Scam card watch: Fake 1060

[Neo-Rio]

Another Chinese scam card. See photos.
Card seems to be a GF116 but with no specs that match any card. Additionally, I had a real problem trying to reflash the bios with an EEPROM flasher. The standard CH341A flashers did not support the chip exactly (chip appears to be a “Pm25LV512”), but neither did my other universal flasher. Neither could detect the chip, hence I couldn’t reflash it.
If I can’t reflash the BIOS, it’s total junk. I considered desoldering and replacing the SPI flash but figured I’d be throwing good money after bad.
Attempting to refund the card, but seller is attempting to stall by asking for video proof (oh there is a video!) even though this 1060 fake has VGA.

Here are photos. Will upload the fake BIOS later.

 

[eidairaman1]

Someone wiped out the GF code

 

[MrGRiMv25]

Cant find anything that matches the ROPS/TMUS's... found plenty with 192 CCores in the list below if you want to take a look - none are on the 40nm process though so it's a bit of a weird one.

Nvidia GPUs sorted by CUDA cores

Nvidia GPUs sorted by CUDA cores. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

 

[Neo-Rio]

Yes there’s no GF code on this one, and you’re correct that the ROPs/TMUs don’t match anything. Needless to say that there’s not 6GB of RAM either. Video memory tester thought there was 2GB. I set the tester for 1GB, and it still crashed. Maybe it’s one of those 512MB variants?
In any case, unless I can flash the SPI, the thing is a paperweight.

 

[Melvis]

Most of these fake cards are ether GTX 960's or 550 Ti's.

The cooler gives it away straight away that its a fake card.....

 

[Ruru]

What I've seen, they're almost always GTS 450's or GTX 550 Ti's. Where the hell the Chinese have got so many of those old Fermis?

That's a 550 Ti since it has 192 shaders and a 192-bit memory bus.

 

[Chrispy_]

Cant find anything that matches the ROPS/TMUS's... found plenty with 192 CCores in the list below if you want to take a look - none are on the 40nm process though so it's a bit of a weird one.

Nvidia GPUs sorted by CUDA cores

Nvidia GPUs sorted by CUDA cores. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

There was a 1.5GB GTS450 with 3 SMs based on GF106 that had 24 ROPs. I wonder if this happened to GF116 too, or whether GPU-Z is just misreporting because it's not in the database.

 

[delshay]

Google the memory part number to see what comes up.

 

[Ruru]

I think that GPU-Z misreports because of a fake bios. GF116 + 192 shaders + 192bit bus = GTX 550 Ti

 

[Neo-Rio]

Here's the BIOS, uploaded.

Yeah I knew it was fake, but I figured I'd scam the scammer. I needed a GPU for an old motherboard and I was too cheap to buy one - figuring I'd get a freebie and reflash the BIOS and get something that works. Well returning it has been interesting. The seller on ebay wants to try haggling how much money to refund. I'm not budging until it's the full cost (which to be honest, was only a little over $40, so not much potential loss here). What ever happened to "no questions asked" refunds?

What's bugging me is that I can't manage to reflash the BIOS with my equipment. What also bugs me is why these scammers even bother. I'd pay $40 for a new GTX550Ti that worked as it's better value than buying a GT710 new here. Instead I have potential e-waste.

I thought it might be a GTS450 with 512MB, given that I don't even think this even has the full 1GB.
I also considered that if the memory chips are fake labelled, maybe the SPI 25 flash is as well? There are three 8-pin SOPs on the board, so if it's not my equipment or my lack of expertise with EEPROM flashing SPI chips, perhaps they've deliberately mislabeled the BIOS chip and maybe the power regulator or something? I'm stumped.

 

[bug]

The 550Ti is GF116.

 

[Vario]

Here's the BIOS, uploaded.

Yeah I knew it was fake, but I figured I'd scam the scammer. I needed a GPU for an old motherboard and I was too cheap to buy one - figuring I'd get a freebie and reflash the BIOS and get something that works. Well returning it has been interesting. The seller on ebay wants to try haggling how much money to refund. I'm not budging until it's the full cost (which to be honest, was only a little over $40, so not much potential loss here). What ever happened to "no questions asked" refunds?

What's bugging me is that I can't manage to reflash the BIOS with my equipment. What also bugs me is why these scammers even bother. I'd pay $40 for a new GTX550Ti that worked as it's better value than buying a GT710 new here. Instead I have potential e-waste.

I thought it might be a GTS450 with 512MB, given that I don't even think this even has the full 1GB.
I also considered that if the memory chips are fake labelled, maybe the SPI 25 flash is as well? There are three 8-pin SOPs on the board, so if it's not my equipment or my lack of expertise with EEPROM flashing SPI chips, perhaps they've deliberately mislabeled the BIOS chip and maybe the power regulator or something? I'm stumped.

$40 for a 550ti seems like a poor deal. You can get a 950 for around that.

 

[W1zzard]

I think that GPU-Z misreports because of a fake bios. GF116 + 192 shaders + 192bit bus = GTX 550 Ti

GPU-Z doesn't read the BIOS for fake detection. The GPU detection for fake cards uses a special method that's independent from what the fakers fake

 

[eidairaman1]

Most of these fake cards are ether GTX 960's or 550 Ti's.

The cooler gives it away straight away that its a fake card.....

Gts 450s even

 

[Neo-Rio]

$40 for a 550ti seems like a poor deal. You can get a 950 for around that.

Well after much wrangling with the seller (who attempted to haggle the refund payment, tried to take the refund offline, and used every stalling tactic), reaching out for help from ebay when the deadline to resolve the issue came up got me a near INSTANT full refund. So there you go.

I got a free card, but I suspect that the SPI flash chip is a counterfeit too, just like the RAM. If so, that’s why it’s not flashing.
I’m going to attempt to replace it with a real SPI flash chip - mainly for science - although I dread having to resolder such a tiny chip in the hope that I *might* fix it.

Of course, I have to make sure I get a legit flash chip replacement in the first instance.

Is this totally worth going through for a fake GPU. Answer : NO

 

[Melvis]

 

[dj-electric]

I'm just surprised we're like 4+ years into China puking massive amounts of fake GR116-117 based cards and people still buying em under new names with broken, unmatching specs on site

 

[bonehead123]

lookalikea fake..
smellalikea fake...
tastesalikea fake.....

probably IS a fake, hehehe

seems like a lot of hassles, on both ends, for just $40.....

 

[middydj]

lookalikea fake..
smellalikea fake...
tastesalikea fake.....

probably IS a fake, hehehe

seems like a lot of hassles, on both ends, for just $40.....

same way I feel. both of them wasting a bunch of time for nothing...

 

[killster1]

think a used 1060 was 100 bux shipped last time i bought one a year ago. STill running strong in my moms pc ;/ but i dont have alot of free time to try and scam scammers and ship from china, it has a vga port why why why would you buy buy buy heh

 

[Neo-Rio]

I’m going to attempt to replace the flash chip with one that actually works. As stated, doing this purely “for science” now. Thanks to the flash not flashing, this experience proved to me that scamming the scammers just isn’t worth it. I was hoping for an easy reflash of the BIOS for a free, working card to provide graphics to a mobo that didn’t have any onboard.

will update this thread when the chips arrive and I attempt the operation.