GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/25 19:11Hi, I have almost given up and was about to buy a new card. Than a friend told be about this site and told me to try asking for help first, before I go and buy something new. I have bought two used EVGA e-GeForce GTX 280's, and one of them is been reported as a GeForce GTX 295, while I'm 100% it is not. I used the nvFlash listing to list both cards and took a picture.
And when I try to backup theBIOS of the so called GeForce GTX 295 it just fails. When I try to take backup of the other card all is normal and BIOS is just dumped fine. I was wondering if I can force flash the BIOS of the working card over to other card? Or if someone know what type I can try to flash it with. I am really not worried about if it doesn't work as the card is not working as it is now.
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Mavke
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/26 10:50Thanks for posting and just to make things clear, your GeForce GTX 280 has only one firmware chip and that means when it shows two devices or better two BIOS's being loaded that the firmware chip is loaded with something bad. The only solution that will help is to give the firmware chip a hardware clear instruction and that can only be done via the tweezer method applied on the card.
Meaning you find on the card the firmware chip, you connect two pins that will bring the firmware chip in its virgin state after which you can flash the correct BIOS. So first you need to find the firmware chip and let us know which one it is, so we can look up the datasheet and see how the tweezer should be applied. That is the only option and we have solved quite some this way.
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lexian
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/27 01:04Okay, this feels like a bit over my head, but I will try. Have I understood correctly, I need to take out the card that is been listed as GeForce GTX 295 and look for the firmware chip and post the details. What does the firmware chip look like? If I take a picture of the card back and front could you mark it for me, where to look? I have to disconnect the water cooling first and drain the water but will be done.
If I can fix this some how, I have to try and if not I have learned something new. Okay, I read another post of yours and I think I should be able to find the firmware chip. I will post after I get few hours sleep, don't want to mess with the graphics card, when I'm dead tired.
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Mavke
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/27 21:04lexian wrote: If I can fix this some how, I have to try and if not I have learned something new. Okay, I read another post of yours and I think I should be able to find the firmware chip. I will post after I get few hours sleep, don't want to mess with the graphics card, when I'm dead tired. Well normally you should be able to fix it, as we have done such things before with cards that gotten badly flashed and soldas such. Yes, of course it could be that one is just to much flashed and screwed up by the previous owner, but typically some persons just flash without thinking and don't take the time to look around and fix the card back to its original state. See what you can find and we will take it from there.
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lexian
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/28 07:57Okay, I think I found the firmware chip which is showing the following markings MX25L1005MC. Madness how much thermal paste that is used when I removed the water block. Is it danger if some of the paste is on the card itself, I'm trying to clean all of it but some is touching the card itself.
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Mavke
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/28 11:19That is indeed a firmware chip and that is one from Macronix, and having checked the datasheet you need to shorten the pin 1 and 4, which what is called the tweezer. You need to have the tweezer on, put the card into the system, bootup and once done remove the tweezer while running. After that you have to flash the graphics card with the right BIOS. So first create a bootable DOS media with nvFlash and the correct BIOS, and only put the bad card into the system to avoid issues.
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lexian
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/28 15:57Okay, I have tried a lot and maybe I'm doing something wrong or maybe the wrong pins. I tried pin 1 and 4 at the top first, that didn't work, than I tried 1 and 4 at the other side. Didn't get any beep sounds? Added the other graphics card and booted but still getting GeForce GTX 295. Do I have only one shot with the tweezer, if I did with wrong two pins or can I try again?
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Mavke
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/28 18:15lexian wrote: Didn't get any beep sounds? Added the other graphics card and booted but still getting GeForce GTX 295. Do I have only one shot with the tweezer, if I did with wrong two pins or can I try again? I would suggest you also first look at the datasheet so you know which pins you need to shorten, and make sure you do it correctly and only remove the tweezer once booted, and flash directly afterwards with the correct BIOS. You can try as many times as you want, but you need to use the correct pins if else it won't do any good. Now I don't know what you tried so perhaps you use the wrong pins before and screwed up the firmware chip, though that is not very likely.
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lexian
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/30 16:44I tried and tried not getting any beeps on this card. Maybe it just dead, nothing more one can do. At least I tried and still learned new stuff. Thanks for the help. Just wondering on the other card I have BIOS version 62.00.0E.00.80 is there a newer version? Should one upgrade or not?
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Mavke
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Re:GeForce GTX 280 been listed as GeForce GTX 295 strangely!? - 2010/12/30 17:33Well I don't believe it is dead as we have fixed worst cards, but you can only do what I can explain and hopefully doing it right. Yes, sometimes we do get stuck like with you, and we would love to get the card and play around but shipping will cost too much. About the BIOS, there is one rule only and that is if it ain't broken don't flash. So unless you suffer issues just keep it as is.
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