New help flashing my GTX 970 I just bought 04G-P4-2978-KR

[TECHSENSI]

Hello, I just bought this card off ebay and it seems pretty good except one major problem. Initially I had it working via the single DVI port and I was happy when I was able to play Doom 2016 with Ultra settings with no issues.
However, not the DVI cuts now whenever I boot into windows and goes to no signal detected! It does this on both my 23" and 27" inch monitors so I'm almost 100% sure it's not the DVI cables. I tried wiping the drivers and doing a clean install among other things but nothing is working. I bought a DVI to Display port adapter and that allowed me to use both displays without issues by using HDMI on one monitor and DVI-to Display port on my main 27" monitor. But that limits my 120 Hz monitor to 60 Hz so that's not a solution.

Here's my exact card:
EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SSC GAMING ACX 2.0

And here's the BIOS I'm currently running:
84.04.36.00.70
I searched and their is one never version for my card listed here:
Latest GTX 970 BIOS

This is one newer than my version. My question is what NVFlash utility can/should I use to attempt to flash this BIOS?
I downloaded this one from mega.nz but I'm not 100% sure this site is legit. I know it was ran by Kim.com a while back.

NVFlash
NVFlash_Certs_Bypassed_v5.287_x64

I extracted the zip file and it contains nvflash.exe and nvflsh64.sys
Norton and Malwarebytes show no issues with scanning these.
If anyone can advise me the correct nvflash to use I would appreciate it. Otherwise I'm going to have to see if I can return this card to the seller but I don't want to brick it or I'm SOL.
Thanks!

 

[TECHSENSI]

Hey guys, I think I found the correct nvflash utility to use on this website:
Air BIOS for EVGA GTX 970's

I downloaded this file that matches my card 04G-P4-2978-KR
Then I extracted this NVFlash version from the .zip
NVFlash_Certs_Bypassed_v5-218-0-1_x64
That contains the nvflash.exe and nvflsh64.sys files. I've scanned those and no threats found. Virustotal also so's them as clean.

My current action plan is to probably try to completely wipe my current nvidia drivers using this utility from guru3d website

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) download version 18.0.9.3​

Then re-install the latest nvidia driver for my GTX 970 one more time to see if that gets my DVI working again. FYI, if I boot Windows in safe mode I'm able to use the DVI display without issues so that seems odd. If the DDU removal and re-install doesn't fix my DVI issue I'm going to try to use the nvflash listed above and follow these instructions.

If none of this works I'm going to try to do a return because based off what I'm seeing a DVI to Display port adapter that support 120 Hz appears to cost upwards of $35 which is almost as much as I spent on this card. This card is solid other than this massive issue so I'd like to get it working! Thanks for any pro-tips!

 

[TECHSENSI]

Hey ya'll, nevermind. I ran DDU Uninstaller and then reinstalled the 970 GTX drivers and the same thing happens every time! As soon as the Geforce drivers get installed the DVI cuts out! This guy sold me a dud!

 

[dgianstefani]

If you can afford it I would suggest getting nothing older than RTX 20 Series, since they have DLSS. Old used cards often have issues like this and the small amount of money spent will often be wasted.

 

[Event Horizon]

I've had my Gigabyte GTX 970 (G1 Gaming model) since 2014. Mine had the display going blank during boot. I permanently fixed mine by using Nvidia's Displayport firmware update tool. Sadly, don't think this will help you.

 

[Hesychius]

Are you sure you are using a Dual Link DVI cable?... preferably a thick one.

 

[TECHSENSI]

Hey peeps. Thanks for the replies. I already contacted the seller and he agreed to allow me to return it but I have to pay for shipping it back. Just a little history. I had a EVGA GTX 680 in my machine since 2012 and it worked great up until recently when it started displaying artifacts. Oddly I wasn't even gaming with it for the last 7 years so it wasn't being taxed and I never overclocked it. I found a great GTX 680 on ebay I bought and it works flawlessly and is clocked slight higher than the one it replaced. That's when I got bit by the gaming bug after firing up Doom 2016 again and running benchmarks. The nice thing about the 970 I bought is I cranked the settings to Ultra in Doom and it didn't even flinch. It was running it super smooth but the DVI issue is a deal breaker. I've already got my eye on some GTX 1070's that will blow away the 970. It's pretty wild that I have a Asus MB from 2011 and it can support a Graphics card that came out 5 years later! Most the good ones on ebay are going for around $100 so I'll have to spend twice as much as I did for the GTX 680 or 970 I just bought. I just want to see those benchmarks go way up and breath some new life into my old rig. Also, I'm only going to buy from sellers that offer 30 day returns this time.

Also, I'm sure I'm using the right DVI cable since I have no issue with my GTX 680 at 120 Hz with my Asus 3D ready monitor. That's another reason I like these older cards is they still support 3D vision and I like movies in 3D and would like to see what the old Metro Games I have on Steam look like in 3D since the 680 ran like crap with Metro. Game on!

 

[dgianstefani]

There's not much price difference between a 1070 and a 2060. Strongly recommend the latter.

 

[TECHSENSI]

There's not much price difference between a 1070 and a 2060. Strongly recommend the latter.

Thanks for that info. I looked that card up and unfortunately it does not support 3D vision. I use a utility called 3Dfix to re-enable the 3D Vision functionality and it's worked good so far. The 1070 would probably be more than adequate for a lot of older games in my Steam that I never got around to finishing.