Precisions on radeon pencil volt mod

[bloodsplasher]

I have a Radeon 8500 with 3.6 ram and ramsinc but cannot achieve more than 270/270. I think my voltage is probably lowered because the GPU and the ramsinc are not hot at all

I tried to mod it with the pencil trick and penciled 2 time on the top of the 1st resistor on the left for the mem and on the top resistor for the core. Apparently it didnt work because i get the same artifacts at the same place.

I saw on OC.com that for the technique with the soldered resistor they used the 2nd for the mem and the middle one for the core???

Should i pencil the side of the resistors instead of the top?
Did i pencil the right resistors?If not, how come my card is still alive heh :p
How many pencil lines are usually needed?

Thanks a lot.. i hope this baby will reach 300/300 someday :p

[Silversinksam]

I would advise changing the resistors themselves over the pencil trick and heres (http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61791) why :confused:

[moonman]

I penciled mine, first I started with 1 stroke on the side of the resister (the one for the vmem) then I booted and ran memory at 280, tested vertex shader in 3dmark 2001, if I see artifacts I shut down waited for a minute, grounded my self, and added another stroke. so on until u stop seeing artifacts in 3dmark 2001. it has worked great for me so far, so should be good for u as well.

[bloodsplasher]

I know changing the resistor is probably a much better and precise mod but my hand were already shaking with the pencil and the voltmeter...moreover my soldering skills are kinda poor, so its probably more dangerous in my case :P (mb i should practice my soldering if i wanna get in more serious stuff) :)

Anyway,ill clean all that and try again on the side of the resitors this time... and ill go very slowly because the volts seems to increase really fast.

BTW did i penciled the right resistors? left one for mem and top one for core?

If i understand correctly the pencil trick lower the resistance on the (+?) and the resistor trick put more resistance on the (-)?
Tell me if im wrong my electronic classes are pretty far hehe:p

Oh also... 2 other questions. I got an aluminum case so i cant use it as my ground right? What should i use...my power supply?

Whats the max volts i should put in my core and mem?

thanks!

[moonman]

get something metal that extends all the way to the ground ( wood surface) dont' wear any rubber shoes or stuff and dont' wear a sweater. and also don't wear any jewelery.

[bloodsplasher]

Youre sure i need some external metal object for ground? To read voltage i wanted to use my PS for grounding but now you make me doubt...heh. If the PS is plugged i think it will go to the ground right?i checked in my case and there is a place where we can see the PS and that conduct electricity well... What do you think?

It would be much more easier than an external object.. but tell me if thats noy good i dont want to fry it!:eek:

[moonman]

thats just to eliminate that 1% out of 100% that u will fry some chips. so just find watever u think is safe and use common sense.

[scooter4n]

Can some one gave me a link with the pencil trick.
Thanks.

[mikester]

does the pencil trick work on a 7500?

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by mikester
does the pencil trick work on a 7500?

Keep me posted if you find out whether it works on the 7500!!

Cisco Kid

[miarhpe]

Scooter4n...Here is a link to the mod,
http://www.xcl-clan.com/articles.php3?id=29

I printed out the pages so I could refer to them during the mod, also read some of the feedback at the bottom of the 2nd page, as they give some good tips.

Bloodsplasher...Sounds like the right resistors too me. Also I don't see why the case would not work just fine as a ground even on an aluminum case, just make sure you discharge any static BEFORE touching any components, (I discharge static before I unplug my tower). Take a voltage reading before you pull your card, if you get a reasonable reading, you know you have a good ground. Just make absolutely sure you read instructions carefully and touch the right points, (print the pics for visual reference). One guy that gave feedback on the article seems to have fried his card by trying to read voltage on the resistors themselves.

[bloodsplasher]

Whew i just modded my 8500 and everything went fine... its easy you just have to go slowly.
my mem voltage is now 3.7v and core is around 1.8v

Now my mem overclock is fine but my core cant do 3dmark2001 at 280 w/o artifacts.

One thing i think is weird is that the artifacts in 3dmark2001 always appear at the same place, same time. Its always in the lobby test and in vertex shader. If the core is too high the arms of the bad guys are flashing white and neo's face sometime get black with white stripes. For the mem.. well its always the same polygons...
All the other test runs with 0 bugs...

Is this normal? I think artifacts should be kinda random.. no?

After the volt mod i though my core would go higher than that... 280 sucks..

What do you guys think...oh yeah by the way im using powerstrip to OC it... mb its the problem? Is there any other good prgram to do this?
Should i consider flashing the retail BIOS...will it help me?

Maybe my 3dmark is corrupted?(who know)

Id really like your advices on this..

thanks a lot you've been of great help so far

[Silversinksam]

If 280 is showing artifacts what about 275/275?

If thats the case Flash the card to retail and you wont need Powerstrip, after all whats the point of using it if your stuck under 280, 275/275 is retail speeds


:rolleyes:

[miarhpe]

I could not get my ram over 250 until I flashed my bios, (I had a 230/230 board with 3.6 memory). I used the flash utility linked to by that same article and flashed to Hoek's improved retail bios. I was a little scared to flash as there were no directions with the flasher, but it was self explanatory once you started the program, the instructions were built in. The only problem I had was finding a version of Dos that the flasher would recognise, it likes the version from windows 98 only, would not work with Caldera Dr Dos in bios disk that I dl from bootdisk.com.

Now my mem tops out at 297 and the core will do over 315 all with NO EXTRA COOLING!!! (Of course I dare not leave it that way for long, but that will all change when I get my orb and sinks).:burn:

PS. He also has a bios that you can customize to whatever setting you need, if I understood right, so if you cannot run at 175, you could set it at 170 or whatever.

[bloodsplasher]

yeah.. 275/275 works fine..but i want MORE!! :p

actually i can do 275/300... which is great...

i just find it really weird that after giving the core 0.15v it OC only 5mhz more than before (it maxed at 270 b4 volt mod)

i also think its strange that only lobby and vertex shader (both with matrix charater) create artifacts... sure it got intense graphics but all the other test run flawlessly even nature which seems to be really rough for the video card.

Anyway ill try flashing the bios... if it worked for you mb it will for me as well! :)
How does this work exactly? You create a win98 boot disk and put the flasher and the bios on it?

[miarhpe]

Yes, create a clean boot disc (in win 98 C:\ format a:/s from dos prompt) and copy the files to it, you will need to delete the files you don't need, such as all the 7500 and oem bios files, for it to fit on a floppy.