Hello,
Thanks for your time! A bit ;TLDR
I already asked some of these stuff on techpowerup and the guy were very helpful, but somehow I haven't received what I hoped. Maybe I will never have.
------- Prelude
1.) The ebay listing said: gtx 1050 with 2 Gigs. Fore GBP 47 about 60 USD. (too good to be true, so not true). Huge mistake: I was tempted, so I bought it. (I am ready to accept my loss, but not without a fight).
2.) About 3 days later (wrong order, I know), I googled fake cards. Boy, there are tons of videos on youtube, and forum topics. So I was pretty sure, I was scammed as well (thanks to my dumb self).
No D-Sub connector on GTX 1050s, but mine had...
3.) I ordered a ch341a usb bios flash with clip&cable, to avoid desoldering the eprom. (about 5 USD the whole stuff)
4.) The item arrived, I removed the fan, and yes, it had only 4 pieces of H5GC2H24BFR-T2C
SK Hynix memory (meaning 1 Gigs of GDDR5, not two gigs), and the little chinese hands somehow removed the GPU ID, so nothing says what kind of GPU this one is. No GF116 or GF108 or anything. The GPU became unidentifiable (for me at least), the youtube videos didn't tell this...
5.) However I found some handwritings on the frame around the GPU saying GF116-chinese letter-chinese letter-192/128. My guess: GF116, something, 128 bit bandwidth and 192 something.
The GF116 narrows down the GPU to GTX 550 Ti and GTS 450 Ti and GT 630 and some mobile GPUs (it is not).
6.) I claimed a dispute on my PayPal account, PayPal sent an answer, they'll investigate it within 3 business days, so somewhere next week. Within 30 days I'll know something if I lost the money (as I deserve) or not. (but the faker does not deserve it anyway)
------- The struggle
1.) In the meantime, I received the bios flasher, downloaded the software and went ahead.
2.) I still didn't identified properly the GPU, so I've downloaded 8 different GTX 550 Ti BIOSes, and 2 GTS 450 BIOSes
3.) I red the original BIOS content, and in the ch341a's software I could see that it really lies GTX 1050 about itself. I saved it, just in case.
4.) I tried to burn the BIOSes I've downloaded from TechPowerUp. Maybe the ch341a is not a reliable F18-A fighterbomber, so many times it was able to write the BIOSes, but when I tried to verify it said: "chip with the contents are in disagreement", and when I red back the chip content I could really see, that bytes are changed...
5.) Out of nothing I was able to burn and verify a GainWard GTX550 Ti BIOS. Holly cow!
I was happy, I put the card in.
6.) It booted like charm, desktop came in, I downloaded the official nvidia driver pack, installed it, it recognized the GTX 550 Ti, and finished.
7.) However... GPU-Z said: 768 Mbytes of ram... (there are clearly 4 drams are installed on the board, all 256 Mbytes)... So I probably have a faulty ram.
8.) I played Team Fortress 2, and it hung within a minute... Something is wrong. (all 2D, like youtube, browsing, windows desktop are just fine).
9.) I erased, reburnt (or at least I was trying to reburn) different images, I even tried a GTS 450 image, with 512 Mbytes (to try to limit the memory size the card communicates to the OS), but many time, even the booting was broken (flickering screen etc.), or the card was simply bricked, no video. Important: all these images were written without being able to verify.
10.) Somehow, I was able to verify back, the ORIGINAL image (that came with the card, and lies about itself). WIth this image, TF2 and Orcs Must Die 2 ran like charm (for half-half hour), no hung. But these are not very costly games, older engines. So I tried CS:GO, and it crashed when I would get the HUD. I didn't expect it to work: this BIOS says it has 2 Gigs, and probably the game tries to use it.
Has anybody wider experience on this field? (I am a senior software engineer, not really a HW guy, and one thing I know for sure, I know nothing about these stuff)
My questions:
1-> ch341a are really this unreliable, or I am doing something wrong?
2-> How on earth could I identify the GPU without the raster-printed GPU ID (like GF116-400-1A for example: this one is totally blank on the GPU)
3-> How could I test the rams in the GPU?
I know I know: the best advice is that I should have stayed away from eBay chinese fake VGA-s, when they cost the half of the original.
Thanks in advance!
KR,
Peter
Thanks for your time! A bit ;TLDR
I already asked some of these stuff on techpowerup and the guy were very helpful, but somehow I haven't received what I hoped. Maybe I will never have.
------- Prelude
1.) The ebay listing said: gtx 1050 with 2 Gigs. Fore GBP 47 about 60 USD. (too good to be true, so not true). Huge mistake: I was tempted, so I bought it. (I am ready to accept my loss, but not without a fight).
2.) About 3 days later (wrong order, I know), I googled fake cards. Boy, there are tons of videos on youtube, and forum topics. So I was pretty sure, I was scammed as well (thanks to my dumb self).
No D-Sub connector on GTX 1050s, but mine had...
3.) I ordered a ch341a usb bios flash with clip&cable, to avoid desoldering the eprom. (about 5 USD the whole stuff)
4.) The item arrived, I removed the fan, and yes, it had only 4 pieces of H5GC2H24BFR-T2C
SK Hynix memory (meaning 1 Gigs of GDDR5, not two gigs), and the little chinese hands somehow removed the GPU ID, so nothing says what kind of GPU this one is. No GF116 or GF108 or anything. The GPU became unidentifiable (for me at least), the youtube videos didn't tell this...
5.) However I found some handwritings on the frame around the GPU saying GF116-chinese letter-chinese letter-192/128. My guess: GF116, something, 128 bit bandwidth and 192 something.
The GF116 narrows down the GPU to GTX 550 Ti and GTS 450 Ti and GT 630 and some mobile GPUs (it is not).
6.) I claimed a dispute on my PayPal account, PayPal sent an answer, they'll investigate it within 3 business days, so somewhere next week. Within 30 days I'll know something if I lost the money (as I deserve) or not. (but the faker does not deserve it anyway)
------- The struggle
1.) In the meantime, I received the bios flasher, downloaded the software and went ahead.
2.) I still didn't identified properly the GPU, so I've downloaded 8 different GTX 550 Ti BIOSes, and 2 GTS 450 BIOSes
3.) I red the original BIOS content, and in the ch341a's software I could see that it really lies GTX 1050 about itself. I saved it, just in case.
4.) I tried to burn the BIOSes I've downloaded from TechPowerUp. Maybe the ch341a is not a reliable F18-A fighterbomber, so many times it was able to write the BIOSes, but when I tried to verify it said: "chip with the contents are in disagreement", and when I red back the chip content I could really see, that bytes are changed...
5.) Out of nothing I was able to burn and verify a GainWard GTX550 Ti BIOS. Holly cow!
I was happy, I put the card in.
6.) It booted like charm, desktop came in, I downloaded the official nvidia driver pack, installed it, it recognized the GTX 550 Ti, and finished.
7.) However... GPU-Z said: 768 Mbytes of ram... (there are clearly 4 drams are installed on the board, all 256 Mbytes)... So I probably have a faulty ram.
8.) I played Team Fortress 2, and it hung within a minute... Something is wrong. (all 2D, like youtube, browsing, windows desktop are just fine).
9.) I erased, reburnt (or at least I was trying to reburn) different images, I even tried a GTS 450 image, with 512 Mbytes (to try to limit the memory size the card communicates to the OS), but many time, even the booting was broken (flickering screen etc.), or the card was simply bricked, no video. Important: all these images were written without being able to verify.
10.) Somehow, I was able to verify back, the ORIGINAL image (that came with the card, and lies about itself). WIth this image, TF2 and Orcs Must Die 2 ran like charm (for half-half hour), no hung. But these are not very costly games, older engines. So I tried CS:GO, and it crashed when I would get the HUD. I didn't expect it to work: this BIOS says it has 2 Gigs, and probably the game tries to use it.
Has anybody wider experience on this field? (I am a senior software engineer, not really a HW guy, and one thing I know for sure, I know nothing about these stuff)
My questions:
1-> ch341a are really this unreliable, or I am doing something wrong?
2-> How on earth could I identify the GPU without the raster-printed GPU ID (like GF116-400-1A for example: this one is totally blank on the GPU)
3-> How could I test the rams in the GPU?
I know I know: the best advice is that I should have stayed away from eBay chinese fake VGA-s, when they cost the half of the original.
Thanks in advance!
KR,
Peter
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