NVIDIA VGA BIOS Modification/Flash/Restore

[Andrew]

Like any computer hardware (see e) the graphics card has a memory "dead" which is all the information from the card itself this info are the basis of operation of the card on which drivers will refer you to display these beautiful images from which you read me. It's called BIOS, it is different for each card and therefore incompatible with a model card to another (this is true in general but like all generalizations, there are exceptions! ). One can also note that within the same model of card, there are different BIOS for each brand and also updates within a single manufacturer (to address issues of stability, for example). In general, all the bios of the same model can be flashed on any other card in this model (card brand different from the bios), even though I think that staying with a couple mark + bios the brand is more sensible and less risky (e.g. Asus hybrid maps made from anywhere and bios of these cards are not necessarily compatible).

I am not using any driver level work for overclocking my graphic card. It simply does not work where my overclocking fails within some time. The activity is not stable which makes me think on the hardware. I have an Nvidia graphic card. It was purchased some months before and things work well from the time of purchase. I started overclocking some couple of weeks ago due to the new games. But the overclocking remains active only for a certain period of time. I think the BIOS flashing can be best option to improve the performance of the graphic card. Now I opt for BIOS Level flashing using a utility called Bios Flash.

This will also help to modify the BIOS of Nvidia Card as per your choice. But the choice of using the solution must be on your own risk. Flashing BIOS are dangerous task and if the same is not performed well then that will result in dead hardware directly. This also voids the warranty of Graphic Card as any user is not allowed to modify the company software.
BIOS are responsible for proper functioning of hardware. Before it was not possible to update BIOS. But as the story changes today you can simply by using some basic utility flash the BIOS and bring life to your dead Graphic card. This works most of the time, and there are some minor chances where due to lack of knowledge or improper procedure you might lose your valuable hardware. There are well defined guides and procedure which is first recommended to mug up properly before taking things to action.

This solution is possible for some series of card only. And if your system does not match the requirements what I mentioned below then please try not flash the BIOS of your Graphic card. If you have a GeForce Go 7000 Series, 8000M Series, 9000M Series cards then the guide is proper for you. Also one important thing the above mentioned cards must only be MXM Type. For Desktop Graphic Card I will recommend 7000 Series, 8000 Series, 9000 Series and GTX 200 VGA Series cards.

For Flashing the BIOS of your GPU VGA you will need some tools which are mentioned below.

• You will need a USB drive which will act as the Boot Media
• The second software recommended here HP Bootable Flash Disk Maker Tool. This tool is essential software for the process.
• The third tool is Rivatuner or ATITool. This will help to overclock your GPU before flashing thus increasing your GPU performance.
• NiBiTor is a powerful tool to modify the bios values. NiBiTor is software for owners of graphics card based on Nvidia chispet. This simple software allows you to change various options for your graphics card.
• Indeed, NiBiTor will recognize your card, so you can change certain values, such as the frequency of the GPU and memory, the timings and others. Then, the recording shoed as a file. Roma. You'll understand NiBiTor is a program for creating BIOS for your graphics cards.
• The last tool which is going to be used is NVFlash Utility. NVIDIA Firmware Update Utility (nvflash) is used to update the firmware stored in the EEPROM of an NVIDIA graphics card. It can also be used to perform other tasks on the card such as saving a copy of current firmware image to a file, display the firmware version, or determining the EEPROM part present on a graphics card. Nvflash is currently available for DOS, Win32, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and EFI (IA64 only). Nvflash is a command line utility that can be run independently of the command prompt, it should however be used with caution because it can render your equipment inoperable if improperly handled. The author is not talkative on new in this version, we imagine a few bug fixes and support new graphics cards.

Why to Flash BIOS of GPU

Because your graphics card does not work correctly (which was my case). As I could see, flashing the bios can sometimes avoid buying another card.

Because you've found a bios that new specifications of interest (ATI changed some bios can improve the image if boot on a TV)

To boost perfs card (in the case of a hardware change on a Radeon 9700, to get it to the 9700 pro, flashing the bios is required). As for motherboards, there are sometimes bios specially designed for overclocking.

What you need to do before Flashing

• First update the graphic driver. This is very important for the stable performance of you system. If this is not done then there will quiet a great risk of flashing your GPU Bios.
• After that then second important thing you have to do is install Rivatuner or ATITool. Both are recommended and you can choose anyone of your choice. Both are quiet stable software’s.
• The other most important thing after installing Rivatuner or ATITool is that you have to check the driver level support for overclocking the same.
• Then as per your choice then choose the level of overclocking by the software you had choose and test the same out. I will recommend you to try out some heavy games which consume a good amount of GPU power.
• Then after that run 3DMark06 Test to check the stability of the same. This is necessary just to ensure that your GPU will able to stand the tweak which we are going to perform right now. Also put tool to monitor your GPU Temp. It is better to lower the clock speed of the system so that you can avoid BSOD errors after the work.

Note :

• It is advisable to disable any optimization and overclocking the bios setup of your motherboard.
• Especially to the Video Memory Cache Mode on UC (default) instead of USWC if option is present.
• In USWC, these causes a crash when systematic flash the Radeon with some motherboards (i815 for example). The result is a loss of bios chart. Bring a Win98 boot disk, the procedure works only under DOS.

[Andrew]

Nvidia

Flash bios, NVidia (valid methods for Geforce cards to Geforce 4 AGP 4x (NV28 and NV3x not yet supported by software). And of course a proper bios for your card, I found one personal on the net, but you can get the bios of a card similar to yours.

NVFlash will help us to flash the bios, vgabios will help us to test if the bios are adapted to our graphics card and loads it into memory using the BIOS in memory instead of the bios of the graphics card.
We extract all in a folder easily accessible (I personally put them in the root) or put all these utilities on a floppy disk. Then, in DOS (booting from a boot disk Windows 98), type:

Check bios

• VGABIOS-fbios.rom (your file must completely bios.rom call itself, that does not otherwise with me)
• VGABIOS type -? to see all the options (there are not many)

Save the file in your bios save.rom for a possible recovery in case of malfunction after flashing

• nvflash-b save.rom
• Optionally, you can compare your current bios with the bios you are about to put in your card
• nvflash bios.rom-k (assuming that the bios you are going to name bios.rom)

Update the BIOS (the delicate operation! We pray that there is no power failure)

• nvflash-f bios.rom
• Reboot

There are plenty of other options for NVflash, type nvflash -? To see them all.
Warning - NVflash does not support any type of EEPROM (memory which is stored the bios).
To check if your EEPROM is supported, do nvflash-c
If you have multiple graphics cards will require nvflash-a to see what the card number, then instead of typing nvflash bios.rom-f, type nvflash - index = i bios.rom. (With i the number of your flash card)
ATI
If you have a ATI graphic card in your system and you want to flash the bios of that then here are some help for you. One thing again I want to notify that this is really very risk and you are recommended to do the same on your own risk.

You need the following two tools :

• Radedit
• AtiFlash

Of course you need a valid graphic card bios for that. Radedit will help us to make a copy of the BIOS, and ATIFlash to flash.

• Install and run Radedit RadEdit.exe.
• Click on Current to load your current bios of your Radeon.
• Save your bios of origin. This will later on help you to restore in case if you does not get proper result.
• AtiFlash install in a directory C: ATIFLASH
• Then copy the bios to original bios and changed in this directory.
• Same as for Nvidia cards, you boot into a floppy disk with MSDOS Win98

Then:

• Cd atiflash
• Atiflash i

This will give you the number of your ATI card (usually 0 if only one ATI card is on your system)

• Atiflash p 0 nombios.rom

(Zero, not o or O)

• The flash should last 2 to 3 seconds.
• Then reboot.

There are often (in my case) a utility that comes with software for your graphics card to flash his bios (Winfox for Leadtek). I really recommend you test your bios before.

VGABIOS, even if the utility Winfox in my case, does it automatically. It is often more simple, but where's the fun otherwise?

What to do if the GPU is crashed

You have followed my advice and made a backup copy of the bios. You take a PCI card you install in your machine.
You boot your PC, and then with your Win98 boot disk, you can reflash your bios.

If you do not have a PCI card, there is a procedure to flash your bios automatically. (Works for NVidia cards)

Create a file called autoexec.bat 'at the root of a floppy disk that contains the following line:

• nvflash-p-h-ffilename.ext
• Where filename.ext is the name of the bios that you will use. Also put nvflash.exe DOS4GW.EXE and the root of your drive, and the file filename.ext.

Then boot from the floppy. The disk should be read in 30 seconds, and your keyboard LEDs should flash. Your computer should reboot after you finish, and with any luck, your bios restored.

The video card is a factor to be reckoned with inside the pc determines the speed of execution of all applications that have graphics acceleration (games etc.). Factors to consider when you buy one are: attack, memory size, and speed of the core (GPU), memory speed .. also going to see if there would be other parameters. I mention these only because they are the ones you'll find on most sites selling.

A little 'as in the shops where you sell a LCD TV and in the description it says only: high contrast. So as for the graphics card processor also has a core or a processor in this case will be (GPU) (Graphic Processing Unit) we see that the core of the video cards has a frequency much lower than that of a CPU. Usually the rate remains at around 600 Mhz. We'll find out though that the GPU can perform many more calculations and a CPU as the processor must pay attention to certain things when buying.

To operate the video card needs a very fast memory to store your data before making them visible to the eye so when you buy a video card with 1 GB 1GB know that is not the power but only the capacity of memory and does not mean high performance must consider other factors .. A very important is the speed of memory memories used in graphics cards work at very high frequencies also comes to overcome the 2000 MHz. As for the attack should only be considered a factor. The motherboard must be equipped with a slot the same as the video card is usually the PCI Express 16x you do not have much choice the standards movement is that.