Silverfox

Has anyone around here attempted this mod on the 9700 pro and if yes, to what degree of success or failure? I have only read a few articles on it, so I am not in tune to all the steps and procedures as of yet. Thanks for any replys!

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Silverfox

LardArse

Yes, its a very useful mod and I think the same Voltage regulator IC chips are used for almost all makes and revision of the cards, even the 9800 uses the same for the VGPU.
The mem mods on the 9700 are different for Rev 3.0s.
Modded quite a few 9700 pros VGPU all with good results, 440+ on good aircooling too. Best remove shim + upgrade the cooler if you're doing the mod.

shuki

Lard do you have any links or info on a how to?

LardArse

There's one here
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...rclocking.html
I've some pics of my own I can post up in a while. The VGPU IC chip is bigger and thus easier to mod than some of the smaller IC chips around. You can even use the bigger hook type of grabber instead of the SMD type.

Silverfox

LardArse, thanks for the info. Did you add all three resistors as shown, and can you still get a decent boost without attempting the one under the plate that may cause a problem removing? I have only air cooling and have added the crystal orb and 8 ramsinks by tweakmonster, and have also already removed the shim. Even with these simple mods, I can still only get at 375/349 before artifacts in 3dmark03. http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=849960

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Silverfox

LardArse

I did all mods except the metal plate. Be careful if you do the Vref, it frys your memory really fast if you go too high. I could hit 400 Mhz memory with the mods. The VGPU give you more gains.

Silverfox

So, you only added two resistors and like me thought better than fooling around under the metal plate! Did you use precision 2.7k resistors or just regular tolerance rated ones? And did you use the same ohmic rated values depicted in the link? Lardarse, did you use smd grabbers in lieu of soldering, for fear of damaging the chips from the heat of soldering the resistors on? Thanks for any replys!

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Silverfox

shuki

I'd really like to do that vgpu mod but have no grabbers and no access to them over here and no way I am busting out the soldering iron!!

Silverfox

LardArse, Shuki, here`s another vmod their doing on both the 9700 pro and 9800`s. Dont know if its as effective as the one you posted here earlier Lard, but some of these guys using it are up in 20`s easy and clocking well over 400 on just the normal mods. ( shim removal, better hsf`s, etc.) Looks like they only tap into the one chip. One of the guys using this one chip vmod is scoring over 7100 in 3dmark03 and over 22k in 01, with clock speeds of 531/388 (on a 9800pro)

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Silverfox

LardArse

Heres the bigger type of grabber I was talking about.


I cant buy small SMD grabbers over here and this is the smallest I can find.

Heres my Hercules 9700P cooling and voltage mod.



Here's my Giga 9700P cooling and V mods




Silver Fox, thats the VGPU mod, the simplest of the 4 and most effective as well.
I did 3 mods, VGPU, Vref and VDD and not the VDDQ under the plate. Used all variable resistors for them. On my Gigabyte Rev. 1.0 board, I set them higher like 8K ohm first and slowly tuned down. The Vref on this Giga board, I used a pencil to mod.
For my Herc Rev 3 board, all mods were done with variable resistors and the memory volt mods were a bit different on this card.

Silverfox

Lard, those are some great pics and mods youve done! Im sorry my previous post didn`t depict the one chip mod for you too see, although im sure you know which one it is! http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/a...00_Vmod_1.html Lard, what exact heatsink and fan setup do you have on the giga depicted in your last pics. I need to get a better hsf than this TT crystal orb I have. All I have done is remove the shim, added the orb, and 8 ramsinks. Where did you purchase the HSF and how did you mount it? On second thought I just looked, and I dont think I would have clearance, unless you can give me the exact height dimensions of the hsf, or the specs on its website may tell me. Before I do any of the vmods, I need to improve at least the orb hsf I presently have. Or do you think this HSF would be sufficient to use with at least the vgpu vmod? http://my.execpc.com/~chris431/ Another friend on these forums is fixing to use this, and Im sure i would have clearance using it, if you think it would be efficient enough with the vgpu mod?

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Silverfox

LardArse

Yep thats the VGPU.

The blue HSF is kind of a brandless cheap CPU cooler I picked up from a shop. Its going for $9 with a pretty weak fan on it which I replaced. Unfortunately I don't know where you can get hold of one where you live. Here are some pics of how I mounted it.





Of course the shim had to go...


Sawed alternate sides of the heatsink to mounting hole dimension.


Slipped in 2 cable ties


Mounted the heatsink and secured it with another 2 cable ties at the back. And later cut off excess ties.



And finally a fan behind core for added cooling


Works great, with a volt mod to 1.77v it went up to 445Mhz. The fan is quite strong and even so, above 1.77v the HSF starts to get overwhelmed.
The copper cooler you showed me looks ok, with a good fan, it should be able to handle up to 1.7v without a problem. Above that, might start getting overwhelmed.
I soldered but you can use grabbers.

Silverfox

Thanks Lard, heres the specs on the hsf you said may be sufficient up to around 1.77v. It does push out around 25cfm, which is at least twice what the little fan does on the tt orb. Here it is again, for you to read the specs: http://store.yahoo.com/directron/dc1206bmr.html Now do you think it will still be sufficient? Yes, I too dont mind soldering, as long as the heat generated from the pencil tip iron wont damage the chips internally while soldering on their pins.

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Silverfox

LardArse

I meant 1.77v is the spot where my blue cooler handles up until. From the looks of yours, 1.7v should not be a problem if mounting is good. Above that, you'll just have to see if its helping your overclock. Anyway, the gain in overclock from 1.73v onwards is quite little.

toddsmack2k

Well I dont really have anything to add but WOW! Very nice LardArse!

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Silverfox

LardArse, would it be beneficial in any way to add a heatsink on top of the aluminum plate that covers the graphics memory voltage regulator? That plate gets mighty hot to the touch. Just wondering! I dont plan on removing the existing plate, but just thought about adding some type of large ramsink on top of it, that may help dissipate some of the heat.

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Silverfox

LardArse

Yes it would as this plate is kind of insufficient as I'm sure your finger told you. I added one for my Hercules 9700 Pro seen here in close up.

Silverfox

Thanks LardArse, I`ll pick one up tommorrow at a electronics store im going to. Also since im like you and am going to solder my pot to the pins for the vgpu mod, I dont want to generate too much heat on the chip while soldering, since I cant seem to find any one around here with any smd grabbers, I used to place an alligator clip just downstream of the solder joint next to the component so the clip would take alot of the heat from the soldering gun. But its kinda hard to do it on such a small chip with out at least a grabber to act like a heatsink. Any ideas or do you think it`ll be alright soldering so close to the chip without a heatsink acting device?

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Silverfox

LardArse

Its alright, the chips can withstand high temps. In any case contact time between solder and chip leg shouldn't take more than 3 to 4 seconds.

Silverfox

Thanks LardArse, they say to crank the 10K pot to 8k ohms prior to hooking it up, in order to start out around 1.6v when you first power-up. Does this sound about right from your experience? And did you use a fan tail header for your ground off the pot, or just go to case ground somewhere. I know in the x-bitlabs depiction of the mod, they went with a 2.7K shunting resistor between pin 18 and 20 directly on the chip, which gave them they say a 1.75V base on initial start-up. I kinda like going the 10K pot route myself, what do you think? With just modded air-cooling the 1.75V may be too high!

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Silverfox

LardArse

Yes, its a good way, the 10k at 8k method. 8k gives me around 1.58v or so when starting out so its quite safe. Of course tweak the pot bit by bit when the computer is off.
I grounded it to one of the grounded pins at the back of my card by solder. It might easier for you to ground it to the card slot handle with screw or the motherboard grounded screw hole with screw. Make sure both ends (the soldered joint and the ground side) are quite secured cos if running high voltage and high speed, if the joints break off when running the card, the sudden huge drop in voltage can kill your card instantly. You can use a bit of blue-tack or silicone to help strengthen the joint, and just peel off the blue tack or silicone when you wanna reverse the mod.

Silverfox

Thanks for all your help! It will probably be a few days before I get everything I need, but knowing me I`ll more than likely be asking you a few more questions. Thanks again for all your replys!

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Silverfox

Silverfox

LardArse, I completed the vgpu mod and included some pics below, and the first complete benchmark after incrementally adjusting the voltage in .25v steps along with 5mhz increments in clock speeds. Around 351 was my limit on the memory before a little black snow starting showing up. I only did the vgpu mod, and not the Vref or vdd to the memory yet. I can still crank the voltage up to 17volts to the hsf(fan) and probably get it in the 35cfm range from its stock 24cfm, and also mount a small fan on the back side of the core, if you think spinning the fan faster and the extra fan on the back will help? I only went to 1.72V to the gpu, and 405mhz assuming that may be pretty close to my limit for now, what do you think? Also where do they best depict the Vref and vdd mods site wise and what size pots did you use and what ohmic value did you start them out at? Also where on the board do you read the voltages for these two memory mods? Also I decided to use the smd grabber, since you can reverse the mod easily. I found the grabbers at Fry`s electronics, and the part # is 5243-02 Pomona SMD Grabber/ two per pkg. Fry`s stock# 1910699 cost= $3.99 Im stuck at 133 fsb on this locked intel mb(D845pece) 2.4 P4, so until I upgrade, these little mods is about all I can play around with! I sure want to thank you for all your help so far, cause this thread with your input will more than likely help some other folks in the future. Heres the pics and 1st benchmark. http://msnusers.com/Silverfoxvoltagemodgpu/shoebox.msnw
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=875135

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Silverfox

LardArse

Very nice. Thats a big arse heatsink you got on the plate!
From the pic, I can see you have a Rev 1 board. Here are the memory Vmods.



The one on the left is Vref, right is Vmem. For Vref, you can use either resistor mod or pencil. If you use pencil, make sure you do one line each time before testing. Measure your Vref before mod. Keep Vref below 1.5v. Be very careful with Vref, tune little by little. 1.46 to 1.49v is best. Resistor mod for Vref and Vmem, you can use 10k ohm VR starting at 10k ohms and tune it down bit by bit. I suggest 3.08 to 3.15v for V mem but you can experiment, keep it below 3.4v.


Measure points, pic from crucible.

http://thecrucible.ca/images/voltages.jpg

As for your GPU, you can feel how hot the bottom of your heatsink gets. If its very hot then switching to a more powerful fan will help. If not, then not much point. 1.72 is a good spot for air cooling. I doubt you will gain much above this but can try for 1.75v.

tek

Goddamn ultra-smart people like LandArse make me feel very small... modding the videocard's voltages and puttin all those cables in like that? I suggest you go get yourself a career in this shit... have your life set for you.

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Silverfox

LardArse, thanks for the info! I have a Fluke #51 digital thermometer and cant get the probe to the center of the hsf due to the tight copper fin configuration, but at normal computing chores the temps on the backside of the board directly under the core is 91F and the edge of the copper hs is 92F. Im sure its warmer right on the surface of the gpu core than 92F, but using the edge of the hs as a reference, when one commences to elevate voltages and clock speeds do you think after a few minutes the temp increase directly on the surface of the core would spread proportionately to the backside and hs edge reference temp. points I pointed out? Also if you dont do the vddq mod to the graphics memory voltage regulator, but yet do the vref and vmem, this wont being putting any strain on the vddq regulator will it? And yeah I thought the rev .1 boards started out with the nomenclature depicting the # 10 equaling rev. 1 , 11=rev.2, and 12=rev.3 You know all ATI would ever explain about the revisions to the general public was that at the time of card manufacturing they may have had to use various manufacturer`s components on the assembly line that were readily available at that assembly date. They never said the revisions reflected any changes to correct any previous flaws to the very first board made. That was the exact response I got back from them personally a few months back. (True or not who really knows!)

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Silverfox

LardArse

If the back is cool, then the GPU should be near there as well. It doesn't seem to have any side effects skipping the Vddq for me. Just don't go too high on the Vref. The Vmem can take higher voltages but that doesn't help too much. Well, I spot the voltage regulator chips on your board and those are the ones for the Rev 1 boards, with the one for Vref different and smaller.

tek, I'm not ultrasmart, I just enjoy poking at my hardware

Silverfox

Thanks LardArse! Have you heard then what is a tolerable safe ceiling limit, temp wise on the gpu core, and did you use the same exact grounding point on your card for both memory vmods using the 10K pots? I will mount a little fan on the backside of the board directly over the core, I just need to find some little nylon or plastic legs to glue on the fans base in order to elevate it about 1/2 inch.

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Silverfox

LardArse

I think you should use your overclock to test out the "temp" ceiling, if its stable in 3D, it can't be overheating. I didn't use the same ground but you can use the same ground if you like, there is no difference.
You can use blue tack as the raised platform cum stickie.

Silverfox

Thanks again, and I`ll let you know how it all goes in several days! I got to take care of what my wife considers more important chores around here this weekend, than this F%&!$?G computer! Talk to ya later!

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Silverfox