ATI 9500NP / 9800SE Hardmod

[Übermench]

Got the R350 Im afraid

Im sad to say it didn't work for me to enable the 4 extra pipes without artifacts.

So anyways... is it theoretically possible to only enabling some of the extra 4 pipes. And if so, can I choose witch ones, so I can locate the busted one?

---
Got the Zalman ZM80C, and its hot as a 6-shooter

 

[LiOneL]

CjVirus: I already tried that... Card is damaged. The voltages on card are ok, so I guess GPU is screwed. Can the surface and lines arround specified resistor be damaged when soldering? W1zzard?

 

[Schpeedy]

I did the hard mod... but flashing the bios causes artifact like natures... now i have the softmod drivers they work fine and i can overclock it up to an XT... but when i flash a normal pro on it it has a shit.. whats wrong? i have a Powercolour 9800SE with the 'L' 256bit connection.

 

[Ritchey]

AIW 9800SE to 9800PRO HARDMOD

Hi guys
I have a Hercules AIW Radeon 9800SE 256-bit 128MB...
Im all the time using softmod and it works perfect but now I would like to hardmod it...
Do I have to do both things like new bios & join pins 2-2?
And what bios should I use?
I got samsung memory... i have to find out what timing is it...
Thanks for answering

 

[fr33ze]

@ wizzard

nice little article mate, really clear as too what people should do.

for all those wondering about resistance values and stuff shorting works fine, i did this on a 9800se aiw about 6 months ago and it worked a treat. A solder blob is the most reliable method although you can use conductive paint as well.

 

[Ragutom]

My Softmod Works Great

As you can see by the Title,
My SOFTmod works great, ATITool says 8 active pipelines, no artifacts, on my R350 PowerColor 9800SE 128 meg. So here is the question I pose to you.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO HARDMOD WHEN SOFTMOD WORKS FINE!!
Is there a hidden performance benefit that I am not aware of? Is it a confused mental state? Bragging Rights to your friends???
I just don't see the point in letting amateur morons run around with soldering pens, working on their $160 SE's. Especially when there is no performance benefit other than Windows now calls our cards 8 pipeline Pro's. I think this knowledge should have been limited to the mentally fit.....

Thats my Rant.
If someone can convince me that there is a performance gain to hardmod over softmodding, I will.

Tom

 

[wazzledoozle]

As you can see by the Title,
My SOFTmod works great, ATITool says 8 active pipelines, no artifacts, on my R350 PowerColor 9800SE 128 meg. So here is the question I pose to you.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO HARDMOD WHEN SOFTMOD WORKS FINE!!
Is there a hidden performance benefit that I am not aware of? Is it a confused mental state? Bragging Rights to your friends???
I just don't see the point in letting amateur morons run around with soldering pens, working on their $160 SE's. Especially when there is no performance benefit other than Windows now calls our cards 8 pipeline Pro's. I think this knowledge should have been limited to the mentally fit.....

Thats my Rant.
If someone can convince me that there is a performance gain to hardmod over softmodding, I will.

Tom

I feel your irony, though a little different. All these newbs are running around flashing their 9600 series cards and screwing up etc. when there is absolutely no reason to flash.

 

[Vylator]

I had a go at the softmods, they install fine but I get artifacts in some games.. Is it worth doing the hardmod and flashing the new bois or do you think I would still get artifacts in games??

I have the xpertvision 9800se 128meg/256bit card

 

[fr33ze]

@Ragutom/Tom

Your right in that hardmodding is not for everyone especially those who don't really know what there doing but for a few of us there are reasons to hardmod.

In some cards there have been reports of it bringing a slight performance advantage expecially in DX9 games (like to poitn out that i'm going on what other people have said here and not personnel experience).

My reason for doing it was so that i had a greater choice in terms of drivers, whilst w1zzard has done a great job in realeasing softmod drivers for a long time now i wanted to try some of the older ones which can give better results in 3dmark01 (i know this counts for very little but im a benchmark junkie and had my reasons).

Then for some there is the bragging rights in the same way that people overclock a cpu purely for a screeny, it's not for everyone but some people enjoy it.

I do agree with you though that hardmodding is not for everyone and to be honest the risks do far outweigh the benifits which is something that should probably be made clearer.

 

[Ragutom]

!!!

Ahhhh What a relief, I thought I was going to get really flamed for that one.....

w1zzard is the MAN for releasing these Softmods.
I DO think that I was a little out of line when I said that these articles shouldn't have been released. Being one of the guys who can handle a soldering pencil with extreme ease, (Note to Everybody: COMES WITH PRACTICE), I wouldnt mind or feel in danger Hardmodding. I just feel that I have no reason to....until w1zzard stops releasing softmods ;-)

Another future consideration, If ATI catches on... (or even cares) They might implement a Check into their PRO Windows drivers to see if those pipelines are legit (If possible) or some kind of check to see if some value represents a true PRO card. Then everyone that hardmodded will have to stay with the current drivers, or unsolder and reflash and go back to softmodding.

Just some thoughts...........

Once again w1zzard ROCKS
Tom

 

[Ragutom]

Vylator

On the issue of "will hardmodding fix artifacts if they exist while softmodding," as previously stated in the first post: they will not fix this issue. This is a result of physically INCOMPLETE or DAMAGED pipelines Or a result of extreme overclocking (Which happens to mine... Core is good up till about 387MHZ. Then I start getting artifacts. I dont normally run overclocked).

Off to buy HL2!!!
Tom

 

[Unregistered]

Has anyone noticed the new 9800 (not pro not se) 128 bit 256 MB cards on the 9800 Pro/XT boards with L shaped ram and a molex (hdd) power connector, does anyone think that these would be hard/softmoddable?

 

[fr33ze]

wouldn't have thought so, you need the card to be 256bit for it to be modable and i'm guessing that card would already have 8 pipelines active anyway.

 

[Unregistered]

I have a question, I have a Sapphire 9500NP with Etrontech 3,3 Memory 128bit ("I"-shaped). Is this card ready for hardwaremod? Only a connection between 2-3?

 

[fr33ze]

You can try but the card wont run as a 9700 pro. Also dont try the hardmod until youv tried the softmod and found out that it works.

 

[aegis]

will graphite work?

Hey, I got a question. Do I need to use a soldering iron to short the connectors, or can I pencil it in with graphite? I am not sure I am ready to commit to a soldering iron when I have no experience with it and I know that the softmod works fine (9800 SE to Pro @ Pro core/ram speeds), but if I can pencil it in and erase if it doesn't work, then I may give it a try. Also, sorry if I am asking what was already made clear, but is there any real, tangible, hard evidence that hardmodding actually helps? I read through the thread but didn't see any solid answers. Thanks in advance.

 

[flo]

flo

hi I have a palit 9800se 256bit samsung 2.8 ns I tryed a soft mod and it have artifacts even on the desktop what should I do help pls

 

[Nobru_rv]

I think it has been spoken clearly.
1. Hardmod is only a PERMANENT opening 4 additional pipes. It doesnt convert any card to another. If u have 9500 np or 9800se 128bit,it will remain 128bit,it will just work with 4 additional pipes. A great boost also.
2. If u have artifacts with softmod DO NOT HARDMOD it because it will not fix artifacts.
3. HARDMOD is only a way to keep all 8 pipes open even when softmodded drivers are uninstalled.
Thats it.

 

[flo]

ok thanx I will dont flash with a pro but I want to flash with another 9800se bios or with my original with modified clock speed and it give me this error when I tryed to flash:error: block protect not disabled, status=0E help pls

 

[flo]

well if the softmod doesent work maybe a volt mod will boost some performance and of course I change the stoc cooling (a cpu cooler ) and also have ramsinks. I found a guide for 9800\pro but I dont know if this work for my card it has the same pcb the diference is the numbers on voltage cip controler
eg: for gpu sc 1175 csw and for me is apw 1175) I prefer the pencil trick

 

[JC]

3D-9800se AIW-128Mb-Samsung 2,8ns

3-DMark2005-pro give's in original state 1444 (378/338)

After installing:
Zalman cooler 80-D (fan on 7 v) & Softmod 0.023 & DRV Cat 5.3 :8 pipe-lines and score 2233

Biosflash to Pro: still needed softmod to open the 4 extra pipelines, 3D-score (383-345):2252
Back to orginal Bios and Softmod (378-375) gives 2268 but not stable enough for long playing.

ASUS AV733 Athlon2000
Xp-pro +SP2
160 Gb Samsung 2mb
1GB RAM

How to gain more speed, any solution?

 

[themacmeister]

Linux - Hardmod necessary?!

I have a dual-boot system WinXP/Fedora Core 3 Linux.

As far as I can ascertain, there is no softmod at all for Linux, so the only way to get eight rendering pipelines would be through the hardmod, as mentioned previously.

My question is this - in the xorg.conf file for X-Windows, you can virtually fool Linux into thinking you are using an 8 pipeline card...

Obviously Windows softmods make no hardware alterations, so do you think this would be enough to "softmod" Linux, in a way...??

Cheers,

themacmeister

 

[JuStAdsor]

Use this.. It will work

ok thanx I will dont flash with a pro but I want to flash with another 9800se bios or with my original with modified clock speed and it give me this error when I tryed to flash:error: block protect not disabled, status=0E help pls

use this command : flashrom -p -sst 0 bios.bin -f

I have the same card and it worked for me.. But.. I can't find any pro-xt bios for it
You can try bioses in dows with this : http://www.radeon2.ru/bios/util/rambios.zip

Please tell me if you find a good one.
I'm trying new bioses directly with flasrom.. because i have a spare pci card.. and works like a charm for restoring

 

[JuStAdsor]

Try this one

Here it is Palit 9800XT
9800XT

 

[grazzhoppa]

Is using another manufacturer's bios then the one that built my card safe?

I have a Sapphire 9500 with infineon 3.3 ram, but the only infineon sapphire 9700 bios in this site's collection doesn't specify the ram speed. It simply says "Infineon." I know that there are 2 types of Infineon ram put on Sapphire 9500s, 3.0 and 3.3, so I can't take chances with unmarked bios.

There is a Powercolor with infineon 3.3 bios and also a GrandMars bios with infineon 3.3.

Also, does anyone have any soldering tips for doing it on such small parts. Is there any material that could mask off tiny parts of the processor without being burned by the solder?

Finally, why do I get the idea that flashing a video card bios is much more error prone than a motherboard bios, why do people mess the flash up so often?