EVGA RTX 2070 Only Able To Use Unverified VBIOS and Black Screens w/ Display Drivers

[toufusoup]

Hi all, first post here, I wanted to share something interesting and wanted some input.

I picked up an "RTX 2070 Super" as a project card off of eBay for about $80 as the owner said that the card would black screen and heat up after about 30 seconds.
I found this to be half-true when I got it in the mail and tested it. The card will display absolutely no problems... until you or Windows install a Display Driver.
I also found out at this time that the sticker on the back indicated that this would be a standard RTX 2070 XC Gaming (08G-P4-2172-KR), and not a Super.
Weirdly, the fan shroud is from an EVGA 2070 Super, so maybe this was someone's project card? The seller said they bought it from someone else with little knowledge on hardware.

I thought this might've been a VBIOS problem so I decided to flash it, only to find out that the VBIOS that was on nvflash was a BIOS that wasn't verified.
The specific code for this VBIOS is "90.06.18.00.DB," found here: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/207582/207582
When I flashed an XC VBIOS onto it, specifically "90.06.0B.00.B9," the card would black screen on boot, not even show the splash screen.
I flashed it back thanks to having integrated graphics on my Intel rig, but we're just back to square one with "works until you give it a display driver."

Interestingly, when trying to access GPU-Z to see what kind of card it is, it causes a BSOD.
At first, it was "Driver_Verifier_DMA_Violation," but all subsequent ones were "VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE" which was weird considering I wasn't even putting any load on it.

Any thoughts? One of my friends said this was an infamous problem with the non-Super 20 series where there were apparently problems with the RAM, but I'm unsure if that's the problem.

 

[eidairaman1]

Hi all, first post here, I wanted to share something interesting and wanted some input.

I picked up an "RTX 2070 Super" as a project card off of eBay for about $80 as the owner said that the card would black screen and heat up after about 30 seconds.
I found this to be half-true when I got it in the mail and tested it. The card will display absolutely no problems... until you or Windows install a Display Driver.
I also found out at this time that the sticker on the back indicated that this would be a standard RTX 2070 XC Gaming (08G-P4-2172-KR), and not a Super.
Weirdly, the fan shroud is from an EVGA 2070 Super, so maybe this was someone's project card? The seller said they bought it from someone else with little knowledge on hardware.

I thought this might've been a VBIOS problem so I decided to flash it, only to find out that the VBIOS that was on nvflash was a BIOS that wasn't verified.
The specific code for this VBIOS is "90.06.18.00.DB," found here: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/207582/207582
When I flashed an XC VBIOS onto it, specifically "90.06.0B.00.B9," the card would black screen on boot, not even show the splash screen.
I flashed it back thanks to having integrated graphics on my Intel rig, but we're just back to square one with "works until you give it a display driver."

Interestingly, when trying to access GPU-Z to see what kind of card it is, it causes a BSOD.
At first, it was "Driver_Verifier_DMA_Violation," but all subsequent ones were "VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE" which was weird considering I wasn't even putting any load on it.

Any thoughts? One of my friends said this was an infamous problem with the non-Super 20 series where there were apparently problems with the RAM, but I'm unsure if that's the problem.

2000 series was plagued across the board. Verified bios means a small percent of gpus were tested by tpu, unverified were uploaded by other users and havent been tested but it is so rare to see a modified bios , that it really is a non issue.

You have a choice, return the card and get money back to buy a brand new in box AMD RX 6000 or 7000, maybe a rtx 3000 or 4000.

Or remove the heatsink and get a picture of the gpu die and all ram chips surrounding it, to include a close up of the gpu die and a ram chip with white silkscreen alphanumeric characters, post them here.

Replace the Thermal paste and pads.

Also a gpu-z screenshot will help.

Black screen and heatup could be improper mounting of heatsink, lack of thermal paste, thermal pads, damaged mosfets/vrm/ic, damaged pcb traces.

Bear in mind some cards are too far gone to save without sending them through a pcb repair shop such as northridge fix, and even they may tell you it is cost prohibitive to repair.

 

[Caring1]

Based on the numbers given it is the XC version:

EVGA RTX 2070 XC Specs

NVIDIA TU106, 1710 MHz, 2304 Cores, 144 TMUs, 64 ROPs, 8192 MB GDDR6, 1750 MHz, 256 bit

www.techpowerup.com

This is the latest Vbios:

EVGA RTX 2070 VBIOS

8 GB GDDR6, 1410 MHz GPU, 1750 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

 

[xmanrigger]

EVGA RTX 2070 Black Super is 08G-P4-3071-KR

 

[toufusoup]

2000 series was plagued across the board. Verified bios means a small percent of gpus were tested by tpu, unverified were uploaded by other users and havent been tested but it is so rare to see a modified bios , that it really is a non issue.

You have a choice, return the card and get money back to buy a brand new in box AMD RX 6000 or 7000, maybe a rtx 3000 or 4000.

Or remove the heatsink and get a picture of the gpu die and all ram chips surrounding it, to include a close up of the gpu die and a ram chip with white silkscreen alphanumeric characters, post them here.

Replace the Thermal paste and pads.

Also a gpu-z screenshot will help.

Black screen and heatup could be improper mounting of heatsink, lack of thermal paste, thermal pads, damaged mosfets/vrm/ic, damaged pcb traces.

Bear in mind some cards are too far gone to save without sending them through a pcb repair shop such as northridge fix, and even they may tell you it is cost prohibitive to repair.

Yo! Thanks for the response. I repasted and repadded, but admittedly, I didn't look at the chips. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos.
The problem with GPU-Z is that I literally can't access the tab for the 2070 in GPU-Z, it causes the system to freeze and BSOD, as indicated above.
When I was actually able to get it to display, it looks mega-scuffed.

Unsure if these will give any info, I'll take apart the card later tomorrow.

Based on the numbers given it is the XC version:

EVGA RTX 2070 XC Specs

NVIDIA TU106, 1710 MHz, 2304 Cores, 144 TMUs, 64 ROPs, 8192 MB GDDR6, 1750 MHz, 256 bit

www.techpowerup.com

This is the latest Vbios:

EVGA RTX 2070 VBIOS

8 GB GDDR6, 1410 MHz GPU, 1750 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

Yep, figured as much. Didn't realize the "unverified" VBIOS was the latest though, thanks for clearing that up.
Either way, it ain't looking good

EVGA RTX 2070 Black Super is 08G-P4-3071-KR

Crack question--can I flash any BIOS other than a 2070 VBIOS onto this thing? I had a terrible idea of flashing either a 2060 Super or 2070 Super VBIOS on this thing to see if anything will happen

 

[eidairaman1]

Yo! Thanks for the response. I repasted and repadded, but admittedly, I didn't look at the chips. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos.
The problem with GPU-Z is that I literally can't access the tab for the 2070 in GPU-Z, it causes the system to freeze and BSOD, as indicated above.
When I was actually able to get it to display, it looks mega-scuffed.
View attachment 354662View attachment 354663

Unsure if these will give any info, I'll take apart the card later tomorrow.


Yep, figured as much. Didn't realize the "unverified" VBIOS was the latest though, thanks for clearing that up.
Either way, it ain't looking good


Crack question--can I flash any BIOS other than a 2070 VBIOS onto this thing? I had a terrible idea of flashing either a 2060 Super or 2070 Super VBIOS on this thing to see if anything will happen

The 2060 is not compatible with the 2070 due to different chip

 

[Ruru]

The 2060 is not compatible with the 2070 due to different chip

He mentioned 2060 Super which has a TU106 just like 2070

 

[eidairaman1]

He mentioned 2060 Super which has a TU106 just like 2070

Ram configs

 

[Ruru]

Ram configs

They both have 8GB or did you mean something else?

 

[toufusoup]

Hi all, first post here, I wanted to share something interesting and wanted some input.

I picked up an "RTX 2070 Super" as a project card off of eBay for about $80 as the owner said that the card would black screen and heat up after about 30 seconds.
I found this to be half-true when I got it in the mail and tested it. The card will display absolutely no problems... until you or Windows install a Display Driver.
I also found out at this time that the sticker on the back indicated that this would be a standard RTX 2070 XC Gaming (08G-P4-2172-KR), and not a Super.
Weirdly, the fan shroud is from an EVGA 2070 Super, so maybe this was someone's project card? The seller said they bought it from someone else with little knowledge on hardware.

I thought this might've been a VBIOS problem so I decided to flash it, only to find out that the VBIOS that was on nvflash was a BIOS that wasn't verified.
The specific code for this VBIOS is "90.06.18.00.DB," found here: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/207582/207582
When I flashed an XC VBIOS onto it, specifically "90.06.0B.00.B9," the card would black screen on boot, not even show the splash screen.
I flashed it back thanks to having integrated graphics on my Intel rig, but we're just back to square one with "works until you give it a display driver."

Interestingly, when trying to access GPU-Z to see what kind of card it is, it causes a BSOD.
At first, it was "Driver_Verifier_DMA_Violation," but all subsequent ones were "VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE" which was weird considering I wasn't even putting any load on it.

Any thoughts? One of my friends said this was an infamous problem with the non-Super 20 series where there were apparently problems with the RAM, but I'm unsure if that's the problem.

Small update to this entire thing, I managed to get it running on the verified 2070 XC BIOS and not crash the system with a driver installed, but only if plugged into integrated graphics on the Intel chip.
The card is detected, but keeps spitting out a Code 43 on Device Manager, and still reads 0MB for the RAM and the bandwidths still all read unknown. No BSODs yet though, surprisingly.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Small update to this entire thing, I managed to get it running on the verified 2070 XC BIOS and not crash the system with a driver installed, but only if plugged into integrated graphics on the Intel chip.
The card is detected, but keeps spitting out a Code 43 on Device Manager, and still reads 0MB for the RAM and the bandwidths still all read unknown. No BSODs yet though, surprisingly.

You'll likely have to test it for bad RAM with NVIDIA MODS' MATS test. It's bootable. However, if you have any damaged memory modules, you will have to find a technician that can remove and reball a new module in. It's not a repair you can do at home, not to mention the cost of which may come to exceed what an RTX 2070 is worth.

 

[eidairaman1]

You'll likely have to test it for bad RAM with NVIDIA MODS' MATS test. It's bootable. However, if you have any damaged memory modules, you will have to find a technician that can remove and reball a new module in. It's not a repair you can do at home, not to mention the cost of which may come to exceed what an RTX 2070 is worth.

Either the card could be a super or the ram/ramcontroller/gpu die are toast