Trying to improve a Tesla M40

[BWG]

Can't you just copy the titan bios parameters to the stock bios instead? I thought both were g206 based.

[tictoc]

30 minutes ago, tictoc said:

Interesting.  I don't know what would be in the Tesla driver that would restrict mining.  One thing that might be holding it up is the ECC on the memory.  The M40 isn't really a proper Tesla, and it only has ECC on the memory not the cache or registers, so that extra trip to the memory shouldn't nerf mining that hard.  The memory clocks are quite a bit lower, but you could edit those in the BIOS.

 

To run the Titan X BIOS you would need to Hex edit the device ID, and I'm not sure how the Titan firmware would handle the ECC.  

 

*Edit* You could try a Quadro M6000 BIOS.  That card is effectively the same as the M40, but with display outputs. No verified M6000 12GB BIOS on TPU, but there is a PNY from the community: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/173217/173217

 

No idea if this will work, but you could just try the Quadro drivers without a BIOS flash, and then turn off TCC with nvidia-smi.

 

Open a shell (CMD or Powershell) as an administrator

List GPU devices to get the GPU_ID of the device with the Quadro drivers:
nvidia-smi -L

Turn off TCC:
nvidia-smi -g GPU_ID -dm 0 **GPU_ID will be the number of the device from the previous command**

Reboot

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by tictoc

[tictoc]

@Avacado You could mine other coins on the M40, but not ETH at the current DAG (4GB).  Maxwell only has 1GB of addressable TLB, and that is why you see low hash rates.

[Avacado]

Overnight results with all cards flashed, not bad. Room for tweaking. Went from 5.3 million PPD to 6.7 Million. 

 

 

[Bastiaan_NL]

That's a nice improvement, like adding an extra M40 for free

[ENTERPRISE]

17 hours ago, Avacado said:

Alright nerds, here we go, progress made. I have successfully flashed a modified TDP/Boost Clock Tesla M40 Rom via Maxwell tweaker. I have yet to test this out, but it recognizes it. Stock rom is labeled TeslaM40stock.rom, Modified is named MTesla40.rom. Note modifications in red. Initial GPU side by side notes additional Boost max frequency. Again, no testing done yet. 

 

I started relatively low with a modest 192 MHz increase in max boost. I chose this #1 to be relatively safe and #2 because the card very rarely uses the max TDP of 250w anyway. I set the max TDP for 300w as I feel #1 I have the power for it (2x8pin PCI-e) and #2 I believe I have the cooling overhead space to accommodate an increased TDP. All of the above subject to change. 

 

 

Awesome job bud. I will be selfish and let you fly with this for a little before I consider a flash on the CFP, just in case we have any bugs. Granted the CFP is on air, however it might be nice to have the unlocked headroom, I can manage the temps without the fans being full speed with the stock BIOS, so I do have a little headroom on air. If the worst comes to the worse I can clock them down at little. I am letting you be the guinea pig lol.

[Avacado]

2 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

Awesome job bud. I will be selfish and let you fly with this for a little before I consider a flash on the CFP, just in case we have any bugs. Granted the CFP is on air, however it might be nice to have the unlocked headroom, I can manage the temps without the fans being full speed with the stock BIOS, so I do have a little headroom on air. If the worst comes to the worse I can clock them down at little. I am letting you be the guinea pig lol.

No problem, speaking of problem, I should be able to get quite a lot out of the Tesla's waiting on water with this mod, but I will need to tear that whole thing down and rebuild it, so it's going to take some time. These cards are on air as well, just perhaps louder air than you are willing to listen to. Don't mind being the beta tester, I bought them for just this. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by Avacado

[ENTERPRISE]

27 minutes ago, Avacado said:

No problem, speaking of problem, I should be able to get quite a lot out of the Tesla's waiting on water with this mod, but I will need to tear that whole thing down and rebuild it, so it's going to take some time. These cards are on air as well, just perhaps louder air than you are willing to listen to. Don't mind being the beta tester, I bought them for just this. 

 

Sounds like a haul for sure, hope you manage to get it torn down and back up again with no issues, fingers crossed. I am hoping the new BIOS will hold out, then I can nick the BIOS files and Nvflash you are using from you and pop them on the CFP muhahaha.

[BWG]

That's a big jump in PPD! Exciting! Bastiaan's just biting his nails right now I bet.

[Bastiaan_NL]

35 minutes ago, BWG said:

That's a big jump in PPD! Exciting! Bastiaan's just biting his nails right now I bet.

Yes... I'm patiently(not) waiting for my cooler so I can join the fun. But I'm glad Avacado and Tictoc took their time to improve the BIOS (or found a way to do it) so we can enjoy that later on. I wouldn't mess with that stuff myself. 

 

[update] Just received an email that the cooler should be here tomorrow

Edited May 17, 2021 by Bastiaan_NL

[Bastiaan_NL]

In the downtime of the forum I did some things with this card:

 

The cooler, unused with the thermal paste still on it:

 

I replaced the connector for a 3pin, soldered longer wires, used heatshrink to protect the wires and sleeved the thing:

 

There was enough room between the memory and the cooler, so I ordered 3 extra M.2 heatsinks:

 

The only memory I can't cool directly is the row above the GPU. There is a heatsink on the back though, should be good..

 

And the final product, MSI M40ti sounds good  

 

I haven't been able to get it up and running. It was in the system but I had a few problems with drivers, though it was working good before.
Will have to figure that out some time, but that's for another day.

 

[edit]

And I forgot to mention, the IO bracket does not fit anymore. The red plastic interferes with the bracket, will have to trim one of them or get a single slot bracket preferably with 2 holes for screws (or make one myself).

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Bastiaan_NL

[ENTERPRISE]

3 minutes ago, Bastiaan_NL said:

In the downtime of the forum I did some things with this card:

 

The cooler, unused with the thermal paste still on it:

 

I replaced the connector for a 3pin, soldered longer wires, used heatshrink to protect the wires and sleeved the thing:

 

There was enough room between the memory and the cooler, so I ordered 3 extra M.2 heatsinks:

 

The only memory I can't cool directly is the row above the GPU. There is a heatsink on the back though, should be good..

 

And the final product, MSI M40ti sounds good

 

I haven't been able to get it up and running. It was in the system but I had a few problems with drivers, though it was working good before.
Will have to figure that out some time, but that's for another day.

 

 

That looks wicked !

[Bastiaan_NL]

24 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

That looks wicked !

Thanks E, this little project was a lot of fun!

[Avacado]

1 hour ago, Bastiaan_NL said:

In the downtime of the forum I did some things with this card:

 

The cooler, unused with the thermal paste still on it:

 

I replaced the connector for a 3pin, soldered longer wires, used heatshrink to protect the wires and sleeved the thing:

 

There was enough room between the memory and the cooler, so I ordered 3 extra M.2 heatsinks:

 

The only memory I can't cool directly is the row above the GPU. There is a heatsink on the back though, should be good..

 

And the final product, MSI M40ti sounds good

 

I haven't been able to get it up and running. It was in the system but I had a few problems with drivers, though it was working good before.
Will have to figure that out some time, but that's for another day.

 

[edit]

And I forgot to mention, the IO bracket does not fit anymore. The red plastic interferes with the bracket, will have to trim one of them or get a single slot bracket preferably with 2 holes for screws (or make one myself).

 

Yea, the Tesla drivers don't play nice with any other drivers on the system, leads to lock ups and freezes. That is why the GT710 works great, I am dealing with that now, loaded a GeForce driver for it and the Teslas are locking up. So it works best with ONLY the Tesla drivers installed and what ever GPU is driving video to run on stock windows drivers. 

[Scougar]

Great work!   Recently my nerdtink side has had it's focus on the Tesla cards.  This project is great.  Thanks for sharing.  (Semi-necro from May, but such an interesting project!)

 

Think I might have found the forum I've been looking for since I moved to the USA (from the UK) 9 years ago.  It seems people actually give a darn about sharing and discussing the technical aspects rather than bitching at each other about who has the biggest epeen

 

Definitely need to pick one up to have a play with.

[ENTERPRISE]

1 hour ago, Scougar said:

Great work!   Recently my nerdtink side has had it's focus on the Tesla cards.  This project is great.  Thanks for sharing.  (Semi-necro from May, but such an interesting project!)

 

Think I might have found the forum I've been looking for since I moved to the USA (from the UK) 9 years ago.  It seems people actually give a darn about sharing and discussing the technical aspects rather than bitching at each other about who has the biggest epeen

 

Definitely need to pick one up to have a play with.

Welcome to the community :), we certainly like technical here and nerding out. Enjoy your stay !

[Avacado]

8 hours ago, Scougar said:

Great work!   Recently my nerdtink side has had it's focus on the Tesla cards.  This project is great.  Thanks for sharing.  (Semi-necro from May, but such an interesting project!)

 

Think I might have found the forum I've been looking for since I moved to the USA (from the UK) 9 years ago.  It seems people actually give a darn about sharing and discussing the technical aspects rather than bitching at each other about who has the biggest epeen

 

Definitely need to pick one up to have a play with.

Welcome to the forums brosef!

[Bastiaan_NL]

13 hours ago, Scougar said:

Great work!   Recently my nerdtink side has had it's focus on the Tesla cards.  This project is great.  Thanks for sharing.  (Semi-necro from May, but such an interesting project!)

 

Think I might have found the forum I've been looking for since I moved to the USA (from the UK) 9 years ago.  It seems people actually give a darn about sharing and discussing the technical aspects rather than bitching at each other about who has the biggest epeen

 

Definitely need to pick one up to have a play with.

Thanks for the kind words and welcome here!
Sadly this project is a bit on a sidetrack because of time and the fact that it doesn't play nice with other cards.
I'll pick it up sooner or later...
And I see the images are broken here, I'll add it to my to-do list. [fixed]
 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Bastiaan_NL

[Raycert07]

On 23/09/2021 at 11:48, Bastiaan_NL said:

Thanks for the kind words and welcome here!
Sadly this project is a bit on a sidetrack because of time and the fact that it doesn't play nice with other cards.
I'll pick it up sooner or later...
And I see the images are broken here, I'll add it to my to-do list. [fixed]
 

Hello, I'm new here. When using a nvidia gpu for display out, the last installed driver is the one that will work properly, the only way they will play nice is if you are using a nvidia display out card that happens to use the same driver as the tesla, since GeForce cards don't support tesla or quadro drivers, you would need to use a cheaper quadro card that is low power and is made for display outs explicitly. Or use integrated graphics or a low end amd card. 

 

I've noticed there has not been any activity for a few months, what's up with that? I ordered a Tesla m40 the other day and I'm trying to find out if I could flash a titan x vbios on there so I can have access to traditional GeForce drivers, aswell as it showing up as a titan x. I believe the titan x also has ecc memory so there shouldn't be any issues regarding that.

 

I can only afford one tesla m40 and I really don't feel like taking any risks with it, and public documentation is great for stuff like this. It's better if people know what they can do with the card than trying to out themselves and potentially breaking something. 

[Avacado]

8 hours ago, Raycert07 said:

Hello, I'm new here. When using a nvidia gpu for display out, the last installed driver is the one that will work properly, the only way they will play nice is if you are using a nvidia display out card that happens to use the same driver as the tesla, since GeForce cards don't support tesla or quadro drivers, you would need to use a cheaper quadro card that is low power and is made for display outs explicitly. Or use integrated graphics or a low end amd card. 

 

I've noticed there has not been any activity for a few months, what's up with that? I ordered a Tesla m40 the other day and I'm trying to find out if I could flash a titan x vbios on there so I can have access to traditional GeForce drivers, aswell as it showing up as a titan x. I believe the titan x also has ecc memory so there shouldn't be any issues regarding that.

 

I can only afford one tesla m40 and I really don't feel like taking any risks with it, and public documentation is great for stuff like this. It's better if people know what they can do with the card than trying to out themselves and potentially breaking something. 

I can tell you first hand that Tesla and Quadro drivers do not play nice with each other. You are much better off getting a GT710 to run display off of basic Microsoft drivers. Mixing and matching any drivers with Tesla drivers just leads to headaches. 

 

I had tried numerous times to flash a Titan x BIOS on the M40, it was one of the first things I tried. I was not able to do it successfully. Even with NVflash board mismatch and ID checks bypassed, no luck. I hope you have better luck than I did. 

 

I've got 6 dead M40's you are welcome to have for the cost of shipping if you wanted to play with it. I broke 6 of them so you don't have to. Where do you think my avatar came from? I have probably done more with M40's than anyone else here and would be glad to help you if I can. 

 

The last thing i'll suggest is they absolutely need active cooling. Do a mod like @Bastiaan_NL or one of the ones you can find off ebay. You won't be able to get temps low enough to not be thermal throttled without it. 

 

Someone on OCN was able to run an M40 as their primary GPU with video passthrough on another card with output. I would have to search for it though, I didn't save the link. 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Avacado

[emci]

Hi!

I flashed Titan X bios in Tesla M40 with SPI-programmer and install modded GeForce driver. Plans to do some tests and write full report. Is this interesting to anyone here?

[Bastiaan_NL]

Really interesting!
I don't know if I will ever use it, but I've had a few messages about this card from others too who've been checking this out.
So if you'd like to share it here I bet it will be used at some point.
Thanks in advance

[Avacado]

2 hours ago, emci said:

Hi!

I flashed Titan X bios in Tesla M40 with SPI-programmer and install modded GeForce driver. Plans to do some tests and write full report. Is this interesting to anyone here?

Yep. tell us more about the SPI-Programmer and how that works. 

[ENTERPRISE]

15 hours ago, emci said:

Hi!

I flashed Titan X bios in Tesla M40 with SPI-programmer and install modded GeForce driver. Plans to do some tests and write full report. Is this interesting to anyone here?

100% interested !

[vmystikilvvmyst]

I am 100% interested in doing this. Have a Titan X already. wondering if this will allow me to run them in SLI. I bought one to use as a PHYSX card but to be able to SLI them would be awesome. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by vmystikilvvmyst