Hacking Nvidia's Drivers!

[WhiskeyDelta]

Has anyone experienced this recently? I was playing Valorant and after some minutes it hangs and gave this error. I tried to play again and the same thing happened.

CPU: i7-7700
iGPU: UHD 630

GPU: P106-100

Driver Version: 536.40

 

 

 

 

Update: I downgraded to 417.22 and it works well with Valorant. No BSOD happened yet.

 

Update: Experienced BSOD again.

[AngryShark]

On 5/10/2019 at 4:39 PM, GhostlyCrowd said:

So quick update, the Bios chip on the Gigabyte P106 is a W25Q40EW which requires 1.8V logic to program instead of 3.3V so I'm currently waiting on a 1.8V adapter for my programmer from China, I had it express shipped so hopefully it arrives in 7-14 days as advertised. 

Edit here - So i took a risk of eraceing the eeprom which worked fine, i know it cannot be programmed as the logic is 1.8V and it wont be able to program all the pages with the 3.3v logic but it was able to wipe them.

Using NV flash after wiping it, it skips all checks because the eeprom is erased and it knows it. The only check it does do is the PCI hardware id which is physical. So it wont allow me to flash anythign that doesnt match vendor id 1C07. If we can figure out what resistors and values to change on the card for it to appear as a 1C06 which is the 1060 then all users would need to do is wipe/corrupt the  the eeprom and then it would be able to flash the 1C06 firmware. 

 

On 2/19/2020 at 10:17 PM, Pavlogal said:

So I have an update on my hardware flashing P104 situation:

The card arrived, the CH341a programmer arrive and after days of painful tinkering with the software I was able to make flashing somewhat consistently successful. I was able to restore the gpu from a bricked state (after bricking it with unsuccessful flashes) by putting the original BIOS back on and that's great. But when I finally flashed the ASUS GTX 1080 TURBO BIOS I was talking about on this thread onto it, it won't work. That is, the card is DETECTED as a P104 in GPU-Z and almost all info is blank. Video output doesn't work. Long story short it doesn't behave like a 1080 at all. Tried the same thing with 1070 TURBO BIOS but it yielded same results.

So unless there is something I'm missing it is not possible to hardware flash a P104 with a GTX1070/1080 BIOS to enable video output and other features that were restricted by the BIOS. The interesting part is that even after flashing it to believe it is a 1080, GPU-z still detects it is a P104.

Is there something else other than the BIOS chip on the GPU board that defines its identity and behavior? If so, maybe I could try to flash that too (if reprogrammable).

Maybe if we made nvflash think it's a 1070/1080 I could get away with a simple software flash.

Another interesting thing: after flashing the gpu with the 1080 BIOS I also read and saved the BIOS that ended up on the card and compared it with the original. Ironically the BIOS file I pulled from the card is missing first 38 rows of code, which include the part that says the name. Maybe that part is hardcoded into the chip to prevent this stuff from happening. Everything else is IDENTICAL. The compare to the right is the BIOS I downloaded of TPU fot 1080 TURBO and left is what I pulled from the gpu after the flash. Interestingly enough the programmer software has a "Verify" feature that's used to determine wether or not the BIOS you wanted to flash is the same with the one that was flashed and it passed the verification like the first 38 rows weren't a thing...

If there is someone with experience with this sort of stuff and has an idea how could I make basically what is a GTX1070/1080 in hardware to act like one feel free to reply.

 

  

On 2/28/2019 at 1:16 PM, dartraiden said:

Yes, GPU is hardcoded by PCI straps

See these

https://www.tomshw.de/community/threads/flashen-unmöglich-die-2-klassen-gesellschaft-bei-den-turing-chips-der-geforce-rtx-2070.471/page-4#post-6206

 

We can patch all software checks (inside nvflash.exe): PCI device ID, PCI subsystem ID, Board ID, but GPU also doing PCI device ID check on hardware level. during firmware flashing.

 

So:

- we still able flash BIOS from 1066 via CH341A hardware programmer

- this will change the speed of the coolers / frequency / power limit, but the card will still be P106

 

 

 

I think the 1.8V adapter thing is not mandatory. It is a hoax. The default voltage will not burn the chip on that hi-Z (high impedance) line.                             W25Q40EW

 

The guys who built the CHA341a programmer probably took that line drop into account.

Here:  

 

3.3V (if you are still worried mod down the voltage of the chip to 3.3V https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ln3VIZKKaE and add another or two forward dropout-diode(s) in the way to drop it more to 2.5V, from 5V) would be detected fine as high level on 1.8V logic. As 5V is detected as high on 3.3V logic level in the working state of CH341a now.... https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/479308  The absolute maximum ratings are important here.  Any reports on burnt chips due to not using a 1.8V adapter? 

 

 

Any updates on these CH341a trials? Do we still think flashing ASUS dual 1060 bios on its brother P106 (pcb copy) will work at all?  Because I really want to drop that 50% default minimum fan speed. It is annoying and eating the life out of fans....

 

@UnrealEngine4

[Snowarch]

On 8/1/2023 at 9:24 AM, AngryShark said:

 

 

  

 

 

 

I think the 1.8V adapter thing is not mandatory. It is a hoax. The default voltage will not burn the chip on that hi-Z (high impedance) line.                             W25Q40EW

 

The guys who built the CHA341a programmer probably took that line drop into account.

Here:  

 

3.3V (if you are still worried mod down the voltage of the chip to 3.3V https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ln3VIZKKaE and add another or two forward dropout-diode(s) in the way to drop it more to 2.5V, from 5V) would be detected fine as high level on 1.8V logic. As 5V is detected as high on 3.3V logic level in the working state of CH341a now.... https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/479308  The absolute maximum ratings are important here.  Any reports on burnt chips due to not using a 1.8V adapter? 

 

 

Any updates on these CH341a trials? Do we still think flashing ASUS dual 1060 bios on its brother P106 (pcb copy) will work at all?  Because I really want to drop that 50% default minimum fan speed. It is annoying and eating the life out of fans....

 

@UnrealEngine4

I noticed you mentioned nvflash and seam to know it fairlt well. I flashed a xard with a bad bios and the "lspci" command and "device manager" see my p102-100, but the bad flash causes the linux to not use it to avoid crashing, and the windows drive will only boot with the driver not enabled. So i think its a bad flash. I got this card a while back non working. This card the fans spin at full speed. 

 

 

My other p102 card worked fine but had a loose screw(didnt notice) and crashed while using nvflash and no longer is detected by even lspci but the fans spin Is there anything i can do to recover either one? This card oddly enough seams to have some form of fan control(not ful speed) for some reason. 

[psycheangel]

Hi guys,

 

I own EVGA p104-100 cards, and today did flash the gpu bios with GTX 1070 TI.

 

gpu-z working on displaying GP104 <I choose manual driver and install GTX 1070 TI>

 

the sad part is bus interface did not updated, I really tried to flash GPU bios in hoping for better bandwidth setup.

 

note : this is without patch driver, and digital signature clean, there is a bat script for when the gpu reporting code 43 (try look in egpu forum with the fix)

 

link to bios gpu flash : Link

 

[devzero]

did anyone being able to make p106 bus works on x16 3.0 ?

techpowerup website said x16 3.0

[Snowarch]

On 8/2/2023 at 1:37 PM, psycheangel said:

Hi guys,

 

I own EVGA p104-100 cards, and today did flash the gpu bios with GTX 1070 TI.

 

gpu-z working on displaying GP104 <I choose manual driver and install GTX 1070 TI>

 

the sad part is bus interface did not updated, I really tried to flash GPU bios in hoping for better bandwidth setup.

 

note : this is without patch driver, and digital signature clean, there is a bat script for when the gpu reporting code 43 (try look in egpu forum with the fix)

 

link to bios gpu flash : Link

 

a few things. with p104 


seams making it a 1070ti you gain phys x but lose vulkan and raytreace on windows... mine looks like this




and yours could be a visual glitch. in linux mine runs as x4 not x1... (2nd screen shot) same gpu diffrent os. also i did enable ms hybrid =1 in windows regedit niot doing so locks the opengl of my p104 to version 1.1. using dartriden patch and xversus's enable ms hybrid registry edits. but it is weird, cause for mine you'll need to add every part of a launch file (ex: minecraft needs the launcher java and some stuff added to use the p104) via graphics settings, where as some people ive seen it auto uses it. stuff like heaven bench will fail/ iuse igpu cause new windows spawned don't inharit the use this gpu even if changed to prefirred in control pannel. but it does work. 


edit: intresting just noticed you have 4gb bios version, that could explain the physx diffrendce and vulkan.



speed could be an os diffrence tho. idk if thishelps but straight from the nvidia driver itself (well nvidia xserver settings but still) the actual speed details


sorry it double posted due to slow wifi

[Snowarch]

2 minutes ago, Snowarch said:

a few things. with p104 


you gain phys x but lose vulkan and raytreace on windows... mine looks like this




and yours could be a visual glitch. in linux mine runs as x4 not x1... same gpu diffrent os. also i did enable ms hybrid =1 in bios. niot doing so locks the opengl of my p104 to version 1.1. using dartriden patch and xversus's enable ms hybrid registry edits. but it is weird, cause for mine you'll need to add every part of a launch file (ex: minecraft needs the launcher java and some stuff added to use the p104) via graphics settings, where as some people ive seen it auto uses it. stuff like heaven bench will fail/ iuse igpu cause new windows spawned don't inharit the use this gpu even if changed to prefirred in control pannel. but it does work. also vary intresting, just noticed your card has the 4gb bios version. mines the 8gb version. that could explain the phys x diffrence. also i don't know if is accurate but speed seams slower on yours. but could be an os thing

 

[psycheangel]

Sorry, mine was an EGPU setup with optimus enabled so vulkan was active on the discrete gpu. raytracing is off since these is an old driver to compromise with optimus enabled on notebook nvidia driver.

 

@Snowarch thanks, that was great news for me seems likely my issue due to using old mini-pcie gen 1. Yours seems active in bus gen 3.0 because the speed is 2Gig+

[Snowarch]

14 hours ago, psycheangel said:

Sorry, mine was an EGPU setup with optimus enabled so vulkan was active on the discrete gpu. raytracing is off since these is an old driver to compromise with optimus enabled on notebook nvidia driver.

 

@Snowarch thanks, that was great news for me seems likely my issue due to using old mini-pcie gen 1. Yours seems active in bus gen 3.0 because the speed is 2Gig+

Would u like to know the linux setup i use to try it? I posted it earlier in this form. Can message me if need be. Personally i recommend ubuntu unity flavor but thats prefrence. July 20 somethingth page 58 of this form i explained. No driver mods needed. If u need to make biotable usb id recommend rufus(win only) or blanca etcher(lin or win) no expirence with egpu also sorry... 

 

 

I noticed that i wrote it backwards. In windows only phys x foesn't work. Good luck with your setup. 

[AngryShark]

On 8/2/2023 at 5:15 PM, Snowarch said:

I noticed you mentioned nvflash and seam to know it fairlt well. I flashed a xard with a bad bios and the "lspci" command and "device manager" see my p102-100, but the bad flash causes the linux to not use it to avoid crashing, and the windows drive will only boot with the driver not enabled. So i think its a bad flash. I got this card a while back non working. This card the fans spin at full speed. 

 

 

My other p102 card worked fine but had a loose screw(didnt notice) and crashed while using nvflash and no longer is detected by even lspci but the fans spin Is there anything i can do to recover either one? This card oddly enough seams to have some form of fan control(not ful speed) for some reason. 

Hmmm. Nvflash, 

I tried all with Nvflash it doesn't work GPU Id blah blah mismatch even with all supposedly bypassed/circumvented versions. 

 

Hence the suggestion is to use a ch341a eeprom programmer as I discussed above. For that  You need to electrically strap the programmer to the eeprom chip on your board. Maybe you can recover with this method.

 

The programmer is very cheap 5 bucks on AliExp.

 

 

 

[psycheangel]

12 hours ago, AngryShark said:

Hmmm. Nvflash, 

I tried all with Nvflash it doesn't work GPU Id blah blah mismatch even with all supposedly bypassed/circumvented versions. 

 

Hence the suggestion is to use a ch341a eeprom programmer as I discussed above. For that  You need to electrically strap the programmer to the eeprom chip on your board. Maybe you can recover with this method.

 

The programmer is very cheap 5 bucks on AliExp.

 

 

 

 

I am lucky to have found proper gpu-bios mod for my p104, since these can result in brick card.

 

I think the uses is fairly easy and not like finding a needle in a haystack.

but there is always danger for the card become real junk.

 

@Snowarch I will check on your post when I migrate to linux. thanks for the advice.

 

[Snowarch]

12 hours ago, psycheangel said:

 

I am lucky to have found proper gpu-bios mod for my p104, since these can result in brick card.

 

I think the uses is fairly easy and not like finding a needle in a haystack.

but there is always danger for the card become real junk.

 

@Snowarch I will check on your post when I migrate to linux. thanks for the advice.

 

Actually my p104 i got pre bios modded to 8gb. I got 2 p102's(the 1080 mining version) 

 

One came with a bad bios. The other worked fine but was only 5gb vram cause half the card was locked. I tried to mod it after id stupidly tried to repaste it not realising i lost a screw of the 4 on the back and this killed the good card. The other i thought i could fix in nvflash when the seller "didnt know what was wrong" so i figured bad flash and knowing of nvflash i thought itd be an easy fix. But i could never fix it.

 

 

Feel free to massage me if anything goes wrong with linux version. Also remember. Do not believe yhe warnings! They tell you "a logoff will make new driver work" but a restart works much better also. Before u restsrt always install nvidia prrime and run sudo "prime-select nvidia" or sudo "prime select ondemand(aka must tell it to use nvidia)" in some cases prime select mvidia can black screen you. If this happens after your grub, hit "ctrl atl f2" for a tty terminal. Then run "sudo prime-select query" to varify nvidia mode blackscreened you.

"sudo prime select on-demand && sudo reboot" then type pass. And do "install nvidia xserver settings" or similar. And u should see in about pc "nvidia p104-1]]/sse2" or similar if in nvidia mode. 

 

 

Do sudo prime-select query in os to make zure after. If in ondemand theres a spasific command u have to run in terminal with app name to make it use the nvidia card. Not ideal but it works. 

[AngryShark]

On 8/7/2023 at 5:46 AM, Snowarch said:

Actually my p104  

 

 

Why are you guys trying to even use p104's?  Those have fricking 4 lanes of PCIE 1.1.

 

This will  bottleneck the f out of performance.

 

[Teolas]

Maybe with p104 and others GPUs this video will help. In this video missing capacitors were soldered to the PCIe lines (example GPU cmp 40hx, pcie x16(4)->x16).

[psycheangel]

@Teolas thanks for sharing about the modification needed.

[andresukma]

On 8/9/2023 at 1:24 PM, Teolas said:

Maybe with p104 and others GPUs this video will help. In this video missing capacitors were soldered to the PCIe lines (example GPU cmp 40hx, pcie x16(4)->x16).

That's interesting! Luckily, on p106, the capacitor has not been removed.

[dartraiden]

<deleted>

[dartraiden]

1. Improved compatibility with CMPxx cards (thx chenmoyu for idea).

2. Fully automatic install (you no longer need to install a certificate manually and select video card manually).

3. Certificate is automatically removed after installation.

 

https://github.com/dartraiden/NVIDIA-patcher/releases/tag/536.99

 

[andresukma]

2 hours ago, dartraiden said:

1. Improved compatibility with CMPxx cards (thx chenmoyu for idea).

2. Fully automatic install (you no longer need to install a certificate manually and select video card manually).

3. Certificate is automatically removed after installation.

 

https://github.com/dartraiden/NVIDIA-patcher/releases/tag/536.99

 

Thanks to you guys. Just tried it, all good

[dartraiden]

CPU integrated video is not needed anymore

iGPU is disabled, first PCI-E = 6700XT, second PCI-E = P106-100

P106-100 is selected and used. But this option is worse than iGPU, because both PCI-E slots work as x8.

 

[Teolas]

dartraiden, what kind of settings did you use? I can't get my old HD 3870 to work with p106-100. There is no GPU selection in Windows 10, only HD 3870. In Windows 11 there is a choice, but it is not used anyway. What is the order of the cards on the motherboard and order of driver installation, enablemshybrid settings etc. My p106 in pcie x16 - 1 slot (max lines), HD 3870 - 2 slot (16(4x1.1)). Or my Radeon is really old :). I'm thinking of trying raiser for radeon.

[psycheangel]

@Snowarch Hai, do p104 really can get PCIE Gen 3.0 connection using bios switch pcie gen setting ?

 

I really have tried everything but the graphic card remain using gen 1.1, these is weird because some forum threads said the graphic card can run with gen 3.0 using motherboard bios setting.

 

My testing cpu is

b450 + ryzen 3 

motherboard have setting to switch pcie gen version.

[dartraiden]

Quote

Or my Radeon is really old

Probably this is the reason.

 

I am using Windows 11 without additional settings: just the latest AMD GPU driver for 6700XT and my patched driver for P106-100.

 

You can try Amernime drivers, they are slightly newer than the official drivers for older hardware.

[Snowarch]

On 8/8/2023 at 1:58 PM, AngryShark said:

Why are you guys trying to even use p104's?  Those have fricking 4 lanes of PCIE 1.1.

 

This will  bottleneck the f out of performance.

 

It actually got a higher score in heaven benchmark than a p106 for me. Its slightly better. Also the extra 2gb vram mKes a diffeence

[Snowarch]

On 8/17/2023 at 2:25 AM, psycheangel said:

@Snowarch Hai, do p104 really can get PCIE Gen 3.0 connection using bios switch pcie gen setting ?

 

I really have tried everything but the graphic card remain using gen 1.1, these is weird because some forum threads said the graphic card can run with gen 3.0 using motherboard bios setting.

 

My testing cpu is

b450 + ryzen 3 

motherboard have setting to switch pcie gen version.

I have not gotten mine running at 3.0 just 8gb bios was enabled. Ill check those threads, and see. From what i hear pci just makes the card 10% worse but i may be wrong. 

 

 

I assume you use windows, does it have an overclocking thing like gwe? thats the closest youll get to getting more out of the card without getting pci to work