MBT 1.36 and GM200 BIOS - Voltage sliders missing

Laithan · Jun 12, 2015

I noticed this first on a Titan-X BIOS and now that I have my hands on a 980Ti BIOS, I see the same thing.

Using Maxwell BIOS Tweaker v1.36, I notice the 2nd and 3rd voltage sliders are missing (compared to any other maxwell BIOS).

I wonder, do we just need a new version of MBT to gain access to this voltage control again? Those 2 sliders were useful, especially the 3rd one as it helped manage throttling behavior.

AT THIS TIME WE HAVE FOUND A WORK-A-ROUND THANKS TO WEREPUG.

This work-a-round to MBT requires the BIOS to be modified. After modification, the missing voltage sliders will re-appear in MBT v1.36 as expected.

Please understand that these are not MODIFIED BIOS' for your cards..

They are simply "whatever anyone uploaded here" with the VOLTAGE SLIDERS UNLOCKED.

They could be STOCK or PRE-MODIFIED with no idea if the settings are correct ** JUST A DISCLAIMER

They are meant to be taken and then MODIFIED

wobblediwop · Jun 23, 2015

I have a similar problem with my Zotac's BIOS: http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/extract-and-flash-gtx-970-and-980-firmware-zosons-h2o-and-air-custom-bios/4220#post_24078004
My card crashes with stock BIOS in GTA5.
Downclocking helps, but I want to alternatively try raising P-States, because I often read it can stabilize the card.
But the sliders are missing?! The left pic is the same (OK old ver) of MBT with a different BIOS.

Laithan · Jun 29, 2015

Bumping to see if anyone has found the missing sliders

Is anyone updating MBT? Perhaps we just need a new version?

Modding a GM200 BIOS doesn't appear to be working properly with MBT 1.36..The voltage cannot be raised without setting P05 sliders and then it cann't be adjusted, it just seems to raise it arbitrarily even when you specify a value.... This doesn't make a lot of sense so I am thinking MBT is just not reading the GM200 BIOS properly.

Laithan · Jun 30, 2015

OK we've been doing a lot of reverse engineering in the Gigabyte thread with the GTX 980Ti.

MBT 1.36 is NOT fully compatible with GM200.

This means the GTX 980Ti as well as Titan-X are impacted.

How was this confirmed: Top slider in voltage tab is non-functional. It defaults to 1.250v but lowering it or raising it still results in the same voltage applied.

2nd way confirmed: If we modify the "P05" minimum slider, and ONLY the minimum slider, we noticed the card will get 1.274v! Unfortunately it is broken because when the voltage is raised that way we see a really strange -140Mhz boost throttle at an almost random time, and at low temps like 61C.

Who is the DEV? Hopefully we can get a new version

(pretty please)

JoeDirt · Jun 30, 2015

@Naennon is the dev I believe.

Laithan · Jun 30, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeDirt

@Naennon is the dev I believe.

Thanks bud! Good looking out! PM sent.

Here is a stock GM200

980Ti_F3DPV_STOCK.zip 152k .zip file

Thanks to all!

WerePug · Jul 1, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laithan

Thanks bud! Good looking out! PM sent.

Here is a stock GM200

980Ti_F3DPV_STOCK.zip 152k .zip file

Thanks to all!

I'm having the same exact issue with MSI 980Ti 6G Gaming. Because I can't set the throttle min voltage and external adjustment, I can't prevent it from downclocking at 75C, and if I set the min voltage of P0/P02 state too low, it just won't go up to 1.275 no matter what.

Any word if it is possible to patch the compatibility by the dev?

DokoBG · Jul 1, 2015

Yea we are all waiting. We need to be able to adjust this 140mhz throttle boost drop when 1.274v is enabled.

Laithan · Jul 1, 2015

I'm thinking that we need to resort to bribery and possibly fresh baked cookies! Who can resist those?

WerePug · Jul 2, 2015

I will quote myself in this thread, since the information is relevant to the OP:

Quote:

Originally Posted by WerePug

I have analyzed the file structure of the roms a bit.

I found out, that all voltages are defined in 34-byte long blocks. First 4 bytes are an integer value, defining min-voltage. This value is in milivolts times 1000. Which would make them microvolts, I suppose. Next 4 bytes are the max voltage for that definition. The rest of the values, I have no idea about. The block is not 4-byte aligned, therefore some of the values have to be something other than 4-byte integers (obviously, 4-byte alignment does not imply, that all the values would be 4-byte integers. Could be 2x 2-byte integers instead of one 4-byte integer). Also, it appears, that all the voltage definitions are right next to each other, which suggests, that they are ordered into a typed array.

I have compared the MaxUnleashed bios from the OP (for the 980), and my own modded bios of the 980 ti (MSI 6G). It would appear, that they are largely identical in terms of voltage definition structure, though values vary, obviously. Also, they start at different offsets in the file.

Here is a spreadsheet analyzing the voltage blocks up to the clock voltage table

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fRJoQTnzutjLt6LsJq2ytyJ8g_b4Laf5Um1X89i_Owo/pubhtml

Here is a 2010 macro-enabled Excel

ReverseEngineering.zip 116k .zip file

From what I can gather, the purpose of the voltage blocks, in relation to their position in the array, is identical. Theoretically, since the MBT does not allow tweaking the two sliders for external voltage adjustment and temp throttle, you could just replace the values directly in the file, with a hex editor like HxD. The thing about voltage values, they seem to be multiples of some number. Also, the value you see in MBT is kinda rounded up, so in the file, there are values like 1281,25 instead of 1281.3. Oh, and of course, the file has a checksum in it, which I have no idea how is calculated. It is only 1 byte long though. Maybe just sum across all bytes mod 255?

What baffles me, is why the MBT does not display those 2 specific sliders. I'm not sure if it is possible, but since the voltage array is on a different offset, the MBT could just be rewriting random pieces of the file, and we just kinda got lucky that it did not corrupt it entirely. This would kind of explain, why messing around with the voltages and max voltage slider has no effect, and maybe why moving the p05 slider actually has an effect, following the broken clock principle.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I just noticed google excel likes to be funny, and put spaces instead of decimal separators. So there is that. 797 435 actually means 797,435

Also, just checked, the MBT does edit the "correct" position in the 980TI file, that is supposed to correspond to the max voltage slider (which I edited in MBT), and does not overwrite random chunks of file. It also overwrites the "correct" position of the p00 slider. Which again begs the question, why does MBT not display the 2 sliders, since it obviously has the correct offsets? Is there a dependency in the voltage blocks, that is unclear, and as a safety measure, it refrains from editing them?

EDIT2: Ok, so this happened. I rewrote the value for external regulation and temp throttle in my GM200 bios to that of the GM204-MaxUnleashed. Obviously, when I opened the file in MBT, the green filed with checksum was red, and a difference between calculated checksum and checksum in file was shown. However, now an additional slider appeard in the voltage table. It seems to be the temp throttle slider. MBT can now rewrite the correct position in the file, and as an added bonus, it calculates the correct checksum when it saves. Great success! Here is my bios

These are demo BIOSes for MSI 6G! Do not flash on G1! They have different offsets!

Base.zip 152k .zip file

EDIT3: Even greater success! I changed both min and max values of the external adjustment entry to match that of the MaxUnleashed, and now it appears as well! Here is that bios (Still MSI 6G):

Base2.zip 152k .zip file

The root of all evil rests with the base values for those sliders. In stock GM200 bios, those are 1150,675 - 1198,47 for the external regulation and 1190,349 - 1239,838 for the temp throttle. It would appear, that along with other "unkown" voltage table entries, the MBT discards values, that is doesn't consider "neat" (multiples of 100, I would assume). Therefore, changing the values to multiples 100 (what gm204 bioses have) caused them to appear in the GUI. I am assuming, this would work for the other unknown values as well, though no reason to poke that bear.

TL;DR:
Here is the 980Ti_F3DP interim pre-BETA1 BIOS (for G1), now with 20% more voltage sliders!

G1_Unlocked.zip 152k .zip file

It would warrant verifying, if the only values replaced by the MBT, are the first 2 4-byte integers on start of each voltage entry, That is, if the rest of the values in the voltage entry are somehow dependent on these first two values! Here is where the source code would come in handy...

Laithan · Jul 2, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by WerePug

I will quote myself in this thread, since the information is relevant to the OP:

Wow!

Sem · Jul 3, 2015

GM200 has been out in the wild for a while now and if the author was going to update MBT to fully support it i think he would have done it by now

i suspect nvidia has asked him not to update it to fully support GM200 and we are just lucky the old version 1.36 can still read the file in someway

noticed TPU doesnt have the stock bios from nvidia for GM200 but partner ones have now appeard maybe nvidia is silently cracking down on bios mods

laxu · Jul 3, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sem

GM200 has been out in the wild for a while now and if the author was going to update MBT to fully support it i think he would have done it by now

i suspect nvidia has asked him not to update it to fully support GM200 and we are just lucky the old version 1.36 can still read the file in someway

noticed TPU doesnt have the stock bios from nvidia for GM200 but partner ones have now appeard maybe nvidia is silently cracking down on bios mods

My guess is just that the dev has just moved to doing something else and overall trying to find which is the latest MBT and where to find is not exactly easy as many sites offer older versions than 1.36 and there is no central thread or site where you are guaranteed to get the latest version. I really doubt that it's something Nvidia would bother cracking down on as BIOS modded just make their cards even faster compared to the competition and the majority of consumers are not going to mod their BIOS.

If the original dev doesn't wan't to work with the software no more then (s)he should cram it on Github as open source and let others fix any bugs.

Laithan · Jul 3, 2015

In defense of the developer,
it seems that the "blame" and/or root cause of this may have been incorrectly placed exclusively on Maxwell BIOS Tweaker.

GM200 is used with Titan-X and 980Ti. MBT was released before GM200 existed and was developed for GM204. Compatibility testing with GM200 would have been impossible. NVIDIA changed things in the BIOS with GM200. Not how we thought initially, where MBT REQUIRED an update to allow access to the missing slider, but instead it looks like they did this to directly target MBT!

The GM200 BIOS itself has been what we may be able to describe as "Locked". IMHO it looks to me like NVIDIA is well aware of MBT and reverse engineered it to understand how to break it AKA: "Clock Blocking". The reason why is because thanks to WerePug for analyzing things that make my head explode (

) we can see that the voltage sliders are still RIGHT THERE in the SAME PLACE as they were with GM204 BIOS'.

WerePug was able to figure out that MBT was expecting a certain range of values and if the range falls outside what MBT expects (BASED ON GM204 BIOS structure) the sliders will just disappear. After he modified the value to be within range of what MBT expects, the sliders re-appear in MBT 1.36!

Back to MBT itself:

I do still think we could use a NEW VERSION of MBT because we are forced to have to EDIT THE BIOS with a HEX EDITOR to restore the sliders. If MBT was updated to ignore a range and display the sliders regardless (or some other method to address the issue) we could be back to being able to edit ANY GM200 BIOS we open without hacking it first.

Sem · Jul 3, 2015

interesting theory but if nvidia did target MBT with such a simple trick surely they would think the author would just update to fix it

unless he was asked not to

Laithan · Jul 3, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sem

interesting theory but if nvidia did target MBT with such a simple trick surely they would think the author would just update to fix it

unless he was asked not to

Indeed, that is our mystery!

Who knows, an complimentary 980Ti could persuade anyone (this would probably make him laugh reading all this! LMAO!)

laxu · Jul 3, 2015

As much as the internet loves conspiracy theories, the more common answer is something much simpler like in this case MBT being based on "neat" values to avoid breaking a BIOS because it has "unusual" values. If Nvidia wanted to prevent BIOS mods they should've targeted things like clock speed or power target editing. Just saying, there would be far better ways to stop BIOS mods.

Laithan · Jul 4, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by laxu

As much as the internet loves conspiracy theories, the more common answer is something much simpler like in this case MBT being based on "neat" values to avoid breaking a BIOS because it has "unusual" values. If Nvidia wanted to prevent BIOS mods they should've targeted things like clock speed or power target editing. Just saying, there would be far better ways to stop BIOS mods.

Yes, a good point perhaps some kind of encryption implementation.

May the DEV was abducted by aliens?

LOL JK

dadTX · Jul 5, 2015

Has anyone tried the same trick to unhide MBT 1.36 voltage table sliders for GTX Titan X? BTW what about MBT source code - is it publicly available somewhere?

JoeDirt · Jul 6, 2015

I'd love to know what else is hidden in the BIOS. I just lack the knowledge to really know what to look for.

MBT 1.36 and GM200 BIOS - Voltage sliders missing

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