Geforce 6800 Ultra/6800 BIOS problems. Little help?

[ZHero]

Hi guys,

About two years back I won a competition for a system - it's an Athlon64-FX with a GeForce 6800 Ultra... Sounds sweet I know, but it's been a real love-hate affair.

For the most part, the machine has been great, apart from the video card, which was very new at the time - I suspect the board is a reference or some kind of early model as it's unbranded and has an odd VGA BIOS at boot - I've not been able to use any of the new drivers since the 66.93's with any reliability. It locks, stutters and does all kinds of funky corrupting stuff if I do, even after fresh installs of XP, etc.

Talking to NVIDIA, I've been told that the issue is likely a prerelease video BIOS, so I can't contact any their NVIDIAs partners for support, and they have no end-user contact... Basically I'm stuffed.

Anyhow, I've decided to try and sort this myself, I'd like to flash the BIOS with one from a retail board, which is where you guys come in.

I've looked at the drivers and this is what I can see from the card:

GeForce 6800 256Mb
Core: 400Mhz
Memory: 1100Mhz
Product: nv40 board - p201 -1
Version: Chiprev

Plus a "version" of 5.40.02

Which is odd, because it's meant to be a 6800 Ultra - could this be due to the early bios?


The whole motivation behind this is the new Elder Scrolls game - Oblivion, which I won't be able to play with any of the drivers I run at present, so I either need to sort this or buy a different card.


I understand things could go pear-shaped with the flash and am prepared to take that risk - it could save me lots of $$$ on a new card if things go well.


I'm happy to make floppies and nvflash/nibitor with a little guidance, if someone is prepared to help me through the whole process and it goes to plan (i.e. the card works under a different bios and I can at long last use a new driver) then I'd like to offer my thanks in the form of $50 via PayPal.

Sound good?

[tieros]

What is the full version of the BIOS?
mvktech has revision 4 of the 6800U AGP reference BIOS, and its version is 5.40.02.10.15. Of course, they have a bunch of other versions, too.

I've flashed my 6800GT OC a few times, and would be glad to help for free. You can use the 50 bucks to offset the cost of Oblivion