GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model?

Atlink · 07-25-05, 09:46 PM

So I managed to aquire my "dustbuster" a while ago from a friend who had it in his computer, then upgraded. When I inspected it one day, I noticed two stickers on it. One said "EXPO ITEM" (hand written), and another was "Awaiting FCC approval" sticker. This led me to believe that I owned a pre-production, and kind of "beta" version of the card.

PC Wizard helped with those thoughts, when I did a video BIOS dump and a few ofthe lines read as follows:

000C0280 : 71 00 00 00 50 43 49 52 DE 10 02 03 00 00 18 00 q...PCIR........
000C0290 : 00 00 00 03 7A 00 01 00 00 80 00 00 47 65 46 6F ....z.......GeFo
000C02A0 : 72 63 65 20 46 58 20 35 38 30 30 20 42 49 4F 53 rce FX 5800 BIOS
000C02B0 : 0D 0A 4E 56 33 30 20 41 30 32 0D 0A 00 00 00 00 ..NV30 A02......
000C02C0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000C02D0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000C02E0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 56 65 72 .............Ver
000C02F0 : 73 69 6F 6E 20 34 2E 33 30 2E 32 30 2E 31 39 2E sion 4.30.20.19.
000C0300 : 30 34 20 0D 0A 00 43 6F 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 20 04 ...Copyright
000C0310 : 28 43 29 20 31 39 39 36 2D 32 30 30 33 20 4E 56 (C) 1996-2003 NV
000C0320 : 49 44 49 41 20 43 6F 72 70 2E 0D 0A 00 45 6E 67 IDIA Corp....Eng
000C0330 : 69 6E 65 65 72 69 6E 67 20 52 65 6C 65 61 73 65 ineering Release
000C0340 : 20 2D 20 4E 6F 74 20 46 6F 72 20 50 72 6F 64 75 - Not For Produ
000C0350 : 63 74 69 6F 6E 20 55 73 65 0D 0A 00 18 01 4E 56 ction Use.....NV
000C0360 : 33 30 20 42 6F 61 72 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 Board........
000C0370 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
000C0380 : 00 43 68 69 70 20 52 65 76 20 20 20 00 00 00 00 .Chip Rev ....

And for those who cant read broken text... The pertinent info says:

Version 4.30.20.19.04 ...Copyright (C) 1996-2003 NVIDIA Corp....Engineering Release - Not For Production Use.....NV30 Board

So, did I get a rare one of a kind board, or is this just in all the bioses?

**saturnotaku** · 07-25-05, 09:50 PM

It's entirely possible you have a pre-release board, one that may have made its rounds on the hardware preview circuit at places like Anandtech. Do you have any pictures you can post?

Atlink · 07-25-05, 09:57 PM

Sadly, I have no pics.

I tried to take some at one point, but the camera I was using didn't like anything closer than 30 feet. lol

I've looked at pictures, and it looks identical (I didn't count transistors/resistors/any other kind of istors) to a BFG 5800 and such...

I can tell you that the heatsink is a strange orangeish/copperish color, and the plastic windchamber is clear.

Oh, I was wrong about the sticker, the "EXPO ITEM" thing was actually hand written on Sharpie on the PCB.

EDIT: Is there a good HSF that I could swap with this damned loud... thing? I just got a TT Beetle (which is SO much better than my Orb, and looks a lot cooler) and it dropped the dBs way down, so hopefully if I can either keep the fan speed low, or change the whine, I'll be really happy.

-=DVS=- · 07-26-05, 01:52 AM

I hear Zalman VF700-CU cooler is awesome , but not sure about your memory chips , they run hot no ?

**ricercar** · 07-26-05, 01:59 AM

You definitely have a demo NV30 board. Quantities were given out during and after the holiday season 2002. If you PM me all the numbers on the PCB, I may be able to tell you what company originally received that exact demo board from NVIDIA.

Use a fan on the rear RAMsink
The critical mod for a 5800 or 5800 Ultra is to blow cool air over the rear of the card. Do not fail to do this if you plan to overclock. This fan was recommended to me by Geoff Ballew, the NV30 product manager, while I worked at NVIDIA ... after I killed two cards.

On the rest of my NV30 boards, I've bolted a 50MM fan centered on the back RAMsink. For each fan, I used two 4/40 bolts driven into the spaces between copper RAMsink fins. Since adding these rear fan, I've never permanently overheated a non-overclocked NV30, even in a SFF heated with dual internal hard drives.

Quiet FX Fan mod
I'm currently running one of my FX 5800 Ultras with stock fan & transparent fan shroud completely removed, leaving only the copper. I attached two 4-pin fans that are always on, and they provide lower temperatures and greatly lower noise than the stock FX Flow. GPU temperature never exceeds 62°C, even during 3-hour Doom3 marathons.

Atachment details: see previous reccomendation for rear fan. On the front, I superglued one 60MM fan on the flat-space over the GPU, thinking it was temporary, but it stays and it works great.

FWIW I have the card's fan connector driving a blue LED fan (pointed arbitrarily) so I know when 3D mode is active. This is a test setup for a SFF I'm building. The plan is to light up SFF feet, rear and top fans, plus internal 4" cathodes, but only when the machine is in 3D graphics mode.

WARNING - DO NOT TRUST Arctic Cooling's 5800 Ultra NV Cooler
The Arctic Cooling NV-__ model that claims to be for the FX 5800 & 5900 Ultra does NOT fit the 5800 or 5800 Ultra. I have one of these AC coolers and it was so bogus that I think the AC company has NEVER SEEN a 5800 PCB. The attachment screw holes and RAM pads are so ridiculously inappropriate for the 5800 PCB that it's unbelievable. I'd have been pissed if I didn't have a 5900 Ultra to use with that cooler.

That being said, look for the Arctic Cooling NV-__ model that fits the FX 5700 Ultra. My eyeball estimate suggests that the 5700 Ultra model also fits the FX 5800 Ultras. While I haven't owned one of these yet, and therefore take no responsibility for your success or failure, I do plan to get one next weekend to test against my 5800 Ultra collection.

keith33 · 07-27-05, 06:00 PM

Just blow some fans over it, it's no longer uber 1337 engineering sample pre-production vintage cool if you take away the dustbuster. It's all about the dustbuster!

**ricercar** · 07-27-05, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by keith33

it's no longer uber 1337 engineering sample pre-production vintage cool if you take away the dustbuster.

While I totally agree, some people like to game with their FX 5800s without waking the household. My modded 5800 U is my wife's daily driver until she inherits my SLI hand-me-down. My uber 1337 FX 5800 Ultra lives unmodded in a Dustbuster-friendly SFF.

Atlink:
Your sample was released about four months before the 5800 Ultra consumer release, and is one of the first 800 out of the fab. Over Christmas break 2002, I played with NV30 #796, a FX 5800 Ultra with BIOS 4.30.20.06. Your 4.30.19.xx BIOS was obviously a predecessor.

Atlink · 08-10-05, 04:59 PM

Hah... I like this card. Execpt for the whiiiiiiiiiiine of the card, it's pretty great.

Decent 3dMark scores.

**ricercar** · 08-11-05, 01:25 AM

Quote:

I do plan to get [an NV silencer for 5700] to test against my 5800 Ultra collection.

The Arctic NV Silencer2 is not an exact match for the 5800/5800Ultra, but it is acceptable. The NVSilencer2 screw holes are in the proper positions to actually mount on a NV30 reference PC board (unlike the NVSilencer4 that AC says fits the 5800).

The problem with the NVSilencer 2 is that the copper RAMsink pads leave two of the eight BGAs 50% uncovered. I suspect this is not a critical failure, but heat will decrease the lifespan of hot-running DDRII RAMs compared to full coverage.

Atlink · 08-13-05, 11:26 AM

As for BIOS upgrades and things like that, other than possible default clock speeds and other little configurations... Would I see a great increase in performance? (I'm going with 3dMark scores here.)

So... I could actually get rid of the ol' dust buster... Hmm... Intriguing. I have a love/hate relationship with it however. I like it because people think my computer has a lot more power than it does (Nothing like seeing 4 fans light up, a HUGE HSF light up and that card start whining.)

I hate it because it's annoying at night. Can't turn up things too loud, but I'm not able to hear things loud enough, because that damned fan is just whining in my ear. Oh well.

So yeah. BIOSes? And not to sound like a dink, but I think I'll stick with nVidia BIOSes... Something about it being genuine makes me feel comfortable.

EDIT: In case anyone wants to know, I have a ThermalTake Beetle for my AMD 3200+. Thank you.

07-25-05, 09:46 PM	#1
Atlink Registered User Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 4	GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? So I managed to aquire my "dustbuster" a while ago from a friend who had it in his computer, then upgraded. When I inspected it one day, I noticed two stickers on it. One said "EXPO ITEM" (hand written), and another was "Awaiting FCC approval" sticker. This led me to believe that I owned a pre-production, and kind of "beta" version of the card. PC Wizard helped with those thoughts, when I did a video BIOS dump and a few ofthe lines read as follows: 000C0280 : 71 00 00 00 50 43 49 52 DE 10 02 03 00 00 18 00 q...PCIR........ 000C0290 : 00 00 00 03 7A 00 01 00 00 80 00 00 47 65 46 6F ....z.......GeFo 000C02A0 : 72 63 65 20 46 58 20 35 38 30 30 20 42 49 4F 53 rce FX 5800 BIOS 000C02B0 : 0D 0A 4E 56 33 30 20 41 30 32 0D 0A 00 00 00 00 ..NV30 A02...... 000C02C0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000C02D0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000C02E0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 56 65 72 .............Ver 000C02F0 : 73 69 6F 6E 20 34 2E 33 30 2E 32 30 2E 31 39 2E sion 4.30.20.19. 000C0300 : 30 34 20 0D 0A 00 43 6F 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 20 04 ...Copyright 000C0310 : 28 43 29 20 31 39 39 36 2D 32 30 30 33 20 4E 56 (C) 1996-2003 NV 000C0320 : 49 44 49 41 20 43 6F 72 70 2E 0D 0A 00 45 6E 67 IDIA Corp....Eng 000C0330 : 69 6E 65 65 72 69 6E 67 20 52 65 6C 65 61 73 65 ineering Release 000C0340 : 20 2D 20 4E 6F 74 20 46 6F 72 20 50 72 6F 64 75 - Not For Produ 000C0350 : 63 74 69 6F 6E 20 55 73 65 0D 0A 00 18 01 4E 56 ction Use.....NV 000C0360 : 33 30 20 42 6F 61 72 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 Board........ 000C0370 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 000C0380 : 00 43 68 69 70 20 52 65 76 20 20 20 00 00 00 00 .Chip Rev .... And for those who cant read broken text... The pertinent info says: Version 4.30.20.19.04 ...Copyright (C) 1996-2003 NVIDIA Corp....Engineering Release - Not For Production Use.....NV30 Board So, did I get a rare one of a kind board, or is this just in all the bioses?

07-25-05, 09:50 PM	#2
saturnotaku Apple user. Deal with it. Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: The 'burbs, IL USA Posts: 12,502	Re: GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? It's entirely possible you have a pre-release board, one that may have made its rounds on the hardware preview circuit at places like Anandtech. Do you have any pictures you can post?

07-25-05, 09:57 PM	#3
Atlink Registered User Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 4	Re: GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? Sadly, I have no pics. I tried to take some at one point, but the camera I was using didn't like anything closer than 30 feet. lol I've looked at pictures, and it looks identical (I didn't count transistors/resistors/any other kind of istors) to a BFG 5800 and such... I can tell you that the heatsink is a strange orangeish/copperish color, and the plastic windchamber is clear. Oh, I was wrong about the sticker, the "EXPO ITEM" thing was actually hand written on Sharpie on the PCB. EDIT: Is there a good HSF that I could swap with this damned loud... thing? I just got a TT Beetle (which is SO much better than my Orb, and looks a lot cooler) and it dropped the dBs way down, so hopefully if I can either keep the fan speed low, or change the whine, I'll be really happy.

07-26-05, 01:52 AM	#4
-=DVS=- .:. Lafiel .:. Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Outerspace Posts: 3,009	Re: GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? I hear Zalman VF700-CU cooler is awesome , but not sure about your memory chips , they run hot no ? __________________ *.:. Lian Li X500FX .:. i7 2600k* .:. PNY GTX 680 .:. Corsair DDR3 8GB .:. Silverstone 800W PSU .:. Asus P8P67-M Pro .:. Crucial M4 SSD 512GB .:.**

07-26-05, 01:59 AM	#5
ricercar fugue master Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: silicon valley Posts: 1,603	my favorite nvidia project - the NV30 You definitely have a demo NV30 board. Quantities were given out during and after the holiday season 2002. If you PM me all the numbers on the PCB, I may be able to tell you what company originally received that exact demo board from NVIDIA. Use a fan on the rear RAMsink The critical mod for a 5800 or 5800 Ultra is to blow cool air over the rear of the card. Do not fail to do this if you plan to overclock. This fan was recommended to me by Geoff Ballew, the NV30 product manager, while I worked at NVIDIA ... after I killed two cards. On the rest of my NV30 boards, I've bolted a 50MM fan centered on the back RAMsink. For each fan, I used two 4/40 bolts driven into the spaces between copper RAMsink fins. Since adding these rear fan, I've never permanently overheated a non-overclocked NV30, even in a SFF heated with dual internal hard drives. Quiet FX Fan mod I'm currently running one of my FX 5800 Ultras with stock fan & transparent fan shroud completely removed, leaving only the copper. I attached two 4-pin fans that are always on, and they provide lower temperatures and greatly lower noise than the stock FX Flow. GPU temperature never exceeds 62°C, even during 3-hour Doom3 marathons. Atachment details: see previous reccomendation for rear fan. On the front, I superglued one 60MM fan on the flat-space over the GPU, thinking it was temporary, but it stays and it works great. FWIW I have the card's fan connector driving a blue LED fan (pointed arbitrarily) so I know when 3D mode is active. This is a test setup for a SFF I'm building. The plan is to light up SFF feet, rear and top fans, plus internal 4" cathodes, but only when the machine is in 3D graphics mode. WARNING - DO NOT TRUST Arctic Cooling's 5800 Ultra NV Cooler The Arctic Cooling NV-__ model that claims to be for the FX 5800 & 5900 Ultra does NOT fit the 5800 or 5800 Ultra. I have one of these AC coolers and it was so bogus that I think the AC company has NEVER SEEN a 5800 PCB. The attachment screw holes and RAM pads are so ridiculously inappropriate for the 5800 PCB that it's unbelievable. I'd have been pissed if I didn't have a 5900 Ultra to use with that cooler. That being said, look for the Arctic Cooling NV-__ model that fits the FX 5700 Ultra. My eyeball estimate suggests that the 5700 Ultra model also fits the FX 5800 Ultras. While I haven't owned one of these yet, and therefore take no responsibility for your success or failure, I do plan to get one next weekend to test against my 5800 Ultra collection. __________________ I used to drive a Heisenberg, but whenever I'd glance at the speedometer, I'd get lost. Last edited by ricercar; 07-26-05 at 02:16 AM.

07-27-05, 06:00 PM	#6
keith33 Is Alive! Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,570	Re: GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? Just blow some fans over it, it's no longer uber 1337 engineering sample pre-production vintage cool if you take away the dustbuster. It's all about the dustbuster! __________________ Main: E8400 / Asus P5K-E WiFi / BFG Geforce 9800 GX2 / 4GB OCZ Reaper DDR2-800 (4-4-4-15) / X-Fi XtremeMusic / 2x74GB WD Raptors + 250GB WD Caviar / Corsair HX620 / Silverstone TJ-09W Peripherals: Samsung 275T / Logitech Z-5500 / Logitech diNovo Edge / Razer DeathAdder Portable: Lenovo ThinkPad X61t Mobile: HTC Touch Cruise

08-10-05, 04:59 PM	#8
Atlink Registered User Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 4	Re: GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? Hah... I like this card. Execpt for the whiiiiiiiiiiine of the card, it's pretty great. Decent 3dMark scores.

08-13-05, 11:26 AM	#10
Atlink Registered User Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 4	Re: GF-FX 5800... Pre-Production model? As for BIOS upgrades and things like that, other than possible default clock speeds and other little configurations... Would I see a great increase in performance? (I'm going with 3dMark scores here.) So... I could actually get rid of the ol' dust buster... Hmm... Intriguing. I have a love/hate relationship with it however. I like it because people think my computer has a lot more power than it does (Nothing like seeing 4 fans light up, a HUGE HSF light up and that card start whining.) I hate it because it's annoying at night. Can't turn up things too loud, but I'm not able to hear things loud enough, because that damned fan is just whining in my ear. Oh well. So yeah. BIOSes? And not to sound like a dink, but I think I'll stick with nVidia BIOSes... Something about it being genuine makes me feel comfortable. EDIT: In case anyone wants to know, I have a ThermalTake Beetle for my AMD 3200+. Thank you.