HELP - 9600GT VoltMod Problem

[dadi_oh]

So I decided to try the voltmod on my 9600GT following the instructions here on the forum.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/150

I was shooting for the 1.3V mod and successfully removed vid4. Next I needed to short out vid5 to complete the mod. My method has been to use a fine strand of wire to bridge the two points. I keep the wire long, bend the end at a 90deg angle and solder across the point. Then I just snip off the long end.

I got the wire soldered across the two points and unfortunately as I was trying to snip it I tugged on the wire and it pulled off the trace from the right side of vid5.

So now, what I need to know is where does that right side of vid5 get connected to? There was a bit of the trace left and I "think" I managed to get the tip of my meter onto it and I "think" it is connected to the point highlighted in my attached picture.

Can anyone verify this for me? If that is the point it connects to then I will probably put a wire between the 2 points to achieve the connection without the use of the trace.

Yes I know I'm a bonehead. No need to point it out. These are the risks of soldering something smaller than a gnats nuts.

[Solaris17]

you want ot circle the race you removed?

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

you want ot circle the race you removed?

Sure thing. See below.

[Solaris17]

wait so you melted through the pcb and severed the connection?

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

wait so you melted through the pcb and severed the connection?

Nope. The wire was soldered to the pad that the resistor would normally attach to. When I tugged the wire it pulled the pad off the surface of the board and lifted off the trace (which is run on the surface layer). There was a little stub of the trace left so I managed to use an exacto knife to scrape off the solder resist to expose the copper. I managed to get my meter probe onto that exposed copper (I think) which is why I "think" it is attached to the point I indicated. But before I do that I wanted to be certain that is the correct connection point.

[Solaris17]

just draw a diagram? im sorry im tired and im not sure what your talking about..mainly because i wouldnt know what you were doinf soldering all the way over their but its fine im not raggin ya iv done some dumb shit but i see no problem just dropping a ball of solder on it if thats the case no need for wires.

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

just draw a diagram? im sorry im tired and im not sure what your talking about..mainly because i wouldnt know what you were doinf soldering all the way over their but its fine im not raggin ya iv done some dumb shit but i see no problem just dropping a ball of solder on it if thats the case no need for wires.

I'm probably not explaining it well. I work in electronics so some of my terminology might sound strange. The trace that I circled in my second diagram runs under a component on the board (I assume it is a transistor). The trace is on the surface layer of the board and covered by something called solder resist (usually green in color if you are Nvidia but it might be red if it was an ATI board That trace is a very thin piece of flat copper wire that can not take a lot of heat (like in the soldering process). Traces do not connect directly to component leads for this reason. They first go to what is often called a "pad" which is what the end of the resistor is soldered to. It is a rectangular piece of copper that matches up to the solder lead of the component.

What happened in my case was that the heat of the soldering process probably delaminated the trace from the surface of the board. Then the inadvertent tug on the wire pulled the pad off the board and part of the trace with it. This left a small exposed section of the trace still under the solder resist. I scraped off the solder resist to expose the shiny copper of the trace and that is what I was probing with my meter.

Now the pad is completely gone so I can no longer solder a resistor (or piece of wire to it). There is just a smouldering hole in the FR4 (the material that they make circuit boards out of).

Luckily for me, the default voltage does not have this resistor populated so I am still running at stock voltage. If I had messed up one of the others I might have a non-functioning card.

Hope that makes more sense. A picture might help but the card is back in the machine with it's new waterblock attached so I may not pull it out for a long time. Unless the lure of higher voltage and breaking the 800MHz core lures me there

Time to get some sleep

[dadi_oh]

OK. I found this other diagram on another site. This is for the reference 9600GT design. It lines up with the guide here at TechPowerUp. Note that a "0" means shorted (with zero ohm resistor) and "1" means open circuit.

This would suggest that the 2 points that I labelled with yellow arrors would be connected to each other. Therefore if I were to connect the points indicated by the "magenta" line then I would achieve the vid5 connection required for volts above default.

Some of the comments on the other site suggested that OVP protection was still an issue above 1.2V but the guide here at TechPowerUp says that OVP is over-ridden with this mod. Anyone try the mod to 1.3V or 1.4V and can confirm that OVP doesn't kick in? I would hate to go through the mod just to discover that I am bound by OVP.

The piece of the puzzle I am still missing is whether, indeed the points indicated by the yellow arrows are connected to each other. I can't measure it on my board because the pad is torn off. Anyone care to measure it on their board. Please? Pretty Please?

[Solaris17]

i dont see in any way hnow that tells me what you removed...thats a vmod guide....

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

i dont see in any way hnow that tells me what you removed...thats a vmod guide....

OK. Following the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words here are two pictures (so I guess that is 2000 words worth).

The first picture is what this area of the board looked like before I tried shorting out vid5.

The second picture shows in RED the trace and pad that are torn off. i.e. where you see the shaded red area there is now no copper.

[Skitzo]

well from what i can tell the trace leaves the board and goes up to the component underneath. sorry for the poor pic but this camera sucks. Can you read the part number of the chip, mine is hard to read. If i read it right it was RKS02; I couldn't find a data sheet or description but hey it could be hanging out with the datasheet for adp3208


I'll hunt for my mag glass, that should help...

[Solaris17]

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ok so the second pad on vid 5 is gone?....thats fone if you dont want them connected well you did the job and if you do want them connected just drop some solder on both if your worried the trace isnt connecting to the pad just dable a mico ball back on the copper youll be fine you didnt seriously break it just make sure you take your time

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Skitzo

well from what i can tell the trace leaves the board and goes up to the component underneath. sorry for the poor pic but this camera sucks. Can you read the part number of the chip, mine is hard to read. If i read it right it was RKS02; I couldn't find a data sheet or description but hey it could be hanging out with the datasheet for adp3208


I'll hunt for my mag glass, that should help...

Cool. So the 2 points that I think are connected are circled in yellow. Do you have an ohmeter that you could buzz out those two points with?

Thanks man.

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by dadi_oh

Cool. So the 2 points that I think are connected are circled in yellow. Do you have an ohmeter that you could buzz out those two points with?

Thanks man.

Or alternately these 2 points might also be connected. If you have an ohmeter and can measure it for 0 ohms that would be awesome. That would be an easier solder job for me... not so cramped.

[Skitzo]

the lead looks like it connects up into rks02 between the two big contact points... wish i had a better camera... sorry

I can only find my swiss army knife mag so it's really hard to see clearly, but to me it looks like a silver wire not a trace where it goes up and i cannot see the trace continue past that.

I tried to find a data sheet to check the number of connections but no luck.

[Skitzo]

I dont't have time at the moment, I have to leave for a few hours but I'll see what I can do later...

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Solaris17

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ok so the second pad on vid 5 is gone?....thats fone if you dont want them connected well you did the job and if you do want them connected just drop some solder on both if your worried the trace isnt connecting to the pad just dable a mico ball back on the copper youll be fine you didnt seriously break it just make sure you take your time

Yup. The pad and trace tore right off the board Unfortunately there is not enough of a scrap of the trace left to solder to. That's why I am trying to find an alternate place on the board that the trace was connected to. I believe that the pad opposite the pad that I tore off is the ground. So I am trying to find the other end of the trace to attach to ground and achieve a short circuit for vid5. All voltages above stock require vid5 to be shorted. If I leave it open I am stuck at stock voltage.

[Skitzo]

if it was a ground wouldn't any ground work? lol sorry can't read i guess n/m

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Skitzo

I dont't have time at the moment, I have to leave for a few hours but I'll see what I can do later...

Hey no problem. The card is humming along fine at stock volts. I need to screw up enough courage (and a better, finer soldering iron tip) to try it again. A little voice in the back of my head is saying "doooooonnnn't doooooo iiiiit.... yoooou'll beeeeee soooooorrry". But I find the voice changes once I have a few beers into "Yooooou daaaaa maaaaan. goooooo for iiiiiit. Whaaaat dooo yoooou haaaave tooo loooose?"

Unfortunately the combination of not listening to the voice and consuming beer leads to poor soldering.

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Skitzo

if it was a ground wouldn't any ground work? lol sorry can't read i guess n/m

No, I meant that the trace that tore off was meant to connect to the ground point in order to short the vid5 circuit. But maybe it isn't a ground. I would need to pull it out of the case and do some more ohmeter measurements. If it were ground then you are right... any other ground would do. If it isn't ground then I need to run the wire back to that point specifically. Either way. The length of the wire doesn't matter. Just a good soldering job at either end

[Skitzo]

is there a way to relaminate the pad to the board? Is there a contact with that particular pad to anything else? If not, why couldn't a person try to use a pad or something similar, make the solder conection that is needed, relaminate (glue) the pad by whatever means it takes to make it stck and repair the trace connection with conductive ink/paint.

I'm not sure what it would require to attach the pad so this mat not be feasable.

if the mod is only using solder connections and not 0 ohm resitors why not connect the trace to the complimentary pad that hasn't been removed by means of conductive ink. Skip the damaged pad all together.

Again these are just ideas so put alot of thought into anythng I may suggest before hand, should you decide to try it.

[TheGoat Eater]

Tip #1 - when in doubt ask largon

[Skitzo]

ask everyone, all info has value, maybe just not where you want to apply it.

seems like it would be better try a repair apposed to a work around, but that's just my view.

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by Skitzo

is there a way to relaminate the pad to the board? Is there a contact with that particular pad to anything else? If not, why couldn't a person try to use a pad or something similar, make the solder conection that is needed, relaminate (glue) the pad by whatever means it takes to make it stck and repair the trace connection with conductive ink/paint.

I'm not sure what it would require to attach the pad so this mat not be feasable.

if the mod is only using solder connections and not 0 ohm resitors why not connect the trace to the complimentary pad that hasn't been removed by means of conductive ink. Skip the damaged pad all together.

Again these are just ideas so put alot of thought into anythng I may suggest before hand, should you decide to try it.

The trace is torn off right to the edge of the component that it runs under so trying to get a good solder joint onto it would be a challenge. I am "pretty" sure that there is nothing else attached to the pad that tore off since that would require a "via" next to the pad and there is not one there. So basically all I am trying to achieve is to find the other end of the trace that I tore off and just use a small wire to replace it.

The trick is to use a very fine solder tip and just a momentary contact to avoid too much heat on these small surface mounted components. Next time I will take it into work with me and use one of our soldering stations. They have binocular microscopes that make this sort of fine soldering much much easier. I was too impatient this time around and am paying the coinsequences.

The card is running happily at default voltage right now at 790 core and 2100 on memory so no particular rush at the moment.

Thanks for all your help. It is really appreciated.

[Skitzo]

Sounds like the perfect setup for modding, I'm feeling a little jealeous lol. I don't have access to that sort of setup so i tend to find solutions with the resources I have. people have been doing volt mods with conductive ink/paint for as long as can remember. It seems to work well, it has to be better that a pencil, but a proper solder connection would be best. Would there be enough conductivity to do a repair like this with conductive paint? A fairly small path could be created with a toothpick and the trace itself isn't very large so it has me curious. It should be possible to get a connection on the trace as long as there is bare metal.