Working BIOS/Voltage unlocker for Kepler cards

Rizen

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I don't want this to get buried in the GTX680 overclocking thread.


User CrazyNutz on XtremeSystems has posted a BIOS unlocker that works for Kepler-based GPUs and allows greater than stock voltage.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?284014-KGB-Kepler-BIOS-Editor-Unlocker

By default it will unlock to 150% Power, Voltage 1.1875v (1.2125v On Boost, only on GK104s), and Fan Range to 30% - 100%.

I tested it myself on my GTX680s this afternoon. At full boost my cards run at 1359MHz on the stock coolers at +150% power, +160 core and +250 memory. Here is a screenshot of it working in Skyrim: http://i.imgur.com/2rWPe.png

Previously my cards were only stable up until around 1290-1300MHz, so this is a noticeable improvement. Also, I am on stock coolers - this will be even better for those of you with water cooling or aftermarket coolers.

You will need a copy of NVFlash, and GPU-Z to dump the original BIOS (make sure you keep a backup of the original BIOS).

- NVFlash: https://www.dropbox.com/s/geu3lg36q5x8acw/nvflash_5118.zip
- GPU-Z: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
- KGB (Kepler BIOS Editor): https://www.dropbox.com/s/vrunxuq03vj0m5y/kgb_0.5.zip

Here are the steps to use NVFlash (run it in a cmd window inside of Windows then reboot).

With a single graphics card:

- nvflash --protectoff (turn off BIOS protection)
- nvflash [rom file] (flash BIOS)

With multiple graphics cards:

- nvflash --list (lists graphics cards indexes/IDs you have in the system)
- nvflash --protectoff --index=[ID]
- nvlash --index=[ID] [rom file]

PLEASE BE CAREFUL. You can absolutely brick your card here if you don't know what you are doing.

Post results?
 
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I believe the KBG link is a asus_gtx660 bios? Can you post how you did the bios unlock? I making this too hard on myself.
 
guys I dont have the nvflash specific commands yet but the process will be like this;

1. use nv flash to backup your current bios
2. make a second copy of that bios and save it somewhere else
3. Place that bios in the folder for KGB and make sure it's on your desktop or root of C: (just to keep things simple)
4. Run the command prompt as admin
5. run the unlock command in the command prompt for KGB pointing to that folder on the desktop or root of C:
6 Save that file to your boot drive with nvflash
7. reboot and then use nvflash command to remove protection on your graphics cards
8 flash the bios with the new unlocked bios.
9 enjoy but be careful, what was stable before may not be stable after this so turn your boost down a bit and see how your card/s behave before pushing them.
 
Holy Jesus my prayers have been answered, gonna get my 670 FTW flashed and then install the antec 620...will check back tmrw!
 
So has anyone else tried this with their 680? I am up-to-speed on flashing 500 series cards, and USB dos mode, so this would be a piece of cake for me to try ... but that's a potentially expensive experiment! (afaik, nvflash and 64-bit Windows don't mix.)
 
tried it with my 670

what you need to do is

1. save your original bios via gpu-z
2. make a 2nd copy of your original bios and rename it
3. make sure kgb.exe is running with admin rights
4. right click on your bios copy and open it with kgb.exe

and that should be it
 
So has anyone else tried this with their 680? I am up-to-speed on flashing 500 series cards, and USB dos mode, so this would be a piece of cake for me to try ... but that's a potentially expensive experiment! (afaik, nvflash and 64-bit Windows don't mix.)
I used NVFlash inside of Win7 64-bit to flash both my 680s. No issues.
 
It seems to be 100% stable @ 1346MHz at +150% power, +145 GPU, +200 memory. That's about 50MHz higher than at 1.175v. So far I'm pleased.
 
It seems to be 100% stable @ 1346MHz at +150% power, +145 GPU, +200 memory. That's about 50MHz higher than at 1.175v. So far I'm pleased.

I'll try those numbers since the amounts in the first post weren't stable at all for me. I'm curious to see if I can actually get a stable OC with this BIOS mod. When I first bought the card, no OC amount even worked.
 
I'll try those numbers since the amounts in the first post weren't stable at all for me. I'm curious to see if I can actually get a stable OC with this BIOS mod. When I first bought the card, no OC amount even worked.
Every card has different boost amounts and the +power % will also control the boost. Try turning the power to +150% first and seeing where that takes you, and then tune it from there.
 
I used NVFlash inside of Win7 64-bit to flash both my 680s. No issues.

Huh. When I tried it, it popped up a "This program it not compatible with the 64-bit version of Windows blah blah blah" -- that was with the latest nvflash 5.127. Cue bootable usb stick, etc. I even trid cmd.exe as administrator.
 
I tried it on my evga 680gtx superclocked,and had to downclock it abit and it worked but the added voltage brought the temps up(im using ac twin turbo 2 cooler running at 100%)and it would downclock core running benchmarks.temps were in the 60's.i must just have a card that can't be pushed much.so I put orig.bios back on.with orig bios I can only get 20 more core then what evga clocked the card too.and that's at 132 on the power.i also seen on that site that crazy did say he has to tweak the bios because some people reported the same thing with the downclocking even with decent temps on load.
 
I was able to get both of my cards flashed and can confirm the voltage is unlocked and being reported correctly by my OSD.

Power at 150 with a very brief gameplay session caused a blank screen on my nv surround setup but I couldn't dive in deeper to troubleshoot as my time ran out and I had to head to work

I'm going to see if 150% is too much.

Perhaps I can increase my boost and leave my power at 130ish and get more performance out of the card/s

Important note version 5 of KGB came out and there is a config file that you can use in the KGB folder to change fan parameters (Min and Max) as well as change voltage. Also GTX 690 has been added and can now be unlocked.
 
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might try this out but i have a second classified coming - i think it would be better if if sli these cards first and flash them both at the same time.
 
Power and voltage settings from Evga Precision X are pointless. The card runs at 1.215 regardless of what my voltage is set to. Same goes for power at 150, it's locked in. I noticed my instability I reported 2 posts ago was because my cards were boosting to over 1350 at 125 boots!! before at 125 boost my cards were around 1225mhz. Going to continue feeling the card/s out but so far things look pretty interesting. I should finalize my clocks with the extra voltage tomorrow. Gonna call it a day.

TLDR: Forget what boost you had before, run the cards at stock settings with On screen Display showing and see what they run by default. Then slowly begin increasing your boost.
 
Card is now boosting to 1358 on the stock cooler, keeps hitting 70 though, going to get the antec 620 on this week and see what this baby can really do...im happy with 1350...but why not push for a little more!
 
Tried my luck with this over the weekend. Seems a no go for me as I can't improve hardly at all stable. Before the unlock I was around 1230hmz and after the unlock I'm around 1260mhz-ish. I'm able to hit 1300mhz and do about 2 rounds of Heaven before a driver crash. Card is on water.
 
I have to run my fan at >75% to keep it under 70C at 1346MHz, but it is stable at that speed at 1.21v.
 
Been using a premodded bios like this for months. It is old news at ocn..... Cool a tool was released though.
 
Wish they released nibitor for kepler already. Announcement and pictures of alpha were leaked (named greenlight killer :D) but it seems development is halted.
 
Card is now boosting to 1358 on the stock cooler, keeps hitting 70 though, going to get the antec 620 on this week and see what this baby can really do...im happy with 1350...but why not push for a little more!

I have to run my fan at >75% to keep it under 70C at 1346MHz, but it is stable at that speed at 1.21v.

Why'd you have to go and post that. I've been trying to talk myself out of getting a 620 to put on my card for months - I don't need to hear that people are getting 1300+ overclocks with the BIOS mod.
 
KGB is not Kepler Bios Editor.

Kepler Bios Editor 1.1
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...itor-v1.1-f%FCr-GTX-6xx-Reihe-680-670-660-650

KGB 0.6.1
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?284014-KGB-Kepler-BIOS-Editor-Unlocker

I used both of these to fix my crashing EVGA GTX 680 SC Signature. It was boosting to 1215 and then TDR in FC3, so I knocked it back to 1176 by editing the 45 entry boost table (just #23-45). Also unlocked the power slider to 150%, the max voltage to 1.1875, and bumped the default mem to 3348. Though the 150% and 1.187v are kinda useless for my card (about 1241 max stable, not really worth the hassle, but hey this is the [H] forum, so I modded it anyways!)

:D

For the record, I've had to down-flash / voltage increase 3 of my 6 EVGA cards. (260 SC, stock 560Ti, and now 680 SC Sig. Stable ones stock 550Ti, stock 560 non-Ti, stock GT 640.)
 
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I'm not certain if its working but I know at lease EVGA afterburner shows the voltage boosted!
 
I'm not sure how it all works, but I think one has to unlock the power slider and jack it up, such that the card will go ahead and boost the voltage. Also, it may boost right out of being stable, so play with the core MHz slider. The whole continuous table thing is over-designed, imho.
 
Just unlocked two MSI GTX660ti Power Editions to 1.2125v from their default of 1.15v.
Card 1 was stable at 1150mhz before and now runs at over 1350(gave up trying to find the ceiling since it doesn't matter due to card #2 being so much slower).
Card 2 was stable at 1100mhz and now does 1200.

Shows the variability of cards. Tested with about 20 loops of heaven no crashes or artifacts.
 
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It'd be nice if the 690s didnt always get left out, the program "kinda" works for the 690, its only changing the values of 1 gpu and not both. At least i think thats the case.
 
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It'd be nice if the 690s didnt always get left out, the program "kinda" works for the 690, its only changing the values of 1 gpu and not both. At least i think thats the case.

Wouldn't you have to dump two roms, and flash twice? There are two chips ...
 
For the record, I've had to down-flash / voltage increase 3 of my 6 EVGA cards. (260 SC, stock 560Ti, and now 680 SC Sig. Stable ones stock 550Ti, stock 560 non-Ti, stock GT 640.)

xorbe,

I just found this thread while searching for ways to modify the BIOS on my 2 GT 640s that I have in a folding rig. Can you explain how you were able to increase the voltage on your GT 640 please?

I have tried both the Kepler Bios Editor and the Kepler BIOS Tweeker and neither of them recognized the GK107 BIOS from my GT 640 cards.
 
No, the GT640 is one of my stable cards that did not need adjustment. If you are on Windows, just use MSI AB for a soft adjustment at each boot. You'd have to send your bios to the KBT guy so he could update to recognize the bios. Also check on OCN forums, they are a lot more hardcore about firmware than here.
 
So.... has anyone tried this with a 780ti? My power boost only goes up to 106%. Would like to see what this card is capable of at 150%. My temps almost never break 70C and I've seen in game my card does 1273 OC already....
 
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