Deanzo's Volt Mods
 

After reading Goddy's guide, I may as well add how I got started.


Believe it or not I'd never used a soldering iron before Feb 08!!
Hehe, And I started off with PC parts.


Over the months I've got a little better at it, but just for fun lets see how I started out.
(On a side note, the 8400 is still going strong)


These are the tools and accesories I found useful:

Soldering Iron with a fine tip.
Solder with a Rosin (flux) core with lead.
Fine Wire, old IDE leads are great for this.
Trimpot.
Flux,
Soldering braid,
Wire strippers.
Wrist strap, (all so known as a power supply killer )
Iso-propanol.
Cotton Buds.
Wet Sponge.
A Soldering Mate, a device that has clips on it to hold things, like having another set of hands.
Digital Multimeter.
Hot Glue Gun.
An old Mother Board or the like to practice on, I used a 56K modem.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6894/img0326wl5.jpg

As they say, practice, practice and practice some more.
Use and old dead board or card to practice your soldering skills untill you feel ready to move onto the real thing.

I found putting a tiny blob of solder on the tip of the wire, then holding it in place as the soldering iron melts everything together worked well for me. And make sure everything is clean before you start.


Below you can see my first ever volt mod, a 8400GS with Vgpu and read point mods. This was done the first day I'd ever used a soldering iron in my life, I do kind of jump into things.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3584/img0325sg0.jpg

To help hold the wires in place for the long term, I used hot glue over the joints.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7804/img0331mp3.jpg

And finally in place and ready to be overclocked.

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/3160/img0332mt0.jpg


Well that was my first time, getting ready for that, I found these guides very helpful and would recommend.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=542440
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=115387


This is how K404 explained how a variable resistor works to me.

What I do today.

I use a 3 socket plug (like the kind you find on a cpu fan) and wire that to the mod points on the card. This way, if there is an issue with the card or variable resistor (VR), I can just pull it out and the card is back to stock.
I also use a 4 socket molex plug, wired to the read point for the DMM.
I just use the other end of the card to ground the DMM, as a rule I don't add a ground point in the molex plug.
Here you can see a picture of what it looks like.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5885/img1140cn8.jpg

Before you add a VR, check the reading of your stock volts, here you can see it's 1.20v

Check to make sure the resistance on the VR is set to max

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7181/img1143sm9.jpg

Now that we are happy that it's set to the max resistance, plug it in.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1605/img1148vx4.jpg

Just doing that raised the voltage to 1.23

Now lower the resistance of the VR (anticlockwise in this case) to raise the voltage to the level you want.

Easy yes :)

I've almost lost count of what I've modded since I started, but here are some pictures of some cards I've done over the last month or two.

Two 4870's
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/826/img1068cr1.jpg

Two GTX280's
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/8382/img0887zy0.jpg

4870X2
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/9731/img0920lm3.jpg

As I hate running software when benching, and I'd like the numbers to be bang on, I also add read points to my boards.

It's always good to keep an eye on what parts are really getting.

Man I liked this board!!
Asus P5Q3 Deluxe/ WiFi-AP with lots of read points.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5673/img0721n.jpg

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5391/img0722q.jpg

Then at the other end, a board I hated soo much.
Asus P5E X48 vcore with dimm and core read points.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3545/img0385n.jpg

The points on this next boards were soo small, noobs need not apply.
XFX 790i vcore, vdroop and vnb
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/8529/img0670l.jpg

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2366/img0638y.jpg

Two 4870X2's I did for a friend.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1053/img1359a.jpg

4850
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/7055/img1373oww.jpg

damn dude.... very nice work, btw i use hot glue too, as i like it because its easy to remove and leaves no trace of ever being applied

Thanks mate.

btw i dunno if i welcomed you yet, but welcome to the forum. Enjoy your stay

Thanks man.

Seems like a cool wee place you guys have going here :)

Thank you very much for excellent contribution to our humble community Deanzo, cheers :toast:

Happy to help :)

What is the wattage of the soldering iron you use for the mods and do you have a close up of the GTX 280's and 4870X2's so I can see where all the connection points are. Also what is the value of the VR's for each card
Thanks