Flashing BIOS variant

[whitdren]

Hi,

I own a Palit 1050 Ti Dual OC and I'd like to flash the bios for the Palit 1050 Ti StormX. My intent is to get rid of the additional power supply.
Since the cards are basically, to my knowledge, the same with minor differences, do I have any chance of success at achieving my goal?
Thanks in advance.

 

[MrGenius]

"Additional power supply"? As in you want to run the card without the PCI-E 6-pin connected? Or what? I don't get it.

If that is what you mean, I don't think you'll be successful at achieving that. I might be wrong. But I think there are hardware-level safety mechanisms in place to prevent it. Meaning, if you don't have the 6-pin plugged in, the card won't power on. Regardless of what BIOS it has.

 

[whitdren]

you want to run the card without the PCI-E 6-pin connected?

Exactly.

I think there are hardware-level safety mechanisms in place to prevent it. Meaning, if you don't have the 6-pin plugged in, the card won't power on.

That's true for the Dual OC as if I boot without the 6-pin cable in, I get a on screen message notifying me of the issue.

I noticed that the StormX PCB has a 6-pin header but the connector is not there, that's why I was hoping to manage it.

Thank you for your reply.

 

[Caring1]

If you are familiar with flashing, try it, if not, don't.
You could undervolt the card to reduce power consumption, as well as reduce clocks slightly using Afterburner.

 

[MrGenius]

That's true for the Dual OC as if I boot without the 6-pin cable in, I get a on screen message notifying me of the issue.

I noticed that the StormX PCB has a 6-pin header but the connector is not there, that's why I was hoping to manage it.

Thank you for your reply.

You're welcome. And, like I said, I could be wrong. I don't have a thorough understanding of how it all works really.

What I do know is that some voltage regulators have a way to sense +12V input voltage(e.g. with a VINSEN circuit wired to a +12V input). And they control the powering on/off of the VRM depending on the sensing of that input voltage being at or near +12V. Which, since the circuit is singular, would only work properly if it were wired to either the +12V input from the PCI-E slot or the 6-pin connector(s). Of course you could have two such circuits(one for each input). But it seems like that would be overly redundant(no real need to). If the card is intended to be solely powered by the +12V from the slot, then wire VINSEN to that +12V input. If the card is intended to be powered by both +12V inputs, then wire VINSEN to the 6-pin +12V input. No sense, pardon the pun, in doing both.

Now, if that were the whole story, and I don't know that it is, you could hard mod the card by rewiring the VINSEN pin on the VR to the +12V input from the PCI-E slot. Bypassing the whole works. Which might work just fine. Up until the point when the card draws more current than the PCI-E slot can handle. And the magical blue smoke starts leaking out of something as a result.

But, like I said, I don't know if that's the whole story or not either. Case in point, AMD has a command table in their vBIOSs that's labeled "Power Connector Detection". Which I have absolutely no idea what it does, or how it works(sounds relevant to me though). Nor do I know if Nvidia does similarly with their vBIOSs(or, again, if it's relevant). That message you get on your screen surely means that something knows something about whether or not the 6-pin connector is connected. The question is how do you make it so it doesn't know that? That I don't know...for sure anyway.

Anywho...just some things to think about.

 

[whitdren]

You could undervolt the card to reduce power consumption, as well as reduce clocks slightly using Afterburner.

Reducing clock speed is a drawback I'm willing to have, not my main intention.

some voltage regulators have a way to sense +12V input voltage (e.g. with a VINSEN circuit wired to a +12V input). And they control the powering on/off of the VRM depending on the sensing of that input voltage being at or near +12V. Which, since the circuit is singular, would only work properly if it were wired to either the +12V input from the PCI-E slot or the 6-pin connector(s). Of course you could have two such circuits(one for each input). But it seems like that would be overly redundant(no real need to). If the card is intended to be solely powered by the +12V from the slot, then wire VINSEN to that +12V input. If the card is intended to be powered by both +12V inputs, then wire VINSEN to the 6-pin +12V input. No sense, pardon the pun, in doing both.

Point taken. I guess tracing the path with a multimeter would be a massive task.

Bypassing the whole works. Which might work just fine. Up until the point when the card draws more current than the PCI-E slot can handle. And the magical blue smoke starts leaking out of something as a result.

I assume this is a ironical exaggeration for: "The system would then shut down abruptly.". In that case that should cause no harm to my system, meaning I could risk it.

But, like I said, I don't know if that's the whole story or not either. Case in point, AMD has a command table in their vBIOSs that's labeled "Power Connector Detection". Which I have absolutely no idea what it does, or how it works(sounds relevant to me though). Nor do I know if Nvidia does similarly with their vBIOSs(or, again, if it's relevant).

Can I even look into the BIOS? Meaning, can I edit somehow? Last I read, one could only modify BIOSes for the GTX 600 series or so.

That message you get on your screen surely means that something knows something about whether or not the 6-pin connector is connected. The question is how do you make it so it doesn't know that? That I don't know...for sure anyway.

Am I being too optimistic believing that's BIOS related rather than hardware based?

just some things to think about.

Warmly welcome and duly noted. Thank you.

 

[Caring1]

I assume this is a ironical exaggeration for: "The system would then shut down abruptly.". In that case that should cause no harm to my system, meaning I could risk it.

It's no exaggeration, drawing too much current through the PCI-e slot can burn it out damaging components.

 

[hat]

It's no exaggeration, drawing too much current through the PCI-e slot can burn it out damaging components.

+1

I don't believe you can edit the BIOS on Pascal. Back in the day, we could edit and flash our own BIOS all we wanted, but with Pascal, the BIOS has to be signed... that's why no Pascal bios editor exists.

I'm not sure though how well flashing another BIOS that already exists would go, though. I'd be interested to know if I could flash my plain jane PNY 1070s with a higher performing one, like an ASUS Strix or something.

 

[whitdren]

It's no exaggeration, drawing too much current through the PCI-e slot can burn it out damaging components.

I'll be more careful then.

I don't believe you can edit the BIOS on Pascal. [...] the BIOS has to be signed... that's why no Pascal bios editor exists.

Figured as much. Pity.

I'm not sure though how well flashing another BIOS that already exists would go, though.

Bios from different brands would likely not but, again, these would be variants for the same vendor.

 

[MrGenius]

You can edit a Pascal BIOS. And flash it with a hardware flasher. Which effectively bypasses the signature. That's if I understand what @R-T-B is saying he's done(and if it's actually true). So yeah, he'd be the guy to ask about that.

On the rewiring the VINSEN I could probably help with that. I'd need a datasheet, or at least a pinout, for the VR on your card though. The rest is pretty trivial.

 

[R-T-B]

You can edit a Pascal BIOS. And flash it with a hardware flasher. Which effectively bypasses the signature. That's if I understand what @R-T-B is saying he's done(and if it's actually true). So yeah, he'd be the guy to ask about that.

On the rewiring the VINSEN I could probably help with that. I'd need a datasheet, or at least a pinout, for the VR on your card though. The rest is pretty trivial.

You can, I was on the verge of making a guide, but there are like a million caveats and limitations that made it not worth my while.

First off, the bios has to be early as the first issued GTX 1080 revision code revision, no newer.

Then, there are only certain values you can edit (power limit is one) that it won't notice. Touch something thermal related? Brick.

I can't advise it.