How To: Enable SLI on pre-i7/i5 hardware

[TheWolf]

Bench with 3DMark06 in Windows XP 32bit

Q9650 E0 @ 4.0Ghz
Abit IX38QuadGT
2x MSI 260GTX

19829 3DMarks - SLI off
23248 3DMarks - SLI on

 

[anatolymik]

any news?

 

[sveetsnelda]

The Windows 7 32-bit driver works. Now I'm modifying the 64 bit driver. I found the function, but it's a bit different. I need to trace it first.

After the driver works, I'll work on getting rid of the SLIC check.

 

[EGOvoruhk]

sveetsnelda, I don't know if you saw, but Yen poked his head in the thread on MDL. Hopefully he can help out with some of the stuff

 

[sveetsnelda]

Who is Yen, and what is MDL?

 

[anatolymik]

The Windows 7 32-bit driver works. Now I'm modifying the 64 bit driver. I found the function, but it's a bit different. I need to trace it first.

After the driver works, I'll work on getting rid of the SLIC check.

And I'm working on W7 x64 hal.dll.

 

[sveetsnelda]

MDL = my digital life?

 

[EGOvoruhk]

Who is Yen, and what is MDL?

He's the BIOS Guru at My Digital Life

MDL = my digital life?

Yeah, sorry

 

[sveetsnelda]

Thanks for letting me know. I posted this over at their forums. I'm putting it here so the information is all in one place:

Yen,

I was the one who reversed and patched nv4_mini.sys. Feel free to ask me the questions you need to know.

This is how it works:

The driver checks the vendor ID and chipset ID of bus = 0 , device = 0, function = 0. If the vendor ID is 8086 (intel), it also checks the subsys ID of one of the PCI express ports to get the manufacturer of the motherboard. This gets put into a string for later use.

Later, the driver checks this string against an encrypted table of Vendor/Device IDs. This table contains address values of code that should be executed if a certain chipset is found. If the hardware ID is an X58 or P55 chipset, it makes a call to WMI to get the SLIC string from the BIOS.

The BIOS SLIC string is then compared to an encrypted SLIC string in the driver. If they match (and the motherboard manufacturer matches the one in the SLIC string), SLI is enabled.

The driver and hal.dll dont *both* have to be patched... Just one or the other. The driver just needs to think you have an X58 chipset (ven_8086, dev_3400), and WMI has to return a valid SLIC.

Hope this helps.

 

[sveetsnelda]

SLI Enabled on Windows 7 64-bit by using the debugger. I need to find where it checks the motherboard manufacturer before patching it though... This code is quite a bit different.

 

[anatolymik]

SLI Enabled on Windows 7 64-bit by using the debugger. I need to find where it checks the motherboard manufacturer before patching it though... This code is quite a bit different.

it's great news

 

[sveetsnelda]

How's your work going? Still coding?

 

[TheWolf]

WooT great news!

 

[anatolymik]

How's your work going? Still coding?

Certificate of the Hal.dll . Now I'm going to test it.

 

[TiN]

Have two news.

First bad: Seems like current system with Intel P55 DONT support SLI officially.
I tried to make SLI working with original nonmodded systems/drivers on ASUS Maximus III Formula (Intel P55) with last BIOS (DSDT SLIC certificate is present, for P55), with ES Xeon 3470 and pair of GF 6600LE. Tried in XP 32 бит and windows 7 32 бит, but no go.

Maybe it's temporary issue, coz LGA 1156 platform is really fresh still. Tried 190.62 WHQL driver.

Of course SLI works with our mods

Second news:

Tested and approved SLI modification for Windows vista/7 driver 190.62 for 32 bit systems! Method is almost the same, adding X58 SLIC into DSDT in registry using same iasl+asl, and overwrining NV system driver. Still some additional tricks needed, coz Vista/W7 systems less user friendly and we have to disable dumb checks.

 

[TheWolf]

Certificate of the Hal.dll . Now I'm going to test it.

You can send me a copy? Please...

Cool, way to go TiN!

I already added X58 SLIC into DSDT in registry of W7 64bit.
Just waiting for mod driver or hal.dll to see if my work pays off.

 

[sveetsnelda]

Windows 7 64-bit driver is complete. This one is a little tricky to load, though. You have to set the OS in testmode and use NGHQ's "Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider" (unless you want to hit F8 every time you start the OS). Windows 7 64-bit forces you to use nothing but signed drivers, so you have to use this workaround.

 

[Mussels]

Windows 7 64-bit driver is complete. This one is a little tricky to load, though. You have to set the OS in testmode and use NGHQ's "Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider" (unless you want to hit F8 every time you start the OS). Windows 7 64-bit forces you to use nothing but signed drivers, so you have to use this workaround.

thats unfortunate - i can see that being a deal breaker for many x64 users

 

[sveetsnelda]

Agreed. Getting rid of the SLIC check would certainly make things easier. Now that we have SLI support possible on all OS's (except for XP 64), this is next on my list.

The only way I can think of to get around the driver signing issue is by doing what anatolymik has been working on (modifying the hardware abstration layer (HAL.dll))... Then you can just load the WHQL driver and use it. You still would need a SLIC key in your DSDT though.

 

[TheWolf]

Windows 7 64-bit driver is complete. This one is a little tricky to load, though. You have to set the OS in testmode and use NGHQ's "Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider" (unless you want to hit F8 every time you start the OS). Windows 7 64-bit forces you to use nothing but signed drivers, so you have to use this workaround.

I'm ready to give it a shot when ever you think your ready.

 

[sveetsnelda]

It's ready to go. I'll send it to you in a minute (3dmark06 is almost done running).

 

[sveetsnelda]

Here's something you need to do while you wait:

http://www.killertechtips.com/2009/05/05/disable-driver-signing-windows-7/

 

[sveetsnelda]

Also, you need to disable user account control (UAC) in the security control panel (to use the Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider)

 

[sveetsnelda]

Once you've done all that, install the 190.62 drivers. After they are done installing, run a command prompt and copy the file I sent you (after unpacking it) to C:\windows\system32\drivers (overwrite the old driver)

Run the Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider
(http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=dseo)

Select "Sign a System File"
type in C:\windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

Reboot, and enable SLI.



(Make sure you are using an ASUS SLIC)

 

[TheWolf]

Got all the other done, about to reboot, need a reboot then do the stuff in your last post.
Got the file threw e-mail.