Making a Titan out of a Tesla k20x

[Olek-PL]

Hello and greetings from Poland,

 

I'm new here, and as I saw a lot of briliant people here, maybe one of You could help me.

Some time ago i saw an adverb on a local internet market place, that someone is selling graphic accelerators and is claiming that those are like an GTX Titan.

 

https://www.olx.pl/d/oferta/karta-graficzna-jak-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-6gb-CID99-IDJ8ODP.html

 

I made some reserch and determined that those were made on a Nvidia Tesla K20x.

So after a bit of search, I found a topic of a guy that changed a GTX 780 to a Tesla K20

 

http://www.guztech.nl/wordpress/index.php/2013/11/researching-nvidia-gpus-geforce-gtx780-and-gtx-titan-to-tesla-k20-and-tesla-k20x/

 

With a bit reverse engeneering I was able to change the hardware id (with those resistors) to 1001, and after flashing the cards bios I got a GTX Titan.

After downloading and instaling drivers, gpu-z sees the card as a proper titan. The first problem is that I can't get windows to see the card in display control. like the guy that sells those Frankensteins 

Second thing, is that in the nvidia control panel I can pick GTX Titan to run 3d rendering but it makes no difference. The card is cold, and not running 3d apps.

 

Anyone did such a swap, and may share some thoughts?

 

[Kamil-gamer]

I am from poland too. Guy is probably buing up theese GPUS from allegro and makes an 3d printed covers to make them a Titans. I am sitiing in that for some time because of recent L1techs video. Very interested in that topic. Great value card (around 65 USD ) but still fighting with my mind should i buy one. Actually guy found great buisness in that because of before mentioned cost of theese cards

[Kamil-gamer]

I bougt this card and now i am trying to get this to work on windows without hardware mods. Seems like impossible. Tried literally everything and got still cannot use the card for 3d acceleration anywere. I have not tried the titan conversion. And i still yet to try linux. Maybe some other Vbios required ?

[jaslion]

On 5/29/2021 at 8:10 PM, Caroline said:

If it's a K20 you can't game on it, the chip wasn't made to handle graphics processing, that's why it was sold as an active computing accelerator and not a graphics card

You could mine some crypto coins with it though

You can since it is the same gpu core at it's well core. Just altered a bit and clocked lower for 100% stability. The drivers are the biggest issue. As without those the system won't know how to use this card for gpu acceleration. Once the drivers are in place and good to go this turn into a normal gpu for the system.

[limewire]

I've had issues where Windows refuses to see the GPU if there's not a display plugged in, so seeing as the Tesla doesn't have display outputs, this may prove to be an issue.

 

You may not be out of luck, though, as the Tesla K20x PCB has the pads for a DVI connector, as well as some others.

 

What you *might* be able to do (this is PURE speculation and I choose to hold zero responsibility) is bridging C1 on the DVI connector to C5 on the DVI connector with a 75 Ohm resistor, making a sort of hard-wired analogue dummy display. Either that or you could salvage a DVI connector and solder that on the card.

 

I've attached a photo of what that would look like on a K20x PCB. Apologies about my sloppy handwriting, hopefully it's still legible.

 

Best of luck!

 

 - limewire 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[da na]

On 5/29/2021 at 1:10 PM, Caroline said:

If it's a K20 you can't game on it, the chip wasn't made to handle graphics processing, that's why it was sold as an active computing accelerator and not a graphics card

You could mine some crypto coins with it though

Um, it contains the same GPU core as the Titan. Yes it wasn't made to handle graphics processing but it can still do it (albeit not very well). 

 

So yeah, you could do it, but get at least a k80 (and a cheap quadro if you don't have integrated graphics) to be able to play any games acceptably.

[Kamil-gamer]

I accutally got that fully working and set GTX 780 Ti clocks succesfully on my K20X. Here is what i did:

1. Install windows 10
2. Install Tesla datacenter drivers
   Reboot
3. Download GTX Titan drivers and install its INF driver manually from device manager
4. Reboot
5. Do your tesla mods ( Remove AdapterType and EnableMsHybrid=1)
6. Reboot
7. Set your high performance mode
8. Install other gpu drivers
9. Done !

[Kamil-gamer]

Just now, Kamil-gamer said:

I accutally got that fully working and set GTX 780 Ti clocks succesfully on my K20X. Here is what i did:

1. Install windows 10
2. Install Tesla datacenter drivers
   Reboot
3. Download GTX Titan drivers and install its INF driver manually from device manager
4. Reboot
5. Do your tesla mods ( Remove AdapterType and EnableMsHybrid=1)
6. Reboot
7. Set your high performance mode
8. Install other gpu drivers
9. Done !

And yes it can game very well. Espetially with that Vram ammount not seen in 780 Ti ( It uses same core as 780 Ti and GTX Titan)

[Kamil-gamer]

@Olek-PL Where you found these resistors ? I am looking around the board and i am unable to locate bios chips with resistors

[Pvillasana]

hello, i recently got a tesla k20 for about 40 dollars, there is a way to modify it and turn it into a gtx780. I basically got the same information as you guys. it is necessary to modify hardware solder resistors

[Pvillasana]

my other question is this, this all comes from a video of someone modifying an M2090 using Quadro 7000 BIOS and even enabling the video outputs. my question is the following someone tried to install the bios of the RTX780 in the k20 or k20 ....

[Pvillasana]

 

[124436717]

Guyss, how are all of you? .. well i bought a tesla k20xm (seems the same as a k20x ) and it have the same hardware specs as a titan. Indeed, i managed to made it work. Here is what i did:

Firstly, you need to change the id from 1021 (the k20xm id ) to 1005 (the titan one ). Attached you'll find the resistor that i changed. 

Then, i flashed the titan bios with nvflash.

At last, i made the changes at the windows register, and i was able to choose wich gpu (the igpu or the titan ) will do the work at certain programs and thats all.

[sqirmul]

One Question:

Where did you manage to find the needed resistor.

I didnt find one. Okay i am new to this and maybe didnt look in the right places.

Thanks in advance

[Agasharr]

Hi.

124436717
Changing resistor (25k instead of 35k) as on your drawing changes id from 1021 to 1025. Did You do something more to get id 1005?

sqirmul

You need a "new" one.
I had a resistor from dead gtx 780 board.

[124436717]

Guys, sorry about the delayed response.. i though i would be advised by the forum about new posts

 @Agasharr the think is i changed a lot of resistors without results (i changed all the resostors of the drawed schem, without changes at the id). Then i tryed to get the original circuit back.. maybe there is some other resistor changed.. try to compare the other resistor values with the scheme attached.

[Agasharr]

hello, thank you for your reply. I'll check them when i'll have some free time.

[Crucial1706]

@124436717 Hi, Did you change this 35kohm resistor to 25 kohm the one marked with a red arrow in the photo?

Because yesterday with my friend, I tried to further modify the tesla to titan, I uploaded the bios through the programmer from gtx titan to the new ic eeprom and changed the resistor marked in the photo to 56kohm and then the device ID changed to 0x1025, then we changed the resistor to 22kohm and then the card reported id 0x1021

[Agasharr]

hi, i have ID 1025 with this setup:

[Crucial1706]

Hi @Agasharr 

Thank you for your reply and the wiring diagram in the area of the eeprom memory, it will be very useful for further modifications. Have you changed the values of any resistor compared to the original?

 

 

[Agasharr]

Yes, 25K is in place of 35K, which changes id from 1021 (original) to 1025

 

Added:

Maybe this will help someone to figure it out. It's a gtx 780 board with device id 1004. Small black square - place of 25K resistor I took of to solder it on tesla.

 

[Crucial1706]

@Agasharr Ok, Thanks for your help

Did you also change tesla bios to titan bios or modified the original bios?

[Agasharr]

I guess You can say so, I soldered a gtx 780 bios chip on tesla

[Agasharr]

Guys... First, I made a mistake in 780 diagram, the bottom resistor is 35k not 25k. Second it's irrelevant, because You can remove it completely, at least on tesla.

 

 

So as a summary, to change id from tesla to titan, You have to replace 35k resistor (next to 5k) to 25 k and remove 45k.

I have no idea if the bios chip is important, I have a titan id with chip from gtx 780 and mentioned above mods.

[124436717]

Sorry about the delay... i remember that the modification was a total mess (as you can see at the pictures ). Because of what @Agasharr said, now i think that possibly my 45k resistor isn`t properly soldered, so it`s like removed... Ones you get the 1005 id, you need to flash the titan bios with NVFLASH, then intall the drivers and finally modify the windows register to enable the Hybrid graphics (to be able to choose with hw will process the graphics ).