w00t! :-)

doc18 · TweakNOOB Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 161

anyone notice anything strange?

hehehehe

and i haven't tried rebenching the clock speeds yet...

i'll post up more tommorrow. wow... this has got to be the most satisfying purchase i've ever made

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Asus P5W DH (bios 1407)
Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.25Ghz with Zalmn CNPS 9500LED
2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 @ 360Mhz 1:1 3-3-3-12
XFX 7900gt w/ vivo @ 560mhz core/1.6ghz mem with Zalmn VF900 Cu - LED
74GB WD Raptor + 200GB Seagate 7200.7
NZXT Lexa case

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Xal · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:55 am Post subject:

Nice, Those ICEQs rock

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doc18 · TweakNOOB Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 161

here's a more detailed walkthrough of the hardmod to unlock all 16 pipelines

1. took off the back ramsink plate, only to find that... what? the thermal grease only covered the center of the chips

2. took off the huge front heatsink and fan, to find that they had used quite a lot of grease on the gpu

3. to the top and right of the gpu, there's 4 middle dots with a larger one in the center. i needed to connect the 2 on the left (top left and bottom left)

4. on the right, you can see the dull-ish copper color of the dots, there's some kinda coating, so i had to take a sharp knife (in my case, box cutter razor) and VERY carefully scrape away at it to expose the shiny copper and try and scratch away at the green in the middle to expose more copper. not too deep though, or else i'd be screwed lol

5. next, i cut 2 very thin strips of masking tape (a 3rd and 4th would've helped) and laid them on either side of that area so i didnt overdo things. picked up a conductive pen (used silver ink) from radioshack. very carefully (since its such a small gap - easy to use too much) i traced a line between the two. i only used the tape on either side, but if i were to do it again, i would've boxed the whole thing in. let it set for 5 mins to dry and peeled off the tap and there we go

6. put the thing back together, making sure to do a good job on applying the arctic silver 5, plugged it back in. sighed in relief when i got a video display - i didn't break it

first thing i did booting into windows was check out ati tool... 16 pipes!!! :-D lol i was so happy. some people say to flash the bios to xt, but i think that's a little too much. didnt need to do that to get the 16 pipes, and i can always use ati tool to oc when i want to play a game

----just a reminder, if anyone else does this, this isn't a guaranteed fix. i read for hours on tips and tricks to pull this off. those with older cards tend to get better results. make sure your core can handle xt speeds (520mhz or so) thats supposed to be a good indicator of whether the mod will work or not.

Sometimes it'll work, sometimes you do all that work and it still says 12 pipes, sometimes you can get 16 pipes, but even at stock speeds, you can get artifacting and the system locked up.

I went through this after seeing how much F.E.A.R. can bring down a system, knowing that even if i FUBAR'd my card, i had enough money to upgrade my whole system - video, motherboard, and cpu.

SOOO in other words, do this at you own risk

just had to get that outta the way hehe
_________________
Asus P5W DH (bios 1407)
Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.25Ghz with Zalmn CNPS 9500LED
2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 @ 360Mhz 1:1 3-3-3-12
XFX 7900gt w/ vivo @ 560mhz core/1.6ghz mem with Zalmn VF900 Cu - LED
74GB WD Raptor + 200GB Seagate 7200.7
NZXT Lexa case

sandness · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:20 pm Post subject:

Hey, just out of curiousity, why are you censoring some of the writing on your gpu? Are you afraid of getting a gpu speeding ticket if the authorities get your plates?

doc18 · TweakNOOB Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 161

well, to be honest, im not really sure lol. saw it done at some random site one time and it just seemed like a good idea. maybe its possible someone could register their card using the numbers off my gpu?

lol maybe im just bein paranoid... if it'll help, i can post up all the writing

_________________
Asus P5W DH (bios 1407)
Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.25Ghz with Zalmn CNPS 9500LED
2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 @ 360Mhz 1:1 3-3-3-12
XFX 7900gt w/ vivo @ 560mhz core/1.6ghz mem with Zalmn VF900 Cu - LED
74GB WD Raptor + 200GB Seagate 7200.7
NZXT Lexa case

sandness · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:34 pm Post subject:

Nah, I was just curious. Makes me think "Graphics cards gone wild!"

doc18 · TweakNOOB Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 161

lol yeah... i dont think ati would draw hooters on their chips. although i'd get a kick out of it if they did

_________________
Asus P5W DH (bios 1407)
Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.25Ghz with Zalmn CNPS 9500LED
2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 @ 360Mhz 1:1 3-3-3-12
XFX 7900gt w/ vivo @ 560mhz core/1.6ghz mem with Zalmn VF900 Cu - LED
74GB WD Raptor + 200GB Seagate 7200.7
NZXT Lexa case

Yoshida · UberTweaker Joined: 24 Dec 2003 Posts: 1219

just a thought, but dont you want your memory frequency to be larger then your core frequency?

doc18 · TweakNOOB Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 161

yes, it would be more efficient that way, i think. being able to feed the gpu faster than it eats so it always has a constant supply. but, somehow i don't think my memory will clock that high.

i'll definitely have to test it again, once the arctic silver i applied (in an even coat

) reaches its highest thermal conductivity. as it is, though, my scores are still higher, so means that, although not the most efficient (i think?) it still works

btw, i do have kind of a question...

right now my ram on the backside of the card is covered by this

however, when i put my finger on it when gaming, sometimes it can get really hot. well, see those indentations where it goes in to meet the chips? if i were to buy some extra ram sinks that would fit in those and make full contact with the bottom - and use some thermal adhesive to glue them on, would it help?

my logic behind that

would be that: more surface area + closer to heat source = increased/more efficient heat dissapation = higher memory overclock

but WOULD i get a tangible difference in temps, and possibly overclock higher? IF THAT were the case... nother question

haha...

since the ram sink plate is aluminum, would i have any benefit of going to a copper-based solution for extra heat sinks? or would it be the same as alumiumn? (copper on aluminum on chip vs. aluminum on aluminum on chip)
_________________
Asus P5W DH (bios 1407)
Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.25Ghz with Zalmn CNPS 9500LED
2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 @ 360Mhz 1:1 3-3-3-12
XFX 7900gt w/ vivo @ 560mhz core/1.6ghz mem with Zalmn VF900 Cu - LED
74GB WD Raptor + 200GB Seagate 7200.7
NZXT Lexa case

Noxide · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 5:41 pm Post subject:

From experience, aluminum lets heat go really fast. Copper absorbs heat better and evenly. So aluminum on copper would have been best. (Copper plate with aluminun ram sinks on top) In this case, I would just use some aluminum ram sinks with some thermal adhesive. I would even put a heat sink on that part were the plate doesnt touch anything...right below the chrome tention bracket...If the plate gets that hot.
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FreeTheRock [banned] · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:55 pm Post subject:

man i would be wayyy to scared to try and do what you just did, if i wanted to unlock a card i would pick myself up the X800GTO which uses the R480 core (same as the x850xt) and unlock it to 16 pipes and then i would have myself a $190 x850XT :)

ToggleHead · TWEAKGURU Joined: 03 Mar 2004 Posts: 4360 Location: Jersey

but why would you buy a NEW card, if youre already too scared?...=P

just bustin ya

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