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NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks


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Hi ,

I have Alienware 17 with GTX 880m 8 GDDR 5 (17.3 inch (439.42 mm) 120Hz WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) TrueLife 400 Nit Display w/3D Bundle)

Recently I have Flash the Modified OC Vbios for GTX 880m 8GB GDDR 5 , Flashing was Successful but after that I got BLANK screen ie NO POST.

So after reboot NO beep NO POST just Blank Black screen. I think my GTX880m did not flash properly so NO POST at all.

I have disconnect the battery , Disconnect CMOS battery But still No LUCK. My Alienware Keyboard is lighting up but No boot at all. Even No Blind FLASH is working.

Any help from any Body ? :cold:

Svl7 and Johnksss any help for that.

Still my new Alienware is in Warrenty .

Or May be my Main Alienware BIOS corrupted . Is the any Crisis recovery for New Alienware 17 UEFI BIOS recovery ?

Thanks in advance

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Hi ,

I have Alienware 17 with GTX 880m 8 GDDR 5 (17.3 inch (439.42 mm) 120Hz WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) TrueLife 400 Nit Display w/3D Bundle)

Recently I have Flash the Modified OC Vbios for GTX 880m 8GB GDDR 5 , Flashing was Successful but after that I got BLANK screen ie NO POST.

So after reboot NO beep NO POST just Blank Black screen. I think my GTX880m did not flash properly so NO POST at all.

I have disconnect the battery , Disconnect CMOS battery But still No LUCK. My Alienware Keyboard is lighting up but No boot at all. Even No Blind FLASH is working.

Any help from any Body ? :cold:

Svl7 and Johnksss any help for that.

Still my new Alienware is in Warrenty .

Or May be my Main Alienware BIOS corrupted . Is the any Crisis recovery for New Alienware 17 UEFI BIOS recovery ?

Thanks in advance

Your only option is "Soldering" at the moment . You or someone will have to remove the SPI flash and reprogram it with your backup, and solder it back onto the board. Unless you want to involve dell to replace the card for you. They will ask to take a walk-through of their idiotic troubleshooting then there will be questions and more tests, and more questions. Like what happened and when. If you lucky the tech will not find out what you did. If he do your warranty will be void. I had to do soldering on my GPU's a few times in the past after failed flash, easy if you got all tools.

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The other option is to find someone who has a system with onboard graphics and stick the card in there, have them boot from onboard, then flash the card with stock. If it finished successfully, its quite unlikely that it's bricked, it just needs to be reflashed with the stock image in a system that has onboard. I flashed a bad vbios to my cards in my Clevo and had to stick one in my old M17xR1 and boot off the integrated and flash the card then put that back in my Sager and flash the other.

120hz display means no onboard graphics. I wouldn't call Dell, they will void the entire system warranty if they find out. If that card is alive and the tech sticks it in a machine and sees the modified bios, you are screwed.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

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The other option is to find someone who has a system with onboard graphics and stick the card in there, have them boot from onboard, then flash the card with stock. If it finished successfully, its quite unlikely that it's bricked, it just needs to be reflashed with the stock image in a system that has onboard. I flashed a bad vbios to my cards in my Clevo and had to stick one in my old M17xR1 and boot off the integrated and flash the card then put that back in my Sager and flash the other.

120hz display means no onboard graphics. I wouldn't call Dell, they will void the entire system warranty if they find out. If that card is alive and the tech sticks it in a machine and sees the modified bios, you are screwed.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

I also a laptop repair tech. By experience i know some systems will also not post, if a damaged flash chip present on any of the GPU's. Dell tech's usually not that brainy, sorry no offense meant anyone. However, they will mess around anyway and being a typical PITA. If you near Ashford,UK i can offer assistance.

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I also a laptop repair tech. By experience i know some systems will also not post, if a damaged flash chip present on any of the GPU's. Dell tech's usually not that brainy, sorry no offense meant anyone. However, they will mess around anyway and being a typical PITA. If you near Ashford,UK i can offer assistance.

Yeah I know that some are like that, I was just offering an alternative to trying to solder the card. Even for me, soldering would be a last resort after I tried literally everything else. I know that sometimes that is necessary in the end but I also wanted to emphasize not reporting anything to Dell. All it takes is for them to send out a tech with a brain and the entire system is void, not just the graphics card. Here in CO, they have some contracts with techs that actually are quite good.

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Yeah I know that some are like that, I was just offering an alternative to trying to solder the card. Even for me, soldering would be a last resort after I tried literally everything else. I know that sometimes that is necessary in the end but I also wanted to emphasize not reporting anything to Dell. All it takes is for them to send out a tech with a brain and the entire system is void, not just the graphics card. Here in CO, they have some contracts with techs that actually are quite good.

Aye!

Its worth to try, however if you have a few 1000 worth laptop and someone contact you with a question: "Can i test my bad flashed GPU in your laptop" ?? would you let anyone to test a (faulty not working) card in it? Plus take the heat-sink off from yours, because the one on the intended test card aren't compatible with your laptop. My answer would be NO. Even the solution would work or looks so simple, not many ppl would allow such a risky operation a high value laptop.

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Your only option is "Soldering" at the moment . You or someone will have to remove the SPI flash and reprogram it with your backup, and solder it back onto the board. Unless you want to involve dell to replace the card for you. They will ask to take a walk-through of their idiotic troubleshooting then there will be questions and more tests, and more questions. Like what happened and when. If you lucky the tech will not find out what you did. If he do your warranty will be void. I had to do soldering on my GPU's a few times in the past after failed flash, easy if you got all tools.

Hi,

I don't think so Without POST ie if VBIOS get Corrupted , How will you find the Whether Vbios having Original or Modified bios On board ?

Just one question Can I replace VBIOS V-Bios Chip 256k With Follwoing ebay SITE.

MSI NVIDIA GTX880M 880M Replacement Vbios V BIOS Chip 256K for Video Card | eBay

In above link They are showing VBIOS location in GTX880m CARD with circle , is this correct ?

Shall I replace my V-Bios-Chip with that One ?

Thanks

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Hi,

I don't think so Without POST ie if VBIOS get Corrupted , How will you find the Whether Vbios having Original or Modified bios On board ?

Just one question Can I replace VBIOS V-Bios Chip 256k With Follwoing ebay SITE.

MSI NVIDIA GTX880M 880M Replacement Vbios V BIOS Chip 256K for Video Card | eBay

In above link They are showing VBIOS location in GTX880m CARD with circle , is this correct ?

Shall I replace my V-Bios-Chip with that One ?

Thanks

You can if is the same what you need e.g. a dell vbios. Also you need to have decent soldering equipment and soldering skill hence that is a QFN packaged flash ic ( good preheater and heatgun, or better yet, irda soldering station)

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Hi,

Today I have remove the GTX880m Card from My Alienware and Power ON the Button but I couldn't hear any beep sound for graphics card Removal Code.

So I have doubt whether my GTX Vbios is Corrupted or my Main Alienware BIOS having problem ?

Any Crisis Recovery for New Alienware 17 BIOS ?

Any body Know the link for New Alienware 17 BIOS recovery procedure ?

Thanks in advance.

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Hi,

Today I have remove the GTX880m Card from My Alienware and Power ON the Button but I couldn't hear any beep sound for graphics card Removal Code.

So I have doubt whether my GTX Vbios is Corrupted or my Main Alienware BIOS having problem ?

Any Crisis Recovery for New Alienware 17 BIOS ?

Any body Know the link for New Alienware 17 BIOS recovery procedure ?

Thanks in advance.

I dont have the new Alienware 17, hate the design LOL. Only alienware M17X-R2 but it was quick to find solution for ya!

Please read here: as the R3 using the same brand bios "Insyde"

BIOS Recovery in case you brick your M17x R3

and here:

Alienware Systems: My computer shows no image, is beeping or the indicator lights are blinking (No POST / Codes Table) | Dell US

I did a few insyde recovery myself its ez....

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Although I don't know if that will help Anil Kumar. He has a 120Hz Alienware, so the IGP is disabled, and his 880M won't post due to the flashed vBIOS. Any changes to the system BIOS isn't going to magically fix that conundrum - it can only post using the dedicated GPU (and that's borked). If he had IGP that was functional (Intel HD4000), then he would be able to recover it, but 120Hz is not supported by Intel HD4000 hence deactivated in system BIOS. I think he's stuck. Soldering or finding someone else to flash his 880M, or return to Dell saying that it's just stopped working (without providing the details!). That's my understanding of it. (Some independent computer shops can flash vBIOS to cards as a service I heard.)

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Why did I get quoted in that string? lol

@deadsmiley - let me know how the MX-4 works out for you. I'm starting to agree with svl7's notion that there may not be enough pressure with this heatsink to use a thinner paste like MX-4 so I ordered a tube of IC Diamond.

I haven't applied the MX-4 yet, but I did a quick write up on my Sager cooling mod here:

Deadsmiley's GPU Cooling Mod - NP8278 (P170MS-A)

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If your heatsink doesn't apply much pressure you actually want a thin paste, not a thicker one. The heatsink needs to be able to squash the paste into all the microscopic nooks & crannys (and allows the heatsink to sit as close as possible to the GPU core), and a thin paste enables that to happen at a low mounting pressure. Thicker pastes are better for higher mounting pressured heatsinks - like desktop applications rather than for notebooks. MX4 would be ideal for notebooks.

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I flashed my 670MX ski with SLV7's bios last summer and they worked great, after a few driver updates over the last year I recently ran 3dmark11 and my score was much lower 12600 gpu score to 8900 now. I ran Metro: Last Light benchmarks and I noticed that after 20-30 seconds the video card was throttling like crazy based on heat points. I am still able to OC and over volt my card to the same levels as before but before there was no throttling. I have gone back to older versions of the drivers and still see throttling. Any idea what to do?

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I haven't applied the MX-4 yet, but I did a quick write up on my Sager cooling mod here:

Deadsmiley's GPU Cooling Mod - NP8278 (P170MS-A)

That's a sick mod. I would do that to mine if I could get a replacement bottom cover for mine with no questions asked from xotic which may be easier said than done so let me know how you fare with it. Hard mods like that make me nervous to say the least when dealing with warranty issues. You would think they would applaud enhanced cooling but it just doesn't work that way.

It would be nice to be able to run my 880s at 993 without seeing 93C though, especially the secondary since the primary stays around 89 to 90 under the same load.

If your heatsink doesn't apply much pressure you actually want a thin paste, not a thicker one. The heatsink needs to be able to squash the paste into all the microscopic nooks & crannys (and allows the heatsink to sit as close as possible to the GPU core), and a thin paste enables that to happen at a low mounting pressure. Thicker pastes are better for higher mounting pressured heatsinks - like desktop applications rather than for notebooks. MX4 would be ideal for notebooks.

Well about 10 different tries with Mx-4 all ended up with higher temps by 2-4C than ICD so I gave up on it. Still have a bunch though (was like a 20g tube lol)

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That's a sick mod. I would do that to mine if I could get a replacement bottom cover for mine with no questions asked from xotic which may be easier said than done so let me know how you fare with it. Hard mods like that make me nervous to say the least when dealing with warranty issues. You would think they would applaud enhanced cooling but it just doesn't work that way.

It would be nice to be able to run my 880s at 993 without seeing 93C though, especially the secondary since the primary stays around 89 to 90 under the same load.

Well about 10 different tries with Mx-4 all ended up with higher temps by 2-4C than ICD so I gave up on it. Still have a bunch though (was like a 20g tube lol)

Yeah, that's cool, IC Diamond is supposed to be one of the best, but I don't think it's because of the thickness though - it's just higher performance. With it being thick it's harder to apply and do a good job of applying it, but if you do manage to do a good job of it, then it works well.

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Yeah, that's cool, IC Diamond is supposed to be one of the best, but I don't think it's because of the thickness though - it's just higher performance. With it being thick it's harder to apply and do a good job of applying it, but if you do manage to do a good job of it, then it works well.

People have said that its hard to apply but I find if I push the plunger and let a bead form at the tip of the applicator and then tap that on the die and press the plunger until the blob I want is on there, it sticks to the die and then I just have to carefully tie up the string that it trails off with. Its certainly not MX-4 but since the heatsink does the spreading for you through the pressure, its not that difficult to apply. The problem with the MX-4 is that even when the heatsink was tied down to the point I was stripping the screws, when I would remove the heatsink it barely made contact as evidenced by how little was on the heatsink.

I'll probably be repasting my CPU though and I'll likely use MX-4 for that as I used ICD the last two times and its just a pain to work with when you don't have a square surface. My last application was a line across the center of the die edge to edge and its still hot so I doubt it spread over the entire die properly.

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I flashed my 670MX ski with SLV7's bios last summer and they worked great, after a few driver updates over the last year I recently ran 3dmark11 and my score was much lower 12600 gpu score to 8900 now. I ran Metro: Last Light benchmarks and I noticed that after 20-30 seconds the video card was throttling like crazy based on heat points. I am still able to OC and over volt my card to the same levels as before but before there was no throttling. I have gone back to older versions of the drivers and still see throttling. Any idea what to do?

If it's based on the GPU's getting hot, then you could repaste to prevent them throttling. Strange that you say the latest drivers would make that happen. I don't think that is controlled in the drivers, I think the temperature throttling point is set in the vBIOS. I think it's 87 degC, that's what is says in NVidia Inspector for the one I'm using (never gets that hot though, so don't know for sure if it would throttle at that temperature). How hot are your GPU's getting? (And in my experience the driver doesn't make the GPU run hotter or colder either).

- - - Updated - - -

People have said that its hard to apply but I find if I push the plunger and let a bead form at the tip of the applicator and then tap that on the die and press the plunger until the blob I want is on there, it sticks to the die and then I just have to carefully tie up the string that it trails off with. Its certainly not MX-4 but since the heatsink does the spreading for you through the pressure, its not that difficult to apply. The problem with the MX-4 is that even when the heatsink was tied down to the point I was stripping the screws, when I would remove the heatsink it barely made contact as evidenced by how little was on the heatsink.

I'll probably be repasting my CPU though and I'll likely use MX-4 for that as I used ICD the last two times and its just a pain to work with when you don't have a square surface. My last application was a line across the center of the die edge to edge and its still hot so I doubt it spread over the entire die properly.

Ah, that definitely sounds like a heatsink mounting manufacturing defect to me (on the GPU). I'm sure you know that the heatsink surface needs to sit flat against the GPU core, and from what you've described it sounds like there is a gap in some places where it's not making contact. The heatsink should make contact with the GPU even if there is no paste applied - the paste is there just to fill in the microscopic gaps & holes in the heatsink and GPU surfaces (because paste transfers heat better than a tiny air gap where those microscopic holes would be).

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Ah, that definitely sounds like a heatsink mounting manufacturing defect to me (on the GPU). I'm sure you know that the heatsink surface needs to sit flat against the GPU core, and from what you've described it sounds like there is a gap in some places where it's not making contact. The heatsink should make contact with the GPU even if there is no paste applied - the paste is there just to fill in the microscopic gaps & holes in the heatsink and GPU surfaces (because paste transfers heat better than a tiny air gap where those microscopic holes would be).

Yeah, its definitely a heatsink defect but ICD works around it with an extra dab at that one corner. Makes me miss my Alienware since gravity works against the video cards in this machine while the M17x had the heatsink sitting on top of the video card.

I'm betting that the heatpipes are part of the problem because the back end of the heatpipe assembly has no screws to hold it down so it literally relies on the 3 screws for the plate of the GPU mounting assembly and the 4 screws that tighten down the GPU heatsink to hold up the back end... I might look at modding that later on.

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Yeah, its definitely a heatsink defect but ICD works around it with an extra dab at that one corner. Makes me miss my Alienware since gravity works against the video cards in this machine while the M17x had the heatsink sitting on top of the video card.

I'm betting that the heatpipes are part of the problem because the back end of the heatpipe assembly has no screws to hold it down so it literally relies on the 3 screws for the plate of the GPU mounting assembly and the 4 screws that tighten down the GPU heatsink to hold up the back end... I might look at modding that later on.

Well I guess it wouldn't hurt to try to support the heat pipes in the areas you talk about, to take pressure of the mounting system, but heatpipes aren't very heavy so I would be surprised if that makes a difference (would have thought the 4 mounting screws would be enough to support that weight, plus the additional 3 screws you mention - mine only has the 4 mounting screws for the GPU core & no more). You have a different laptop to me so the leverage & force on that area might be different, not going to hurt trying to support it some more I guess.

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Although I don't know if that will help Anil Kumar. He has a 120Hz Alienware, so the IGP is disabled, and his 880M won't post due to the flashed vBIOS. Any changes to the system BIOS isn't going to magically fix that conundrum - it can only post using the dedicated GPU (and that's borked). If he had IGP that was functional (Intel HD4000), then he would be able to recover it, but 120Hz is not supported by Intel HD4000 hence deactivated in system BIOS. I think he's stuck. Soldering or finding someone else to flash his 880M, or return to Dell saying that it's just stopped working (without providing the details!). That's my understanding of it. (Some independent computer shops can flash vBIOS to cards as a service I heard.)

Hi,

Thanks for All,

I did My Alienware Main board BIOS recovery , I just Follow the this Link BIOS Recovery in case you brick your M17x R3

But I need to modified some STEP Like this:-

Download the BIOS you wish to restore to, in my case Support | Dell US file name is AW17A11.exe

Download the BIOS editor application Phoenixtool256.zip v2.56 from - https://www.sendspace.com/file/vebtct or Download Phoenixtool256.zip

Use double click the bios EXE file (ie AW17A11.exe) to extract the BIOS exe to get the *.fd file in C:\Users\yourUSERname\AppData\Local\Temp\xxxxx.tmp and load it into the previous application(Phoenixtool256). It will tell you what the recovery file name needs to be. (Don't use Winrar to extract this BIOS exe You will never get *.fd file)

Original Bios filename was VAS00A11.fd

In my case, the A11 recovery filename was VAS00X64.fd

Copy the file to a usb stick formatted FAT/FAT32 (I use 512 MB old USB STICK FAT32)

Unplug the battery from your Alienware

Plug USB stick into any USB port (because there is no eSATA port)

Hold the "END" key on the internal keyboard and while holding plug in the Power cable. The fans will kick up and it will start reading the file and initiate the reflash.

In My case There was NO beep But Alienware Main BIOS was flashing I have waited around 5 Minutes then Machine Automatically shut off and reboot about 1 time.

So Crisis recovery Process was Succesfully DONE for Main bios.

BUT STILL my GTX880m is DEAD with BAD flash ie NO BEEP NO POST NO Display.

I just Wonder During Crisis Recovery System is using ALL USB PORT ie ALL USB having POWER.

For That I try to use BLIND FLASH but Still NO LUCK (In Autoexec BAT file i have use nvflash -6 BIOS.ROM) where BIOS.rom is my STOCK vbios file name.

Now I am looking for Another option to recover my GTX880m VBIOS:culpability:.

Thanks

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Hi,

Thanks for All,

I did My Alienware Main board BIOS recovery , I just Follow the this Link BIOS Recovery in case you brick your M17x R3

But I need to modified some STEP Like this:-

Download the BIOS you wish to restore to, in my case Support | Dell US file name is AW17A11.exe

Download the BIOS editor application Phoenixtool256.zip v2.56 from - https://www.sendspace.com/file/vebtct or Download Phoenixtool256.zip

Use double click the bios EXE file (ie AW17A11.exe) to extract the BIOS exe to get the *.fd file in C:\Users\yourUSERname\AppData\Local\Temp\xxxxx.tmp and load it into the previous application(Phoenixtool256). It will tell you what the recovery file name needs to be. (Don't use Winrar to extract this BIOS exe You will never get *.fd file)

Original Bios filename was VAS00A11.fd

In my case, the A11 recovery filename was VAS00X64.fd

Copy the file to a usb stick formatted FAT/FAT32 (I use 512 MB old USB STICK FAT32)

Unplug the battery from your Alienware

Plug USB stick into any USB port (because there is no eSATA port)

Hold the "END" key on the internal keyboard and while holding plug in the Power cable. The fans will kick up and it will start reading the file and initiate the reflash.

In My case There was NO beep But Alienware Main BIOS was flashing I have waited around 5 Minutes then Machine Automatically shut off and reboot about 1 time.

So Crisis recovery Process was Succesfully DONE for Main bios.

BUT STILL my GTX880m is DEAD with BAD flash ie NO BEEB NO POST NO Display.

I just Wonder During Crisis Recovery System is using ALL USB PORT ie ALL USB having POWER.

For That I try to use BLIND FLASH but Still NO LUCK (In Autoexec BAT file i have use nvflash -6 BIOS.ROM) where BIOS.rom is my STOCK vbios file name.

Now I am looking for Another option to recover my GTX880m VBIOS:culpability:.

Thanks

I don't think you understood my post, it's nothing to do with your system BIOS, so I was saying that by you trying to reflash your SYSTEM BIOS that you weren't going to get anywhere for the reasons I explained. So, I'm not surprised you're back at square one (at the same point as before). Have a read of my last post (post #4388), those are the options that are open to you. It's a pain for you I'm sure, I'd be very frustrated in your position, but there are solutions & they're summarised in my previous post.

@svl7, would it be worth summarising somewhere at the beginning of this thread which systems are known up to this point to be incompatible with the various vBIOS you have created? That way people won't repeat the unfortunate experience of Anil Kumar.

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