Notebook 940m bios reflash?

[MagicMan]

Hello, I was sent here from the ltt forums after someone said that I could get more help on what I was trying to accomplish. Long story short I need to know if I can reflash a mobile gpus bios to maybe fix vram type looking errors and some other artifacts. I've exhausted all other things that I can think of in ways to help it, full underclocks and memory underclocks did nothing, I've reinstalled windows, tried different drivers, reflowing the chip area too, and everything that I can think of. A bios flash if possible would be the last straw that could maybe do the trick to even get some more life outta it.
I was told specifically to look for a certain person that was familiar with bios flashing and could help, was told that that person was eidairaman1.
I actually like this laptop and would be happy if I was able to play one more game of fh4 on one of my own electronics setups.
chip is starting to artifact pretty hard, fresh paste few times, it t=idles at like 45-50 with the stupid start menu using the gpu when in the nvidia control panel I have it set to preferably use the integrated bios.
One thing that i did notice that after installing a driver for maybe the 4th time there were no artifacts until I had restarted my pc which I guess just made the driver actually work, before that it would just start to artifact as soon as I installed the driver.
Any help is appreciated, the gpu running the latest driver does not crash running a gpu stress test, furmark to be exact.

 

[sam_86314]

ping @eidairaman1

Post a screenshot of what GPU-Z shows for the GPU. If you can, take a picture of the GPU itself and the surrounding memory chips.

 

[eidairaman1]

From what laptop did this mgpu come from?

 

[MagicMan]

Acer aspire E5-573G-56RG, 4gb vram

SKHynix H5TC4G63CFR NOC - 514A NWMG0793H2

clocks are as far down as I can possibly get them.

 

[eidairaman1]

Can i see the entire card to include all ram chips and the die?

Have you cleaned the edge pins and the slot it goes into?

Artifacting could mean a ram chip or the die itself are failing internally and no matter what is done it won't work.

I will research this laptop but chances of a bios flash helping are extremely slim and very risky of bricking

Wow its from 2015...

NOC is actually N0C which is its effective datarate

H5TC4G63CFR < PRODUCTS < SK Hynix

www.skhynix.com

Interesting GPU-Z is reporting 16 ROPS and the database says there are only 8...

TechPowerUp

Graphics card and GPU database with specifications for products launched in recent years. Includes clocks, photos, and technical details.

www.techpowerup.com

10DE 1347 1025 098C

Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products

download.nvidia.com

82.08.46.00.1B

 

[MagicMan]

That's my bad on the incorrect reading, I use a paint brush to get rid of dust and other things that could have been there, its been the forth time I've repasted it at this point so. this is a bga chip, can remove it there are 4 chips on the back in a similar spot to the 2 in the picture and the other two on the other side of the die. My eyes are too garbage to be able to read and I can't get my phone to focus on the 1cmx1cm die on the chip.

E: yea I know its from 2015 I'm not exactly able to grab a credit card and buy something that actually works

 

[eidairaman1]

So there are 8 ram chips?

Well a die shot would be extremely helpful.

Open GPU-Z again and click the arrow next to the uefi check box and attempt to upload the bios to the VGA Bios Collection through the program itself. You may receive a prompt that the file is already in the database with a link, copy and paste that link here. If you do not proceed to upload the file and get the link once done.

Here is a tweaking tool but fore warning we are not responsible for the gpu bricking. Tweak with care, study some videos on this tool.

Maxwell II BIOS Tweaker (v1.36) Download

Maxwell BIOS Editor lets you modify the VBIOS of your NVIDIA Maxwell-based GeForce graphics card from the GeForce GTX 900 Series, like GTX 980 Ti, GTX

www.google.com

Use this tool to flash.

Just remember laptop gpus are way more sensitive to voltage and thermals than desktops are due to wall wart power limits.

NVIDIA NVFlash with Certificate Checks Bypassed v5.287 Download

This modified version of NVFlash lets you flash a modified BIOS to your NVIDIA graphics card.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[MagicMan]

"Bios reading is not supported on this device. " on both, upload and save to file. I will look into the bios tweaker and will probably try to up the voltage on the card and memory if plausible. In afterburner I can't even monitor the voltage or let alone set it to a constant voltage. I will just hope to get this sucker to run a few games before it dies.

 

[eidairaman1]

"Bios reading is not supported on this device. " on both, upload and save to file. I will look into the bios tweaker and will probably try to up the voltage on the card and memory if plausible. In afterburner I can't even monitor the voltage or let alone set it to a constant voltage. I will just hope to get this sucker to run a few games before it dies.

At this rate id buy a new card that is 100% compatible with that laptop (upgrade options)

@Kursah @W1zzard any idea why gpu-z wont read/ save/upload the file?

Or build a desktop

 

[W1zzard]

Is it possible that the gpu bios is integrated with the laptop mobo bios?

 

[StefanM]

I re-checked with my similar Aspire 571G with GeForce 840m, where BIOS saving worked first time with NVFlash 5.449 in April 2018.
Indeed it's broken again.

If you roll back GeForce driver to R390 or R397, NVFlash 5.449 can map the adapter, but fails to save.
At the time i must have been using Windows 1803. Something seems to have changed in later Windows versions that broke it.

I should have mentioned it back then: only BIOS saving worked, but never BIOS flashing.

 

[MagicMan]

 

[eidairaman1]

It's a 940M variant but Rops are supposed to be 8, not 16.

 

[MagicMan]

Then where could I get the correct bios rom i can’t seem to find one anywhere even on the acer forums or in the database here

 

[eidairaman1]

Then where could I get the correct bios rom i can’t seem to find one anywhere even on the acer forums or in the database here

Not a common enough model for a bios to be uploaded here.

There is 1 from MS but its not for acer.

I would contact acer for help or buy another card or build a desktop

 

[MagicMan]

Ok

 

[DR4G00N]

The GPU bios is integrated as part of the motherboard bios so just grab the latest system bios from Acer's site and flash it to update the gpu bios. https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/5977?b=1

Sounds to me like the GPU or Vram is faulty though and it's not something a bios flash could fix.

Probably need to have them replaced or buy a new motherboard.

 

[MagicMan]

Ok that would make more sence. Ill install the latest bios for the mobo and see how that goes.

I installed the latest bios on the acer website for my laptop. I don't think it includes the 940m bios but hey it is on the latest one, did see a small difference in the artifacts. It was already on the version 1.27 when the latest is 1.35, I'm going to look further and contact acer for a 940m 4gb bios if if does include it which I'm thinking that it does.