[MOVED] Hacking NVidia Cards into their Professional Counterparts

[LanStateMap]

I have ASUS GTX660-DC2-2GD5 http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b1927/asus-gtx-660-directcu-ii.html
I trying to mod it to K4000 like this https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/msg421274/#msg421274

The original ASUS GTX660-DC2-2GD5 Device ID 11C0
K4000 Device ID is 11FA
1. Remove upper resistor R4L 5K and add 15K at low resistor R4H give Device ID 11CA
2. Remove R3H on topside give me 11EA
I try to add 40K to R3H result is the same 11EA

Original Asus bios is not locked:
08 e2 00 00 00 06 00 00 02 10 10 82 ff ff ff 7f
00 00 00 80

What do you think?
Why i can't get F on 3rd nibble.

[thunderbolt]

Hi there!

First of all, great work!

I have decided to virtualize my windows system, and I wanted to mod my Palit Jetstream GTX 670.

I have removed the R2 resistor. It does not give any picture when booting, but it gets detected in device manager with DEV_118F (Tesla K10) when used as a secondary card. I get an error code 28 when trying to install a driver for that card though.

Do I need to do anything else beside this? I'm kind of reluctant as the PCB is not 100% based on the reference design.

Do I need to edit the firmware for the system to work again? I have an UEFI BIOS. Motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD5.

Cheers!

hi a tesla K10 is a pure number crunching card. There are no options for opengl or directx. Pure cuda power. You cant use this card as pimary vga adapter. Lets say it´s a grafic coprozessor. You have to mode this to a VGA K2 or a K5000.

gtx 670, Device Id: 10DE 1189 with 1536 cores.
tesla k10, Device Id: 10DE 118F
quadro k5000, Device Id: 10DE 11BA
vgx grid k2, Device Id: 10DE 11BF

[gordan]

Modified cards won't work with UEFI motherboards.

A GTX680 modified into a Tesla K10 works just fine as a primary or secondary card on bare metal, and works just fine with secondary pass through card with monitor output in a VM. I have one.

A real K10 has no video outputs, but that has no influence on whether a modified 680 will have working outputs. Video outputs are configured by the BIOS payload.

[oerg866]

Modified cards won't work with UEFI motherboards.

A GTX680 modified into a Tesla K10 works just fine as a primary or secondary card on bare metal, and works just fine with secondary pass through card with monitor output in a VM. I have one.

A real K10 has no video outputs, but that has no influence on whether a modified 680 will have working outputs. Video outputs are configured by the BIOS payload.

Okay, that makes sense. But shouldn't I be able to install the drivers for it? I will install linux with xen and see how that goes.

Will I have DirectX acceleration under Windows when run with passthrough?

Cheers!

[gordan]

Okay, that makes sense. But shouldn't I be able to install the drivers for it?

Not if the BIOS didn't initialize the card. UEFI has crypto signatures, and AFAICT if it notices the device ID of the card isn't what is expected, it won't work.

Will I have DirectX acceleration under Windows when run with passthrough?

Yes.

[oerg866]

Okay, that makes sense. But shouldn't I be able to install the drivers for it?

Not if the BIOS didn't initialize the card. UEFI has crypto signatures, and AFAICT if it notices the device ID of the card isn't what is expected, it won't work.

Will I have DirectX acceleration under Windows when run with passthrough?

Yes.

Wow that was fast! Thank you

Fingers crossed! I read somewhere I can mod the card's firmware for it to work on UEFI boards again, but that's for another time to figure out

Thanks a lot! Going to tinker with xen now.

Cheers!

[gordan]

Fingers crossed! I read somewhere I can mod the card's firmware for it to work on UEFI boards again, but that's for another time to figure out

The only thing you could do is flash the card with the UEFI firmware of the card it's modified to, e.g. hard-mod to Quadro K5000 and flash K5000 firmware onto it. That will probably work, but I never tried it (I don't have any UEFI motherboards). I can confirm, however, that a 4GB 680 works fine with the K5000 firmware (although doing so doesn't gain you anything additional functionality, apart from maybe UEFI compatibility which I had no way to test).

[oerg866]

Well, so far so....good?

I have managed to install xen (debian 7.5) but I still cannot get the card to generate video. It is passed through like this:

pci=['01:00.0']

and

gfx_passthru=1

Before starting the VM I do modprobe xen-pciback and modprobe pci-stub and I use the script providing "remove_device" to disable the nouveau drivers for it.

Here's my full config:

Code: [Select]

kernel = "/usr/lib/xen-4.1/boot/hvmloader"
builder='hvm'
memory = 4096
vcpus=4
name = "win7"
vif = ['bridge=xenbr0']
disk = ['phy:/dev/vg0/win7,hda,w','file:/home/oerg866/OSs/en_windows_7_professi$
acpi = 1
device_model = 'qemu-dm'
boot = "d"
sdl = 0
serial='pty'
vnc = 1
vnclisten=""
vncpasswd=""
gfx_passthru = 1
pci=['01:00.0']

The VM starts up but it doesn't generate video on the GTX670 @ K10. I am using the HDMI output, if that helps...

If I disable the gfx_passthru thing, it shows up in device manager as Standard VGA Controller but with a code 10 error (device cannot start) ...


OK here we go: http://img.ctrlv.in/img/14/06/05/5390b3a02b99c.png

I was able to install the drivers, but I cannot select a monitor or anything :/

Cheers!

[gordan]

Well, so far so....good?

I have managed to install xen (debian 7.5) but I still cannot get the card to generate video. It is passed through like this:

pci=['01:00.0']

and

gfx_passthru=1

That should be gfx_passthry=0. Primary passthrough doesn't work (it never did, except with extensive patches that haven't made it into any releases).

Before starting the VM I do modprobe xen-pciback and modprobe pci-stub and I use the script providing "remove_device" to disable the nouveau drivers for it.

You need to make sure this happens BEFORE the card is ever tainted by any drivers in dom0. The card needs to be claimed by xen-pciback before nouveau or nvidia kernel drivers load. Blacklist those drivers, make sure they aren't in initrd. Then, make sure xen-pciback is loaded early during startup. On RH that would mean putting a suitable script in /etc/sysconfig/modules/. I have no idea what the Debian equivalent method is.

The VM starts up but it doesn't generate video on the GTX670 @ K10. I am using the HDMI output, if that helps...

I only ever tried DVI but it shouldn't make any difference.

If I disable the gfx_passthru thing, it shows up in device manager as Standard VGA Controller but with a code 10 error (device cannot start) ...


OK here we go: http://img.ctrlv.in/img/14/06/05/5390b3a02b99c.png

I was able to install the drivers, but I cannot select a monitor or anything :/

You need to disable gfx_passthru and install the driver, but most importantly, you have to make sure nothing in dom0 touches the card, especially nouveau.

You will also probably need to add something like this to your /etc/modprobe.d/xen-pciback.conf:
options xen-pciback permissive=1 hide=(01:00.0)(01:00.1)

Also, make sure you pass both the GPU and it's audio device through.

[oerg866]

OK, thank you. I will make sure of that.

Although it makes me wonder why gfx_passthru even exists and is so widely documented....

By the way, how would I do that if my *primary* graphics card also uses nouveau or another nvidia driver in linux?

About the audio device, I have tried that and it makes xm create windows.cfg crash with an error 23 (invalid argument). A workaround was to omit the 2nd device as it supposedly gets passed through automatically...

Cheers!

[oerg866]

I have now done it using this guide:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=112013&start=120#p711782

I have installed the drivers and rebooted. And, well, the card works, no errors or anything, but I still cannot select a monitor, nor can I launch the control panel, as it tells me "You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDIA GPU"....

[gordan]

Error 23 is a long fixed bug. You are either running a version of Xen that hasn't been fixed, or your hypervisor and user space are mismatched. Or the packages you are using are just broken.

You need to make sure xen-pciback loads and claims the devices you are passing through BEFORE the nvidia driver loads. Once pciback claims the devices you are passing through, you can load nvidia/nouveau and any other drivers.

[oerg866]

Error 23 is a long fixed bug. You are either running a version of Xen that hasn't been fixed, or your hypervisor and user space are mismatched. Or the packages you are using are just broken.

You need to make sure xen-pciback loads and claims the devices you are passing through BEFORE the nvidia driver loads. Once pciback claims the devices you are passing through, you can load nvidia/nouveau and any other drivers.

I believe I have already done that according to the guide I linked above. I have chekced and it says driver module: pciback. Can I verify this somehow?

Cheers,
Oerg866

[gordan]

If you have the modprobe config set correctly, you should be able to just modprobe xen-pciback, no need to use xl to make devices assignable. Thus, if you just have your script modprobe xen-pciback, then load the nvidia driver, you can just check lspci -vvv and see what driver is bound to the device.

[Luke212]

i cant select the k40 in gpu caps viewer, i flashed the original bios back to the k40.

i use this card without any modification on the bios. with TCC it works without problems.

Does your 0x1007 card converted to K40 now have full double precision performance? Also, a 0x1007 card should not be upgradeable to K40 because its only a 780 and not a Ti -  so it doesnt have the full amount of shaders.

[gordan]

The number of shaders doesn't seem to matter, only the underlying GPU model matters. As long as it is a GK110, it doesn't matter if its a 780, 780Ti or a Titan.

[WillV]

Has anyone popped the two resistors off a Gigabyte 680 card and come up with 11AF?  I saw earlier a 10k caused an A and complete removal was B but I am seeing complete removal give me an A.  Any thoughts or suggestions about what I am missing?

[gordan]

Complete removal usually causes flapping between 0xA and 0xB on the 3rd nibble.

[WillV]

I must have missed that and focused too much on the "pop them off and there you go" stuff.  So by "flapping" do you mean a bouncing back and forth between because after multiple trials, its a rock steady A for a result.  Also, what is the path from this point towards changing it to a B if removal wasn't the answer?

[gordan]

You have to solder in a suitable resistor as per the instructions early in the thread.

[Angeluszero]

Hi guys,

I have a Quadro K4000. Is it possible to mod it into it's consumer counterparts? And if yes, will I gain any gaming performance?

[gordan]

There is no gaming performance to be gained. Quadros are as good at gaming as GeForces. Standard overclocking procedures apply. Clock for clock, gaming performance will be the same.

[SoNic67]

Hi guys,

I have a Quadro K4000. Is it possible to mod it into it's consumer counterparts? And if yes, will I gain any gaming performance?

WHY? Just sell it and get a gaming card if that's what you are looking for. You get some $500-600 on ebay.

[bcunje]

Thanks for the help guys.  Using some of the information from this thread, I was able to fully convert a GT755M Ultrabay (Removable Graphics) GPU into a GT750M by simply replacing resistors and reflashing!  I was then able to use the GT750M to natively SLI my laptop and pump out some serious graphics performance.

Here's a link to the guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/753225-sli-ing-y410p-gt750m-gt755m-natively-no-driver-mods.html

[slis]

Ok thank you again for your answers.

I'll go with evga or gigabyte 680 4gb so we will see how that goes 

heeh... i did mod on 680 4gb, palit jetstream... and it works kinda..

my goal was to find out will it work like real GRID K2 so i can share gpu to multiple vm-s.

without mod with qemu-git on latest debian it works flawless...

with gird k2 ID, i can run it with grid k2 drivers,even with desktop ones, but restart, shutdown, POST screen doesn't work... but when gpu works it works same like 680gtx, in games, streaming hw encode... etc... with both drivers with id GRID K2...

so pretty much card works with GRID K2 id... so next i wanted to try to share it...

on xen-server 6.2 latest - with any GRID K2 host driver... it detects it normally, but when i try to start vm with shared gpu... i got 3 lines in dmesg like...
its init and binding gpu, taking ownership  and then nothing... xen-center crashes with error iomem... vgpu exited unexpectedly...
passing it like single card works sometimes...

on native windows 2012 R2 hyper-v installing with any GRID host driver crashes host (kernel i guess, mouse shows here and then with bsod sometimes, on keyboard numlock blinks)... all 3 outputs have some problems like black/white screen blinking and black/green snow (lol)...

last epic try:
qemu with win 2012r2 vm with grid passed... i can make driver and hyper-v to work but i don't have gpu listed in hyper-v  options (maybe cause of passtrough, so it doesn't detect it like phy gpu)


question...

so next step would be updating bios? would that help? is it possible to recover bios if it fails?

did anyone managed to get it to work like real grid? is it even possible?

thx