[Deanzo]

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.



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.



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



And finally in place and ready to be overclocked.




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.

Originally Posted by K404

The leg at each end is connected to the end of the resistive bar. The middle leg is effectively controlled by turning the screw. If you hooked up a trimmer using the 2 legs at the end, it would be a fixed resistance.



There doesnt seem to be a guaranteed way of knowing which way to turn the screw to get the change you want. I normally decide which 2 legs im gonna use, fold the 3rd over, then turn the screw a few times and see if the res between the 2 remaining legs gets bigger or smaller. Then once thats sorted, il set the resistance to max between the 2 active legs.

K