Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10 • Hacker News Board

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#31

Post by wtallis » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:26 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #25

memset wrote: post #23

The corresponding reddit thread is quite insightful: "It is far cheaper to make one very good chip for the highest market, and modify it slightly for lower end markets... Now, this is the part you hate: this is the only viable alternative. There's no point demanding different designs for different market segments as that would significantly increase the cost you, the consumer, pays. You can demand chips be sold at lo…

Exactly, binning is good for the business AND for the consumer.

When "binning" refers to the practice of putting premium prices on parts that test as being capable of operating at higher clock speeds or lower voltages, that's good for the consumer. When it refers to die harvesting - selling the chip with a defective section disabled - that's also good for the consumer. When it refers to crippling a chip that has already passed QA, it's a symptom of insufficient competitive pressure. The best example of this is when Intel offered a $50 software upgrade that would enable HyperThreading and more CPU cache. What NVidia is doing here probably isn't as bad - the premium associated with Tesla and Quadro parts goes toward driver features and QA that is irrelevant to the consumer market.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#32

Post by nwmcsween » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:26 AM UTC

memset wrote: post #23

The corresponding reddit thread is quite insightful: "It is far cheaper to make one very good chip for the highest market, and modify it slightly for lower end markets... Now, this is the part you hate: this is the only viable alternative. There's no point demanding different designs for different market segments as that would significantly increase the cost you, the consumer, pays. You can demand chips be sold at lo…

It seems every company screws up on binning, sometimes repeatedly. AMD and Intel and nVidia have had 're-binning' issues on a lot of hardware.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#33

Post by ippisl » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:27 AM UTC

memset wrote: post #23

The corresponding reddit thread is quite insightful: "It is far cheaper to make one very good chip for the highest market, and modify it slightly for lower end markets... Now, this is the part you hate: this is the only viable alternative. There's no point demanding different designs for different market segments as that would significantly increase the cost you, the consumer, pays. You can demand chips be sold at lo…

It's possible for nvidia to replace the resistors with one-time-programable memory ,and program it at factory. And it's cheap, it's being used in $1 FPGA from silicon blue.

And they'll probably do this in their next chip.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#34

Post by mistercow » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:27 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #22

fosk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that if I own a piece of hardware, I am the sole owner of every single chip and screw on it, including every hardware hack that it may have. On the other side, usually you don't own the software but only a license that grants you permission to use it.

Binning is good for everyone, so it seems kind of short-sighted to try to tear it down.

If people hacking their hardware were a significant threat to the practice of binning, hardware manufacturers could simply make it more difficult and dangerous to hack.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#35

Post by pdmccormick » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:30 AM UTC

memset wrote: post #21

leoh wrote: post #8

How do people find hacks like this? Looking at the board, that resistor is one among tons of components.

He actually describes it in the thread, a little farther down: "No, no schematic, what I did was look for resistors that looked like they had an alternative position, have a look at the photos and you will see what I mean. Any that I suspected of being a strap I used a meter to check if the resistor was connected to ground of 3.3V directly, and looked where the general traces were going in the area. If they went towa…

I once saw a networking IC that had a key strap-in pin multiplexed with an indicator LED, so if you wanted to change the brightness of the LED by varying the resistor value, watch out because you'll change the device behaviour! Good times...

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#36

Post by skyebook » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:30 AM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #17

sargun wrote: post #5

I don't entirely know how I feel about this hack. I feel like this is really similar to unlocking the "Professional" version of a piece of software with a serial key generator. Although, I understand hardware is dramatically different than software, it's using the same principal -- the same reusable bits to assemble many different products, and then just using tools to mask features unless a user pays for them. Then…

This kind if stuff has been going on for a long time. I remember one of the Nvidia cards from 8 years ago could unlock extra lanes in the GPU just With a firmware flash. Intel had been using the same dye for multiple CPU SKUs for a long time now. Though people have figured out how to move between the various skus with ease. The one thing to keep in mind with hardware like this is that the different price points and S…

There were unlocked lanes as well as the ability to use Quadro firmware with 8800GTS cards (which offered improved IQ in apps like Autodesk 3ds). As you allude to though, I'm pretty sure that the professional workstation cards are of a better binning.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#37

Post by habosa » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:35 AM UTC

This was compared to software that ships with all the features but requires a serial number to unlock the good ones. However I think this is different, and I think modifying hardware in this way is considerably more moral than using keygens to unlock software. It's hard to exactly state why I feel that this hardware mod is entirely moral behavior while software piracy is not but it's hard to put my finger on the right words. I think it's possibly something to do with Locke's notion of property rights and how one has an ownership claim to that which he created by his own labor. Am I the only one that feels this way? Sorry to ramble.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#38

Post by ISL » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:35 AM UTC

eupharis wrote: post #28

sargun wrote: post #5

I don't entirely know how I feel about this hack. I feel like this is really similar to unlocking the "Professional" version of a piece of software with a serial key generator. Although, I understand hardware is dramatically different than software, it's using the same principal -- the same reusable bits to assemble many different products, and then just using tools to mask features unless a user pays for them. Then…

Sargun, your point was, I think, why is it that we treat software modding differently than we treat hardware modding? The chorus of "The hardware is hardware, and we can do whatever we want!" misses the point. It is a good point sargun. One I wish I had an answer for. Perhaps one explanation lies in the fact that some level of risk and skill and ingenuity and research is required to actually mod hardware. So we feel…

One possible future: Bits exist physically on my hardware. I get to twiddle them however I want. Furthermore, I can speak freely about having done so.

This reality is at least partly responsible for the emergence of software as a service. Can't crack what you don't have.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#39

Post by n3rdy » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:36 AM UTC

For the past few months my GeForce 450 drivers have been acting up, and my computer was actually unusable until I disabled just about all hardware accelleration for the card.

Is it possible that the new drivers for this card are so unstable just because nVidia is trying to thwart this type of hack?

If that's the case, totally unacceptable to cripple my machine just because they want to prevent other people from altering their cards (which I will immediately begin to look into how to do myself now).

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#40

Post by hkmurakami » Tue, Mar 19, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

>The tight asses have decided that if you want this feature under Linux you have to get a Quadro which has Mosaic support :palm:. So naturally I decided to look at how mod the card...

I just absolutely loved reading this line. I had been away from 'hacker culture' for nearly two decades (probably ever since I became serious about my studies back in middle school and I stopped 'having fun' with my studies and interests) and finally seem to be growing back into the mindset. This kind of tinkering, exploring attitude is so wonderful, even just as an observer to this story it makes me feel like I'm regaining my childhood innocence again.