Mobile Pascal TDP Tweaker Update and Feedback Thread

Thanks for the link. So buying that one I don't need to buy anything else right?

 

Yes, some might say to upgrade the SOIC8 clip because this one is not really good but it does the task good for me.

 

The CH341A can get the job done, but it runs default on 5V and that can and will fry your bios chip. Anyone who did it without modding it got lucky or got their chip fried.

 

well it work for short period of time on 3.3v chip, in case of pascal card there is the 1.8v adapter

 

I don't think the 1.8v adapter can step down the 5v voltage, I think it's meant for 3.3v only to work properly.

 

Well, you are wrong, it step down the 5v voltage to 1.8v and works like a charm on any Pascal and more recent graphics card vbios chip

 

Has anyone tried this with a P4200 max-q? I installed an HP version P4200 max-q in a Clevo P750DM-G and posted the baseline benchmark scores. I would now like to try and maximize it if possible, just to see what it can do.

 

I killed my GTX1070 ... flashed a 150/175W bios and decided to run a superposition benchmark for a few seconds (as I tried several bios-es and was tired of putting everything together) to test for stability without the fans attached... Well the board itself died in smoke Stupid me...

 

If it's only the mosfet package that goes in smoke without doing a hole in the PCB that's an easy fix.

 

I think there was some coloring on the underside of the GPU where the flashlight hits (so probably a hole in the PCB).
BTW I was observing the temperature of the GPU core and it was 84-85C when it ended up in smoke. I definitely could smell it after I heard a noise and the laptop shut down. I had the CPU+GPU radiators on + a cooling pad blowing on the open underside of the laptop.
Any suggestions what cheap MXM GPU can be run in Tornado F5 (MSI 16L1) I suppose modded bios will be needed to run some GPUs?

 

I'm sorry about what happened to you. I've had a similar event in the past. Don't be sad, let this be an experience.

Take a little patience and buy a Rtx 3000 series laptop.

 

I've got an m6100 and Dell 860m, no idea if they will work in the F5 though

 

Ah, no worries. Just sharing my experience to protect other people from the same disaster.

I am waiting for my water cooling loop for this laptop Successfully placed 9700K. Probably for now I will just place some cheap MXM video and/or will buy MXM to PCI-e x16 adapter from Taobao (If anyone is interested can share a link). There are even pictures with the 16l1 chassis and this adapter plugged. Which means any graphics card should work on the MXM slot. Waiting for big Navi and will probably buy one around Christmas.
Interesting thing is I tried m.2 NGFF adapter and GPU is not detected no matter what I tried, however I was able to connect an HDD via this + PCIe x1 to SATA adapter. This also seems a good option since the laptop has 2 NGFF slots and I use it without bottom cover anyway
If anyone has knowledge experience how to configure the unlocked BIOS to recognize a GPU connected to NGFF slot will be very thankful.

In the future I will upgrade to RTX2060 Super MXM - (sent quote on that) or RTX2070/3060/3070 and will sell the laptop as I will be better off with Desktop + some cheap laptop on the go.

 

I have the female to female cables to hook this together I just don't know where they would go.. could anyone help me out? I already have the 3.3v jumpers on the CH341A.

 

Hi All,

Sorry for cross post but I thought people in this thread may have the right expertise for EEPROM programming a vbios chip on my RTX 2060 on laptop. Laptop is a 2019 Gigabyte Aorus 15 W9.

I recently purchsed this laptop used. It has an i7 8750h processor and RTX 2060 gpu. The 2060 seems to be the version with an 80W TDP limit. During overclocking the 2060 with Afterburner (voltage/frequency curve method) I was constantly power limit throttled while temps were ok. Not satisfied, I foolishly tried to flash the video bios on the 2060 to the bios from a 2060 on the Asus ROG Strix Laptop (which has a 90W TDP limit). I used a version of Nvflash (with board id mismatch disabled) to flash bios. The screen went black immediately after flash. Unfortunately this appears to have bricked the laptop. It powers on, HD lights flash but the screen remains blank. No external display output either.

I did save a copy of the vbios using nvflash before flashing the new rom. I can retrieve this from HD. I could also download the vbios it seems from the Techpowerup VGA bios collection.

I need some help to identify the video bios chip on the laptop and then hopefully program it using an EEPROM programmer.

I have ordered a CH341a USB programmer (including 1.8v adapter and 8 SOIC test clip). I am just not sure which chip on the motherboard is the video bios chip. The motherboard is integrated (CPU and GPU on same board, not a removable MXM GPU).

I am including a picture of the front side of the motherboard:




Here is a picture of a Macronix chip (mxic 25u8033e m1I-12g) on the front of the board next to ram slots and gpu:




Here is the rear of motherboard:




This is a Winbond chip (25q128jvsq 1830) on the rear:





There are two unkown chips on the rear. Unknown rear chip 1:



Rear unkown chip 2:





Questions:
1) Which is the bios chip and vbios chip?

2) Will flashing just the vbios fix the problem?

3) What would be the best method to flash the vbios chip back to stock?

Thanks for any help and advice,
Rift.

 

So I hooked everything up correctly *hopefully* and everytime I put the clip on the chip my screen goes black and it forces me to reboot. Any idea why?

 

If your placing and SOIC clip on, your system should have no power attached else your going to fry your system.

Sent from my SNE-LX1 using Tapatalk

 

Ah okay ty so I need a separate machine

 

Yes you need a separate computer. Let hope you haven't fried your system.

When I say no power I mean no AC or Battery attached to the system your reprogramming the vbios to.

Sent from my SNE-LX1 using Tapatalk

 

I did not. I actually can't get the program to see the chip. I think it's because I don't have it hooked up correctly, and no one seems to know about the CH341A programmer I got.

 

Indeed this is a very strange version of the CH341A, usually it's nearly plug and play.
As for knowing which eeprom correspond to which device, you can compare rom size by checking part number (RTX card need like 512KB eeprom while regular bios need at least 16MB), you can also read a little bit inside the bios and check for "Nvidia related stuff" in the decoded text part (like "VGA", "NVIDIA", or sometime the vbios starts by "NVGI").

 

Should I just go for the regular black one lol

EDIT: Yeah I just went ahead and got the black one. In the CH341A program all I need to do is attach the clip, blank/erase the vbios, and load the modified bios in the same program with "file-open" correct? Then hit program? I noticed the only supported files are .bin and .hex, do I need to change the modified .rom to .bin?

 

Your missing a vital step.

You need to save your current vbios 3 times and checksum check it to make sure you have a good connection and to save your rear if you mess up with the flashing afterwards.

Sent from my SNE-LX1 using Tapatalk

 

The software is the only thing you need, select the right chip then save the content of it and finnally press on "auto"

 

If your system does indeed use a dedicated vbios chip rather than an oprom embedded in the bios and this is the only other '25***' SOIC8 chip on the board then this is the vbios eeprom. The '25' means SPI btw; Serial Peripheral Interface, one of the communication protocols for eeproms.

Other embedded hardware devices such as LAN and Bluetooth also need a bit of firmware somewhere and these too can either be stored on a similar-sized eeprom or embedded in an oprom. You won't know which is which until you've read out their contents. Well ... that is, unless the chips on the board are labeled and clearly state 'BIOS' or, at the least, 'U4' or something which you can then look up in the schematics, provided these can be found somewhere.

The '80' in the part number should really be read as '08' and designates its size; 8 Mbit. Mind that an AMD vbios is padded to the full 1MB, but Nvidia doesn't do this, so software dumps (and system-reseller provided updates) are always a fair bit smaller than that. This is something to take into account when flashing a modified vbios; if you flash it without padding first then the programmer will write only the data you provide, leaving the remainder of data on the chip untouched. Not a problem if the mod is larger, but if it is smaller then this will mean a brick. Easiest and safest is therefor to simply erase first.

That is your bios; 128 Mbit.

Yes. Though that can also require flashing the full bios if it is indeed really an oprom.

Not really ' best', but more like ' only', give or take a few minor deviations:

1. Desolder or use clip (I prefer desoldering to rule out the write-protect or the board's circuit layout getting in the way).
2. Read out current data twice (or thrice).
3. Compare to your NVFLASH dump; they should match, except for the hardware dump being larger.
4. Erase entire chip.
5. Write back the backup.
6. Resolder, if applicable.

Once fixed you may consider buying a 150mil SOIC8 test socket. These can be soldered to the board and after that the eeprom can simply be removed and replaced at leisure. With MXMs it may need some extra work if the heatsink gets in the way, but with motherboards that isn't really an issue.

 

Wow t456, thank you so much for the detailed reply and information.

The CH341a programmer will take a couple of weeks to arrive .
Will I have to pad out my vbios dump (from Nvflash) before I try flashing it? The file size of stock rom was 1023kb from memory. (The vbios on the techpowerup vga bios collection site also seems to be 1023k if I am looking at the correct one https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/220482/220482).

 

Not need to pad the vbios if you wipe the eeprom first, but it is a good precaution if you ever forget that step.

The exact size of a padded vbios should match the size of the eeprom, so 1,024*1,204=1,048,576 bytes for an 8 Mbit eeprom. The TPU dump is indeed padded, but not to the correct size. Also, it isn't the proper file to flash directly to the eeprom as it is; it starts with an extra header and this would never be written to the chip. You could remove that bit up until '55 AA' and hope for the best.

Not sure where they got that file from. They claim ' Gigabyte AERO 15' as the donor system, yet the full-sized bios file from Gigabyte's driver site only includes an oprom for the Intel HD. That means that whatever software tool was used to extract it isn't of much help if it was intended as a hardware backup file. Could be that the header and end-padding are indeed necessary for using with nvflash, though that is doubtful. At any rate, if your own nvflash dump and that of the Asus ROG are similarly padded then they are not much good to use on an eeprom. Could upload them somewhere and we can take a look.

Hmm ... also, it looks like your system is dGPU only? If so then you cannot flash a vbios from an Optimus system (or vice versa). Either will result in a black screen.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the system is dGPU only and doesn't have Optimus. That was a huge mistake I made to flash an Optimus bios .

I have uploaded my nvflash dump of my stock vbios here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y7odQw2yGDc8hEgftRKEfMhYfhSHbcgY/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for any advice

 

Could give this a try:
Gigabyte Aorus 15 - RTX 2060, possible fix, stock.7z

But wait until you have the dump from the programmer. That should show us how the vbios ought to look like once written to the chip.

Might modify the file above just in case; if it is indeed correct then you can have your 90W version at the ready as well.

 

Thank you very much for this. I have spent the last couple of days trying to get a working programmer and finally have been able to read the chip directly from the board using test clip. (Read 3 times in a row).

This is the read from the bios as it is currently on the motherboard: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pgt5NqYoif_-a7Y-iW41RzKuScvzZXXY/view?usp=sharing

I noticed the nvflash dump file is 1023kb and the programmer dump file is 1024kb.

 

Hi t456 and all, just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU!



With your help and instructions I managed to get the laptop display working again


I basically followed t456's instructions:
Quote "

1. Desolder or use clip (I prefer desoldering to rule out the write-protect or the board's circuit layout getting in the way).
2. Read out current data twice (or thrice).
3. Compare to your NVFLASH dump; they should match, except for the hardware dump being larger.
4. Erase entire chip.
5. Write back the backup.
6. Resolder, if applicable."

I am going to be verbose in case someone finds this and could use it one day.

I used the test clip and didn't desolder the chip as my soldering skills were not up to it (I practiced on an old video card). If it didn't work desoldering was next.
I used a CH341a usb bios programmer with 1.8v adapter, SOIC8 test clip and AsProgrammer v1.4.1 software to read and write the Macronix (mxic 25u8033e m1I-12g) chip.
First I read the chip and confirmed what the bios should look like written to chip, comparing it visually to the nvflash backup rom I had.
Next I erased the chip and verified that it was erased.
Then I flashed the nvflash backup rom (this was 1023kb, compared to programmer dump files which were 1024kb) to the chip.
Finally verified the flash.

Reassembled the laptop (Gigabyte Aorus 15 W9), started up and screen came on

Once I recover some courage, I might try and mod the original bios to increase TDP limit which was the original goal .

Thanks again to t456 and all that read the posts, you guys are absolute legends!

 

Hey friend, I'm using Clevo's PB70DF2 with 10875H. This is always limited at 55W.
So I want to get rid of the power limit. Could you please help me?
I installed RW Everything the way you told me. But I have never used this software. How do I access Register E3?

 

IMON Slope, so the CPU thinks that its using less power.

 

Thanks for answering. So, how do I activate IMON Slope?

 

Not activate, edit the values, its on the BIOS hidden menus.

 

Hi All,

After managing to resurrect my Aorus 15 W9 laptop using your help with USB flasher and original bios, I am finding that I could not flash a modded bios onto it without causing black screen. I have tried using the black screen fix option (removes header) in TDP Tweaker but still black screen persists. I came to the conclusion at this laptop doesn't allow modded bios. I can flash back the stock bios and works fine.

I am therefore trying to look at doing a shunt mod to the onboard 2060 GPU.

I was wondering if I could get some help identifying the shunt resistors for my card?

This is a picture of the front of the board



Here is a closeup of the area where there is an R005 resistor on the front (but only one?):



This is the back of the board with 2 ?resistors marked (sorry not as clear photo, taken with different phone):



Thanks for any advice,
Rift.

 

The two at the back are the shunt resistors alright

 

There isn't any known way of software modding RTX VBIOS, so its normal that all you get is black screen after you mod it..

 

Thanks for the reply and confirmation of shunt resistors.

Using a photo editor, I have measured the resistors at around 4.32mm (L) x 1.91mm (W).

The cooling system on this laptop (Aorus 15 W9) seems to be decent and does have a heatpipe for the gpu vrms also.
Calculating for an increase of around 25% to 112.5W (from 90W), I think some 0.02 ohm resistors would be good to swap in. Would you be able to suggest a resistor to swap into this position? Link would be awesome.

 

R004 resistors will increase the power limit by 25% to 112.5w, R003 resistors will increase the power limit by 66.67% to 150w.

Personally I would go for R003 resistors and get the full desktop 2060 performance. The Vrms can handle it no problem.

 

Anyone knows why my vbios file wont work (screen wont lit up) if i use TDP Tweaker? Original Vbios file works fine. The file is from Coffee Lake bios section GTX 1070 non sli.

 

Thanks seanwee. I chickened out a bit and went with the piggy back 0.02 resistors on top of the existing resistors. This should increase power around 25%. So far this is allowing benchmark runs at same speed without power limit throttling. I haven't tried pushing the card further just yet but glad to not be constantly at power limit. The laptop seems to be drawing around 15W (this is very rough) more from the wall just visually using a power meter.

Excuse the poor soldering job

 

That looks really good actually. Great job.

 

@seanwee
Hello seanwee, What do you think of my VRM quality?

 

That's the cpu vrm, gpu vrm is on the right. Make sure the text on the mosfets are visible when taking a picture.

 

A Vbios compatible with MSI GTX 1070 MXM cards (G-Sync only). Power: 125 Watt. GPU Clock: 1480/1695 (Available for download)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ly-power-125-watt-gpu-clock-1480-1695.834502/

 

what do you guys use your laptops for? i dont see a need to run more than high/med in all games and even 1080p at 17in is enough to not see pixels.


im thinking cad or game development

 

The only computer I have around me to run the program is a mac, is there a ch341a programmer app for the mac or am I SOL? The other option is use my s8+ with a type c --> USB adapter and try an app I saw on the store that supports ch341a.. No reviews though and still in early access.

 

Hi!
Please help calculate the checksum.
Original and modified video BIOS in the archive.
Thank you advance.

 

Hello! Is there anyone who could supply me with an unlocked vBios for 1070 Max Q that can be flashed as well? (MSI GS65 Stealth 8RF)