I bought a Quadro FX 2000, inspired by this thread. I have to say the blower on it is one of the most irritating I've run into. It is reminiscent of a dentist drill and maybe a miniature circular saw. Even when idling at low speed it has this brain killing high pitched whine that permeates the room. 😁 Even with headphones on there is no ignoring it.

How does an engineer decide that a mini blower like this is a good idea? I wonder how many RPM it runs at 3D speed....

swaaye wrote:

I bought a Quadro FX 2000, inspired by this thread.
...

This is quite a compliment!
If you need help calculating the new straps, let me know 😀

swaaye wrote:

...
I have to say the blower on it is one of the most irritating I've run into. It is reminiscent of a dentist drill and maybe a miniature circular saw. Even when idling at low speed it has this brain killing high pitched whine that permeates the room. 😁 Even with headphones on there is no ignoring it.

How does an engineer decide that a mini blower like this is a good idea? I wonder how many RPM it runs at 3D speed....

I have a trick that may help for that, since I was also suffering with the stock fan speed always being 100% in the Quadro FX 1000: if you open NiBiTor and go to Tools > Perf. Table Entries > Show Entries the Performance tables of the BIOS will pop up. They contain information on frequencies and timings for the different modes of the card: the table for 2D starts with a 20, the table for 3D starts with 80, and the table for Throttling starts with 60. I realized that, for NV30 based cards like the 5800 or Quadro FX 1000/2000, the last 2 numbers in the Performance Tables correspond to the fan speed in hexadecimal. This is not the case for NV35 based cards like the 5900! Your BIOS probably says something like 64 in 3D mode, which corresponds to 100%. If there's only one mode active, it will be 3D, thus the fan will always run at 100%

If you activate all 3 performance modes then you can change the fan speed for all 3 modes independently, I have mine set to 50% in 2D mode (32 hex), and 100% in Throttling and 3D mode (64 hex). Note: this will only help when Windows loads the drivers, it'll remain noisy until it does. Also, it takes a bit of time to jump from 100% back to 50%, even after the frequency has already been dialed back. And finally, if 100% annoys you then a better solution would be to swap the heatsink altogether 😁

Actually the FX 2000 only seems to run 100% briefly on initial power up. It spins down after that, before Windows drivers even load. It stays at the low speed until 3D is activated at which point it runs maybe 50%. This is similar to how the ATI Radeon X series blowers work but those are bigger fans with a somewhat less irritating noise signature. I played around with Rivatuner a bit to see if the high-pitched resonance of the idle speed could be tuned away by running it at a slightly higher speed but not really. I will probably just replace the cooler.

I tried overclocking it with Rivatuner as well. 500 MHz on the core is a no-go but it seemed fine at 450 MHz. Haven't tested the RAM.

swaaye wrote:

Actually the FX 2000 only seems to run 100% briefly on initial power up. It spins down after that, before Windows drivers even load. It stays at the low speed until 3D is activated at which point it runs maybe 50%. This is similar to how the ATI Radeon X series blowers work but those are bigger fans with a somewhat less irritating noise signature. I played around with Rivatuner a bit to see if the high-pitched resonance of the idle speed could be tuned away by running it at a slightly higher speed but not really. I will probably just replace the cooler..

Would you mind uploading your BIOS, so I can check it out? 😁

swaaye wrote:

I tried overclocking it with Rivatuner as well. 500 MHz on the core is a no-go but it seemed fine at 450 MHz. Haven't tested the RAM.

Did you raise the voltage for the core? Its probably at 1.4V when in 3D mode, if you crank it up to 1.5V it should hit 500 ok.

Ok the original BIOS is attached.

straps

10000:  55 AA 64 EB 4B 37 34 30 30 E9 4C 19 77 CC 56 49   U.d.K7400.L.w.VI
20010:  44 45 4F 20 0D 00 00 00 3C 01 E0 0D 00 00 49 42   DEO ....<.....IB
30020:  4D 20 56 47 41 20 43 6F 6D 70 61 74 69 62 6C 65   M VGA Compatible
40030:  01 00 00 00 C0 10 68 AB 30 38 2F 32 37 2F 30 33   ......h.08/27/03
50040:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
60050:  E9 C9 BB 00 DE 10 83 01 FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 00   ................
70060:  FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 80 22 00 A5 C1 E9 BE 0D E9   ........".......

I set the 3D VID to 06 and it seems to be fine at 500/500 now.

Also I swapped on one of the Chinese zalman copies and the fan on it squeals too! I think the card uses PWM fan control and this is causing the noise. Maybe my card has a problem with its PWM circuit.

Bought one myself and will probably put an after market cooler should I get annoyed enough, just hope that I can get a couple more before they're all gone.

swaaye wrote:

Ok the original BIOS is attached. […]
Show full quote

Ok the original BIOS is attached.

straps

Copy code to clipboard

10000:  55 AA 64 EB 4B 37 34 30 30 E9 4C 19 77 CC 56 49   U.d.K7400.L.w.VI
20010:  44 45 4F 20 0D 00 00 00 3C 01 E0 0D 00 00 49 42   DEO ....<.....IB
30020:  4D 20 56 47 41 20 43 6F 6D 70 61 74 69 62 6C 65   M VGA Compatible
40030:  01 00 00 00 C0 10 68 AB 30 38 2F 32 37 2F 30 33   ......h.08/27/03
50040:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00   ................
60050:  E9 C9 BB 00 DE 10 83 01 FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 00   ................
70060:  FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 80 22 00 A5 C1 E9 BE 0D E9   ........".......

I set the 3D VID to 06 and it seems to be fine at 500/500 now.

Also I swapped on one of the Chinese zalman copies and the fan on it squeals too! I think the card uses PWM fan control and this is causing the noise. Maybe my card has a problem with its PWM circuit.

Thanks for the BIOS! Ill check it out later. 06 corresponds to 1.4V, that's the voltage used by the Ultra when its set to 500 MHz according to the BIOS I looked at.

Actually, I've noticed the coil whine when the PWM is active on my card, i.e., when the fan is not running at 100%. My advice is set all the fan speeds in the Performance tables to 100% (64), since the fan on your new heatsink is probably way more silent anyways.

I'll edit this post with the strap values later, since I am a bit busy atm.

nforce4max wrote:

Bought one myself and will probably put an after market cooler should I get annoyed enough, just hope that I can get a couple more before they're all gone.

Nice! I'm glad people are buying these, haha. They shouldn't go unloved.

For anyone considering this:
The most important parts to cool down are the memory chips: they get super hot when they run above 400 MHz! Have it in mind when changing the cooling solution, too.

The Chinese cooler doesn't fit well with the OEM RAM sinks. And I'd like to keep those! And I'm not sure it's up to this task anyway. So I've temporarily attached a 92mm fan to the card, and removed the cover plate on the GPU heatsink. But it's barely adequate. 3DMark 2001 at 1920x1080 got it to 91 C. So exploring more heatsink options. Going to try Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Plus. 😎

With swaaye's interest in the Quadro FX 2000, I have calculated the straps that need to be flashed. I decided to make a TL;DR version of the first post and just write down the recipes needed to change a Quadro FX's identity (at least the ones we've worked on so far). I will make another post later with some remarks about the BIOS and what changes can be done in NiBiTor.

Changing DeviceID

The process has 5 steps;

• nvflash -d 112 to check your card's current strap values. Compare the last 2 lines of the output with the ones in the section of your interest, if the straps match you can proceed; if not, post here and I'll gladly help out.
• nvflash -b original.rom to make a backup of your card's current BIOS. Compress it (important!) and store it somewhere safe.
• Modify the DeviceID in the BIOS: open original.rom with NiBiTor and from the drop down list of cards select the one you want to change to, save the BIOS as modified.rom. I recommend you make only this change for now; any other change like frequency, voltage, and bootup message can be done later.
• nvflash -j -5 modified.rom to flash your card with modified.rom. This will warn you about changing your card's ID, you will have to type YES and then press y when prompted.
• Flash the new strap values: check the section of your interest for the appropriate command. After flashing I recommend you backup the BIOS now in your card by running nvflash -b strapped.rom. You can flash original.rom or strapped.rom whenever you want to change the card's identity.

[NV28] Quadro4 980 XGL (0288) (Not supported by NiBiTor!) […]
Show full quote

[NV28] Quadro4 980 XGL (0288) (Not supported by NiBiTor!)

Straps
0050: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 00
0060: FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 80 xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

...to GeForce4 Ti 4800 (0280)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFFFFF 0x00000000 0x7FFFFFFF 0x00000000

[NV34] Quadro FX 500/600 (032B) (Not supported by NiBiTor!) […]
Show full quote

[NV34] Quadro FX 500/600 (032B) (Not supported by NiBiTor!)

Straps
0050: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx 3F D0 30 7E 80 20 C0 80
0060: 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 80 xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

...to GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (0321)
nvflash --straps 0x7E10D03F 0x80C00080 0x00000000 0x00000010

...to GeForce FX 5200 (0322)
nvflash --straps 0x7E10C03F 0x80C02080 0x00000000 0x00000010

[NV30] Quadro FX 1000 (0309) […]
Show full quote

[NV30] Quadro FX 1000 (0309)

Straps
0050: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 00
0060: FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 80 xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
...to GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (0301)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFFFFF 0x00000000 0x7FFFFFFF 0x00000000

...to GeForce FX 5800 (0302)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFEFFF 0x00002000 0x7FFFFFFF 0x00000000

[NV30] Quadro FX 2000 (0308) […]
Show full quote

[NV30] Quadro FX 2000 (0308)

Straps
0050: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 00
0060: FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 80 xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

...to GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (0301)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFFFFF 0x00001000 0x7FFFFFFF 0x00000000

...to GeForce FX 5800 (0302)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFFFFF 0x00002000 0x7FFFFFFF 0x00000000

[NV35] Quadro FX 3000 (0338) […]
Show full quote

[NV35] Quadro FX 3000 (0338)

Straps
0050: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx FF FF FF 7F 00 00 00 00
0060: 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 80 xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

...to GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (0330)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFFFFF 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000010

...to GeForce FX 5900 (0331)
nvflash --straps 0x7FDFFFFF 0x00001000 0x00000000 0x00000010

~~~~~~~
REVISIONS
2018-05-23: formatting, added straps for Quadro4 980 XGL.
2018-05-21: added straps for Quadro FX 500/600, added DeviceID.
2018-04-05: some formatting. Added straps for Quadro FX 3000 to GeForce FX 5900.

Thanks! I will give those modified straps a try.

Ok don't buy an Accelero L2 unless you are up for making new mounting holes in its plate. I was wrong about it having the right fit out of the box. 😀

But it is pretty nice. Can barely hear it in full speed. The highest temp was now 74C, which is a 17C reduction. One hot 2003 chip.

I start believe that you can remake G2 MX200 to FX 5950U 😁 Good work with bios.
Finally my card working +/- ok without playing with bios, just need underclock rams. I found that many guys doing same way for stable running.
GPU overclocking is not problem.

This cooling looks nice but will not work good because rams heatsinks will be burning without fresh air by fan. This is fatal problem of these GF FXs.
Who made this type of original cooler must used some bad drugs 😁

Anyway I just finished tests and upload video with all Ultras craps for fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0oGPL5CAjM

swaaye wrote:

Ok don't buy an Accelero L2 unless you are up for making new mounting holes in its plate. I was wrong about it having the right fit out of the box. 😀
...
But it is pretty nice. Can barely hear it in full speed. The highest temp was now 74C, which is a 17C reduction. One hot 2003 chip.

That's one HUGE heatsink! Did you change the fan speeds to make the screeching stop? Did you flash the straps?

chose007 wrote:

I start believe that you can remake G2 MX200 to FX 5950U :-D Good work with bios. Finally my card working +/- ok without playin […]
Show full quote

I start believe that you can remake G2 MX200 to FX 5950U 😁 Good work with bios.
Finally my card working +/- ok without playing with bios, just need underclock rams. I found that many guys doing same way for stable running.
GPU overclocking is not problem.

This cooling looks nice but will not work good because rams heatsinks will be burning without fresh air by fan. This is fatal problem of these GF FXs.
Who made this type of original cooler must used some bad drugs 😁

Anyway I just finished tests and upload video with all Ultras craps for fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0oGPL5CAjM

Thanks for the compliment! I am working on a Quadro FX 4000 and turning it into a GF 6800 Ultra right now. Besides modifying the straps for the identity, I also have to unlock an extra quad of pipelines 😉 Other cards that should be interesting are the Quadro4 980XGL and maybe the Quadro FX 1100.

I think it should be fine, the Accelero lets air through so there's some airflow on the RAM chips

Your video is pretty cool, a lot of nice hardware! I have just bought identical RAM heatsinks to the ones in your MSI 5600 Ultra, I was wondering where they came from, so now I know 😀 Also, I fell in love with the reference 5700 Ultra--what a good looking card!

That's interesting about your work with 6800 line. I haven't FX4000, only 6800U and my tip - death.

Yep I think rams UP of card, very small heatsinks hide unlucky under full aluminium part. Can be interesting doing job with temperature meater.

Some coolers are really piece of art. Lot of cards are death (I know now 6x ultra) and other models not tested yet.

So, Quadro prices may spike soon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4tOBgoMuwM

EDIT: today I am home, so after watching the video I decided to test Phil's assertion that "he struggled to find an OpenGL game that ran worse on the Quadro". Well, quick benchmarks of Q3A, usually a go-to OpenGL benchmark...

Test system:
Dual P3-S 1400
1GB RDRAM
Audigy2 ZS
Promise SATA300 with OCZ Vertex4 SSD
Windows 2000 with Unofficial SP 5.2
ForceWare 93.71, default settings
Quadro FX 1000 in 2 configs:
-overclocked to 400 / 400
-flashed to Geforce 5800 at 400 / 400
Quake3 1.32c, SMP mode

1024x768, all Highest, average of 3 runs
Q1000 : 194.1
G5800 : 199.0

1080p, all Highest, average of 3 runs
Q1000 : 119.1
G5800 : 154.8

So much for that... I usually like Phil's videos, and I get he's just a guy like us playing with hardware. I wish, however, that he did a more thorough job before posting a video like that: 40k subscribers can significantly alter the prices of hardware 😒

That is what I greatly dislike about those youtube channels in general once people find out about something like this it usually hits the fan with either the parts drying up so fast or the prices go up like bitcoin, oh well for me this always means forced hoarding so that I have what I need for future projects.

I did flash the straps on my FX 2000 and they worked perfectly. FX 5800 Ultra now. The fan is not currently connected to the card. I will experiment with that next.

Yeah the Accelero should be cooling the RAM as well or better than stock did. That 92mm fan is blowing through to the RAM. Unfortunately one of the OEM RAM heatsinks wouldn't fit under it so that one had to be replaced with smaller heatsinks. I had hoped the Accelero would allow all the OEM heatsinks. The big backplate is still on the card.

nforce4max wrote:

That is what I greatly dislike about those youtube channels in general once people find out about something like this it usually hits the fan with either the parts drying up so fast or the prices go up like bitcoin, oh well for me this always means forced hoarding so that I have what I need for future projects.

Well, FX 1000 is rather expensive even now... at least for my standards. The cheapest I can find is ~$60. And to be honest while NV30 is nice, pretty much everything NV30 can do, NV35 can do also - and cards like FX 5900 XT are much cheaper and easier to get.

havli wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

That is what I greatly dislike about those youtube channels in general once people find out about something like this it usually hits the fan with either the parts drying up so fast or the prices go up like bitcoin, oh well for me this always means forced hoarding so that I have what I need for future projects.

Well, FX 1000 is rather expensive even now... at least for my standards. The cheapest I can find is ~$60. And to be honest while NV30 is nice, pretty much everything NV30 can do, NV35 can do also - and cards like FX 5900 XT are much cheaper and easier to get.

TBH, I really enjoy watching the content he and other youtubers put out. What I don't care for is that he ran 1 test, the Quadro somewhy ran faster, and he is recommending it without reservation. Like, sure, those are the results he got, but doing some homework with other systems would be advisable before putting out a video recommending something. Had he written in a forum and started a discussion, I wouldn't care. But a video is so final... you can see the Quadro fever in that comment section already.

slivercr wrote:

TBH, I really enjoy watching the content he and other youtubers put out. What I don't care for is that he ran 1 test, the Quadro somewhy ran faster, and he is recommending it without reservation. Like, sure, those are the results he got, but doing some homework with other systems would be advisable before putting out a video recommending something. Had he written in a forum and started a discussion, I wouldn't care. But a video is so final... you can see the Quadro fever in that comment section already.

What's even more confusing is he has evidence contradicting that claim already, and even recommends watching it in this latest video. It flies in the face of years worth of users and PC journalist testing both types of cards, and seems, charitably, to be a rushed conclusion.