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View Full Version : A near death experience -- Confessions of a dangerous newb!



Professor12
01-17-2003, 07:02 PM
In the beginning.... i got the crazy idea to do the vdd mod for my Epox 8RDA+. I looked around and researched the process and then went on the perilous journey to radioshack. After waiting for almost an hour i was able to purchase my tools: (1) 15 turn 1k ohm pot, and a pack of two micro "claw" clips. Upon returning home i began my personal quest to find appropriate wires to do the mod and then settled down to read things over once again to make sure i knew what pin to clip on etc. Well much to my dismay i found that there is no gap between the pcb and the pin i was trying to clip onto :( But since I had already gone through the trouble of soldering the wires to my pot and adjusting it with my handy multimeter, I decided to attempt soldering the wires (btw this was the first time in my LIFE that i had ever soldered anything). I soldered the first wire (or so i thought) and attached the second to my case for the ground. Almost shaking with anticipation i hooked up my pc again and turned it on... nothing. I looked into the pc only to see a single F on the board lcd. Feeling my spirits drop i did the most reasonable thing i could think of... turn it on again! Still nothing and now i was fearing that somehow i screwed it up and had just fried all the components in my brand new comp. Well i took apart again only to find that i had gotten solder on the 2nd pin and that it was shorting it out. After more than an hour of trying (before which i had drank several glasses of soda), i was finally able to reattach the wire onto the pin and clean up the solder which was causing the short. Lol well my god it worked and now i am sitting at a healthy 1.80-82 vdd. For anyone who has actually read this let this be a warning. I tried to rush this mod (also the first time i have ever done a mod, to my comp, the first i have ever built) and didn't really take the time to sit down and do it carefully (that and my shaky hand!). For anyone about to do this same mod BE CAREFUL. My board almost payed the price for my foolishness and yours could too.
Btw... thank you so much everyone for the great information found on this site. It has really helped not only on this mod but on the building of my computer which is in my sig.

Tweaked!
01-17-2003, 07:08 PM
Sounds like a lesson well learned. Good job:)

Welcome to Xtreme!:D

muzz
01-17-2003, 07:52 PM
WTG Pro12!!

Yep you got a little lucky there... sure you won't forget to double check it next time.....

Enjoy

:toast:

muzz

Professor12
01-17-2003, 10:04 PM
hehe i am now at 11.5 x 205 and just posted my best 3d mark ever http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5667990. However, anything over 211 fsb is giving me flashing in 3dmark and battlefield 1942. Can anyone think of something that is holding me back? I have tried upping the vdimm to 2.9, relaxing timings to 2-2-2-6 and setting the cpu interface to optimal and still i am not able to reliably go over 211 fsb. I have a 60 mm fan (stock cpu fan) on my nb and i have been thinking about doing something to cool my sb aswell. Does anyone know a good chipset cooler that will fit the sb? Will this help get rid of the flashing at high fsbs? I might also move my dimms to slots 1 and 3 again and see if that makes any improvements.

KingInge2000
01-18-2003, 01:33 AM
You've 2 remove the NB retail heatsink. You can use it but u've 2 replace the pad with AS III or s.th.

KS1
01-18-2003, 07:13 AM
it appears that Vdd is too low in your particular case.
try up Vdd a bit 1.90-1.95? and keep NB cool

tweaky
01-25-2003, 03:54 PM
Not necessarily. The sweet spot tends to be at around the 1.85v mark. Any higher and most people don't get any additional gains in FSB speed.

Chakotay
01-25-2003, 04:48 PM
I'd really upgrade that stock heatsink, it hardly makes any contact. I'm running at 1.85V now with a copper spire CPU cooler thing on it, haven't tried higher yet, and haven't tried to find the max stable FSB (running @ 210 now) too.