GPU Zotac GTX 1080 Mini

[Axonite]

Yeah, i just realized his account is gone and i've no way to contact him. It was sad and sudden, but it's okay, we can still see what he said even though the images are gone..

And yes that is an S4 Mini, specifically the original one, now known as the S4M-C "Skyreach 4 Mini Classic" made by NFC, we have an entire forum section for that Case found here , and it's actually my case of choice, you can see my build thread here.

The old case thread for the S4M-C is here (note this one is out of production and only a limited number exist)
the new case known as the S4M thread is here (note this one is currently still in production)

Thanks, again, a lot of helpful information. One question I have, which I'm not sure about is, how is the Case Design of the A4 "Classic" is? As I've seen from the images and builds, the Side panel of the Case actually goes over the Metal housing.

This is important to me since if it is the case, then the Fan MOD will not be applicable to my build, as my side panel is recessed into the case.

So I have exactly two slots of Height to tinker with the Cards cooling, while in A4 it seems you have an extra ~2mm, which is just enough for the Noctua Fan Mod.

*Edit*
Found the Scythe Slipstream Fans, I have heard from them a few times already on other Forums.
They just have a height of 12mm, which should do the job, will buy two for now and conduct some testing
For reference: http://www.scythe-eu.com/en/products/fans/slip-stream-120-mm-slim.html

 

[chx]

Over at [H]ardForum we collected slim fans into

 

[Broxin]

Cuban, cesky is on gurys discord happy to answer your question.

I think he left because he is busy and has no time for forum chatter

Hi bro,

Sadly I think a couple days ago Ceski left SFF Forums? Look under his username.. "ceski - Deleted account per user request." (does anyone know why?) This is a real shame honestly, because I really wanted to be able to see those images as well. Ceski has helped with CPU undervolting and those images have been lost to the abyss of the internet as well... sorry!

EDIT: I found a few images that I had saved, i think they were his:
image (1)


I hope this helps.

 

[CubanLegend]

Cuban, cesky is on gurys discord happy to answer your question.

I think he left because he is busy and has no time for forum chatter

thanks, I got in contact with him and he was able to guide me with re-linking me to the CPU undowvolting images and spreadsheet he had made

 

[beljim7419]

I have a Zotac GTX mini and tried the Msi bios mentioned earlier to have better control over the fan.
The result was I could indeed control the fan speed to a lower speed than default, even off to reduce noise.

I do have a issue though. My resolution was then capped at 1080p ( i use 4k on the desktop)
Nobody mentioned this issue, so am I the only one or no one else goes above 1080p to have noticed?

I have successfully returned to stock for now.

 

[hardwarebyte]

Would like to chime in with my experiences of flashing the Zotac 1080 Mini bios:

I installed the MSI bios (https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/197337/msi-gtx1080-8192-170908) and everything worked fine with the fan control but my bottom Displayport does not work nor does HDMI out work for my Oculus Rift. So at the moment my acoustics are a little out of whack what with the GPU idling at 1200 RPM @ 30c.

Anyone had more success with any other BIOS?

 

[tleej]

Hi all, just letting you know that I have tried the reflash on the 1080 Ti version of this card and it works like a charm. I have a dual boot hackintosh on high sierra and no issue on the mac side as well. One word of caution, I am not talking about MSI bios. I am talking about using the Amp. version of the Zotac Bios for the 1080Ti

 

[Psyduck91]

This s a long shot but wondering if anyone has an updated 1080 mini bios?

I tried flashing the 1080 Amped bios but forgot to backup my stock bios before flashing. I ran into the 405mhz memory problem like another poster. I eventually got the 0db fan feature to work using the 1080 strix bios. Only problem I have is that I get quite a bit of coil I'm assuming due to the higher clock speed. I can not get the clock speed to go down when using msi afterburner. I'm able to reduce the memory speed by the clock speed won't change.

I see a few people have gotten it to work using the MSI bios, I'll give that one a try.

 

[kingalpha]

Well that sucks that you sold it.... TechPowerup forum admins made my ZOTAC 1080 mini BIOS public & added it to the database after verifying it, and they told me that Pascal GPU BIOS modding isnt possible right now since you can only reflash a SIGNED BIOS, since they are all encrypted, so you can only sign another official card's BIOS, no modding of the actual 1080 mini BIOS is possible.... I even reached out to ZOTAC live chat support and was told that their support engineers are aware of that 37% minimum fan speed, but that they only work on BIOS updates for card ISSUES, not for feature requests. I was told to reach out to ZOTAC's social media pages in case their marketing team might listen and could talk to the product management team... but I knew that reaching out by myself would fall on deaf ears, so I took matters into my own hands, and so...

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!...

Because I LITERALLY just figured out the 0% fan mod on my ZOTAC 1080 mini! It's SOOO QUIET NOW! My SSDs are louder than it, heck even my CPU fan (Noctua A9x14) is louder than it... the fans are no longer limited to 37% fan speed (1170RPM) and they are now able to turn completely off. I have my ZOTAC 1080 mini's fans OFF completely until the GPU hits 55C, which it NEVER does when web browsing, watching 4K or UHD youtube videos, or even while watching a 4k UHD bluray rip!

How did I do it? I bit the bullet and did a BIOS reflash and it worked! I flashed my ZOTAC 1080 Mini's BIOS with the ZOTAC 1080 Amp! Edition BIOS...! That card has a 0% fan mode feature build into it from Zotac called FREEZE, and I was right that this 0% idle fan feature was in the BIOS. And as such the fan limiter is UNRESTRICTED! But! Notice, the AMP! Edition card's BIOS comes with a SLIGHTLY higher base clock and boost clock than our 1080 mini does, so it might run a few degrees c hotter if you dont tweak your power limit properly,... but it's safe. Here's a page with all the BIOS's for our ZOTAC 1080 series cards, including my 1080 mini bios in case you want to reflash back to stock.

Disclaimer: Reflashing your GPU BIOS could cause unknown problems, so do this at your own risk!

Here's what you need to know if you flash to the "1080 Amp! Edition" BIOS on your "1080 Mini":

• your 1080 mini will now be clocked 53MHz higher on the core old:1620 new:1683 (base) and will have a 63 MHz higher Boost clock on the core at old:1723 new:1822 (boost), totally safe since the 1080 mini can easily GPUboost 3.0 it's way up to 2050MHz in games
• Set a 0% fan curve at your own risk, even if the GPU core isnt hot, it doesnt mean other components arent overheating with the fans off
• I recommend you DO NOT set the GPU fan speed to 0% in your fan curve, as the GPU may need some sort of cooling on other components besides the GPU core, I'd recommend a minimum fan speed of 26% across the board (600RPMs)... this is a whisper quiet fan speed anyway. At 26% minimum fan speed (600RPMs) the fan will be stable, it will be WHISPER quiet at that speed. Why? Because if the fans are set below 26% minimum, the fan's dont seem able to maintain such low voltage and instead will turn on/off every 2 seconds.
• You should set your GPU's power limit to 78% (if you had it at 100% before), or 94% if you had it at 120% before... (in MSI afterburner), this is because the 1080 mini's original power limit of 217W is 78% of the BIOS I used to reflash it (which has a power limit of 276W), and you dont want your card going over it's power limit. so 78% power limit on the Amp! Edition's BIOS is the same as having a 100% power limit on the stock 1080 mini BIOS. and 94% power limit on the Amp! Edition's BIOS is the same as having the 120% power limit on the stock 1080 mini BIOS.
• untie your temp limit from your power limit in MSI afterburner, and Set a temp limit somewhere you feel comfortable, like 85c or 90c (just in case)
• I noticed that sometimes when on the 0% fan mode, the GPU fans would start up at a steady RPM for some reason, a quiet RPM, but MSI afterburner would still report 0% fans speed, so to avoid that glitch in fan speed, my fans are always running a 26%, which is 600RPM and practically silent.

Here's the tools and instructions you'll need to reflash:
You'll need NVFlash from here
ZOTAC GTX 1080 Amp! Edition BIOS (to flash to) from here
ZOTAC GTX 1080 Mini BIOS (to flash back in case you want to revert the changes) from here

Here's the instructions:


HAVE FUN with the SMALLEST GTX 1080 money can buy... now in all it's silent 0% fan glory! I hope your SSDs, HDDs, or whisper quiet CPU fans are now the loudest thing in your quiet, powerful, luxirious SFF system... time to move up to M.2 to replace those "LOUD HDDs"! >=D

My new super quiet fan curve!

My new card, idling from 25-35c when browsing the web and watching 4K videos, while silent... amazing!:

If you guys would like me to redo some of my old GPU benchmarks to see if my temps go up or if I come across issues, let me know. I'm swamped with work this week, so I'll have to try that out next week when I have some time.

Well that sucks that you sold it.... TechPowerup forum admins made my ZOTAC 1080 mini BIOS public & added it to the database after verifying it, and they told me that Pascal GPU BIOS modding isnt possible right now since you can only reflash a SIGNED BIOS, since they are all encrypted, so you can only sign another official card's BIOS, no modding of the actual 1080 mini BIOS is possible.... I even reached out to ZOTAC live chat support and was told that their support engineers are aware of that 37% minimum fan speed, but that they only work on BIOS updates for card ISSUES, not for feature requests. I was told to reach out to ZOTAC's social media pages in case their marketing team might listen and could talk to the product management team... but I knew that reaching out by myself would fall on deaf ears, so I took matters into my own hands, and so...

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!...

Because I LITERALLY just figured out the 0% fan mod on my ZOTAC 1080 mini! It's SOOO QUIET NOW! My SSDs are louder than it, heck even my CPU fan (Noctua A9x14) is louder than it... the fans are no longer limited to 37% fan speed (1170RPM) and they are now able to turn completely off. I have my ZOTAC 1080 mini's fans OFF completely until the GPU hits 55C, which it NEVER does when web browsing, watching 4K or UHD youtube videos, or even while watching a 4k UHD bluray rip!

How did I do it? I bit the bullet and did a BIOS reflash and it worked! I flashed my ZOTAC 1080 Mini's BIOS with the ZOTAC 1080 Amp! Edition BIOS...! That card has a 0% fan mode feature build into it from Zotac called FREEZE, and I was right that this 0% idle fan feature was in the BIOS. And as such the fan limiter is UNRESTRICTED! But! Notice, the AMP! Edition card's BIOS comes with a SLIGHTLY higher base clock and boost clock than our 1080 mini does, so it might run a few degrees c hotter if you dont tweak your power limit properly,... but it's safe. Here's a page with all the BIOS's for our ZOTAC 1080 series cards, including my 1080 mini bios in case you want to reflash back to stock.

Disclaimer: Reflashing your GPU BIOS could cause unknown problems, so do this at your own risk!

Here's what you need to know if you flash to the "1080 Amp! Edition" BIOS on your "1080 Mini":

• your 1080 mini will now be clocked 53MHz higher on the core old:1620 new:1683 (base) and will have a 63 MHz higher Boost clock on the core at old:1723 new:1822 (boost), totally safe since the 1080 mini can easily GPUboost 3.0 it's way up to 2050MHz in games
• Set a 0% fan curve at your own risk, even if the GPU core isnt hot, it doesnt mean other components arent overheating with the fans off
• I recommend you DO NOT set the GPU fan speed to 0% in your fan curve, as the GPU may need some sort of cooling on other components besides the GPU core, I'd recommend a minimum fan speed of 26% across the board (600RPMs)... this is a whisper quiet fan speed anyway. At 26% minimum fan speed (600RPMs) the fan will be stable, it will be WHISPER quiet at that speed. Why? Because if the fans are set below 26% minimum, the fan's dont seem able to maintain such low voltage and instead will turn on/off every 2 seconds.
• You should set your GPU's power limit to 78% (if you had it at 100% before), or 94% if you had it at 120% before... (in MSI afterburner), this is because the 1080 mini's original power limit of 217W is 78% of the BIOS I used to reflash it (which has a power limit of 276W), and you dont want your card going over it's power limit. so 78% power limit on the Amp! Edition's BIOS is the same as having a 100% power limit on the stock 1080 mini BIOS. and 94% power limit on the Amp! Edition's BIOS is the same as having the 120% power limit on the stock 1080 mini BIOS.
• untie your temp limit from your power limit in MSI afterburner, and Set a temp limit somewhere you feel comfortable, like 85c or 90c (just in case)
• I noticed that sometimes when on the 0% fan mode, the GPU fans would start up at a steady RPM for some reason, a quiet RPM, but MSI afterburner would still report 0% fans speed, so to avoid that glitch in fan speed, my fans are always running a 26%, which is 600RPM and practically silent.

Here's the tools and instructions you'll need to reflash:
You'll need NVFlash from here
ZOTAC GTX 1080 Amp! Edition BIOS (to flash to) from here
ZOTAC GTX 1080 Mini BIOS (to flash back in case you want to revert the changes) from here

Here's the instructions:


HAVE FUN with the SMALLEST GTX 1080 money can buy... now in all it's silent 0% fan glory! I hope your SSDs, HDDs, or whisper quiet CPU fans are now the loudest thing in your quiet, powerful, luxirious SFF system... time to move up to M.2 to replace those "LOUD HDDs"! >=D

My new super quiet fan curve!

My new card, idling from 25-35c when browsing the web and watching 4K videos, while silent... amazing!:

If you guys would like me to redo some of my old GPU benchmarks to see if my temps go up or if I come across issues, let me know. I'm swamped with work this week, so I'll have to try that out next week when I have some time.

I just want to say that I've followed the instructions as outlined and it worked perfectly. Thank you for posting.

 

[CubanLegend]

This s a long shot but wondering if anyone has an updated 1080 mini bios?

I tried flashing the 1080 Amped bios but forgot to backup my stock bios before flashing. I ran into the 405mhz memory problem like another poster. I eventually got the 0db fan feature to work using the 1080 strix bios. Only problem I have is that I get quite a bit of coil I'm assuming due to the higher clock speed. I can not get the clock speed to go down when using msi afterburner. I'm able to reduce the memory speed by the clock speed won't change.

I see a few people have gotten it to work using the MSI bios, I'll give that one a try.

Here you can find all the ZOTAC 1080 BIOS files, including my stock 1080 mini BIOS.. https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...=GTX+1080&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since=

I just want to say that I've followed the instructions as outlined and it worked perfectly. Thank you for posting.

You're welcome, im glad it worked.

 

[Psyduck91]

Here you can find all the ZOTAC 1080 BIOS files, including my stock 1080 mini BIOS.. https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios...=GTX+1080&interface=&memType=&memSize=&since=

Yeah, this is where I got the 1080 mini BIOS. I ran into the 405mhz issue with that one.

I've been using the Asus strix bios which has been working well except, it likes to boost really high which makes the coil whine really bad. I managed to make it more manageable by manually setting a undervolt/decrease clock with the MSI afterburner graph. However, at idle, it doesn't go down to 130mhz like it did before. It sits around 700mhz now which isn't the end of the world.

Note to self: always make a backup before attempting flashing a new BIOS.

 

[CubanLegend]

Yeah, this is where I got the 1080 mini BIOS. I ran into the 405mhz issue with that one.

I've been using the Asus strix bios which has been working well except, it likes to boost really high which makes the coil whine really bad. I managed to make it more manageable by manually setting a undervolt/decrease clock with the MSI afterburner graph. However, at idle, it doesn't go down to 130mhz like it did before. It sits around 700mhz now which isn't the end of the world.

Note to self: always make a backup before attempting flashing a new BIOS.

Yup, always make a backup. One thing i did update on my flashing guide and will update here & now: you can use ZOTAC Firestorm to flash and save your stock GPU BIOS. Here's the app, you can see the BIOS Button, and the options on the left.


I'm personally using that instead of the original NVflash, with sucess. I've also swapped out the STOCK ZOTAC 1080 mini fans and plastic shroud and installed 2x NF-A9x14 (CPU editions) onto my 1080 mini and am running the ZOTAC 1080 AMP Edition BIOS for dead silence. I dont have the issue with no HDMI audio as i use an active DP to HDMI adapter on my 1080 mini to get proper audio over HDMI. I also udnervolted the card finally to get about a 10-12c drop in max temps at full load, from 83/84c to 71/72c.. I'll be posting updates of that to my build thread listed in my sig soon.

 

[Psyduck91]

Yup, always make a backup. One thing i did update on my flashing guide and will update here & now: you can use ZOTAC Firestorm to flash and save your stock GPU BIOS. Here's the app, you can see the BIOS Button, and the options on the left.


I'm personally using that instead of the original NVflash, with sucess. I've also swapped out the STOCK ZOTAC 1080 mini fans and plastic shroud and installed 2x NF-A9x14 (CPU editions) onto my 1080 mini and am running the ZOTAC 1080 AMP Edition BIOS for dead silence. I dont have the issue with no HDMI audio as i use an active DP to HDMI adapter on my 1080 mini to get proper audio over HDMI. I also udnervolted the card finally to get about a 10-12c drop in max temps at full load, from 83/84c to 71/72c.. I'll be posting updates of that to my build thread listed in my sig soon.

How is undervolting using Firestorm? Might give this a try tomorrow. I've found that when undervolting with MSI Afterburner, the core clock won't go below 800mhz when idle when it was idling at 140mhz before. Could you share your undervolt settings?

I've seen a few people with the noctua fans, it must be nice having that kind of noise level and cooling potential.

 

[CubanLegend]

hmm

How is undervolting using Firestorm? Might give this a try tomorrow. I've found that when undervolting with MSI Afterburner, the core clock won't go below 800mhz when idle when it was idling at 140mhz before. Could you share your undervolt settings?

I've seen a few people with the noctua fans, it must be nice having that kind of noise level and cooling potential.

ok so, the 1080's voltage curves only allow modification from .800v and UP.

Youre talking about core clock or core voltage? To allow the GPU to underclock itself while idle... i use MSI afterburner for my OC and undervolt and fan profile, i ONLY use Firestorm for BIOS flashing.

I would ensure you didn accidentally LOCK your voltage by pressing L in the voltage curve editor, if you did, reset your curve from scratch and set it up and reapply it, try closing and reopenin afterburner and making a new OC profile..also in your NVIDIA control panel, ensure you set your GPU to use the Adaptive Performance preset and not maximum performance, then reboot.

I hope this helps!

 

[Psyduck91]

hmm

ok so, the 1080's voltage curves only allow modification from .800v and UP.

Youre talking about core clock or core voltage? To allow the GPU to underclock itself while idle... i use MSI afterburner for my OC and undervolt and fan profile, i ONLY use Firestorm for BIOS flashing.

I would ensure you didn accidentally LOCK your voltage by pressing L in the voltage curve editor, if you did, reset your curve from scratch and set it up and reapply it, try closing and reopenin afterburner and making a new OC profile..also in your NVIDIA control panel, ensure you set your GPU to use the Adaptive Performance preset and not maximum performance, then reboot.

I hope this helps!

Thanks, that answers everything. Something must have gone wrong when I did the undervolt. Also noticed in Nvidia control panel my power setting was set to optimal power rather than adaptive.

 

[Psyduck91]

@CubanLegend I believe I've figured out why the clocks were so high at idle. I currently have 3 monitors plugged in to the GPU. I tried disconnecting one of them and the core clock goes down to ~600 and at times drops to 140. Memory clock drops to 405 now at idle.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Phuncz]

My new super quiet fan curve!

Today I made good use of your guide and research, I am very grateful for this. My card's fans started making noise, I replaced them (related) but the fans weren't OEM. The result was it being much louder at its stupid 37% idle. Thanks to your guide, I was able to flash the AMP Edition's firmware to have lower fan speed control ! My card's 3rd Display Port didn't work anymore and it also triggered Windows' Bit Locker into recovery, but that was nothing to difficult to solve luckily ! But the noise is gone and that's what matters !

 

[CubanLegend]

Today I made good use of your guide and research, I am very grateful for this. My card's fans started making noise, I replaced them (related) but the fans weren't OEM. The result was it being much louder at its stupid 37% idle. Thanks to your guide, I was able to flash the AMP Edition's firmware to have lower fan speed control ! My card's 3rd Display Port didn't work anymore and it also triggered Windows' Bit Locker into recovery, but that was nothing to difficult to solve luckily ! But the noise is gone and that's what matters !

Yeah the 3rd Displayport doenst work on the 1080 Mini with the AMP Edition BIOS for some reason, but if you only use 2 or 3 monitors then its no problem usually to lose 1 Displayport.

I'm glad it worked out! And I'm so happy that my guide and research is STILL helping people with 1080 Minis!

Someday these cards will finally be obsolete and this guide will fade into obscurity, maybe the 4080 will finally be a worthy upgrade, who knows lol... but until then, I'm glad i was able to help you and others.