Hi,
i loved my 2070 Mini the moment i took it out of the box - very pretty and most importantly, very tiny. But sadly it was pretty loud at idle because Zotac does not allow the fans to run below 34% PWM, which is roughly 1000RPM.
At first, i thought Bios Modding newer Nvidia cards was impossible until i found a Patched Version of NVFlash on TechPowerUp, which finally recognised my GPU.
In the following step by step guide I will explain the process i took to flash my specific model [Zotac Mini with a non A Chip and Samsung GDDR6].
Important: i have tested Sound over HDMI and it works flawlessly with my BENQ Monitor.
Setting the fan to any value between 1 and 25% PWM will not work. The fans can either run at 0% or 25+%. Otherwise the fans will permanently try and fail to power up.
To save you any hassle in trying to find a different BIOS for this exact card, those are the ones i tried before:
- Gigabyte RTX 2070 Windforce: the card ran fine, though the fans turned off completely and could not be turned on
- Gigabyte RTX 2070 Mini: same as the Windforce
- MSI RTX 2070 Armor: the card had a hard time figuring out when to boost, sometimes it would go back to 2D clocks during 3D load and not go back until the application is restarted, fan control and clock/voltage/power limit control were very buggy, or did not work at all.
- EVGA RTX 2070 Black: despite the fact that it has no factory OC, the card uses an A Series chip and is therefore incompatible.
This BIOS should potentially work for all RTX 2070 cards with the non-A chip, though there might be bugs like i had with the BIOS Versions listed above. Just try them out and choose the one that works best. Cards with A Series Chip can only accept a BIOS from another card with A Series chip, just like the non A are only compatible with one another. Remember that! NVFlash will not let you flash an incompatible one anyway, so don't be scared to try.
Preparation:
1. Remove all other graphics adapters and drivers [except for the card you want to flash
] from the system.
This is more of a method to prevent issues further down the line, and make sure everything goes smoothly.
It can be hard at times to make NVFlash recognise your card, which is most often due to other adapters being installed, or leftover drivers from formerly installed/used GPUs. It is best to physically remove them from the system, but uninstalling their drivers will suffice.
I use the integrated GPU of my Intel Processor to power my second monitor, and had to disable the internal graphics in the Bios entirely so NVFlash would work. The setting on my AsRock board is called iGPU-Multimonitoring and can be found in the Chipset Settings tab of the advanced menu.
2. Revert all your CPU/GPU/RAM overclocks back to stock.
A bluescreen or crash during the flashing process could possibly brick the card, so absolute stability is required. Just save your OC/UV settings as a profile in the BIOS and reset it to factory presets.
3. Download an arrange all the files you need for the process.
Create a folder called "nvflash" in the Root Directory of your boot drive C:. This should work for all operating systems, though since i use Windows, this guide will be based on that.
Download, and move the following files to the folder you created:
- NVFlash64 patched by Vipeax: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxPUgqEumCSnQ2aSxHSKrabeuVh
- Zero Fan Bios [Inno3D RTX 2070 X2]: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxPUgqEumCSnQ-id-8Pus28_zBU
- Backup Stock Zotac 2070 Mini Bios: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxPUgqEumCSnQzqhMpzHPmIkqpm
Unzip the NVFlash64.zip file using WinRar/7zip.
THE FLASHING
!!!DISCLAIMER!!! Proceed at your own risk. Flashing a BIOS usually is not very risky, and the utility itself will prevent you from doing much wrong. Still i wont stand liable in case something goes wrong, though i will gladly assist you in fixing the issue.
1. Rightclick on the Windows icon in the Taskbar and open an admin command line window.
2. Navigate to the folder you created by typing the following: "cd Cnvflash".
3. Make sure NVFlash recognises your GPU by typing: "nvflash64 --list".
4. Flash the provided BIOS [again, only use the BIOS from the Link if you have the exact same model of card, i cannot verify if it will work properly on other cards] by typing: "nvflash64 -6 I3D2070X2.rom".
5. The utility will ask you to confirm your command, do so and wait for it to finish. The image may flicker or temporarily turn black during this process. This is normal.
6. After the utility finishes flashing the card, reboot your system. The card is now flashed with a Zero Fan Bios, congratulations!
7. Apply the tweaks i provided below in EVGA PrecisionX1[https://www.evga.com/precisionx1/] or apply your own optimisations. This will of course also work in MSI Afterburner or other utilities, though i would strongly recommend PX1 for its stellar fan control options and tidy interface. Make sure the program you use is up to date and works properly with the Turing cards.
-> Edit: Turns out PX1 does not really work too well for me. It was unreliable and sometimes would not start at all, so i would advise you to use Afterburner instead.
Optimising the fan curve
Using the settings below, my card ran at 75°C with 1450RPM fan speed and 1800MHz clock speed.
A picture says more than a thousand words, so i took a screenshot of my configuration in AB for you to copy:
This is what your Zotac 2070 Mini will look like in GPU-Z with the new Bios [Inno3D uses NVIDIA as a Vendor ID, which i find very satisfying. Having it say "MSI" would be pretty annoying, knowing that it is a Zotac card]:
I hope i covered everything, Happy flashing!
Greetings
i loved my 2070 Mini the moment i took it out of the box - very pretty and most importantly, very tiny. But sadly it was pretty loud at idle because Zotac does not allow the fans to run below 34% PWM, which is roughly 1000RPM.
At first, i thought Bios Modding newer Nvidia cards was impossible until i found a Patched Version of NVFlash on TechPowerUp, which finally recognised my GPU.
In the following step by step guide I will explain the process i took to flash my specific model [Zotac Mini with a non A Chip and Samsung GDDR6].
Important: i have tested Sound over HDMI and it works flawlessly with my BENQ Monitor.
Setting the fan to any value between 1 and 25% PWM will not work. The fans can either run at 0% or 25+%. Otherwise the fans will permanently try and fail to power up.
To save you any hassle in trying to find a different BIOS for this exact card, those are the ones i tried before:
- Gigabyte RTX 2070 Windforce: the card ran fine, though the fans turned off completely and could not be turned on
- Gigabyte RTX 2070 Mini: same as the Windforce
- MSI RTX 2070 Armor: the card had a hard time figuring out when to boost, sometimes it would go back to 2D clocks during 3D load and not go back until the application is restarted, fan control and clock/voltage/power limit control were very buggy, or did not work at all.
- EVGA RTX 2070 Black: despite the fact that it has no factory OC, the card uses an A Series chip and is therefore incompatible.
This BIOS should potentially work for all RTX 2070 cards with the non-A chip, though there might be bugs like i had with the BIOS Versions listed above. Just try them out and choose the one that works best. Cards with A Series Chip can only accept a BIOS from another card with A Series chip, just like the non A are only compatible with one another. Remember that! NVFlash will not let you flash an incompatible one anyway, so don't be scared to try.
Preparation:
1. Remove all other graphics adapters and drivers [except for the card you want to flash
] from the system.This is more of a method to prevent issues further down the line, and make sure everything goes smoothly.
It can be hard at times to make NVFlash recognise your card, which is most often due to other adapters being installed, or leftover drivers from formerly installed/used GPUs. It is best to physically remove them from the system, but uninstalling their drivers will suffice.
I use the integrated GPU of my Intel Processor to power my second monitor, and had to disable the internal graphics in the Bios entirely so NVFlash would work. The setting on my AsRock board is called iGPU-Multimonitoring and can be found in the Chipset Settings tab of the advanced menu.
2. Revert all your CPU/GPU/RAM overclocks back to stock.
A bluescreen or crash during the flashing process could possibly brick the card, so absolute stability is required. Just save your OC/UV settings as a profile in the BIOS and reset it to factory presets.
3. Download an arrange all the files you need for the process.
Create a folder called "nvflash" in the Root Directory of your boot drive C:. This should work for all operating systems, though since i use Windows, this guide will be based on that.
Download, and move the following files to the folder you created:
- NVFlash64 patched by Vipeax: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxPUgqEumCSnQ2aSxHSKrabeuVh
- Zero Fan Bios [Inno3D RTX 2070 X2]: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxPUgqEumCSnQ-id-8Pus28_zBU
- Backup Stock Zotac 2070 Mini Bios: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoxPUgqEumCSnQzqhMpzHPmIkqpm
Unzip the NVFlash64.zip file using WinRar/7zip.
THE FLASHING
!!!DISCLAIMER!!! Proceed at your own risk. Flashing a BIOS usually is not very risky, and the utility itself will prevent you from doing much wrong. Still i wont stand liable in case something goes wrong, though i will gladly assist you in fixing the issue.
1. Rightclick on the Windows icon in the Taskbar and open an admin command line window.
2. Navigate to the folder you created by typing the following: "cd C
nvflash".3. Make sure NVFlash recognises your GPU by typing: "nvflash64 --list".
4. Flash the provided BIOS [again, only use the BIOS from the Link if you have the exact same model of card, i cannot verify if it will work properly on other cards] by typing: "nvflash64 -6 I3D2070X2.rom".
5. The utility will ask you to confirm your command, do so and wait for it to finish. The image may flicker or temporarily turn black during this process. This is normal.
6. After the utility finishes flashing the card, reboot your system. The card is now flashed with a Zero Fan Bios, congratulations!
7. Apply the tweaks i provided below in EVGA PrecisionX1[https://www.evga.com/precisionx1/] or apply your own optimisations. This will of course also work in MSI Afterburner or other utilities, though i would strongly recommend PX1 for its stellar fan control options and tidy interface. Make sure the program you use is up to date and works properly with the Turing cards.
-> Edit: Turns out PX1 does not really work too well for me. It was unreliable and sometimes would not start at all, so i would advise you to use Afterburner instead.
Optimising the fan curve
Using the settings below, my card ran at 75°C with 1450RPM fan speed and 1800MHz clock speed.
A picture says more than a thousand words, so i took a screenshot of my configuration in AB for you to copy:
It is not in English unfortunately as i was not able to find a language setting. But it should be comprehensible anyway.
This is what your Zotac 2070 Mini will look like in GPU-Z with the new Bios [Inno3D uses NVIDIA as a Vendor ID, which i find very satisfying. Having it say "MSI" would be pretty annoying, knowing that it is a Zotac card
]:
I hope i covered everything, Happy flashing!
Greetings
Last edited:
