Folding Forum

iero wrote:Would the card run correctly, if at all, if you removed the problematic vram chip?

Just leave open traces? No.
Even if the card would pass self test (I dont think it would) the VBIOS will try to fill the VRAM it should have and crash.

Thats the reason Fake-GPUs collapse by needing more VRAM than it physically have.
So if the VBIOS is saying there are 2GB VRAM (Maybe it says 4x 512M), the driver will use up to 2GB VRAM - even if there in fact are only 1GB (Maybe 4x 256) available.
Dozens of GTS 450 or other Fermi chips reporting them self as GTX1050 or even better GPUs.
On newer Cards the VBIOS is secured against modifications, but with the use of these old cards scammers can trick you.

However its sometimes possible to change an entire cards VRAM: https://hackaday.com/2021/03/20/video-r ... -to-16-gb/
But if you read the article it was only possible because of the external resistor configuration and since its an unwanted config its not really stable in the long run.

I think it's best to assume that FAH needs dependable hardware. Trying to get bye with defective equipment really shouldn't be anybody's goal. The whole point of doing the calculations is to do valid calculations.

iero wrote:would the card work if you just desoldered it from the board?

bruce wrote:Trying to get bye with defective equipment really shouldn't be anybody's goal.

Confirmed by testing this out with a Dell HD7470:
I randomly removed one of the four VRAM-Chips and like I was foreseeing it wont turn on anymore.

The only place you can get them properly serviced, is in Thailand, on one of those flea market electronic shops.
They can even upgrade the RAM to faster, if the GPU supports it.