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Pascal Bios Editor - Any news?

197K views 319 replies 77 participants last post by  kithylin 
#1 ·
So now is 2017, any news about a Pascal Bios Editor?

Really want to raise the TDP on my titan.
 
#5 ·
Volta is coming this year (rumors have it)... Makes sense... dump the 1080Ti and wrap up Pascal... don't look back... end of the year drop VOLTA....

Fingers crossed that NVIDIA understands that:

(1) They didn't make any MORE money because they locked/encrypted the BIOS with Pascal.. If anything they used it against us within marketing but modding a BIOS is AFTER they have our money.. what do they care!??

(2) MODing the BIOS (at least for Maxwell) didn't damage the cards or increase RMAs... they were gimped and we're just removing the artificial bottlenecks not HARD-modding... I've never heard of anyone damaging a GPU unless they quite honestly just didn't know what they were doing... the numbers were minuscule compared to the entire overclocking and modding community.

(3) They ABSOLUTELY made LESS money from encrypting the BIOS... even if I'm the only person in the world (and I know I'm not) that specifically did not buy PASCAL because of the inability to MOD THE BIOS (we don't need gimped cards...) they still lost my money. For just Maxwell I had (2) 980's in SLI and then bought (2) 980Ti's in SLI... I would consider myself a good customer that was lost this round.

(4) They lost a lot of green team fans in the community. It's VERY safe to say that MANY MANY people were upset/disappointed about the decision to encrypt the BIOS. It would be one thing if the cards are not gimped with the STOCK BIOS but they are.... mostly starved for power... inconsistent clock speeds... constant throttling when temps are not even high. People are now CROSS-FLASHING BIOS' from other vendors taking big risks just trying to work around artificial constraints.

Not holding my breath for Volta... but they do have a chance to redeem themselves.....
 
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#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Laithan View Post

Volta is coming this year (rumors have it)... Makes sense... dump the 1080Ti and wrap up Pascal... don't look back... end of the year drop VOLTA....

Fingers crossed that NVIDIA understands that:

(1) They didn't make any MORE money because they locked/encrypted the BIOS with Pascal.. If anything they used it against us within marketing but modding a BIOS is AFTER they have our money.. what do they care!??

(2) MODing the BIOS (at least for Maxwell) didn't damage the cards or increase RMAs... they were gimped and we're just removing the artificial bottlenecks not HARD-modding... I've never heard of anyone damaging a GPU unless they quite honestly just didn't know what they were doing... the numbers were minuscule compared to the entire overclocking and modding community.

(3) They ABSOLUTELY made LESS money from encrypting the BIOS... even if I'm the only person in the world (and I know I'm not) that specifically did not buy PASCAL because of the inability to MOD THE BIOS (we don't need gimped cards...) they still lost my money. For just Maxwell I had (2) 980's in SLI and then bought (2) 980Ti's in SLI... I would consider myself a good customer that was lost this round.

(4) They lost a lot of green team fans in the community. It's VERY safe to say that MANY MANY people were upset/disappointed about the decision to encrypt the BIOS. It would be one thing if the cards are not gimped with the STOCK BIOS but they are.... mostly starved for power... inconsistent clock speeds... constant throttling when temps are not even high. People are now CROSS-FLASHING BIOS' from other vendors taking big risks just trying to work around artificial constraints.

Not holding my breath for Volta... but they do have a chance to redeem themselves.....
Volta to Gaming GPUs wont Come before 2018.
TI Will Come at PAST EAST.
 
#8 ·
There was a thread started long ago with some good info but was closed.

For instance http://www.overclock.net/t/1601329/gtx-1070-1080-titan-x-2nd-gen-bios-who-has-it/110#post_25319052

And Joe Dirt mentioned quite some time ago about Hulk certificates for Pascal BIOS tweaking but AFAIK no one approached manufacturers to request them using the user request option in nvflash. Possibly the mention of money and no free lunch might have had something to do with it and probably the whole idea is now on the scrap heap now due to lack of participation.
 
#9 ·
Yeah, we have to resort to this crap to get better than stock performance
mad.gif
:


Cross flash at your own risk. I got lucky!
 
#10 ·
Would anyone buy a race car where all performance tuning was locked by the manufacturer? No adjustments or tuning to the performance possible...

Would anyone buy that race car? Seriously...
 
#11 ·
Probably not, LOL!
I'm happy though. I was able to eek out an extra 200MHz on the memory overclock.




----Now my card thinks its a ASUS STRIX GTX 1070 OC----
 
#14 ·
So after all this time there really hasn't been a bios tweaker released? That is really sad. A friend of mine is getting a pascal card and I was looking forward to seeing just how far it could be pushed.
 
#15 ·
It's too bad.... Maxwell benefits greatly from a MOD BIOS and Pascal is really just Maxwell with a die shrink for the most part... I suspect without the power and voltage constraints we might see 2,300Mhz boost speed possibly even higher... The 1080Ti with a MOD BIOS (and a 8+8 design) would be a monster... Apparently the BIOS is NOT encrypted... but nobody has taken the time to map it all out and make an editor... then we need to figure out how to flash it..

One of the biggest benefits of the community is things like this to help each other tweak and gain free performance... but none of it does anyone any good if everyone always thinks someone else is going to do it. Easy for me to say but if I knew how I really would work on it..

Fingers cross the right talent will take the challenge
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Laithan View Post

It's too bad.... Maxwell benefits greatly from a MOD BIOS and Pascal is really just Maxwell with a die shrink for the most part... I suspect without the power and voltage constraints we might see 2,300Mhz boost speed possibly even higher... The 1080Ti with a MOD BIOS (and a 8+8 design) would be a monster... Apparently the BIOS is NOT encrypted... but nobody has taken the time to map it all out and make an editor... then we need to figure out how to flash it..

One of the biggest benefits of the community is things like this to help each other tweak and gain free performance... but none of it does anyone any good if everyone always thinks someone else is going to do it. Easy for me to say but if I knew how I really would work on it..

Fingers cross the right talent will take the challenge
do u have any clue on what language the bios is based on? i can try to learn it and make an editor.
 
#17 ·
#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedM00N View Post

Do we know if the flashing unsigned bios' was ever solved? I was trying my hand at making an editor but got deterred later on by the fact that flashing unsigned bios' never got solved.
If we build it, they will come
smile.gif
Please don't let that deter you.

I am speaking out my bumm but I would bet good money that if we built an editor it would motivate someone to figure out the flashing part
thumb.gif


@JoeDirtJoeDirt is most likely already onboard
wink.gif


cheers.gif
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by MiniPurple View Post

do u have any clue on what language the bios is based on? I can try to learn it and make an editor.
Yes. If you were to take the bios itself and look at it, it would be machine language. That is, it would be raw binary, and you would have to divide it up into bytes and then be comfortable enough with both assembly and the chip's instruction set to interpret what is going on. A decompiler of sorts might be able to help with that.

From there, assuming clock management is done internally, you would need the datasheets of the NVIDIA chip in order to find the address/register of the clock multiplier and divider. Then you could probably search that and find where these registers are being set, and change those values.

It would be nice if things were as simple as you say, where there would be just a bunch of C++ text files or INI files you could edit. But these languages only exist to make the development readable by humans until it is parsed and turned into raw binary.

Basically, instead of being given the works of Shakespeare, finding out the language, and then editing the course of the stories, you are basically just given the raw neural information from Shakespeare's brain, displayed by an arrangement of cracker crumbs and birthday candles. And of course, NVIDIA was nice enough to shake it in a paper bag then melt it solid in epoxy.

Thanks for the offer of effort, though!
 
#22 ·
This isn't even the issue though. It would already be done if understanding the binary was all it took.

Sadly it is encrypted, it will not flash a bios which hasn't been properly signed with a public/private key concept. This means that to understand it you first have to decrypt it, modify it, and then have the key to be able to re-encrypt it correctly.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Asmodian View Post

This isn't even the issue though. It would already be done if understanding the binary was all it took.

Sadly it is encrypted, it will not flash a bios which hasn't been properly signed with a public/private key concept. This means that to understand it you first have to decrypt it, modify it, and then have the key to be able to re-encrypt it correctly.
The technology exists to sign new BIOS'.... the STOCK BIOS' had to be signed and that's what we need.. Technically we just need the tool/process that the vendors user (unless NVIDIA keeps it in-house, then in that case we need it from them...).

Someone needs to just accidentally let it fall of the back of the truck
biggrin.gif


(or bypass the whole thing completely...)
 
#26 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Laithan View Post

The technology exists to sign new BIOS'.... the STOCK BIOS' had to be signed and that's what we need.. Technically we just need the tool/process that the vendors user (unless NVIDIA keeps it in-house, then in that case we need it from them...).

Someone needs to just accidentally let it fall of the back of the truck
biggrin.gif


(or bypass the whole thing completely...)
I suspect bypassing is what MacVidCards is doing? i.e. programming the BIOS directly onto the chip? Is what validates the signature just the flasher program? If so that's the easy way to bypass it right there...
 
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