Power Modded a 9600 XT and *something* broke

[aalaardb]

I did this power mod (http://unoid.net/9600pro/power.html). First of all, I am using a Gigabtye 9600 XT - not a pro. I guess that was my first mistake. My board has no extra components, that was my second mistake. The thing was a little confusing and I thought I was supposed to do this mod on a board with missing components (and I also didn't notice it was for pros not XTs). Luckily I measured the mem and gpu voltages before doing this, memory was 2.58 before and after gpu was 1.28 before and after.
So I soldered the fdd power adapter in, plugged everything in and started the computer. It went thru post, windows startup and I was starting Iexplorer when I got artifacts. They were the 1/4 inch by 1/2 inch box every inch type. Oops. Shut down computer, unplugged power adapter and restarted, same artifacts appearing at post. I tried it a few more times and two or three times it worked, getting my hopes up, for a few minutes before artifacts apeared. Great, I ruined a new $160 card.
I wanted to see if it was fixable, so I took it out and did not find any burnt components. Since it was out I said, why not try it in my brothers computer? So I did, and it worked! Then I stole his nvidia ti 4200 (I gave it to him so it's ok) and put it in my computer. This also works and is what I'm using now. Additionally, I tried a pci card (made in '97 by Creative) and this worked. When I say worked, I mean started up with no artifacts. With all 3 cards my computer would restart after a few seconds in Windows. I'm not sure why, but I think it was either atitool, ud agent (cpu idle cruncher program) and MBM 5 that were starting up and causing errors. After starting in safe mode and uninstalling atitool, mbm 5 and removing from startup ud agent I was able to run windows without restarts.
So I have some theories on what I broke:
1 9600 XT - if I broke this why does it work fine on my bros computer?
2 motherboard or agp slot - if I broke this, why does the ti4200 work on it?
3 psu - 12 volt measures 12.2 and 5 is 5.05 - but maybe the agp isn't receiving enough power?

Anyone know what I broke and how I can fix it?
Gonna try some more fiddling like checking agp voltages (but I don't know how and dun wanna short anything out) I have access to a voltometer and a not too bright electrical engineer (dad) so I'm gonna see if something is broke on the board, anyone have ideas on safe tests I can do and how I can do them?

p4 2.66
intel d845epi motherboard
1 gig ddr 266 mem
gigabyte 9600 xt
pny geforce ti4200
creative 3d blaster pci (old video card)
creative soundblaster audigy
some 300 or 350 watt psu

[PottaCoola]

why would you want to maod a 9600 xt there is nothing elss after that card? only thing is clock it

[Yuriman]

Did you read what the mod did? It increases your overclock.

To the point, did you undo the mod? You could try several things, like disabling and enabling fastwrites, changing to agp4x or reinstaling your drivers. Other than that, I dont think there is anything we can tell you other than to experiment with it.

[aalaardb]

Yeah I read what the mod did. It increases power, so that you can overlock further. It's not a volt mod, it increases amps not volts I think. I just misread the 2 things about pro / xt and components / no comp. The mod was the first thing I uninstalled (that is, unsoldered) after I got artifacts, and I still got artifacts afterwards.

And the funny thing is, I just put the 9600 xt back into my computer, and it runs without artifacts. :clap: I pulled it out and put it back in just in case, then I benchmarked, got 3705 in 3dmark03 at base speeds.

So to summarize, I dunno what was wrong with it, I dunno what fixed it. From now on I'm playing it safe :beer: Let's just hope this fix is permanent.