Help! FAKE GT240 Nvidia Card From EBAY....

[AdMac]

I bought a card off ebay, supposed to be a gt240, got it and it had a cd-r with it "special" drivers on it, all of which are 32 bit, gpu-z reported it as gt240 with 1gb gddr3, but here's where it gets weird, its a gt240 with a g73 b1 processor?!!!

i have flashed it back to a 7300gt 560core/700memory, but it reports 256mb. the card has 1gb of ram on it, 2 512mb samsung 1.4ns chips, i have searched everywhere and have not found one like it.

my question is, can someone help me with the 7300gt bios so that all the memory is recognised and used?

I am currently using the Elsa gt7300 256mb ddr3 bios 5.73.22.51.01 i think
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/3310/Elsa.7300GT.256.070108.html
i reduced core to 560 with nibitor, and flashed and i can use the card, just think it could do so much better.......

Thanks for Reading, any insiight would be greatly appreciated...

 

[toyota]

how can a 7300gt be flashed to look like a gt240?

 

[AdMac]

it was done thru bios mods, and would only work with the driver off the cd they sent, nvidia drivers reported"no supported hardware", the ppl that sold the card refunded the money and didnt ask for the card back, in hopes i wouldnt spread bad word theu ebay i suppose, because they had quite a bit of these cards for sale.

 

[waffleironhead]

Why are you messing with this POS. File a chargeback.


Edit: missed the refund

 

[AdMac]

ok, besides the obvious....(ebay, f**ked up seller, file claim) I really need a bios expert here.
if they can write the bios to recognise the 1gb of ddr3 then i should be able to as well, or someone should be able to, i need some help please.

 

[3DVagabond]

Sorry, I can't answer your question. I'm curious though, what brand and model (on the box) is the card?

 

[AdMac]

no box, no printing on the pcb, just a sticker that says made in china and that its a gt240, anyone can print those stickers, i took the heat sink off, and it is infact a g73b1 gpu, which makes it either a 7650,7600,or 7300, i think its a 7300gt, reports it only has 8/4 pipes

 

[ViRGE]

Interesting.

I sincerely doubt they actually modified the BIOS to recognize 1GB of VRAM, rather they had it falsely report that amount in either the drivers or the BIOS. 7xxx parts did not come with that much RAM, 1GB parts would not become common for another 2 years and it's anything but trivial to add support for additional RAM through BIOS hacks. For a 7300 series card the most common memory configuration would be 128MB. So I believe what you're looking at is the capacity of those chips in megabits; you have 2 512Mbit (64MByte) chips on that card. And since there are only 2 chips it can't be a 7300GT (which had a 128bit memory bus which would require 4 chips), instead it's a 7300LE or 7300GS.

Finally, as to why you're seeing 256MB: Turbocache. For NVIDIA's low end cards they would put a small amount of RAM on the card and then augment it with system memory, which causes it to show as having additional RAM.

Anyhow, it would probably be a good idea to put the name of the seller on here so that people know to avoid them. I'd also drop NVIDIA a line; they won't replace your card, but they may have the muscle to get these auctions shut down and keep further people from suffering the same fate.

 

[Zap]

They probably just edited the driver files to report the GPU. GPU-Z just reports what the drivers tell it.

 

[toyota]

ViRGE, 128mb on a 7300gt? I am pretty sure that card came with at least 256mb and I know I have seen 512mb models. but yeah 1gb was probably not an option at all.

 

[ViRGE]

ViRGE, 128mb on a 7300gt? I am pretty sure that card came with at least 256mb and I know I have seen 512mb models. but yeah 1gb was probably not an option at all.

A quick Google search came up with a number of 128MB 7300GT cards (and even more if we expand it to the entire 7300 series). But like I said it's likely not a 7300GT given how few memory chips it has.

 

[AdMac]

the auctioneer is HI-PC out of Brooklyn, NY. and it does have 4 chips, 2 were out of view by heat sink, so i guess it is 256, and i do have the right bios for it, im curious as to how they modified the bios that was on there to show 1gb in GPU-Z before i flashed it.

anyways, avoid cheap cards on ebay, altho i got a free card and it does ok, score 5.0 and 5.9 in WEI windows 7 64bit. lost my gt240 to my son cause i didnt want to go back on my word, but i dont game that much anyways.
Thanks for all your help!!!!

 

[ViRGE]

the auctioneer is HI-PC out of Brooklyn, NY. and it does have 4 chips, 2 were out of view by heat sink, so i guess it is 256, and i do have the right bios for it, im curious as to how they modified the bios that was on there to show 1gb in GPU-Z before i flashed it.

anyways, avoid cheap cards on ebay, altho i got a free card and it does ok, score 5.0 and 5.9 in WEI windows 7 64bit. lost my gt240 to my son cause i didnt want to go back on my word, but i dont game that much anyways.
Thanks for all your help!!!!

More than likely they used a tool like NiBiTor to edit the BIOS. It would be trivial to change the video BIOS POST message to list a different card and memory size.

 

[achra]

Sorry to bump this old thread, but I just stumbled into this surreal world as well! The exact same ebay seller, HI-PC out of Brooklyn, NJ sold me 2 of these "GT240" cards that exactly match the description above. I've contacted the seller, but so far they haven't been nearly as accommodating to me as they were to the last guy. Strangely, I've looked through their negative feedback and don't see mention of these videocards. Perhaps most people just install the fake driver and are none the wiser? Watch out and be careful not to do business with these crooks!

 

[Jionix]

Report them to eBay.

 

[Meaker10]

Maybe even report them to the police since they also know what they are selling.

 

[peonyu]

I would report the guy pronto, obviously he is still selling fakes. Link this thread if you need to and I bet the OP would chime in to if needed.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Stuff like this makes me feel so much safer buying stuff from a local retail store like fry's or microcenter.

I have always examined the product by hand usually if its a gpu if the box has any major dents,i grab the box maybe 5 boxs behind it and this technique has worked so well i haven't had a single doa or bad item grabbed off the retail shelf in 7 years technically since i started building pcs.

Sure there isn't no deals half the time compared to newegg or such sites but if your spending big money like $500 on a gpu,your gonna wanna make sure its new in box,no abusive handling or anything of that nature.

 

[TemjinGold]

Err Newegg isn't crooked. It's a crooked ebay seller.

 

[Fallengod]

Yeah, I mean, were bumping a thread from 2011 here but....

You can report them to ebay and/or paypal. You should be able to get your money back maybe, except its kind of hard to prove perhaps. Not sure if paypal would side with the buyer or seller in a case like this but might be worth a shot.

I am not really sure why anyone would even bother spending money on such an old gen card these days anyways, there are so many cheap solutions out there that are better and built on 40nm process. Why waste time with such an old pos.

On another note, I really dont buy used stuff off ebay. The only stuff I buy is from sellers with most positive feedback and usually new items.

 

[achra]

Ya, I know that I really should have been more careful. On second glance, that ebay listing has lots of red flags that I should have noted. Paradoxically, I always have the best luck with small time used videocard sellers on ebay (people like me that just upgraded and want to sell their old videocard).. They know what they are selling and will get the product to you and care about the transaction. The sellers I have the worst luck with are the big time "powersellers" that are selling new equipment. The reason I am bothering with these low power GT240's is because I have a bunch of kids' computers that don't have top quality powersupplies.. The (real) GT240 fits the bill perfectly. The sellers listing looked like a great deal and I bit (more fool me). I've already purchased a pair of good used GT240's from actual people (not Chinese counterfeit powersellers) for not much more than I paid for this garbage. Oh, well. Live and learn.

 

[MaStA819]

Ouch, hopefully ebay/paypal can help you settle this and get it resolved. Sorry to hear about that.

 

[taltamir]

it was done thru bios mods, and would only work with the driver off the cd they sent, nvidia drivers reported"no supported hardware", the ppl that sold the card refunded the money and didnt ask for the card back, in hopes i wouldnt spread bad word theu ebay i suppose, because they had quite a bit of these cards for sale.

I have seen that done before.
What you should be doing is contacting the police, this is fraud which is a form of theft and carries a jail sentence. The police will contact ebay and arrest the person responsible.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

And contact NVIDIA. Crap like this needs shut down and I'm sure NVIDIA would love to sink their teeth into a sleezy outfit like this.

 

[nenforcer]

What did you pay for this BTW? I just tried to sell my 512MB GDDR5 PNY GT 240 for $30 starting bid and no one was interested. I like these cards alot, since they are decent performers with no PCI-E requirements, and am glad I still have mine.

People who are paying less than $20 for a video card probably aren't concerned with the actual guts of it.