden]

3 hours ago, Eddownz said:

Can someone who speaks russian try to translate how he did? 

He flashes BIOS (from 1070?). You can find BIOS file and flasher here.
 

For example, I cannot flash GTX 1060 WINDFORCE 6G BIOS to my Gigabyte P106-100 (I described my experience with this card here (Russian)) although these cards are almost identical. NVFlash utility contains some protection against PCI ID overriding, Board ID mismatch and GPU mismatch. Even after I patched this limitation inside NVFlash, there is another PCI ID check on the video card side (performed by GPU). By the way, the same problem is faced by those who are trying to flash the BIOS from the custom 1070 into 1070 Founders Edition. Some customs have the same PCI ID as FE and can be flashed with NVFlash, but some have differ PCI ID.

 

Thus, you can flash the BIOS via NVFlash only if PCI IDs matches. Of course, you can always flash the BIOS with a hardware programmer (CH341A) without any limitations.

 

Non-actual, just see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113847.0

[Eddownz]

51 minutes ago, Mirror Reaper said:

according to his video, the card is using just PCIe x4 1.1 at that point a gtx 760 is better i think. He got 30/40 fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

I noticed that, very interesting. Is there any particular reason why it's running in that mode? Maybe something he changed to get it to display? Because I can't imagine that it's default setting as a mining card would be pcie 1.1 x4, as it would presumably cripple it's performance. Is there a way to fix this?

 

My overall goal here is to see whether having a p104 100 would be a suitable card for SLI with a 1070. I don't mind the troubleshooting especially for the price you can pick these up at. 

 

I've also noticed that different sli auto has overcome it's driver testing issue.

 

Please let me know if anyone digs up more info about this.

[dartraiden]

Oh, I found the original source of 104-100 8GB modded BIOS.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113847.0

 

Enjoy.

[Eddownz]

43 minutes ago, dartraiden said:

He flashes BIOS (from 1070?). You can find BIOS file and flasher here.
I do not know where this BIOS comes from (possibly from Techpowerup database).

 

For example I cannot flash GTX 1060 WINDFORCE 6G BIOS to my Gigabyte P106-100 although these cards are almost identical. NVFlash utility contains some protection against PCI ID overriding, Board ID mismatch and GPU mismatch. Even after I patched this limitation inside NVFlash, there is another PCI ID check on the video card side (performed by GPU).

I described my experience with this card here (Russian).

 

Thus, you can flash the BIOS via NVFlash only if PCI IDs matches. Of course, you can always flash the BIOS with a hardware programmer (CH341A) without any limitations.

So this is a process that can be quite easily replicated? Or would I almost certainly have to use a chip programming device.

 

Also, does the reflashing then unlock the 8gb of vram or was that a different process?

[Eddownz]

4 minutes ago, dartraiden said:

Oh, I found the original source

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113847.0

 

Enjoy.

Thanks! 

 

Edit: for anyone wondering, this is an article on how to unlock the p104 100s vram from 4gb to 8gb through a bios reflash.

 

I wanted to to know if this was possible to see whether it could match a non mining 8gb 1070, which seems to be possible.

[dartraiden]

13 minutes ago, Eddownz said:

Also, does the reflashing then unlock the 8gb of vram or was that a different process? 

Yes, according to Bitcointalks, reflashing just transform P104-100 4G to P104-100 8G. You still need the patched driver (or registry hack) to enable DirectCompute support. And please make a backup of old BIOS before flashing!

 

And seems like P104-100 have only PCI-E 1.1 support. I don't know if PCIE 1.1 x16 bandwidth is enough for such GPU.

[Eddownz]

40 minutes ago, dartraiden said:

Yes, reflashing just transform P104-100 4G to P104-100 8G,

Okay so theoretically, could the p104-100 sli with a 1070 using different sli auto and an sli bridge?

The issues I see are:

1. There is some confusion over whether the p104-100 is a 1080 or 1070 (could still work with both).

Edit: p104-100 = 1070 ; p104-101 = 1080

2. P104-100 was shown to be stuck in pcie 1.1 x4 in that russian YouTube video I linked, which would make it useless.

Edit: the p104-100 is a gen1.1 x4 card (at least I know the gigabyte is)

3. Would SLI bridge work on the p104-100 (it physically has them but might not be wired) - even still, would different sli auto make use of the bridge?

 

Is this the right area to be asking? (Some of this could be directed at different sli auto).

[Eddownz]

21 minutes ago, dartraiden said:

Yes, according to Bitcointalks, reflashing just transform P104-100 4G to P104-100 8G. You still need the patched driver (or registry hack) to enable DirectCompute support. And please make a backup of old BIOS before flashing!

 

And seems like P104-100 have only PCI-E 1.1 support. I don't know if PCIE 1.1 x16 bandwidth is enough for such GPU.

The gigabyte p104-100 is supposed to have gen 3 x16 bus according to its specs. I think that somewhere in the process of modiyfing the card,  something was changed to.

 

Edit: This is wrong, i think the card is indeed gen1.1 x4 which makes no sense to me. This may well rule out using it with a 1070

[shashankv]

Help Me,

I did try it out but its not showing in windows as a high performance

[Eddownz]

4 hours ago, shashankv said:

Help Me,

I did try it out but its not showing in windows as a high performance

What CPU are you using?