- Thread starter Franco23444
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Franco23444
Grand Master
Well, that’s very strange that one has a different bios from the other, I got four units and two of them have the all black version and the other have that version (green text) and I was able to switch them out without any issues (green text to green text). You did say one of them (the broken one) is an MSI version? Or are both of them the same version in the picture above? Not sure if you have a PC (like @Rom1 also stated, you can also use the ES3 itself and install windows 10) and GPU-Z to check the bios version on that card
Both of my cards look like this.
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No, the MSI was just a random card I picked up from Craigslist. It was sold as untested. Surprise, it was broken.
tiff_lee
Grand Master
Same problem here mate, bios locked no idea on the password and tried all kinds of tricks to get into the bios but no success. USB booting is also disabled which is a pain.
You may have 2 original ES3 and still trigger bitlocker. This is because ES3 are shipped with at least 2 different gfx card. Most of the time you'll get the "full black" but sometime you'll get one with "green marking'. I encountered a third one but I suspect it comes from a repair services.
Whn you switch between 2 exact same model ans bioses, this should be ok for bitlocker.
Whn you switch between 2 exact same model ans bioses, this should be ok for bitlocker.
Are you sure about USB booting ? If you remove HDD the USB should boot.
tiff_lee
Grand Master
Thanks for saying that it prompted me to have another look, lo and behold it worked. Not sure what was going on before but I couldn't get it to work at all, so much so I went to the effort of making a self installing win 10 image on the HDD and booted from that.
Franco23444
Grand Master
Hmm, well, looks like the ES3 I recently acquired also has a dying green text GTX760. Probably that’s why it was sold so cheap and as “junk”. Well, it definitely needs to be replaced. Funny enough, everything seemed to be working fine until it started loading a level and it crashed. Just to check it definitely was a GPU issue, I put in a good working one and yep, works as expected.
Definitely seems like these green text founder edition GTX760s are terrible. Two broken cards so far…
Definitely seems like these green text founder edition GTX760s are terrible. Two broken cards so far…
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Franco23444
Grand Master
Actually, looking at the system information closely when I put in my multi, it detected the system as having 4GB of RAM instead of 8GB. I thought that was a bit odd so I took out and reinstalled the RAM again and it all seems to work perfectly fine now. A bit of a strange issue 
What’s even weirder is that the original hard drive seemed to work fine with 4GB of RAM. So, the graphics card is also fine as well. Just a system RAM issue. Super, super weird…
What’s even weirder is that the original hard drive seemed to work fine with 4GB of RAM. So, the graphics card is also fine as well. Just a system RAM issue. Super, super weird…
Franco23444
Grand Master
Luckily in all my units, the RAM is in the blue slots, I guess the RAM in that specific unit was either inserted way too hard in the slot preventing the pins from making proper contact or some dust got stuck in the slot.
The important thing is that it’s working properly now.
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Franco23444
Grand Master
I was playing around with both my stock unit and my rebuilt unit and I came to the conclusion that trying to access the BIOS is kinda pointless. Unless you want to do USB booting (which can easily be done with a blank drive installed in the unit or no drive inserted at all), nothing is really necessary to change in the BIOS. The hardware itself isn’t locked to the motherboard like the Taito Type X systems (only software locked if you have TPM/bitlocker encryption enabled) and “any” boot drive (Windows XP-10) should work without any problems.
Just pointing this info out there to help any curious minds
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You guys were right, I was wrong. The other OEM card was indeed different. I'm an idiot. I have a green logo / white text card and a completely black one.
I tried flashing another generic MSI card (the first one was a dud) and couldn't get that one to boot either. I guess it's incompatible? A bit surprised by this, because it does look exactly the same as the OEM cards.
I attached bioses from both OEM cards, so you don't have to look for them elsewhere. I downloaded nvflash_5.163.zip from here and put that on a FreeDOS booting USB stick.
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As I said, the full black and all the one with green marking (can be either a big GTX 760 or a ring on the fan) have different bios. Changing one for another will trigger bitlocker.
About the MSI card, putting an ES3 bios in it (either from black or green) will pass the bitlocker but may fail to work correctly. Only very first generation of card can accept it.
As your original card have green marking, you should try green bios. But not the one from your zip file (note: is it tolerated to share this file ?): they green one is wrong.
Simply dump the bios from your original card and then try it in your MSI.
About the MSI card, putting an ES3 bios in it (either from black or green) will pass the bitlocker but may fail to work correctly. Only very first generation of card can accept it.
As your original card have green marking, you should try green bios. But not the one from your zip file (note: is it tolerated to share this file ?): they green one is wrong.
Simply dump the bios from your original card and then try it in your MSI.
What do you mean?
The green bios is from the OEM card that just boots to a black screen. It does nothing. I lifted the bios chip and read it with my programmer. Is the BIOS corrupt?
Franco23444
Grand Master
Some more ES3 findings I would like to share with you all.
First off, some weird issue with the TER ES3 unit. Looks like one of the blue RAM slots is indeed faulty which is unfortunate but here’s the interesting part, I can move that stick of ram to one of the black slots and the encrypted drive still works.
Now here’s something interesting which I thought wasn’t even possible. You can upgrade the RAM and the encrypted drive/TPM won’t trip Bitlocker! I was able to upgrade one of my units to 16GB dual channel DDR3 RAM and the drive booted.
Did I see any performance differences/improvements? Not really, loading was a bit better though but that’s pretty much it. These systems are definitely not like the Taito Tyoe X units and they can be upgraded to 32GB of RAM which is the max supported by the motherboard. I’m pretty sure the CPU can also be upgraded but I’m yet to try this and of course the GPU is upgradable only if the drive is either decrypted or you use your own custom software.
First off, some weird issue with the TER ES3 unit. Looks like one of the blue RAM slots is indeed faulty which is unfortunate but here’s the interesting part, I can move that stick of ram to one of the black slots and the encrypted drive still works.
Now here’s something interesting which I thought wasn’t even possible. You can upgrade the RAM and the encrypted drive/TPM won’t trip Bitlocker! I was able to upgrade one of my units to 16GB dual channel DDR3 RAM and the drive booted.
Did I see any performance differences/improvements? Not really, loading was a bit better though but that’s pretty much it. These systems are definitely not like the Taito Tyoe X units and they can be upgraded to 32GB of RAM which is the max supported by the motherboard. I’m pretty sure the CPU can also be upgraded but I’m yet to try this and of course the GPU is upgradable only if the drive is either decrypted or you use your own custom software.
Toyxf
Student
If you upgradeCPU,the radiator(fan) must be replaced. The original radiator has a very low rotation speed, so I use the low-power I5-3550S as a long-term running device. It is not recommended for high-power devices(I7-3770). And the height of the radiator is limited.
