KGB - Kepler BIOS Editor/Unlocker

I was getting the same error as you until I realized I needed extract my bios. You need to use GPU-Z to get the bios. Then stick the bios in the KGB folder or where ever you have the files. Now when you run the command it will find the bios and the error will be gone.

EDIT: one more thing make sure you're typing the name of your bios in place of "your_bios". Example: kgb.exe GK104.rom

 

sorted, both cards now running at 1358Ghz using 1.212v, will do some stability tests tomorrow. Thanks again for the help!

 

Just a quick update, ran heaven and 3Dmark11 with zero problems. Played a couple of hours of BF3 with zero issues, 66c was the hottest the top card got, both at 1359Mhz - not 1358Ghz lol (was a bit merry from my xmas party last night!

Really pleased with the results, going to play some FC3 to see how hot they will go

 

Ugh i got crap cards here... Fastest I could run was ~1248Mhz at 1.212v any higher and I'd get driver crashes. Also at that speed and voltage I was getting thermal throttling issues after about 15 minutes of gameplay.

I also got slightly slower lower benchmark scores on 3DMark11 due to thermal throttling kicking on the last benchmarks. Guess I'll stick to my 1202Mhz clocks on 1.175v

 

690's are deffo worth watercooling now because of this mod.
1250 on each core should be achieveable now.

 

Maybe even quad SLI on water Veteran? Crazy amount of horse power

I havent pushed to see how high mine will go, pretty much at the sweet spot for temps on air, I'm to much of a lightweight for WC at the moment. Perhaps the mem might go past +500 now..

 

2x690s are a waste of time because of the Vram limit in resolutions over 1920*1200.

I only have 1 690, I sent the other one back.

Yeah the memory goes up to 700 now but i have not tested for stability yet.

Im also going to write a guide so people can do this from start to finish with an easy to follow explanation.


Also that OC you have on your cards is excellent, You have 2 very good cards there mate

 

with version 0.5 can you configure voltage beyond 1.21v?
nvm seems 1.21 is the max, no worries.

 

UPDATED INSTRUCTIONS!!


Flashing bios instructions for any Nvidia Keplar GPU.
YOU DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK

I wrote this guide as i couldnt find one anywhere.

First of all, You then need to download these files.

GPU-Z (This is used to grab the original Bios from the Gpu wether multi or single)
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2181/mirrors.php


KGB - Kepler BIOS Editor/Unlocker. (This is used to modify the Bios that you just grabbed from your Gpu using Gpu-z)

KGB supports: GTX690, GTX680, GTX670, GTX660Ti, GTX660OEM and GTX660

New version 0.6.1 (Adjustable Boost control)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d6dimgnx8cxvlca/kgb_0.6.1.zip

Old version 0.5
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vrunxuq03vj0m5y/kgb_0.5.zip

NVFLASH (This is used to reflash or reinstall the new modified bios)
Make sure this is version 5.127, An older version will not work.
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/nVFlash-Download-16133.html

Steps 1-10.

1.Ok what you need is firstly to make a USB dongle bootable into DOS, To do this read this very easy to follow guide.
http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm

2.Run GPU-Z and and click on the icon that allows you to grab your bios from the Gpu and save it to your PC.

Each Gpu has 1 bios that belongs to it.

Then also at the bottom of the picture were it is circled in red and labelled 2, If you have more than 1 gpu then you will need to change this to gpu 2,3 or 4.

Then grab bios no 2 from your Gpu and save it to your PC the same way that you did with bios 1

The picture below shows how.....





Also make sure you have a copy of your bios, Put the original(s) in a safe place!!

3.Once you have grabbed your bios put it into C:\Users\ (yourname) and rename it 1.rom

For example the bios from the GTX 690 Gpu 1 is called GK104.rom, I renamed it to 1.rom and the bios from Gpu 2 also named GK104.rom I renamed 2.rom.

The reason why you should put the bios in C:\Users\ (yourname) is because the default path will be set here from KGB.exe so if you are not familiar with the CMD (Commandline) then this is the easiest way of doing it.



5.Take the KGB.exe as well as the KGB.cfg file and also place both of these in C:\Users\ (yourname).
You should now have KGB.exe, KGB.cfg and 1.rom files in C:\Users\My.

If you have more than 1xGpu then you will have 1.rom and 2.rom respectively in C:\Users\ (yourname).


6.The next thing to do is open up the CMD (Commandline) which im sure you all know how to do.
Once you have the CMD open, Copy and paste in this command.

kgb 1.rom unlock (press enter).

It will now save the new values (i.e. from kgb.cfg) in your bios then print out the new values in the bios.

Do the same again for 2.rom if you have a 2nd card/Dual gpu and have extracted the bios file from the Gpu(s).

Copy and paste in this command into the CMD (Commandline)

kgb 2.rom unlock (press enter).

It will now save the new values (i.e. from kgb.cfg) in your bios then print out the new values in the bios.




7.Now all we need to do is put the new modified 1.rom and possibly 2.rom back onto the gpu, To do this we need to use the USB DOS bootable Dongle that we created in step 1.

Take the nvflash files once you have extracted them and place them onto the USB DOS bootable Dongle, There should be 2 files.

Then place the 1.rom bios also on the USB DOS bootable Dongle.


8.Now the Dongle is ready to be booted from so reboot the PC and go into the bios.
Once you are in the bios make it so the PC boots from the dongle, Once this happens you will then have a flashing cursor telling you that you are in DOS mode.


9.Type in nvflash --list (press enter)
This will then tell you what gpu(s) that you have installed on your motherboard.

10.Type in nvflash -i1 1.rom (press enter)

It will then say flashing Gpu and press Y to confirm, so press Y and the flashing will commence which takes a few seconds.

If you have a second gpu with 2.rom.

Type in nvflash -i2 2.rom (press enter)

It will then say flashing Gpu and press Y to confirm, so press Y and the flashing will commence which takes a few seconds.



Once this is done reboot the PC go into the bios and reset your boot so it boots from your hardrive with the Windows OS on.

Once you get into windows you can see from MSI afterburner or EVGA precision that the power target can be raised from 130 to 150.

When gaming the boost clock should be higher depending on your GPU.

I achieved around an increase of 30 on the core clock on boost alone on both GPU's which is very good.

It will differ for each person and each GPU(s), You can also try other peoples bios as long as iyts the same GPU as your own.

You can also modify the KGB.exe and tweak power settings for even more results but I wouldnt advise this unless you know what you are doing, I would just leave it at stock and use that for the time being.



The original Creator of KGB.exe can be found here.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?284014-KGB-Kepler-BIOS-Editor-Unlocker/page4



Common problem that may arrise.
Sometimes when you flash your card(s) you may get this problem were you card is write protected and it wont allow you to flash it.

Picture here of problem...

The Solution
Type in the CMD....Nvflash --protectoff....then try again with the flash. to enable it again do....Nvflash --protecton.

This should enable you to write/flash the bios to the card with no problems.


Additional Information,3rd Feb 2013

v0.6.1 has adjustable Boost clock which are coded into the KGB.

The Boost clock adjust can be found in the .cfg file.

Here is the table with which you should set your boost clock too which are increments of 13mhz.

This is a list of valid frequencies that have been coded in KGB.

771.0
784.0
797.0
810.5
823.5
836.5
849.5
862.5
875.5
888.5
901.5
915.0
928.0
941.0
954.0
967.0
980.0
993.0
1006.0
1019.5
1032.5
1045.5
1058.5
1071.5
1084.5
1097.5
1110.5
1124.0
1137.0
1150.0
1163.0
1176.0
1189.0
1202.0
1215.0
1228.5
1241.5
1254.5
1267.5
1280.5
1293.5
1306.5
1319.5
1333.0
1346.0
1359.0
1372.0
1385.0
1398.0
1411.0
1424.0

Set your Boost clock ,flash and then test for stability.

Everything you do is at your own risk

I hope this guide has helped.

Good luck.

 

Great walk through Veteran, good Job!

Just wanted to add if you prefer to not reflash the modded bios using a USB stick you can do it whilst booted in windows.

Once you have modded the bios using KGB download the following version of nvflash
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2133/NVFlash 5.118 for Windows.html

Create a folder on your C drive called nvflash. Extract all the contents from the nvflash zip folder to the one you created. Copy your modified bios you created earlier into this folder,

Now type CMD in your start menu, right click and run as administrator

type

cd C:\nvflash

The type

nvflash -4 -5 -6 gk104.rom (or whatever your rom is called)

press (Y) for run, (S) for skip and (A) for abort

If it tells you the bios is protected then type the below in cmd from the nvflash location

nvflash -4 -5 -6 gk104.rom --protectoff

now type

nvflash -4 -5 -6 gk104.rom

 

Yeah nice addition Bentez although i know that many people have flashed there bios from windows i always prefer to do it from the bios but thats just me.

Yeah i couldnt find a guide anywhere so i thought id take the time out and compile one, Tried to make it as easy as possible

 

i am going to give this a try today and see how far i can push this 680
thanks for the guide dudes i will follow these steps and report back

 

Yeah let us know how you get on.

 

Crazy, i've re-applied thermal paste to my card and the temps are completely under control now, so much so that i'd like some extra volts - around 1.3v would be sweet, any chance of this happening? i can do 1306mhz but no more, i even just tried afterburner 2.3.3 but no luck still crash beyond 1.3ghz

 

Cool tool.

Will i be asking for trouble if i unlock my factory Oc'd bios ?

On my card in sig I already get boosts to 1267/1280mhz and VRAM is at 6500mhz.

Will this tool allow this to potentially go further ?

 

my factory OCed one boosts to 1189, after the unlock it boosts to 1306.
if your card boosts to 1280 on 1.175 volts /225w, i imagine it'll go further with 300w /2.21 volts.

 

1.21v is a hardware limit set by Nvidia, can't be passed with software tweaking.

 

a non lightning owner has flashed his galaxy with a lightning ln2 bios and using afterburner 2.3.3 he can get 1.3v
my card has an extra power phase above the stock cards, many other cards are the same or have even more power phases, it's possible that with the lighning bios these cards could be unlocked beyond 1.21v like what happened with the galaxy owner in the extremesystems forum.

 

Interesting if it is in fact just a Bios limitation on some models, Though I wouldn't want to start flashing bios files from different cards unless I knew others have had some success with not bricking the card. Good luck to you if you can get it to work.

 

my 4gb would be an issue i guess but i do know Crazy will take a look at your bios and perhaps work some magic on it, though i dunno if 1.3v is still outta the question. There's some new uefi bios' being released he's taking a look at now. I'm not desperate for the extra speed but at 1.3ghz my card doesn't even sweat now after the TIM change (sometimes i think i hear it snickering at me through the fan noise LOL).