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How-to: Pencil mod your HD 3870!

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Dr. Spankenstein

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tigger69 said:
When you realize how thin those wires are,its either good soldering or glue etc.
Click to expand...


Yeah. Judging by the first and third picture, if you can fit a sheathed wire between 2 smd capacitors, you're looking at about 30ga wire.

I'm still wondering about those clips that are holding his tripots to the edge of the card.
 
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Deleted member 24505

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The wires as thick as the leg on the ic.wow nice.Imma do mine like that.Mebbe its easier to solder been so thin.
 
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Dr. Spankenstein

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I've got some super-fine silver solder that is about the same gauge as that wire, I'm still concerned that I'll leave a huge blog of solder acrossa bunch of components. Hopefully my solder wick would soak it up!
 
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Dr. Spankenstein said:
Yeah. Judging by the first and third picture, if you can fit a sheathed wire between 2 smd capacitors, you're looking at about 30ga wire.

I'm still wondering about those clips that are holding his tripots to the edge of the card.
Click to expand...

The clips look like they're from a DIMM slot.
 
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Just picked up my parts. I liked the idea of the volt measure yellow line in that other mod so I am doing it also.
Sure will make it easier to take a measurement.
 
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i just picked up my 100kohm trimmer today,i am gonna use wire stripped from an ide cable.I just need to find a jumper to use.I'll just nick one of one of my old bits of tat.

EDIT-just measured my vgpu while running 3dmark06,its hovering between 1.23 and 1.24v
 
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I just did it.I have my 100kohm trimmer on,i checked as it booted and it was 1.24vgpu with the trimmer on max resitance(100kohms).
 
Cold Storm

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sweetness tigger! now after this, and some food in RM's stomach.. He can do the same! you going to post pictures when you get it done? Another question... IDE cables snipped?
 
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yes,i used ide cable,it is nice and thin.the connection to the solder point went sweet.I thought it was gonna be hard to get a connection cause the point is so small.The other wire is directly on the groung pin of the pci-e power connector.
 
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well i set the vgpu to 1.36vgpu and tried it at 790mhz core on 3d06.It stomped it,this is with the core at 790mhz and my ram stock.It beat my stock score by loads.

It seems the 22turn trimmer i have is roughly equal to 0.1volt increase per 3 full turns of the screw.

The max temp while running 3d06 with the voltage on 1.36v was 53c using riva tuner to monitor it while i ran 3dmark.

 
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heres a little crappy pic of my mod,its a webcam sorry.

 
Cold Storm

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tigger69 said:
heres a little crappy pic of my mod,its a webcam sorry.

Click to expand...

xazax probably got his skills from you!!! good mod man... waiting on the pics from the camera its self!
 
Jor3llBR

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Sapphire HD 3870 to Sapphire Atomic 3870?

Anyone knows where can I get the Sapphire Atomic HD3870 Vapor-X Bios? It's 825/1200 from factory.

Does anyone tried to flash to those new clock settings without volt or pencil modding?

Thanks
 
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Mine runs at 820 stable without any type of mod right now.
 
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Jor3llBR said:
Does anyone tried to flash to those new clock settings without volt or pencil modding?

Thanks
Click to expand...


I flashed mine to the 830/1200 BIOS just to get past the 862 barrier. I ran it for a week without a pencil mod. No problems....
 
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yes source,but yours is a 3870 and mine is a 3850.Going from 668 to 810 is a big jump.
 
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tigger69 said:
yes source,but yours is a 3870 and mine is a 3850.Going from 668 to 810 is a big jump.
Click to expand...

Hahah OOps, my bad, sorry need to read first =P
 
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Well heres the pics of my vmod,complete with a jumper to enable/disable the mod.



 
Cold Storm

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The mod looks awesome! glad to see you have BETTER picture skills then xzazx!!! lol... did you use a modded bios? and if so wouldn't the jumper hurt you if it was unplugged?
 
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the jumper is in place so that GROUND can be removed from the connection, making the mod nothing more than parts on a PCB. So if the jumper is in line, the mod is active. With the jumper removed, the card performs at stock voltages!
 
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I know that... but if he modded the bios to work at that voltage, and then removed the jumper, would that mess up the videocard? Thats what I'm asking.
 
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Yes. If he did in fact mod the BIOS with clocks that are too high for stock voltage, the card will not boot. Just like when you OC a CPU.

I dont really think it would damage the card tho...It just would not boot.
 
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