Why does the GPU-Z show that my graphics card is fake?

[purecain]

@W1zzard thanks for the effort, gpu-z has been a great little tool over the years! much appreciated buddy!

 

[Ryan Liu]

Thanks for testing in private. This is fixed now and the fix will be included in next release

I am sorry that I did not reply in time. And it seems this issue has been fixed.
Thanks all your guys to help me to find out the reason. Especially for @W1zzard and @maxslo.
I am worried that it may be a fake card. Then there would be tons of shit discussions between me and the seller.

@W1zzard, why do u bother with that function at all? nvida put stop on fake bios flashes nowdays, and amd too i think, only older cards can be manipulated but who cares, in few years no1 gonna use em anyway, let alone buy.

Used does not mean useless. I build a $70 PC for my grandapa. All parts are used except a new ssd. He just want to surfing internet and watching videos. I think it is the best for him.
My grandpa care about TV series more than which is the best graphic Titan or 2070Ti.

 

[karl53]

Good morning,
I am posting in this thread on 'FAKES' videocards, one year later.

Here is a 3 x NVS300 setup. All FAKES?!
The first shown is actually HP branded; the other two are NVIDIA.

No one of them shows any 'Vulcan': 'Device not found'.

 

[W1zzard]

Looking at the NVS300 specs, it is specified to have 16 CUDA cores, and is based on GT218.

Your card reports 24 cores and is based on GT216 even though its device id (10D8) says it is a GT218 GPU. This is what triggers the fake detection in GPU-Z.

Given that your card seems to have a better spec than the original, I'm not sure if it really is a fake, or just some kind of rebrand.

Where did you buy those cards?

 

[karl53]

Thank you for your reply!

All of the three videocards have been bought on eBAY from differend sellers.
Surely the 1st of 3 videocard is a re-brand: clearly is visible 'HP' as subvendor and even marked physically on the card.

But the other two NVS300s (2nd and 3rd) are "Nvidia":



So Nvidia produced better specs than... Nvidia?

All three videocards show:



Or actually a bug has been introduced in GPU-Z creating the false positive. Look at this old 2.9 GPU-Z release I downloaded back one year ago:



Ditto for the two other 'Nvidia' NVS300s:



The NVS300 cards have been detected correctly with GPU-Z 2.9: GT218 and 16 shaders either for the 'HP' and 'NVIDIA' models. No traces of GT216 or 24 cudas.

 

[W1zzard]

Look at this old 2.9 GPU-Z release

The fake detection wasn't part of GPU-Z back then.

Good observation about the shader count, I checked around a bit and your cards seem genuine indeed, it's just an edge case where NVIDIA is internally using a different GPU for their manufacturing.

Next version of GPU-Z will no longer flag this card as fake.

 

[karl53]

I think there are two different sides: one is the previous GPU-Z release did not detect fake detection feature; the second aspect is the 2.9 detected a GT218 while now it is being reported as GT216.

 

[karl53]

A final clarification W1zzard, please: the GPU-Z dropdown sequence of those videocards, reflects the physical sequence of the motherboard PCI-E slots? So the first NVS300 is on PCIE1, the 2nd is on PCIE3 and the 3rd NVS300 is on PCIE4?

 

[W1zzard]

A final clarification W1zzard, please: the GPU-Z dropdown sequence of those videocards, reflects the physical sequence of the motherboard PCI-E slots? So the first NVS300 is on PCIE1, the 2nd is on PCIE3 and the 3rd NVS300 is on PCIE4?

They should be sorted by PCI bus number, most motherboards number their slots from top to bottom, some number them differently.

Stop the fans with your finger for a moment and watch the reported fan RPM in GPU-Z sensors. Should be obvious then.

 

[karl53]

Unfortunately I can't stop the fans because those cards are fanless.
PCIE2 is a x1 slot. So what you called sortering according to PCI bus number would be PCIE1, PCIE3, PCI4 sequence in my case? Should GPU-Z show that PCI bus number under the Advanced tab?
What I know for sure is the Bus ID for the 1st card (HP subvendor) is 4, while the other two NVS300s are 7 ad 8 bus ID#.
So PCIE1 is Bus ID4, PCIE3 is 7 and PCIE4 is 8?

 

[W1zzard]

The card name tooltip shows the PCI bus location. Good suggestion for advanced, will add in next release

 

[karl53]

Running tooltip over which button/label should show the PCI Bus location, please?

 

[W1zzard]

 

[karl53]

Ok, thank you. This confirm what I wrote above:
"What I know for sure is the Bus ID for the 1st card (HP subvendor) is 4, while the other two NVS300s are 7 ad 8 bus ID#."

Now, again, I will try address myself the question referring to the above scheme:
"Is PCIE1 slot linked Bus ID4, PCIE3 to 7 and PCIE4 to bus 8?" Again, I can't stop fans that do not exist as workaround.
Then will post the topic of my question in a proper thread (one of those 3 cards is systematically lazy on clock, even if the temperature is low)

 

[eidairaman1]

Ok, thank you. This confirm what I wrote above:
"What I know for sure is the Bus ID for the 1st card (HP subvendor) is 4, while the other two NVS300s are 7 ad 8 bus ID#."

Now, again, I will try address myself the question referring to the above scheme:
"Is PCIE1 slot linked Bus ID4, PCIE3 to 7 and PCIE4 to bus 8?" Again, I can't stop fans that do not exist as workaround.
Then will post the topic of my question in a proper thread (one of those 3 cards is systematically lazy on clock, even if the temperature is low)

Physically pull them if you can

Or go to device manager and disable them or check their "hardware properties"

 

[W1zzard]

Yeah +1 on physically removing or swapping cards

 

[juiseman]

Looking at the NVS300 specs, it is specified to have 16 CUDA cores, and is based on GT218.

Your card reports 24 cores and is based on GT216 even though its device id (10D8) says it is a GT218 GPU. This is what triggers the fake detection in GPU-Z.

Given that your card seems to have a better spec than the original, I'm not sure if it really is a fake, or just some kind of rebrand.

Where did you buy those cards?

Most certain they were the most common card shipped with HP Z400 workstations. I have personally went through at least 5 of these cards that came in the Z400's
I resold some also on Ebay with 1 return. The buyer claimed the card was defective but I worked fine when I retested. If I remember correctly
he was saying something about the CU not matching up or something. But its funny, you would think 24 CU vs 16CU would be a celebration like you stated....

Side note; why are you running 3 NVS300's like that? multiple screens?
Depending on motherboard, it may drop you down to 8x, 4x, 4x PCIE lanes instead of the normal x16 x8 x8..
Not that a NVS300 would bottleneck the PCI-e Bus or anything...just simply curious......

 

[karl53]

Sure, it is because of multiple screens setup. Scaling down to 8x or 4x is not a problem for office use. no 3D is involved with such a videocards...

Or go to device manager and disable them or check their "hardware properties"

@eidairaman1: are you actually being able to find the PCI-E slot involved looking at Device Manager hardware properties for your videocards? Not sure which of those dropdown menus show that detail

 

[juiseman]

cool. Love multiple screens, 3 or 6?

 

[eidairaman1]

Sure, it is because of multiple screens setup. Scaling down to 8x or 4x is not a problem for office use. no 3D is involved with such a videocards...



@eidairaman1: are you actually being able to find the PCI-E slot involved looking at Device Manager hardware properties for your videocards? Not sure which of those dropdown menus show that detail

Right click on the cards and look, sometimes things are in hexadecimal or decimal.

Showing hidden or non present devices helps too

 

[W1zzard]

 

[karl53]

Thank you but - again, as referred in posts #35, #39 and 43 - the issue is not getting the Bus ID# that clearly are available under GPU-Z too, but the PCI-E Slot ID# , in other terms how the Bus ID# are associated with PCI-E slots, since stopping the fan (that does not exists) is not a possible workaround. Out of note, a further complication is the the GPU-Z dropdown sequence of the three NVS300 cards is different than Windows Control Panel/ Device Manager: I got a Bus ID 4 - 7 - 8 vs 4 -8 - 7 respectively.

@juiseman : 6 screens.

 

[W1zzard]

how the Bus ID# are associated with PCI-E slots

I don't think this can be read via software. Try: Motherboard manual, ask the vendor support, or just keep swapping devices and try to figure it out.

4 - 7 - 8 vs 4 -8 - 7

It sorts cards with connected output further to the top, so basically you have two groups that each are sorted by pci bus number

 

[karl53]

Next version of GPU-Z will no longer flag this card as fake.

Good morning W1zzard,
Just to let you know that even with the latest v 2.34 the FAKE status appears.
No drama! Just a feedback.