bloodem wrote on 2023-08-29, 04:39:

I tried searching for this card's BIOS everywhere, but I only found one for the regular V770. If someone can do a quick dump and send it to me, I'd appreciate it. 😀

Hi

I found my own dump but it's in txt format (dump by CPUz)
I have no system ready to do another dump. Maybe you can transform it using an hexadecimal editor.

Thank you very much! Though, I would really prefer to have a known working binary BIOS dump with NVFlash or similar tool. Hopefully there's someone out there that has it.

The problem is that the card I'm trying to repair had, among other things, a VERY corrupt BIOS. Even worse, I had to desolder the BIOS chip, because all motherboards I tested refused to POST when this card was inserted (even when trying to boot from another PCI adapter), so I need to avoid any other variables that would make me second guess myself after the fact. 😅

I tried my best but i have bad luck today.

My XP testing installaion seems broken
I can't find a good nvflash version (either not Win98/Dos compatible or not supporting the V770U eeprom chip)

At least, i converted the txt file to binary unsing this command on linux :

1xxd -r V770U-vbios.txt V770U-vbios.bin

The result looks correct but can't be sure.
Hope it will help or you will be able to find someone else luckier than me.

there are errors at the beginning of the file and dump looks short compared to regular V770 and creative tnt2 ultra bios dumps.

Still looking for a good ol' NVFlash BIOS dump, if anybody has it...

bloodem wrote on 2023-09-14, 10:50:

Still looking for a good ol' NVFlash BIOS dump, if anybody has it...

Hi
I will give it another try, but only in about one week or two.
I, more or less, paused all my retro activities (testing especially) because i have an exam late September
It's difficult to find time to study as a mid 30's adult with work, kids and family.

I'm sure i will be able to dump it properly but all my XP hard drives needed re-installation

acl wrote on 2023-09-15, 07:46:

Hi I will give it another try, but only in about one week or two. I, more or less, paused all my retro activities (testing espec […]
Show full quote

Hi
I will give it another try, but only in about one week or two.
I, more or less, paused all my retro activities (testing especially) because i have an exam late September
It's difficult to find time to study as a mid 30's adult with work, kids and family.

I'm sure i will be able to dump it properly but all my XP hard drives needed re-installation

Thank you! No rush, whenever you can do it it's fine (especially because, as it seems, not a lot of people have this card or are willing to spare 5 minutes to do a BIOS dump). 😀

bloodem wrote on 2023-09-15, 08:55:

acl wrote on 2023-09-15, 07:46:

Hi I will give it another try, but only in about one week or two. I, more or less, paused all my retro activities (testing espec […]
Show full quote

Hi
I will give it another try, but only in about one week or two.
I, more or less, paused all my retro activities (testing especially) because i have an exam late September
It's difficult to find time to study as a mid 30's adult with work, kids and family.

I'm sure i will be able to dump it properly but all my XP hard drives needed re-installation

Thank you! No rush, whenever you can do it it's fine (especially because, as it seems, not a lot of people have this card or are willing to spare 5 minutes to do a BIOS dump). 😀

Finally managed to find some time !
I had to test different motherboards because the card seems quite picky.

• Asrock 939Dual-Sata2 (ULi M1695) -> No boot
• K7N2 (Nforce2) -> No Boot
• MSI 850Pro2 (i850) -> No Boot
• K7S5A Pro (SIS 735)-> Not stable (maybe not related)

Finally worked on a Aopen AX63Pro (Apollo Pro 133).

I dumped the bios using nvflash and GPU-Z and the extracted image is identical (same md5sum).

Thanks a bunch, man! Appreciate it! 😀