Eh what the hell...UPDATED WITH CARD IN COMPUTER

[implicit1]

I also flashed an Ultra BIOS, and it also helped me quite a bit. 366mhz would show artifacts on the LE BIOS right away. With the Ultra BIOS I've tried up to 435mhz which didn't have any artifacts after 1 loop through of 3dmark03. It was also kind of funny to see the auto overclocking "feature" in the ultra driver set the clocks to 435/1.16. Anybody know what it looks for when Auto overclocking??

 

[AnImuS]

well it looks like updating the driver to 66.81 put me at 4308@stock speeds.

 

[Wag]

So, can we flash the card with any eVGA 6800 Ultra bios?

 

[Shaotai]

Implicit, can you like the bios you used???
I'd like to use it too...

 

[THUGSROOK]

the eVGA 6800LE bios modding thread and file is here...
http://www.bleedinedge.com/for....php?p=42720#post42720

 

[aonic]

so, if by changing the bios.. the card breaks the person is screwed right?

 

[THUGSROOK]

yep


update: im now using a moddified eVGA 6800GT bios ~ much faster then the moddified Ultra bios i was using. (check my thread)

 

[aonic]

damn, o well i want to keep this card for the next 2 - 3 years atleast so i guess flashing wont be for me ;(

 

[lordfreddy]

Folks, I just flash my 6800 Limited edition to the regular Ultra. I used nvflash 5.10 and eVGA 6800 Ultra Rev.04 bios. The card is running @ 425/1101 now, with 54C idle and 71 loaded. Through the process of flashing the bios, I learned that the hardware ID of this card is 0040, which is the 6800 Ultra ID, but it seems that eVGA strapped the EEPROM down to the 6800NU ID, which is 0041; you can verify this by opening the Rtuner 15.2 diagnosic report. Mine was: Hardware ID: 0040(Rom strapped to 0041), and now after flashing, it becomes to 0040(Rom strapped to 0040).

 

[Zahriya]

Can you guys explain for us NOOB's how you're doing all this. Id be interested in trying to upgrade my bios to fix my problem

 

[aonic]

quick question: lets say I upgrade the bios and it doesnt work out.. its still possible to change it back right? I know it can be done with my motherboard's BIOS.. the only problem with the video card bios i see is that it doesnt display and if i cant see i cant reflash

 

[THUGSROOK]

Originally posted by: lordfreddy
Folks, I just flash my 6800 Limited edition to the regular Ultra. I used nvflash 5.10 and eVGA 6800 Ultra Rev.04 bios. The card is running @ 425/1101 now, with 54C idle and 71 loaded. Through the process of flashing the bios, I learned that the hardware ID of this card is 0040, which is the 6800 Ultra ID, but it seems that eVGA strapped the EEPROM down to the 6800NU ID, which is 0041; you can verify this by opening the Rtuner 15.2 diagnosic report. Mine was: Hardware ID: 0040(Rom strapped to 0041), and now after flashing, it becomes to 0040(Rom strapped to 0040).

the GT rev01 bios is faster

the bios files i offer in my thread also have 1.5v gpu cores and are specificly tested for the eVGA 6800LE.

take a looksee and try my LE-GT bios, youll like it.
(rom strap is 0045 for a GT)

 

[lordfreddy]

Originally posted by: Zahriya
Can you guys explain for us NOOB's how you're doing all this. Id be interested in trying to upgrade my bios to fix my problem

Ok. Here is how I did it; first, go get the nvflash 5.10 from http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=1998, then get the lastest eVGA 6800 Ultra bios from http://www.mvktech.net/index.p...older&filecatid=51 (there are Rev.1-4 eVGA 6800U bios available to download there, but I used the latest one, which is Rev.04). Once you got both, make a DOS boot disk, then copy the nvflash and bios to the disk. Then reboot the comp.

Once you reboot, and go into <A:\>, you first type in "nvflash -b <filname>.rom" to BACK UP your original bios, then you type in "nvflash -5 -6 <filename of the new bios).rom", then your 6800 limited edition will be flashed to 6800U with 425/1100 setting. Beware that you will have to use the "-5 -6" command to force flash the bios to your card; your 6800 limited edition was force strapped to 6800NU by eVGA initially, if you use the regular common "nvflash <filename of your new bios>.rom", the nvflash will respond with something like hardware ID doesn't match and subsystem ID doesn't match, and your card will not be flashed. Once your is flashed, reboot your comp, reinstiall 66.81 driver, then you got yourself a regular 6800U. So, good luck to whoever are trying to do this, and enjoy your new card!!!

WARNING: I am NOT responsible if you screw up on this, and PLEASE Back up your original bios (by type in "nvflash -b <filname>.rom") before you do the 6800U flashing.

 

[jrhea]

Okay, so what's the general consensus here now? Is this a good deal or not? Get this or a normal GT?

Thanks for everyone's hard work on this!

 

[Wag]

If someone wants to really do a public service, could they create a boot disc image that will backup and update the bios with a single keystroke?

That way if someone screws up totally they can restore their old bios without seeing anything.

So something like:

Press
"1" update to new bios
"2" restore original bios

 

[Cannabis]

Just flashed to the evga ultra rev. 4 bios. After flashing I noticed that it defaults to 425 with that bios.

3dmark 03 12,091 @ 425/1100

3dmark 05 5,000 @ 425/1100 max temp - 71
5,045 @ 435/1100 73
5,194 @ 450/1100 74

Screenshot

Thats a 125mhz OC one the core. It may go higher but I dont want to risk my card as I now very pleased with it 400/1100. I can only push the ram up 1150 befor I start to get artifacts and lockups so I'm just going to leave it stock. I feel bad for anyone that missed out this deal.

 

[Gandolf1]

Excellent!!!!!!!!! worked perfectly. just follow the directions. I renamed the ultra file to a shorter name just for convenience
G

 

[Wag]

Hmm. I flashed successfully to Ultra but still no good.

I wonder if it's my Power Supply? Antec 400 (regular) should be enough, shouldn't it? The fact that my card is locking up default timings with normal bios isn't good.

Think I should exchange for another?

 

[Cannabis]

I would think 400 would be sufficent. I'm using the antec 380 that came with my sonata.

 

[aonic]

Originally posted by: jrhea
Okay, so what's the general consensus here now? Is this a good deal or not? Get this or a normal GT?

Thanks for everyone's hard work on this!

its gone out of stock! limited edition

 

[WiseGuy282]

Try ebay. There's a guy on there selling these, but for about $40.00 more than new egg. Mine get's here on Monday.

 

[ronach]

Well, this is getting exciteing, now we have some guys overcomeing the bios problems, great work gents. Now all we need is some guy to find a schematic for this beast, and the rest of us can go to work on the hardware. This is almost as much fun as doing Ham radio stuff.

 

[aonic]

ya, im gona wait a week or so and see other people's expereince before i jump on the wagon nice work guys

 

[Vallybally]

Couple concerns:

- Just cause this new BIOS seems to unlock the true Ultra on this card today, can we assume it will be fine and stable a year from now? (I guess I just can't understand why eVGA would willfully sabatoge some of their perfectly ok Ultras with a crappier BIOS to underclock them...)

- Why is Thugs getting better results with the GT BIOS rather than the Ultra? Which is better....

 

[Killrose]

If this turns out that these will do Ultra speeds with a bios flash, and were only crippled because of a marketing gimmick, this is great news and i'm glad I bought the very last one that Newegg had

But i'm not too hopeful its gonna run on my Antec 350watt Smart Blue PSU, especially at Ultra speeds