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Hey TranceBear!! Volt mod

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SickBoy

Inactive Moderator
Joined
Jan 13, 2001
Location
Minneapolis, MN
Hey Trance -

I know you got your voltage mod done professionally and I think I'm wanting to do the same - I'm going to be coming into a little bit of money soon, enough for a dual Morgan mobo/CPU's/RAM setup which will become my primary box and I think I'm ready to have my KT7A-Raid voltmodded. What kind of person would I call to have this done, and how much did you pay for the service? Did you get yours with just a fixed resistor or did you get it done with potentiometers? In general I'm a little ticked that my PSU won't let my Athlon do more than 1.38 GHz w/o strange lockups and I also would like to be able to give my Duron that last little bit of juice it needs to get over 1 GHz.... any help you could give me would be appreciated. I'm not against mailing my mobo to someone but hopefully I'd like to find someone locally.... :)

Thanks, Man.

SickBoy
 
I took mine to a friend that works at a electronic recycler warehouse and they un-solder things that are important and recycle the rest. He solders many times a day. If you are friends with a tech at a computer repair shop I would start there. Normaly most people would not like to do this, but some may do it for about an hour bench charge. You might want to ask someone at a electronic supply house. We have many of them here and they are just as geeky as us but work with other circuit boards. If you need more help feel free to e-mail me.
[email protected]
 
I think I found someone to do it - I just made a call to Brooks Electronics in Kansas City and the guy said he wanted to see the plans/procedures first but he said it sounded like something he'd do for me.... so cool. :)

Should I have him do the mod with a potentiometer or with just a fixed resistor?

SickBoy
 
Well my knowledge of electronics is limited, I had him to the fixed resistor because this is what the mod asked for. If the other way is better go for it.
 
I would suggest using trimmers. Not all boards require the same resistance and you can undo the mod by turning the trimmers to full resistance. If you want, you can add a 1k trimmer in series with the 47k trimmer on Pin 7. This will make it easier to fine tune the voltage.

Solder wires to Pin 7 and Pin 10 of the IC that controls the voltage to the CPU. Put a 47K trimmer (49 cents at Radio Shack part # 271-283) between each wire and ground. Use a spade lug or loop under a motherboard mounting screw for your ground connection. For convenience I suggest you mount the trimmers on a piece of breadboard and secure it to your motherboard tray with Velcro.

Pin 7 controls the voltage, Pin 10 controls maximum voltage threshold. Turn the trimmers to full resistance boot your PC and start VIA Hardware Monitor. Set the polling interval to 2 seconds and slowly dial up the pin 7 trimmer until the voltage peaks. This should be about 2.1 volts. Then dial up the Pin 10 trimmer until your screen blanks and back it off a tad. Your PC will probably reboot when the screen blanks. Go back into VIA Hardware Monitor and dial the Pin 7 trimmer up to 2.3 volts. You may be able to go higher but I don’t recommend it.

Caution this will stress your cooling. Be careful or your CPU could end up a crispy critter. I also suggest buying a third hand device from Radio Shack to hold a pre-tinned wire to the IC leg while you solder. The magnifying glass on the third had will come in handy too. Get in and out fast so you don’t toast the IC. Lay off the caffeine and if you are of age, have a beer a half hour before soldering to steady your hands.

Be sure to tie your wires down to the board. After doing several boards, I finally screwed one up. The mod went fine but I snagged the wire to Pin 10 on the end of my workbench and ripped the IC pin right off the board.

Here is a pic of the solder points:

View
 
man... thats really not very hard to do at all...

and i'm not just blowin' smoke... i've soldered much tighter than you'd need to there... give it a try... or practice on a junk mobo first.
 
Well, the dude I called said he'd do it for little to nothing depending on how hard it is.... I told him it was just soldering a pot to a couple IC wires and he said that was pretty simple....


It'll just give me more confidence that it's been done right.

SickBoy
 
SickBoy said:
Well, the dude I called said he'd do it for little to nothing depending on how hard it is.... I told him it was just soldering a pot to a couple IC wires and he said that was pretty simple....


It'll just give me more confidence that it's been done right.

SickBoy

I agree, no problem with that!!
 
next to nothing sounds right!.... i think you found yourself a good tech man... keep that aqquaintance!

the ppl round here would be lookin' for $50 to tap that chip m8...
goes to show ya what NY is like... and why i'm real glad...
I'M OUTTA HERE! LOL

seriously, sounds like he's a good dude...
was quite a stroke of luck to find this guy.
 
Colin said:
I would suggest using trimmers. Not all boards require the same resistance and you can undo the mod by turning the trimmers to full resistance. If you want, you can add a 1k trimmer in series with the 47k trimmer on Pin 7. This will make it easier to fine tune the voltage.

Solder wires to Pin 7 and Pin 10 of the IC that controls the voltage to the CPU. Put a 47K trimmer (49 cents at Radio Shack part # 271-283) between each wire and ground. Use a spade lug or loop under a motherboard mounting screw for your ground connection. For convenience I suggest you mount the trimmers on a piece of breadboard and secure it to your motherboard tray with Velcro.

Pin 7 controls the voltage, Pin 10 controls maximum voltage threshold. Turn the trimmers to full resistance boot your PC and start VIA Hardware Monitor. Set the polling interval to 2 seconds and slowly dial up the pin 7 trimmer until the voltage peaks. This should be about 2.1 volts. Then dial up the Pin 10 trimmer until your screen blanks and back it off a tad. Your PC will probably reboot when the screen blanks. Go back into VIA Hardware Monitor and dial the Pin 7 trimmer up to 2.3 volts. You may be able to go higher but I don’t recommend it.

Caution this will stress your cooling. Be careful or your CPU could end up a crispy critter. I also suggest buying a third hand device from Radio Shack to hold a pre-tinned wire to the IC leg while you solder. The magnifying glass on the third had will come in handy too. Get in and out fast so you don’t toast the IC. Lay off the caffeine and if you are of age, have a beer a half hour before soldering to steady your hands.

Be sure to tie your wires down to the board. After doing several boards, I finally screwed one up. The mod went fine but I snagged the wire to Pin 10 on the end of my workbench and ripped the IC pin right off the board.

Here is a pic of the solder points:

View

Oops... I followed the guide from AthlonOC that said to solder the pot between pin 10 and ground (a mounting hole). Well, needless to say AthlonOC's guide doesn't work. I booted up and fiddled with the pot in the bios and with VIAhm and it wont male the vcore bude but it does make my computer flash off if I turn it far enough counterclockwise. I'll see if I can go back to the dude and have him put another pot between pin 7 and ground... can both ground wires from the pots go to the same mounting hole?


SickBoy
 
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I've said it before and I'll say it again - ain't 1.85v enough ? Any grade A loons should buy something ready VModded such as 8KTA3Pro or 8K7A or get me to do the mod (for some reason I was trained to do these things !!!)
 
wild_andy_c said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again - ain't 1.85v enough ? Any grade A loons should buy something ready VModded such as 8KTA3Pro or 8K7A or get me to do the mod (for some reason I was trained to do these things !!!)

In a word... no. I can get my Duron to 970 MHz and I KNOW that thing can do a gig.... all it needs is just that little extra bit of voltage.

In addition I am also kinda ****ed that my PSU craps out on my TBird when I jack it to 1380 or higher. I know an AXIA-Y chip can do way better than that. So yeah. I figure since I have an SK6 and my load temps are hovering right around 40 C right now, I've got a little headroom to work with as far as sending some extra voltage to the chip. I know when to quit though... there won't be any fried Bird around here.... (now some fried Duron... that may be a different story!! :) )

SickBoy
 
Good good. I vmodded 8KTA3 back in March and yep - from a chip that did 933 to a chip that did 1050Mhz - it was good, but I see people here now attacking their boards with no knowledge of electronics and I'm thinking yikes!!! They're gonna hurt their board!! Stop them before they hurt anything !!!

It's only 'cos I care.
 
wild_andy_c said:
Good good. I vmodded 8KTA3 back in March and yep - from a chip that did 933 to a chip that did 1050Mhz - it was good, but I see people here now attacking their boards with no knowledge of electronics and I'm thinking yikes!!! They're gonna hurt their board!! Stop them before they hurt anything !!!

It's only 'cos I care.
thats a good thing
 
wild_andy_c said:
I see people here now attacking their boards with no knowledge of electronics and I'm thinking yikes!!! They're gonna hurt their board!! Stop them before they hurt anything !!!

It's only 'cos I care.

Thanks for caring... :)

It's why I'm having a pro do the mod for me... he regularly solders flat pack IC's while repairing test equipment so soldering onto that voltage regulator chip for him is kinda like shooting the broad side of a barn, comparatively. I really don't want to give up my KT7A-R just yet... even though I'll be moving to dual Durons soon. With my limited soldering experience (I took Electronics I in high school and Robotics during the spring semester at college) I'm not about to risk frying my favorite mobo ever....

SickBoy
 
Hey sickboy I just noticed that you are in the KC area. Where is Brooks Electronics at?
 
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Some people may say that having somebody else work on their computer is not good. Well I prefer to actually have a working computer to play with and not one that is fried due to lack of electric knowledge. I would HIGHLY recommend that any soldering should be done with a good knowledge of electronics and the willing to go buy a new board when you fry it. There is no shame in having someone more experianced do this mod. Now if you need help in doing the "pencil trick", then you should take up basket weaving instead of overclocking.
 
Shep said:
Hey sickboy I just noticed that you are in the KC area. Where is Brooks Electronics at?

Brooks is in a little office in old town Lenexa.... they do repairs for electronics testing equipment. Voltmodding motherboards is not standard procedure for them.... I had to show the guy exactly what I wanted soldered and where. It wasn't a problem beyond that though... and obviously I won't hold him responsible if my motherboard or chip dies. But so far it's looking good, I just gotta go back today and get that extra pot put in on pin 7 of the voltage IC.

If you want the phone number, they're listed in the yellow pages under "Brooks Electronics" or else I can email/PM it to you.

SickBoy
 
Thanks for the info I did the volt mod myself sometime ago and haven't had any problems I just wanted it for future referance if I screw something up I can't fix.
 
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