9600XT Vmods

[NST6563]

Where do I read the vddq voltage from? Also, is there a ratio I should be looking at as far as what the target voltage of the vddq is compared to the vmem/vgpu?

I don't have another pot right now, so it'll have to wait anyway until radio smack get's more of them in, or I find somewhere else that has them locally.

[funktional]

http://www.whos-j00r-daddeh.net/9600xtvolts.jpg

The Vddq Voltage can be read where 1.38V is shown in that image.
Vddq voltages seem to work different on every card. bigZ cant go above 1.44V, my card does 1.49V and one of graces cards dies after she gave it 0.02V above normal

[NST6563]

that's a bummer. if it may kill my card I don't think I'll do it then. my nuts ain't that big...neither is my wallet...

however, the problem I run into with the current mods is that when I increase vgpu, I can't clock my ram as high. For instance, if I feed 1.45-1.5v to vgpu, and 2.95v to the ram, I can clock the core at around 650-660, and the memory can do a max of 340. The way I normally run the card with 1.42v vgpu and 2.95v mem, I can clock it at 630/372.

I've tried upping the vmem with the vgpu (1.5vgpu, 3.1vmem) but I get BAD artifacts when I raise the vmem above 3.05v.

Is there a way around this? maybe run a line from the PSU to the card to feed it the missing power? I'm no EE, so any help would be appreciated.

[bigZ]

Originally posted by funktional
http://www.whos-j00r-daddeh.net/9600xtvolts.jpg

The Vddq Voltage can be read where 1.38V is shown in that image.
Vddq voltages seem to work different on every card. bigZ cant go above 1.44V, my card does 1.49V and one of graces cards dies after she gave it 0.02V above normal

Hell yeah, I got lucky that I didn't kill my card after trying 1.49v vDDQ

[Bennah]

Can someone help me out, what is VDDQ?

So if I want to do a vmem and vgpu mods, do I just need 10K pots for both of the mods?

What would be a safe voltage for the mem and gpu. I'l check out the default voltages tonight.

Does anyone have stock mem speed of 325MHz (650MHz effective) The core is 500 stock.

At the moment without any mods I can get upto 550MHz core and 698MHz memory.

[NST6563]

I can't help you on the vddq, but I can run my card at 1.42vgpu and 2.95vmem. If I go higher on the vgpu, I can break 650mhz, but my mem overclock will drop. If I raise the vmem above 3.1v, I get artifacting at just about any speed above 340 (680ddr)

My stock speeds were 500/650 on my Sapphire.

10kpots are what you need.

[enzoR]

now... how about a vref

[enzoR]

no one up for it? or does it not exist on these cards?

[L337 M33P]

There are two further voltage regulators on the Sapphire cards - they are tiny 431s near the GPU. I don't know what they do but they could be Vref or something.

[bigZ]

I killed my card last night

I'm looking for a replacement RT9202, anyone know where I can get one from? preferably in the UK.

I was resoldering the vGPU mod as the vmod wasn't working when I fired it up... and one of the legs managed to fall off the IC :o

[Unoid]

If you guys find some working vmods to cards with different layouts than i got just send the info/pics over and I'll post them:

unoid@unoid.net

[enzoR]

the vddq mod is posted in this thread. maybe you could post it on your site, i'ms ure it would be helpfull.

[Unoid]

Hey guys I'm adding up the vgpu and vref mod to the site base don the info you guys have provided.

if you could e-mail me with the answers to the following:

1) What value resistors generally for the vref (need to be specific cuase of its easy ability to fry the card)

2) The Vmem chip and pins on your 9600xt sapphire. and if you guys could get me a large size front and back photo of your card.

thanks,

unoid@unoid.net

[Unoid]

Check out this thread guys:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/showthr...threadid=31883

ever think of replacing or adding new capaciters to our boards for better speed/stability?

[bigZ]

If my card wasn't dead, I'd love to help you with the information for this mod... unfortunately the vGPU vreg got damaged during a resoldering excercise. I'm tryin to get hold of the part still.

[Unoid]

bigz Might I suggest buying SMD grabbers for IC's. they secure good enough not to need to solder and its much easier, especially wehn testing.

BTW great core score, highest I've ever seen.

[enzoR]

Originally posted by bigZ
right I've done some poking around with the multimeter, and this is what I came up with.



I'm guessing that my card is 1.3v core and 2.75v mem? Anyone throw anymore into this pot at all?

Cheers

Just to clear things up for others, the 1.38v is VREF. VREF is supposed to be equal to 0.50*VDDQ, its nice to know that it tracks correctly. VDD is supposed to be equal to VDDQ. Hopefully this should help others to keep their card from frying by modding VDDQ. VDDQ should be as close as possible to VDD.

[funktional]

I just didnt know what Vref and what Vddq is

As we have the Vgpu, Vdd and Vref mod we should try to figure out the vddq mod.
The Vref helps the Vgpu. I can go to about 1.6V Vgpu before i get artifacts. If i raise the Vref to 1.5V I can go much higher- Vgpu tops out above 1.8V then.
The problem is that the RAM clocks go down if the Vref is raised. Vref and Vddq are linked (Vddq schueld be Vref*2) so the Vddq mod should help.

But where is the Vddq mod?

[enzoR]

Vdd = Vddq (in value) so i think that the Vdd mod also increases the Vddq.

[funktional]

Originally posted by enzoR
Vdd = Vddq (in value) so i think that the Vdd mod also increases the Vddq.

The max vddq eguals the vddr but it usually is about 0.2 to 0.3V lower. All other ATI Cards I know (9700, 9800, 9000...) Have divided Vddq and Vddr circuits. I dont have enough knowledge to say if its different on the 9600s so any help would be greatly appreciated

As sommer is coming and as its quite warm in here i found out that temperature makes a good difference in overclocking the ram. I think Im gonna watercool it

[enzoR]

yea your right

The VREF mod that we have been doing maybe also increases the VDDQ then. could u check maybe?

in that pic above with the values i gathered that the 1.38v is the VREF, possible the 2.75v is the VDDQ, (could also be VDD)

so, if you increase vref, if that "2.75v" also increases then that is very well the VDDQ, and we wouldnt need to mod

[funktional]

yea your right. Increasing Vref also increases vddq.
So that doesnt solve the problem

[enzoR]

What problem?

[funktional]

The slow RAM problem. If its really cold I can bench at 382. I use 360 for playing. The vmod doesnt help really. going from 2.8V to 3.6V gives nearly no increase ~about 5MHz or so.

And the higher the GPU clocks and voltages so higher the Vmem must be or you have to lower the oc. Upping Vref helps to achieve higher GPU Voltages but the possible memory oc gets lower again. This really sucks as the card is already bandwith limited.
I hoped the vddq mod would help but it doesnt look like that.

Another idea:
look at the images on unoids homepage: http://www.unoid.net/9600pro/power.html

All the components for the FDD Power connector mod can be found twice on the older BBA, while they can be found once on the newer cards. As the components seem to be excatly the same might it be possible to do the FDD mod? if we can find the places to connect it?

[enzoR]

yea i have that mod on my 9600pro.. .

are all the voltages at the proper relation to each other though?