Folks need some help, bought a 6600gt from ebay to couple with my older one however the dude i bought it from seems to have been messing around with it. It seems to have a bios for a 6800-u? I've not tried to plug in the old card and find out if sli works (i doubt it will some how) but does any one know of a way to flash the bios in these cards, either back to the original or to the next best thing, the newest one. Its an xfx, but i could not see anything on their website about bioses/firmware. edit: Just read that sli doesn't work in 2k.... bugger.... time for an "upgrade"
You'd need to be certain the BIOS matched up perfectly otherwise there's a fairly big risk involved. If the card runs fine with the existing BIOS (modified or not) then why worry? If it's a 6600GT running with a 6800_ BIOS it should do no harm so long as it seems stable and if it is a 6800_ which was thought to be a 6600GT then all the better as the memory bandwidth helps to maximise the core's potential. Fire up something like RivaTuner and check the clock speeds and enabled pipes.
The card works on its own but i'm guessing that the sli driver is going to complain. Can't find out for a couple of days need to install xp, nearly got away with out upgrading through xp's entire life.
What does the card appear as in Rivatuner? and what are the clocks? Check out what pipelines are used/available in Rivatuner too - if you dont know how to do this just ask. If the card is flashed to a 6800, then I would be pretty sure it wouldnt work with a 6600GT in sli, but you never know.
Just installed the rivatuner. It shows as a 6600gt with these details (i assume this is what you were looking for?) Code: Graphics core : NV43 revision A4 (8pp,3vp) $0100000001 Hardwired ID : 0140 (ROM strapped to 0140) $0100000002 Memory bus : 128-bit $0100000003 Memory type : DDR3 (RAM configuration 07) $0100000004 Memory amount : 131072KB $0100000005 Core clock : 299.250MHz $0100000006 Memory clock : 501.188MHz (1002.375MHz effective) $0100000007 Reference clock : 27.000MHz $010000000b HW masked units : none Which is the same as the 6600gt with the stock bios. I feel I need to thank you for introducing me to that program, if only for the relative silence knocking 15% of the fan speed brings in 2d mode.
Shouldn't the core freq be 500MHz?? Worth noting that some 6600GT's have memory rated for 625MHz (1250MHz DDR). These are 1.6ns samsung chips I think. Best have a look at yours and see what you've got
You'll surely find 300mhz is 2D speed, 500mhz in 3D. The 6600GT are begging for more memory bandwidth so it's well worth getting the RAM as high as possible, more so than the core.
Good news every one... Just got xp installed and it worked first time. The bios must get ignored by the time windows kicks in, so sli all the way and no need to mess around flashing bioses. Thanks though
dude flash it back for safety. go over to http://www.mvktech.net/ and download a bit of software called Nibitor. you will need a floppy disk drive aswell. Here http://www.mvktech.net/content/category/4/67/37/ you will find anything you need to know, any prob's and just post. you can use your first card to get the bios from then disconect it so it's safe off any flash mistakes. trust me a flashed my 6800GT up to 500Mhz GPU core when i had water cooling.
