clock speeds

[neilcha]

i have a pny 8800gts 500/1600 clock speeds , could i add to it a BFG 8800gts oc 550/1600 clock speeds ?? i know i will either have to over or un-clock one of the cards but will they be ok to run in sli ??

[radodrill]

Provided they are the same architecture it'll run just fine and simply downclock the faster card to match the speeds of the slower one. But it's probably best to flash them both to the same BIOS image.

[neilcha]

i have flashed a gpu bios before so i can do that , which should i do ??

and what do you mean by the same architecture ??? they are both 320mb cards if thats any help.

[radodrill]

and what do you mean by the same architecture ???

 

basically you can't mix an 8800 GTX with anything but another 8800GTX etc.

 

 

I personally would flash both cards to the same BIOS; if the slower card will easily run the speeds of the faster card, you can flash them to the faster BIOS.

[neilcha]

ok radodrill i have both cards now and ive put the two in together but there is no sli , i can not find an option in the bios to enable sli and i can not find it in the nvidia control panel , i set the bfg card to the same clock speed as the pny one

anyway i have tried both cards each way round and windows only detects the one card thats in the first slot ,

So i tried to flash a copy of the pny bios to the bfg card

i have followed the bios flashing procedure but then i get a error saying " Firmwire image needs to have a .rom extention " . what does that mean ??

 

i made the bootable disk and put nvflash & cwsdpmi & the bios file which is called P.N.Y.8800gtsMB.PCIe.320MB.Rev.01.rom onto the bootable floppy disc.

 

so when i restart and i get the /A prompt i then type in -

nvflash.exe 4 5 6 Y P.N.Y.8800gts.PCIe.320MB.Rev.01.rom

 

this did not work , i got the same error message , i then changed the bios name to just -

Newbios.rom

so at the /A prompt i typed in

nvflash.exe. 4 5 6 Y Newbios.rom

and i got the same error message . can you please help me out a bit and please be very step by step if possible .

[neilcha]

right i added a few ------ to the comand line and now im getting an error message saying - " Nvflash cannot read this file "

please anyone any ideas on how i can get a PNY 8800gts & a BFG 8800gtsoc to run together in sli.

[neilcha]

can some one give me a link to a detailed step by step guide on how to flash a gpu bios , or by looking at my posts above can someone tell me what exactly to write at the /A prompt when i reboot and boot into nvflash ??

please im desperate to get these two cards to run in sli.

or does anyone have one of the same cards that they will swap for the other one of mine , what i mean is if you have a PNY 8800gts 320mb will you swap it for my BFG 8800gts oc 320mb card or the other way round .

Or could i send you my card and you flash the Bios for me ...

[radodrill]

In the nVidia overclocking tutorial (linked in my sig) I have a section dedicated to flashing the BIOS to/from the cards

[wevsspot]

Best bet might be to search the BIOS files over here;

 

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co.../cat,63/page,1/

 

And download a fresh copy of the BIOS for one or the other of your cards.

 

Create you a fresh floppy containing the appropriate files and BIOS rom.

 

Flash using the following command line;

 

nvflash -4 -5 -6 newbios.rom

 

p.s. make sure you're using the latest version of nvflash (5.70 I think)

[radodrill]

Good point wevsspot, the mvktech archives are a great resource.

[neilcha]

Best bet might be to search the BIOS files over here;

 

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co.../cat,63/page,1/

 

And download a fresh copy of the BIOS for one or the other of your cards.

 

Create you a fresh floppy containing the appropriate files and BIOS rom.

 

Flash using the following command line;

 

nvflash -4 -5 -6 newbios.rom

 

p.s. make sure you're using the latest version of nvflash (5.70 I think)

 

thanks for this lads

 

when you say " create a fresh copy containing appropiate files and bios rom".

what are the appropiate files i need ? do i still have to create a bootable floppy disc ?? first before i put the other files onto the floppy ?then do i have to make the pc boot from the floppy ? and also can i just change the bios name to " newbios.rom "

 

p.s - if i were to RMA the BFG card would i get the same card back ?? or could i get a better card back like a GTX .

i have spoke to BFG and i have my RMA number ready to go , i would rather have a GTX than 2 x gts .

this is an idea someone else told me about ,

[radodrill]

Fresh floppy:

- format floppy as a bootable disk

- copy latest nvFlash to that floppy

- copy in the BIOS image

 

I haven't had issues with renaming BIOS images

 

I doubt BFG would upgrade you to GTX's; they usually replace it with the same model, only case I can see you getting a better card is if they no longer produce that model.