Fake GPUs Help Guide. Please Stop buying them

[eidairaman1]

All those who go online and buy a 1050/ Ti that is non branded, let alone 960, 750, 730 etc or ATI/AMD cards from China are asking for getting a bogus card.

I'm just going to say this, Stop buying them and buy Cards from the AIC/AIB Lists.

AMD/Nvidia
Asus, AsRock, Biostar, Gigabyte, MSI.

AMD
AMD, HIS, PowerColor/TUL, Sapphire, Visiontek, Yeston, XFX.

Nvidia
Nvidia, EVGA, Galaxy/Galax/KFA, Gainward/Palit, Zotac

The best thing to do is send the fake card back for money back as they are pretty much worthless in any games today.

Otherwise use them as a troubleshooting card for a system suspected of not POSTing.

These are the Examples of Fake 1050, 960, 730 cards

If you insist on restoring the card, majority have GF116 or GF106 gpu die which are either 450 GTS or GTX 550/550Ti.

Follow directions.

Verify what video outputs you have physically on the card. DVI, HDMI, VGA, DP

Pull heatsink off card, verify gpu die you have and what memory chips you have-Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Elpida, Infineon/Qimonda.

You must verify the memory on the card by brand, capacity. The model info on the chips will tell you in Gb which is Gigabits/Gibibits, go on a search engine and look for DataSheets/Spec Sheets for your memory model. Count the chips front to back of card as they are typically clam shelled.

To find the total Capacity in GB of your card

If 1 chip is:
1 Gb it equals 0.125 GB
2 Gb it equals 0.250 GB

You then multiply by the actual amount of chips on the card so
0.125 GB x4 chips= 512 MB or 0.5 GB
0.125 GB x8 chips = 1024 MB or 1.0 GB

Etc.

Once you know how much memory the gpu has click one of the following links and just adjust it for memory amount.

Please ensure to review the bios details for what memory size and brand is contained and video ports, the bios must match your card in those ways otherwise it may brick.

Warning- 550ti clock speeds are higher and may not be controllable with the fake card heatsinks, could damage the gpu die and memory.

Verified bios GTS 450

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

Verified GTX 550 Ti

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

Unverified GTS 450 Bios

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

GTS 450 1024MB

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

GTS 450

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

GTX 550 Ti

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

GTX 550 Ti

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

GTX 550

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

Download 1 of these tools for flashing

NVIDIA NVFlash with Board Id Mismatch Disabled v5.590.0 Download

This is a patched version of NVIDIA's NVFlash. On Turing cards, NVFlash no longer allows overriding of the "board ID mismatch" message through comm

www.techpowerup.com

NVIDIA NVFlash with Certificate Checks Bypassed v5.287 Download

This modified version of NVFlash lets you flash a modified BIOS to your NVIDIA graphics card.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[oobymach]

Problem is they're Everywhere now, newegg, ebay, and the cards often look legit and are priced like the real thing. It's become a real buyer beware market for gpu's.

You should post here with a thread like "should I buy this gpu", most of us can spot them immediately, it will save you from a later thread called "help me find a bios for this fake card"

 

[eidairaman1]

Problem is they're Everywhere now, newegg, ebay, and the cards often look legit and are priced like the real thing. It's become a real buyer beware market for gpu's.

You should post here with a thread like "should I buy this gpu", most of us can spot them immediately, it will save you from a later thread called "help me find a bios for this fake card"

I know what legit heatsinks are for current cards, all the fakes use a Galaxy/Gigabyte/ heatsink from the 400/600 series

Simple enough if someone buys an asus card and it doesnt look like what was advertised, it should be returned and ebay, amazon have protection in place as long as you dont use a wire transfer/bank to bank.

galaxy geforce gt 640 at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[siryoink]

The problem is people thinking, as I initially did, that you can just find a bios that will work for it. That's not true. Most of these are custom boards using some memory chips with oddball timings on them. Some have a different chip revision than the real card used.

The only real way to fix them is to modify the BIOS that came with them.

 

[dorsetknob]

The problem is people thinking, as I initially did, that you can just find a bios that will work for it. That's not true. Most of these are custom boards using some memory chips with oddball timings on them. Some have a different chip revision than the real card used.

The only real way to fix them is to modify the BIOS that came with them.

the Problem is people are not Thinking >>>>> they are just assuming that their mistake can be fixed

If you have bought a fake then i can probably assume you also lack the knowledge to repair the Card.

Thanks to eidairaman1 for all the effort he puts into helping these people often with little thanks for his effort's.

Don't Buy Second hand cards off of online market places >>>(your more than lightly be ripped off).
If you have to buy a Second hand Card buy from a local and vist their house so you know where they live
Take a copy of GPUz >>>https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-gpu-z/
on a flash drive ( It does not need to be installed on a system it will run as a stand alone program from the flash drive.
Go Back later with the Cash/cheque after you have tested card and verifed its what is actually for sale.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Thanks to eidairaman1 for all the effort he puts into helping these people often with little thanks for his effort's.

Amen.

 

[eidairaman1]

The problem is people thinking, as I initially did, that you can just find a bios that will work for it. That's not true. Most of these are custom boards using some memory chips with oddball timings on them. Some have a different chip revision than the real card used.

The only real way to fix them is to modify the BIOS that came with them.

Not always the case, majority have been 450s, sometimes 560s,it all depends on the memory array snd chips used. Also unless if memory timings are at a very loose speed the cards can boot, if too tight they wont.

 

[siryoink]

Not always the case

*Most, certainly not all.

I have a 7670m and two 450/1050ti's fixed by editing the BIOS. The 7670m from what I can tell never existed on a real board. Only mod for it was to report 1gb instead of 4gb. The 450s I believe didn't work with any other bios bc the Hynix chips that were on them had different timings than ones used on actual cards. It's also possible they were binned as failed/reject cards. They were severely underclocked at 600/700. I brought them back close to stock but mine are running 725/850 when stock is 783/902.

Just saying it is possible to fix them without having to do guesswork. Dump the bios, edit correct values,then re-flash.

 

[xrror]

Every time I see a VGA port on a card advertised as a generation too new to have an integrated DAC... =(

Spoiler: Extended Drunken Rant

What really kills me is okay, the "ghost shift" people who make these fake cards - they have the skills to make these franken cards post, but if they just went the last bit to actually have them not crash, I think they'd have a killer market opportunity. If they sold these cards for say, $45 shipped and they actually worked - I think they'd be able to make a legit killing selling these cards. I'd buy 3 right now, just to have some UEFI compliant beater/test cards that heck - I know people who are still playing WoW on gen2 Intel integrated graphics (Sandy Bridge). These cards would be a legit upgrade for them ... if they actually didn't crash =(

2nd Rant: It also has made it pretty horrible to find legit GTX 960 (or 950, OR 750 / 750Ti... Radeon side finding 7xxx or newer ugh) cause the fakes flood the ebay listings - uuughh.

 

[siryoink]

As I tear into how these work more, I've came across something interesting. The "drivers cd" these all come with feature a modified .inf file that detects the fake hardware id (1C82) they inserted to all these cards. That ID then hijacks Section088 of the install file, normally dedicated to hardware ID 1D52. This tricks it into installing a different driver, but labeling it "Geforce 1050 Ti" in device manager.

So, what driver is it actually installing? A Geforce MX250 driver, displaying in device manager as a 1050 Ti, running on a 450/550 chip. And surprise, that's not stable. SMH.

 

[ShiBDiB]

2nd Rant: It also has made it pretty horrible to find legit GTX 960 (or 950, OR 750 / 750Ti... Radeon side finding 7xxx or newer ugh) cause the fakes flood the ebay listings - uuughh.

Ebay isn't really the issue here. They'll refund the buyer pretty quickly in cases like this and ban the seller.

The issue is people buying stuff off of obvious junk sites and then coming here complaining that the card doesn't work and asking for a miracle.

 

[eidairaman1]

*Most, certainly not all.

I have a 7670m and two 450/1050ti's fixed by editing the BIOS. The 7670m from what I can tell never existed on a real board. Only mod for it was to report 1gb instead of 4gb. The 450s I believe didn't work with any other bios bc the Hynix chips that were on them had different timings than ones used on actual cards. It's also possible they were binned as failed/reject cards. They were severely underclocked at 600/700. I brought them back close to stock but mine are running 725/850 when stock is 783/902.

Just saying it is possible to fix them without having to do guesswork. Dump the bios, edit correct values,then re-flash.

I just look up the bios version anymore

 

[BryanNitro]

what, they got good at swapping and re-balling chips and all that bios editing for mining no wonder not all the cards are fake china's

 

[Hardcore Games]

fake video cards have been around for more than a decade

 

[BryanNitro]

also its a display of developer neglect... they really don't know what to do or where to start...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Go Back later with the Cash/cheque after you have tested card and verifed its what is actually for sale

99% of the time its Cash and Carry, if the seller doesnt let you do testing at time of sale, it usually means its faulty, fake or a flat out scam. Ebay is the worst when it comes to defining what is fake and what isnt, its all about the wording on the sale page at the time of purchase. Which is why the schmucks that think they are getting a good deal tend to bent over a barrel a little too often.

There is an ancient proverb created during the time of the Pharaohs of Egypt : If it looks like its too good of a deal, it probably is safe to say its junk.

 

[eidairaman1]

Now if idiots would stop buying them...

 

[Hyderz]

another way is just to do a quick research before buying the gpu they saw,
google brand name, check official website, match the picture more often they are not the gpu advertised
also check the msrp if the price is much lower than the price its too good to be true..

 

[Hardcore Games]

A lot of counterfeiters prey on the poorly educated persons which are all too common around with world

 

[eidairaman1]

A lot of counterfeiters prey on the poorly educated persons which are all too common around with world

Its why fake cards should be reported

 

[Jetster]

And I'm just goin to piggyback on this and say, please stop paying double for cards

 

[ixi]

Stop buying fake gpus, ffs people, are you nuuuuuuuuumb?

Kappa.

 

[Hardcore Games]

I am now expert enough to spot fakes immediately so I now post photos galore of such items on my site for my readers

 

[Candor]

If it's got a VGA port, run away.

 

[eidairaman1]

I am now expert enough to spot fakes immediately so I now post photos galore of such items on my site for my readers

Its the heatsink.