Nvidia VGA Bios modification/flash/restore guide

Why you edit the clocks? if it works how ican make 600 520?
thank you very much

 

you can flash back to what ever the clocks you need

 

Yeah, i tested it. same error appears (((...
whats this!?

 

same error...
dude i think your vga bios integrated into your system bios.So you can't flash it

 

So nobody had flashed a 8600Gt in a dell vostro before?
I can only tune the clock with nvidia tuneup and 15x.xx drivers, rivatuner doesnt work. So how can I overclock my vga and run the newest nvidia drivers? Btw. bios oc is must have , i think.... :-/.
cya

 

Make sure you have mxm type vga card

 

What you mean with that? I can give you all informations you want ...
I have a dell vostro 1500 (res.1680x1050)

 

Only MXM type VGAs have built-in BIOS.You can't flash system integrated vga BIOS

 

where can i find this informations?

 

Ask it from DELL user or try reviews

 

I don't think dell offers mxm type cards on their 14" or 15" laptops. MXM cards are upgradeable cards, that can be swapped, thus the separate bios. the 8600m gt is a mxmII btw.

 

Has anyone successfully done this in vista 64? I used an xp desktop to make a boot usb drive, put the nvflash files on it, and it booted on my notebook just fine. But when I saved my stock bios it said that the version was unavailable, and the resulting file which it named STOCKBIO.ROM is 0 bytes. When I try and open the bios with nibitor I get an error message and it will not open. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

This guide works well with 64bit version.I try it personally for ASUS C90

For your problem,
# Make sure your vga card is MXM type(dedicated vga bios)
# Usb pen drive have free memory space to save the bios file(B'coz your flash drive act like a floppy & only few space available)

 

yeah its MXM II, and my drive is empty. Any idea why it would save a bios file but the file contain nothing? On the screen where you boot and flash the bios it says the version is unavialable and all the values it lists are 000000s. The bios file is 0 bytes and doesn't work; how big is the file supposed to be?

 

Thread moved to gaming forum by request.

 

Sorry for being late to reply...

I found Sager notebooks have some VGA BIOS flashing problems..
Maybe they lock the BIOS?

BTW another sager lappy owner talk about the same flashing issue in this thread (pls goto page 9-Member name:hirush )

 

If you have a vostro and it gives u a pci subsystem mismatch, doing a force flash with nvflash is confirmed to work by me at least with a vostro 1700 with 8600m gt

 

ok so if you don't have a mxm card there is no way to flash the bios?

 

You can flash your BIOS ,but you need dedicated VGA BIOS

 

Hmm it can be someone asked this question already in 1 of the 16 pages, but I cant get the hand of it to get to the typing part of nvflash -b oldbios.rom.. When I want to boot from usb I get the computer to say: No operating System found. How did you do this?

I've a Acer Aspire 5920.

 

Make bootable flash drive using HP utility

 

I used it, and put it to FAT and then clicked start, moved the files and tried it. Btw thanks for your fast reply.

Edit; did I do something wrong?

 

heres the stick files for a boot usb stick

 

Does this BIOS stuff not work with 8400m GS's by Dell?

When I try to backup my current VGA Bios after booting up into DOS and typing "nvflash -b oldbios.rom" I get the following:

Reading adapter firmware image...
Image Size : 0 bytes
Version : Unavailable (Invalid)
~CRC32 : 00000000
Subsystem Vendor ID : 0000
Subsystem ID : 0000
Hierarchy ID : None
Saving of image completed.

And OLDBIOS.ROM has a size of 0 (zero).. It didn't dump anything.. what gives?

This is a Dell 1420 with 8400M GS.. I can overclock it fine under Windows.. I was able to get 612/890 from the stock 400/500.. and it was super stable, no problems.

Any tips welcomed!

Jay

 

This kind of situation can be happened if VGA BIOS integrated into system BIOS,SO First make sure you have DEDICATED VGA BIOS

 

Well, i've seen a few other people manage to do this on the same laptops with the same GPU.. I don't know why mine would be any different from theirs. So basically you're saying im stuck with having to use software to overclock?

Jay

 

Yes! Driver level OC is the only available choice for you

BTW I never heard about any member who able to flash his VGA without dedicated BIOS.

 

I'm trying to contact a member on this board that has done it on a Dell Vostro 1500 with a 8400m.. it's not the same laptop as I have (1420) but same GPU.. he's claimed to have done it.. so I don't see why Dell would give another one of it's laptops a dedicated vga bios on the same GPU as another like mine, but not a dedicated bios.. if that makes any sense.

Jay

 

Please tell that member to post his success story...

 

I recommend more testing with your overclock levels before doing the bios mod and gaming. I read only the first half of this thread and saw many people doing the recommended 16x 3dmark06 loop ok then crashing in games.

I know first hand with many years experience that 3dmark is a good place to start for stability testing, but its only a start. Many games stress certian parts of a video card differently and can be more sensitive to an overclock than others.

Heck with my 7800gtx I had a nice high overclock and every game I had and every benchmark was fine, until farcry came out and that game would only sometimes start showing small artifacts. Since it was the first time I ever saw problems I thought it was the game. I tried everything. Drivers changes, game patches, this and that you name it.

Finally just for the heck of it I lowered my OC, and sure enough all the artifacts were gone from the game.


I notice people are taking max values and just at the point of crashing in 3dmark06 say 575 495 as a number, then they go set there OC to 570 490 and think thats a good place. Its really not, sure it got you thru 3dmark but you were right at the threshold of problems and like I said many games can push your card in harder ways than 3dmark. I would take that max number and cut 10% off of it then use that as your test number. Thats a pretty tried and true way to do things. We are all gamers and things and thats where you want it. That 5mhz suicide number is for the benchmark freaks with alot of money going for top scores, and none of us on a notebook are going to touch there scores trust me.

 

You are right .3DMark06 is good but it's not the 100% perfect solution.
People always want to get highest 3DMark06 score,but they don't care about stability.I can reach 610/500 with my 8600M GT but i downgrade my clocks to 572/472 to make sure i'll never get any artifacts

I'm thinking about editing the guide......

 

3dmark is definitely the best place to start, I would just cut numbers by 10% from there, not just to the point of barely passing 3dmark. But if you have the patience you should test all of your favorite games first too.

 

What are you guys putting your shader clocks at? I did a mild overclock of 550 core and 450 mem, leaving the shader at 950. It is rock stable at this speed. My 3DMark06 score was



Seems kinda low to me, I am using the 156.66 drivers, the latest "mobile" drivers.

 

All mobile VGAs have 1:2 GPU:Shader clock speed

Eg: GF 8600M GT Default is GPU 475:Shader 950

So I'm recommend you to OC your shader to get higher performance.
Your GPU now run @ 550 so your shader clock should be 1100

BTW try Forceware 163.75 Modded driver

 

Awesome will try that after class today. You guide was quite helpful, it at least made me successful.

 

Welcome bro!

Hmmm....... 10K + Visitors for my guide

 

Does Laptopvideo2go host the modded 163.75? Because I can't overclock using 163.75 they have on their site.

 

I'm curious, does this overclocking affect battery life in regular 2D work?

 

No! B'coz you're only change your 3D clocks

 

That's what I figured. Now I have another question, have you ever heard of overclocking or modifying the bios causing the computer to hibernate instead of sleep in Vista? Usually I shut the lid of my laptop and it will sleep and resume fine, right at the logon screen. Just today, it seems that it will go through the whole boot process and do the resuming windows thing. I only changed my 3D clocks so I really don't know why it would affect anything, I'm just wondering if there is something weird and freaky going on.

 

My Hibernate & Sleep Functions work well.Changing 3D clocks have zero effect about those problem.

 

I may mess with this later just for the heck of it. I am not a huge fan of overclocking in a notebook because the added heat is not as easy to deal with as a desktop and I pretty much refuse to carry around a cooling pad. Since I moded my c90 tho I have much better cooling and it may handle a decent OC with stock cooling and have no issues.

The other reason is in the past I noticed that actual in game performance hardly ever moved unless I had a very generous overclock, but the 8600gt seems to scale very well with overclocking so it may be worth it.

I just need to find my usb flash drive spare to format and I will get to work.

Oh question, what program do you use to monitor your temps for 3dmark runs and games? I use nmonitor but its not the greatest as the graph is not too detialed and the time span is not that long. I really would like something that can overlay over your game or 3dmark to show the temps in real time and not even have to go back and check a graph.

 

Just for reference, here is my story that I had posted in Vostro 1400 overclocking thread.

I used nibitor 3.5 but there was a problem.
- When I read the BIOS with nibitor it said that the device was not recognized. I chose 8xxx series and read the BIOS into nibitor.
- Edited the BIOS and saved to disk.
- When I tried to flash the modded BIOS using nvflash, nvflash warned that the Subsystem IDs did not match. The subsystem ID in the BIOS nibitor saved is 01F1 and the real one is 0228.

Despite this warning, I flashed the BIOS to my 8400M-GS in the Vostro 1500 with different subsystem. And, it worked.

First, I installed 101.38 drivers from Dell. Then, using Atitool, found the maximum safe frequencies. Using Nibitor 3.5, I increased the default 400/400 3D-performance clocks to 600/550. 600/550 was the maximum without artifacts in ATItool. I also reduced the 2D voltage to 1v from 1.15v in the bios. 2D voltage reduction should decrease GPU power by 25% at 2D clocks (100*(1-1/1.15^2).

Finally, flashed the modded BIOS and installed 163.71 drivers.
The followings are 3DMark06 benchmarks with default 101.38 driver from Dell and 163.71 driver.

CPU: T5470 1.6GHz Core2 Duo
Screen: 1680x1050 WSXGA+
3DMark06 ran at 1280x1024

101.38 default clocks -> 1106
101.38 overclocked -> 1452
163.71 default clocks -> 1365
163.71 overclocked -> 1815

Maximum GPU core temperature was 62C while running 3DMark06 test with 163.71 driver when overclocked. I used Speedfan 4.33 and Atitool to measure the temperatures; they both gave the same temperature.

So, overclock + driver upgrade gave me 64% higher 3D performance.

Some remarks:
- Vostro 1400 GPU memory seems to overclock much higher (>700) than the GPU memory on Vostro 1500 (<550). People suspect that this is due to GDDR2 on Vostro 1500 vs GDDR3 on Vostro 1400.
- Vostro 1500 GPU BIOS is moddable but there are no success stories with modding Vostro 1400 GPU bios yet.

 

gonna try this guide out.

a question though, on the guide it says to check the overclock first by driver overclock and then testing it in rivatuner, but with new drivers 163.75, 163.44 there is no way to overclock driver level

 

Its ok to use older driver to overclock. Once you found a stable overclock value, consider lowering it again by 10 or more to ensure its even safe or you can just go with the stable overclock value you found.

Then flash you BIOS with the overclock value and reinstall newer driver.

 

I use Rivatuner to monitor temp

BTW I'm also looking around some overlay support temp monitor

 

ThanX for posting your success story

 

Use 158.45 to find Stable clock speed....

Flash your card

Now you can install any new driver

 

Just a thought, do you guys who used the Flash overclocking had cooling pad avaliable. I am kind of eff'ed about overclocking without a method of cooling, considering my 8600m gt goes to 69 degree normally @ stock speed, I really don't want it hits mid 70s or even higher while I game. On a side note, I undervolted my CPU to help reduced the overall heat as well, but the CPU still runs max of 61 degree which is not that much of improvement if you ask me. Are those temperature bad or good for a vostro 1500 with 8600m gt, and c2d at 1.6 ghz?

 

I think your temps are not too high,B'coz my 8600M GT IDLE @ 55C-57C After the OC & It'll hit 85C-92C(Max) while gaming..

My CPU IDLE @ 45C-47C Without any OC

BTW I'm using Aspire 5920G & No cooling pad