Turn your 6800LE / 6800NU to a 6800 Ultra Extreme!

[SaguratuS]

After doing a bit of research, there are a few ways to turn your 6800LE/NU (non-ultra) into a 6800GT/Ultra, minus the ram of course. This can be done two ways, by modding the hardware (risky), or software via rivatuner. The hardware way requires resoldering some resistors, and flashing the bios.

Typical results seen have been for the most part successful so far, however not all cards will take to this nicely. As you may know, 6800NU's run with 4 pipelines disabled and 1 vertex shader disabled (12x1,5vp), and the LE's run with 8/2 disabled (8x1,4vp). In almost all cases, all vertex lines can be opened without any problems, however you may have mixed results with the pixel pipelines, as the originals were faulty, which is the reason the 6800NU only has 12.

(Please note that I am not the one who took these pictures, nor am I the one who originally discovered this nifty little hardware trick)

Hardware Method

Step 1.

Investigate

Locate these resistors on the back of the card

For the 6800NU, verify the resistors, they should be:

A    B  C = D
E    F  G = H
X = Y  O   P

(= means a resistor)

Step 2.

Resolder

This is the risky part, you need to be proficient in soldering, if you nuke a resistor, you're pretty much screwed.

Change your resistor layout to look like this:

A = B  C = D
E    F  G = H
X    Y  O   P

Step 3.

Flash

If you don't know how to do this, you shouldn't be trying.

here's the modded 6800 Ultra http://www.titiworld.com/Blueremy/68mod/68mod4.rom

Step 4.

Verify

Go get rivatuner, and check out your brand new 6800 Ultra (all pipelines enabled and working!), minus the ram of course. Note that you WILL need better cooling than the stock 6800 NU heatsink! You can pick up a decent thermaltake(?) 6800 cooler off ebay for about $10

Step 5.

Optional - Hardware ID

You know what, I'm not even going to bother :)

This has zero benefit, and nobody looks at the hardware ID anyway. (40 = ultra, 41 = LE, 42 = NU, 45 = GT)

Software Method

Step 1.

Get RivaTuner

http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

Step 2.

Run Riva Tuner

If you can't figure this one out, you shouldn't be allowed near anything that plugs into the wall.

Step 3.

Investigate

Verify that your card has 16 pipelines, I have yet to see one that doesn't, but just in case :)

Click the customize button next to the "256-bit NV40 (A1,12x1,5vp) with 128MB DDR"

Select "Graphics subsystem diagnostic report" - 4th button to the right, has a little i with a computer

Under Report categories - Available categories, scroll down until you find "NVIDIA VGA BIOS information", tick it so it has a checkmark on the left.

Scroll down under Report preview until you find this section

Verify that the following lines with ">>>" match your bios information

$ffffffffff ---------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff NVIDIA VGA BIOS information
$ffffffffff ---------------------------------------------------
$1100000000 Title           : nv40 p212 sku0 VGA BIOS
$1100000002 Version         : 5.40.02.12
$1100000001 BMP version     : 5.28
$1100000100 BIT version     : 1.00
$1100010000 Perf. level 0   : 325MHz/350MHz/1.20V
$1100020000 VID bitmask     : 00000011b
$1100020100 Voltage level 0 : 1.10V, VID 00000000b 
$1100020101 Voltage level 1 : 1.20V, VID 00000001b 
$1100020102 Voltage level 2 : 1.40V, VID 00000010b 
>>> $1100000003 GPU units mask  : 16x1,6vp

Step 4.

Enabled masked GPU units

Go back to "main" under riva tuner, click the same customize button again and select the first icon - Low-Level system settings

Go to the NVStrap driver tab

Select Install

Under Graphics processor configuration -- Active pixel/vertex units configuration, select custom, and hit the customize button.

Enable any masked vertex / pixel units -- Leave the N/A ones alone

Step 5.

Reboot and Check

Hit ok a few times and it'll ask you to reboot

After rebooting, open up rivatuner again, and check the "256-bit NV40...." line. If it shows (A1,16x1,6vp), you've enabled all the pipelines on your card, go run 3dmark05 or something and check for artifacts (these will be VERY obvious artifacts). If you don't have any, congrats, your card no longer has the major hinderance on it, and will perform MUCH better than before. Go OC it / flash it / whatever, and you can obtain some very nice 3dmark scores for a NU :)

IF:

You reboot and it still shows (A1,12x1,5vp), the pipelines are hardware disabled - rivatuner 15.2 can overcome this, however it will not be released until Monday (Oct 4th).

Your system becomes very unstable and all pipelines have been enabled, then your card cannot have the additional 4 pixel pipelines, but it can most likely keep the vertex processor. Your only alternative is to do the hardware mod.

You get artifacts, the disabled pipelines on your card are broken, which is fairly common. Disable the pixel pipeline that was masked earlier, however you can (most likely) keep the additional vertex processor at no cost :). The only other option is to go for the hardware mod, which has reportedly not had any problems with previously damaged pipelines (not confirmed yet, too few have done the hardware mod).

You have a 6800LE, follow the same instructions, except these cards will only have 8/4 pipelines enabled by default, 12/6 is pretty much guaranteed to work, and is otherwise the exact same thing as the 6800NU card.

Well I think I covered everything, there have been reports of clock speeds of 480/880 with the hardware mod and watercooling, which is kicking some serious ass for a non-ultra card :)

Please note that any images in this thread are *NOT* mine! All credit for discovering the hardware mod goes to whoever wrote this thread http://www.pcunleash.com/bbs/zboard.php?id...&desc=asc&no=39 ;)

Enjoy, and happy modding!

[salterbomb]

HIGHLY risky

very easy to destroy a card doing this.

[craybox]

i expect there are a few ppl in here with more money than sence who will try it, be interesting to see who ;)

[ClubNinja]

HIGHLY risky

very easy to destroy a card doing this.

Yeah I dont think I would atempt this with my 6800 nu.

[SaguratuS]

The software mod has been confirmed safe so long as you don't flash your bios (which is still reversable if you screw it up, just need a pci card).

Hardware mod is relatively safe for those who can solder :)

[SaguratuS]

More info rolling in about the software mod - almost ALL cards are able to unlock the pipelines after some tweaking, and there has yet to be a card that couldn't unlock all vertex processors. I'm currently working on finding a safe pencil-voltmod for the card so we don't have to flash the bios for the core .2v increase (mandatory for any decent overclocking). So far the overclockability of these cards is simply stunning, people are pulling off 80mhz core increases with no voltmods and no major cooling. Pushing the NU to 500/900 (from 325/700) is very doable :happy:

[Ecander]

Try the BIOS editor on mvktech.net it can mod the volts, hardware id, ram timings, speeds etc.

[Argote]

this looks very nice, BTW are 6800LE's even available for sale??

[jerry]

this looks very nice, BTW are 6800LE's even available for sale??

they will be. :shifty:

[SaguratuS]

6800LE's are found in europe / austrailia / etc, not in the US yet. Definately the way to go though, seeing how you can mod it up to a normal 6800 or higher :)