[QUOTE=owftheevil;340955]I'll post details if you want them.[/QUOTE]

Please! :smile:

Because I'm in Barbados an RMA is almost out of the question -- the shipping costs involved would probably be almost as much, if not more, than the card cost me. I'm prepared to risk "bricking" this thing to get it stable.

Don't think there's much chance of bricking the thing. You have a windows virtual machine? This is not necessary, but it makes creating the bootable DOS usb easier. If not, get wine installed, its needed to run the bios editor NiBiTor. I'll look up some links and get back.

[QUOTE=owftheevil;340957]You have a windows virtual machine?[/QUOTE]

Yes -- several... :wink: Plus, the machine which hosts the card is dual-boot.

[QUOTE=owftheevil;340957]I'll look up some links and get back.[/QUOTE]

Much appreciated!

Here is how I edited and flashed the bios on my 560ti from Linux to reduce the memory clock. The usual disclaimer applies. If this works for you great, if not you have my sympathies, but nothing else (well, maybe half of chalsall's non-existent first born). It has worked without hitch for me over ~20 iterations. If your card is the only card in the machine, it would probably be a good idea to set up an autoexec.bat file to automatically flash the original saved bios in case something bad happens.

First, in Windows, make a dos bootable usb. I followed the instructions here:

[URL="http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/46707-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create.html"]www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/46707-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create.html[/URL]

Second, put nvflash on the dos usb. I got nvflash from here:

[URL="http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2229/nvflash-5-128-0-1/"]www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2229/nvflash-5-128-0-1/
[/URL]
Third, to get a backup copy of the bios and to get something to edit, boot from the usb, and run nvflash.

[CODE]nvflash --save filename.rom[/CODE]

Fourth, reboot and either in wine or a windows virtual machine, run NiBiTor, which I got here:

[URL="http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/nvidia_bios_editor_download_nibitor.html"]www.guru3d.com/files_details/nvidia_bios_editor_download_nibitor.html[/URL]

In NiBiTor, open the saved rom. Under the tools menu, select Fermi Clocks. This brings up a dialog with sections 3, 7, -(greyed out), and 15, with editable entries. The 3, 7, and 15 represent performance levels 0, 1, and 2 respectively as reported by the Nvidia X Server Settings application. The memory clock setting is entry 5, only section 15 is important. Edit this accordingly and save.

Fifth, reboot to the DOS usb and run nvflash on the newly edited bios.

[CODE]nvflash newbios.rom[/CODE]

When its done, reboot and you should be using the new clock settings.

Good luck, I hope this works for you.

[QUOTE=owftheevil;340964]Good luck, I hope this works for you.[/QUOTE]

Thank you VERY much Carl!

I may drive across the country tomorrow (will take me ~20 minutes :wink:) to give this a try! Will report back.

This is wonderful to hear about even if I don't need it at the moment (running Windows here.) I had imagined that a driver hack would be needed. That, in spite of the fact that I've done editing of other BIOS's in the past. Thanks for the educational example! :smile:

[QUOTE=chalsall;340966]I may drive across the country tomorrow (will take me ~20 minutes :wink:)[/QUOTE]

20 minutes to cross the country...so going from one back yard to another would be crossing state lines, and stepping off your front porch would be crossing a county line, eh? :smile:

I imagine there is very little need for secondary or tertiary political subdivisions in Barbados...

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;341007]I imagine there is very little need for secondary or tertiary political subdivisions in Barbados...[/QUOTE]

LOL... Barbados is [I]very[/I] small. We only have one "city", and it doesn't have a mayor. (And, BTW, we don't have States nor Provinces; we have Parishes...)

[QUOTE=chalsall]I may drive across the country tomorrow to give this a try! Will report back.[/QUOTE]

I decided to delay this until Tuesday, to optimize my time "on the road".

But for everyone's amusement, I emailed EVGA (my card's manufacturer) yesterday asking their advise on how to down clock my card under Linux after owftheevil alerted us all to the possibility. Their response received today was:

[QUOTE=EVGA Support Email]We unfortunately do not officially support our cards while running linux. It would seem there is no way to adjust the clock speed.[/QUOTE]

Sigh....

I don't know about EVGA, but flashing/editing your own BIOS may void your warranty, I don't know if they can tell of anything, just something I've heard.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;339938]Thanks! I am interested, as I am sure all the GPU code authors are, in seeing if we get a match.

How many cores of the i5 are you using? 11 days is actually faster than CUDALucas! Must be better FFT size selection on Prime95.[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://mersenne.org/report_exponent/?exp_lo=82090249&exp_hi=10000&B1=Get+status"]Matching DC completed[/URL]

Was all 4 cores of i5-2500K @3.3Ghz (not overclocked).

[QUOTE=kracker;341042]I don't know about EVGA, but flashing/editing your own BIOS may void your warranty, I don't know if they can tell of anything, just something I've heard.[/QUOTE]

It almost certainly does void the warranty. And the manufacturer certainly can tell (by using the same nvflash utility owftheevil pointed us to (written and provided by NVidia)) by downloading the BIOS image found on the RMA'ed card and running an MD5/SHA/binary diff on it.

But, at the end of the day, if this is the only way Linux users are able to make the hardware we [B][I][U]own[/U][/I][/B] stable, many of us will do so (accepting the risks associated with the activity).