[MOVED] Hacking NVidia Cards into their Professional Counterparts

[gnif]

Hi. I just modded a zotac GT640 into a Grid K1...
It identifies as a Grid K1 under nvflash but under esxi shows up as a Quadro 410.
Has anyone experienced this issue?

Not that I am aware of, boot a Linux distro and see what lspci reports.

[variance]

It was apparently a bad/loose/cold solder joint on R2. (see attachment)

[Mikhail-VV]

Good day for everybody! 

As I can see, the most people successfully modified their Geforce cards into quadro/tesla used them later as a videocard - but!..  Does anybody try to use modded cards for computations? (Ansys, for example, or other FE program)? For example, in Ansys manual "The following cards are supported: NVIDIA Tesla Series (any model), NVIDIA Quadro K5000, K5200, K6000, M6000 .... For NVIDIA GPU cards, the driver version must be 346.59 or newer."
So the question - is it possible to modify geforce into tesla/quadro with active TCC support?

I would very appreciate if somebody answers me.

p.s. Sorry for my English - and "yes" twice - I am completely newbie in such a modding, and I tried to read all the thread...
p.s.s by the way - even on the  devtalk.nvidia.com there is a thread with the same content! am really suprised...

[gnif]

Good day for everybody! 

As I can see, the most people successfully modified their Geforce cards into quadro/tesla used them later as a videocard - but!..  Does anybody try to use modded cards for computations? (Ansys, for example, or other FE program)? For example, in Ansys manual "The following cards are supported: NVIDIA Tesla Series (any model), NVIDIA Quadro K5000, K5200, K6000, M6000 .... For NVIDIA GPU cards, the driver version must be 346.59 or newer."
So the question - is it possible to modify geforce into tesla/quadro with active TCC support?

I would very appreciate if somebody answers me.

p.s. Sorry for my English - and "yes" twice - I am completely newbie in such a modding, and I tried to read all the thread...
p.s.s by the way - even on the  devtalk.nvidia.com there is a thread with the same content! am really suprised...

So far we have found that modding the card to other models has not enabled additional features on the die, such as compute which is what you are looking for. If however the software is simply performing a check on the model and refusing to run, you may have success.

[C.Azrael]

i think the key is driver
geforce, quadro, tesla they have exactly the same core
different point just like frequency, ram size and ECC, better power supply, stability...
if driver ok, others also ok 

[gnif]

i think the key is driver
geforce, quadro, tesla they have exactly the same core
different point just like frequency, ram size and ECC, better power supply, stability...
if driver ok, others also ok 

This has been guessed at quite a few times, there is more likely some E-Fuses or similar being cut/blown on the die at manufacture to disable these features.

[nhp12345]

OMG! Just randomly check on this thread again to see news and you finally came back, this make me wanna cry out of joys and excitement!
Thanks so much for the instructions and the explanations, gnif! I can grab 99% of the process now. However, as you mentioned, only 1 of 2 nipples for each strap is populated, but the process is to add a random 10k resistor to find the target un-populated register. It could leads to a situation where both nipples are populated! Is this a contradiction or am I missing something here?

On the other hand, I wonder if randomly "close" the circuit with a 10k test-resistor do any harm to the card? 

About the suggestion on creating a transparent image to track down resistors (or traces?!), I know it would help but the thought of these PCB are all multi-layer makes me feel (somehow) insecure! 

[alex79818]

I know this thread is pretty old but it was interesting enough for me to play around with the idea and it just so happens that a cousin of mine had just upgraded his GPU and agreed to give me his old 680.  I followed the instructions (thank you!!) and was able to mod it into a Grid K2.  My intention was to have it drive a virtual machine, so I put xenserver 7 on that machine - ran lspci | grep VGA and sure enough it reported it as a Grid K2.  So far so good, right?  But then I built the vm and I found I couldn't install the driver no matter what.  I downloaded an eval windows 10-64 enterprise image, then I tried pro and even ported over my daily driver's activation code...nothing.  I figured it was time to get creative so I started to try different things, but so far nothing has worked.  I've edited the *.inf files to list the 11BF hardware ID's, I tried all the sections and the descriptor at the bottom.  I also tried doing it backward and editing the registry to "re-normalize" the PCI hw ID back to a 680 to see if the drivers would install then...I got past the nvidia hardware check, but it still failed.  If I tried to do it manually I'd just get a windows dialogue saying the driver had a "problem" with windows and windows couldn't install it.  If I tried the K2 driver, it installed but windows reports a problem with the hardware and the device couldn't be initiated.  And if I tried an older driver, it says it can't work with this version of windows.

So I'm kinda racking my brain at this point - but before giving up thought it would be a good idea to ask you guys, since you all discovered this in the first place.  I know it was a while ago...but what am I doing wrong?  Is it because I'm trying to run this in a pass-through VM?  Or is it that you guys only got this to work with an older OS like windows 7?  Is it supposed to be a 32-bit OS and won't work on x64??  Or is there a custom or specific driver that you guys used to make it work (and if so, do you have a download link)?

Thanks so much!!

[gnif]

I know this thread is pretty old but it was interesting enough for me to play around with the idea and it just so happens that a cousin of mine had just upgraded his GPU and agreed to give me his old 680.  I followed the instructions (thank you!!) and was able to mod it into a Grid K2.  My intention was to have it drive a virtual machine, so I put xenserver 7 on that machine - ran lspci | grep VGA and sure enough it reported it as a Grid K2.  So far so good, right?  But then I built the vm and I found I couldn't install the driver no matter what.  I downloaded an eval windows 10-64 enterprise image, then I tried pro and even ported over my daily driver's activation code...nothing.  I figured it was time to get creative so I started to try different things, but so far nothing has worked.  I've edited the *.inf files to list the 11BF hardware ID's, I tried all the sections and the descriptor at the bottom.  I also tried doing it backward and editing the registry to "re-normalize" the PCI hw ID back to a 680 to see if the drivers would install then...I got past the nvidia hardware check, but it still failed.  If I tried to do it manually I'd just get a windows dialogue saying the driver had a "problem" with windows and windows couldn't install it.  If I tried the K2 driver, it installed but windows reports a problem with the hardware and the device couldn't be initiated.  And if I tried an older driver, it says it can't work with this version of windows.

So I'm kinda racking my brain at this point - but before giving up thought it would be a good idea to ask you guys, since you all discovered this in the first place.  I know it was a while ago...but what am I doing wrong?  Is it because I'm trying to run this in a pass-through VM?  Or is it that you guys only got this to work with an older OS like windows 7?  Is it supposed to be a 32-bit OS and won't work on x64??  Or is there a custom or specific driver that you guys used to make it work (and if so, do you have a download link)?

Thanks so much!!

Did you pass the device through into the VM?

[alex79818]

Yes, and it shows up in device manager, just with the yellow warning.

I thought I read something about "the OS doesn't matter" and that there's really no need to reflash the bios on the card so I just went back and re-read pretty much the whole thread, but I couldn't find it.  Maybe I'm wrong.  I did read again close to the beggining that the gigabyte 680 to k2 mod had no problems with driver, but then again that was back in 2013 so I'm thinking windows 10 in 2017 is the factor that has changed.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is a "known good config" given that many members over the years seem to have been able to get this working ok on a windows VM.  So maybe if I can duplicate their environment factors I can get mine to work too (?) this is the same gigabyte 680 card, the box is an HP z800 single x5650 w/12gb running XS7.0 (I also tried 6.5), pass-through to a single VM (win10pro64 and I have other images I can try as well), I gave the vm 10Gb/750Gb/10vCPUs which is the bulk of what the box has available after dom0.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks again!!

[photesh]

Hi,

I've modified
Gainward GeForce GTX 680 4GB into Quadro K5000. (40K none 15K none).


I was needed quadro card to get 10 bit color in Photoshop.
 (with Geforce You can do 10 bit output, but Photoshop will not display 10 bit, unless You got quadro card, they create some kind of different "display port for 10bit" (means software port), not just a direct X, but somewhat that requires much more expensive card
which is noticeably more expensive on 4K monitor.)

So I have K620, real original nvidia card. It only has 2GB and it is slow, but I have 10 bits in Photoshop and (for some reason, it is not claimed, but in hardware mode I have 10 bits in the PS Lightroom)
When I open 16bit images with my modded card, I don't have 10 bits. So I might have missed something.

1) I've noticed that in the  I  have UEFI unchecked, not same I have for K620(original)


2) How can I test that double precision really works ?

3) do I need to update firmware, if it so, how ? (JIC: I have Gainward GeForce GTX 680 4GB )

[001]

What port do You use (DP or DVI-D)? I.e.: does hacked K5000 'know' what Your monitor is 10bit compatible?  Also gainward has no-reference design. May be it is problem

Are gtx680/690 freebies actual for CAD now? (What`s news about? sorry, I`m bumpkin   )

Another question: can I hack modern  GTX1060 into some Quadro P2000 (both GK106 chip 16nm) or GTX1070 into P4000/P5000 (all of them use GK104 variants) ?

Or nowday GTXs does not require any hacks for CAD working?


PS - If You try to print 'GTX' with russian keyboard you get '***'. It is russian word for oven or similar hot thing 

[gnif]

This has been said time and time again, this DOES NOT enable all the professional features, it simply allowed me to run Mosiac under Linux, which was a software limitation. We have found that doing this makes it possible to get the card to behave better in pass through for XEN/VMs etc as a GRIDK2, but no additional compute features, etc...

[001]

GTX cards have some driver limitation with SolidWorks
Is it way to cancel that?

[nhp12345]

OK, maybe gnif somehow missed my comment. Let me put it up again here! 

OMG! Just randomly check on this thread again to see news and you finally came back, this make me wanna cry out of joys and excitement!
Thanks so much for the instructions and the explanations, gnif! I can grab 99% of the process now. However, as you mentioned, only 1 of 2 nipples for each strap is populated, but the process is to add a random 10k resistor to find the target un-populated register. It could leads to a situation where both nipples are populated! Is this a contradiction or am I missing something here?

On the other hand, I wonder if randomly "close" the circuit with a 10k test-resistor do any harm to the card? 

About the suggestion on creating a transparent image to track down resistors (or traces?!), I know it would help but the thought of these PCB are all multi-layer makes me feel (somehow) insecure! 

[singyeah]

Would the memory difference be the obstacle of it? Like GTX690 hv 2x2gb ram but grid k2 hv 4+4 gb(http://www.overclock.net/t/1583004/gtx-690-mod-from-2x2gb-to-2x4gb-memory, some guy swap the 2x2b to 2x4gb with 680 bios)
Also will esxi hv different result from xenserver?

[Papay]

Hello! I have problems with 780 TI. The video card is defined with different ID 103A (for cold) 102A (for hot), and very rarely is defined as 100A. I removed and put again the resistor R3 (25k) and the resistor 0.3 but the problem did not go away.

[Papay]

Or maybe someone will help with the staps? Remake 102A in 100A

[TiN]

Solidworks have simple registry hack to allow GTX'es to enable RealView and other prettifying things in the viewports. You can google it in 5 seconds.
Works fine with any SW newer than 2013 and any GTX card which has modern OGL/DX support.

[InfinityMod]

I'm also interessted into this question. Does anyone has some hint if it would work?

Hi to all,

i am new here. I read this thread from beginn to end and i have 2 questions about
GTX690. The member "gnif" is a genie (thx for your efforts) but after burn his card he dont share any
new picture with dual k5000 cpu´s.

My quetions:

1. Is dual K5000 possible?
2. Must i change the firmware or any hacks?

PS: I attached 2 pictures is this correct resistors for the GTX690

Sorry for my bad english

[gnif]

I have since deprecated my GTX690, which means I can risk identifying the 2nd GPU straps now. I will be doing so when I have some time and will publish the details.

[InfinityMod]

Thank's gnif, that would be stunning amazing!

[BungalowBill]

I'm glad to see that this is still an active topic after being started so long ago, I registered just to post and see if anyone who's gleened more experience might have any input. I just recently acquired acouple GRID K520 cards and I was wondering if any might have an idea or two as to where on this board may be the best place to start searching for the straps, what I'm trying to do is bluff it into thinking that it's a K2 instead so I can utilize the card for VDI. As far as I can figure the two should be almost identical save for the ID which they change so they can realistically call them two different items and adjust prices in either market without effecting the other. Anyway, I'll post afew pics to see if anyone may spot something that my untrained eyes cannot. Thanks in advance for any help and/or input give, it's definitely most appreciated. Pics can be found here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-zwDdkOsVTiZEp5c1FiT2Nrdzg?usp=sharing, I hope because Google Drive is dumb sometimes.

[SpaceKid]

Hello all again I have good news.

I successfully modified
Zotac PCI-E NV ZT-60206-10L GT640 Synergy 2G 128bit DDR3 900/1600 DVI*2+mHDMI RTL
To NVIDIA GRID K1. It is working fine. passthough works too. BUT Device ID mofidication posible only after bios modification. Bios modification is needed only for specific vendors.

upd:
myweb found resistor places for  Asus GT640-1GD3-L, no bios modification is needed. pic attached to post.

(...)

Hi, I have a question. I have the following card  https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/GT6402GD3/overview/  its device ID is the same like for Zotac but the point is non of the presented versions ot this GT640 has the back look like this one. Thus I do not know which/where are responsible resistors... Are you able to help somehow if I send the back view pic ?

Thanks and regards

[gnif]

Hello all again I have good news.

I successfully modified
Zotac PCI-E NV ZT-60206-10L GT640 Synergy 2G 128bit DDR3 900/1600 DVI*2+mHDMI RTL
To NVIDIA GRID K1. It is working fine. passthough works too. BUT Device ID mofidication posible only after bios modification. Bios modification is needed only for specific vendors.

upd:
myweb found resistor places for  Asus GT640-1GD3-L, no bios modification is needed. pic attached to post.

(...)

Hi, I have a question. I have the following card  https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/GT6402GD3/overview/  its device ID is the same like for Zotac but the point is non of the presented versions ot this GT640 has the back look like this one. Thus I do not know which/where are responsible resistors... Are you able to help somehow if I send the back view pic ?

Thanks and regards

Read through this entire thread, the instructions on how to locate the strap resistors for unknown cards has been published here several times.