GPU Zotac GTX 1080 Mini

[Boil]

So anyone interested. Ripped off the fans and hooked up two Noctua NF-F12 120mm fans. Set the fan curve with Speedfan and we are back to silence. Card idles around 32C...with fans at 30-40%...once it hits 65 it slowly ramps up. The sound difference is night and day. Even at 100% speed it's WAYYY more quiet than stock fans.

Thoughts towards using the NF-P12s rather than the NF-F12s for this…?

 

[fminus]

Thoughts towards using the NF-P12s rather than the NF-F12s for this…?

Funny. I actually had P12s sitting here as well. I used the F12 instead because they are pressure optimized for heat sinks and radiators. I figure with the shit airflow of the Node 202 any little bit helps. Later when I swap cases to one with a bit more airflow I'll prolly try the P12s

 

[fminus]

On a semi related note, and maybe @Runamok81 can help me:

Currently I have two 120mm fans attached. One actually bolted to the front, and the other hovering over it around 1cm away. Now since the card is roughly...197mm long...the second 120mm fan is only covering half of it. Would it better to have to 92mm fans instead....or perhaps a 120mm and a 92mm?

I blame the case (Node 202), but when gaming I hit 82C and sit there with fans going max at 1500rpm. Imho, this is too loud and hot, (Even though more silent than stock!). How can I fix this?

 

[CubanLegend]

Just uploaded the BIOS to techpowerup. If anyone needs a copy now here it is. This card is pretty loud under idle and general :/

I also submitted my stock ZOTAC 1080 mini's BIOS to techpowerup as well: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/190554/190554

I'm going to ask on the forums for them to verify it and add it to their database officially. Maybe we can mod the BIOS and reflash the card with a 0% fan profile mod on the stock BIOS?

EDIT: so i posted about the 1080 Mini BIOS mod on their Forums here. If youd like to chime in there and voice support for a 0% idle fan curve BIOS mod, feel free, lol.

 

[fminus]

@CubanLegend Ended up returning the card. Huge, loud, pos. Grabbed the MSI 1070 Aero ITX. That's a dream. Quiet. Hopefully someone other than Zotac will release a 1080 itx in the future.

 

[CubanLegend]

@CubanLegend Ended up returning the card. Huge, loud, pos. Grabbed the MSI 1070 Aero ITX. That's a dream. Quiet. Hopefully someone other than Zotac will release a 1080 itx in the future.

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.

WARNING for when using the Custom AMP Edition BIOS:

• You may lose the ability to use the 3rd displayport out on the GPU, (you can switch back to stock BIOS if you need that Displayport out)
• You may lose the ability to use AUDIO OUT on the HDMI port of the GPU, (you can use a Displayport to HDMI adapter to fix this)

Here's the tools and instructions you'll need to reflash:
You'll need NVFlash from here (OR just use ZOTAC Firestorm v2.0.0.010E 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:

First enter device manager> display adapters and disable the gpu, then :

1. Copy nvlash to c: \nvflash\ and the bios you want flashed in the nvflash directory
2. Enter and or Open a Windows cmd prompt window
3. Type cd "c: \nvflash" (without the space)
4. Type nvflash -6 biosname.rom OR nvflash64 -6 biosname.rom (if you're on x64 windows)
5. Wait for it to finish, after the prompt, restart your PC and when you enter windows again re-enable the gpu in device manager. You might need to restart again for windows to properly detect your 1080 mini

EDIT 05/08/2020 Alternatively: you can just use ZOTAC Firestorm (only versions 2.0.0.010E here or earlier) to easily SAVE and FLASH your ZOTAC cards bios. super simple, no need to memorize command line inputs.. just download it from the ZOTAC website (or from my link above), be sure to use the version pictured below V2.0.0.010E (which i have linked above), are previous or later versions may not have support for BIOS flashing/saving.


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.

 

[Kmpkt]

If I could give you more than one like I would!

 

[Ceros_X]

NICE bro!

 

[Curiosity]

Fantastic!

 

[zovc]

Not to distract from the Zotac 1080 mini or its glory... or how awesome @CubanLegend continues to be, but:

Is there any reason the same process wouldn't work on my Galax 1070 Mini? I asked Galax if they could change the BIOS on the 1070 mini to give it silent operation and their reply was:

Dear [my name] Zovc,

For 1070 OC mini, sorry we don’t have the fan stop at idle, but our other products, like our 1070 EXOC SNPR has included that function.

Thanks for your opinion, we would reflect your comments to R&D for reference.

Thanks,
GALAX

Which, I'm taking to mean that the EXOC SNPR's BIOS should do a similar number on my card like the Amp! bios did on yours. Out of curiosity, does the Amp! card whose bios you flashed have the same number of fans on it as your 1080? Would it potentially be a problem if I had less fans than a card whose BIOS I'm flashing does?

Edit: Fun/strange fact -- the Galax 1070 Mini is clocked higher than the Galax EXOC SNPR.

 

[Runamok81]

@zovc - I think we know what must be done.
http://www.galax.com/1070bios/
For science!

And to answer the "number of fans" question. How many fan headers does each card have? Usually, it's just one. In that case, I doubt the BIOS actually knows how many fans are connected. It's just going to send X.X volts or PWM to the fan header to adjust speed up and down.

 

[iFreilicht]

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.

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
• If you're going to set a custom 0% fan curve, where the fans only spin up after the core reaches a certain degrees C, ensure your "fans start to spin up point" starts at 26% minimum fan speed (600RPMs) so 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 RPM and instead will turn on/off every 2 seconds. I set mine to start at 55C, normal STRIX cards are set to start at 60c though, so you could try that.
• You should set your GPU's power limit to 78% (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.
• 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.

This needs to be linked on sffwiki! Great tutorial!

 

[EdZ]

Mods! Can we give CubanLegend a "Steely-Eyed NVFlash man" title?

 

[stevey500]

@CubanLegend You freaking rock, I'll try this out this evening with mine. Those fans do get nice and noisy sometimes so we'll see how this pans out.

Have you tested all of the video ports? DVI, both displayports, and hdmi still function normally?

 

[CubanLegend]

@CubanLegend You freaking rock, I'll try this out this evening with mine. Those fans do get nice and noisy sometimes so we'll see how this pans out.

Have you tested all of the video ports? DVI, both displayports, and hdmi still function normally?

That is a good question. I just tested all except for the DVI port (dont have a DVI cable anymore lol) and they all seemed to work except for the bottom DisplayPort (#3) (DP 1, HDMI, DP#2 worked fine tho). But I never used DP#3 even before the BIOS reflash and I dont plan to use it since I've got 2 other DisplayPort ports available, so meh.

 

[CubanLegend]

Also, I forgot to mention this but I think i said in passing that i spoke to ZOTAC live chat support about this. They have a US office in California I think, so this guy spoke perfect english and actually seemed very genuine in talking to me about a BIOS update, but he couldn't be too forthcoming about whether or not the BIOS engineers would do anything. He did promise he'd send my message/request to the right team at ZOTAC who could do something about it though, here's my chat interaction:

Oh, and I contacted ZOTAC support directly through their support email system, and asked them about possibly getting their BIOS engineers to release a fanless upgrade to the 1080 mini and the replied with this good(?) news:

Hi,

Thank you for contacting ZOTAC Technical Support.

Working on a BIOS fix will take time, also we're already looking into this concern, As soon as we have a new BIOS released it will be available for download.

Thanks for your patience.

Cheers,
Paul
Zotac Technical Support

So according to them, it seems like a 1080 mini 0% fan mode BIOS update is being worked on? Maybe? Hopefully this guy isn't blowing smoke up my ass. An official BIOS from ZOTAC for their 1080 mini to support a feature or remedy an issue that customers voiced an opinion about, would REALLY cement this company in my mind as a truly awesome customer-aware company. :,)

If you own a 1080 mini and would like to support the movement for an official 0% fan mode BIOS update to the card, you can probably help by doing what I did, let them know we, the owners of the card: their customers, want this. To talk to their live chat like I did go here and click on the green "live help" link on the left side. To contact their support email via team and let them know about your request, go here and let them know through a "support" type inquiry request. Here's hoping we can get the word out to them enough and they listen, or they fast-track this BIOS update, if it actually is in the works!

 

[zovc]

I'm jealous of how your interaction with Zotac went compared to mine with Galax.

 

[stevey500]

An official bios fix would be nice, I'll try to get through to them as well!

I applied the bios to my 1080 mini, set the power limit, custom fan curve; working like a dream. Nice and quiet. Intel CPU cooler makes more noise than the GPU now when under full load.

 

[CubanLegend]

An official bios fix would be nice, I'll try to get through to them as well!

I applied the bios to my 1080 mini, set the power limit, custom fan curve; working like a dream. Nice and quiet. Intel CPU cooler makes more noise than the GPU now when under full load.

DUUUUDE! Nice! It's freaking amazing how quiet it can be, right!? So glad it worked for you! By the way I'm curious what your custom fan curve looks like compared to mine above. If you could post a link that would be great, thanks!

And yeah an official BIOS update from ZOTAC to fix this would be awesome, but for now, I'm sticking with this "Amp! Edition" BIOS, it's working so well!

EDIT:

And by the way after tweaking the fan curves on that 1080 mini to the one I posted a picture of above... even at load it doesnt sound as loud anymore. I was playing Zelda BoTW on CEMU with a 4K graphics pack, and usually my GPU could spike to 73c, but it stayed cool at about 68-69, rarely spiking to 70, while somehow sounding less loud? Idk how that works... but, YAY fan curves!

 

[wiretap]

I got my Zotac 1080 Mini to fit into a Jonsbo U1 Plus. 2mm to spare on the length.