Volt-modding 7900GT

D

dbaldus

Gawd
Joined
Jul 12, 2005
Messages
563
So I've heard about this technique for volt-modding a 7900GT to run at 7900GTX speeds here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=1847758

Sounds to me like it basically involves drawing with a conductive pen and then using a multimeter to be sure it worked correctly.

Anybody have any thoughts or experience with this method of volt-modding? If I were to volt-mod in this way, it makes it sound like I can just rub the pen off with alcohol in case I burn it out. Would manufacturers be able to tell if this happened? I think EVGA's warranty covers overclocking, but I don't know about this... Would it be fairly obvious that I had done something like this if I did need to RMA or would it be rather difficult to notice?

And, for you people who do have experience with this method, what types of speeds did you get? :p
 
Sadly, that's the main reason for the conductive ink method. Not only is it easy to do but it's 'removable' and undetectable unless the manufacturer does some really heavy duty video card forensics when you RMA it, which they aren't apt to do.

I'd like to add that if you RMA a video card which YOU fried by cranking the voltage, you instantly become a low life sack of dogshit in my book.
 
harsh but I would like to think of companys like evga or whoever it might be as multi-million, if not billion dollar industries that have CEOs who get paid more than I could dream. So excuse me, but if I can replace a card for my budget this system while this CEO has Quad-sli then i will. Rich bastard should think about giving ppl a break lol.
 
Blue Falcon said:
Sadly, that's the main reason for the conductive ink method. Not only is it easy to do but it's 'removable' and undetectable unless the manufacturer does some really heavy duty video card forensics when you RMA it, which they aren't apt to do.

I'd like to add that if you RMA a video card which YOU fried by cranking the voltage, you instantly become a low life sack of dogshit in my book.
Click to expand...

Haha, that's exactly what I thought.
 
Not like it's hard to remove a little soldered wire either...................
 
dbaldus said:
Haha, that's exactly what I thought.
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Not in my book, I have been screwed by video card manufacturers before, it's called payback for making me RMA my shit 100 times before.
 
I agree. I bought a motherboard from ecs and came dead FOUR TIMES!!! RMA after RMA and wat do i get nothing. I wasted $70 on shipping the damn thing back for wat. Finally when i asked to return the product and get my money back all they could say is "i'm sorry, but you can't." I finally bought one off gigabyte. But lesson learned, companies say they want your business but once they have your money they dont give a rat's ass.
 
Evga KO at 715/1660 no problems but I highly recommend getting a vf900 if you are volt modding. Very easy mod. Use scotch tape if you want to keep it neat.
 
Blue Falcon said:
Sadly, that's the main reason for the conductive ink method. Not only is it easy to do but it's 'removable' and undetectable unless the manufacturer does some really heavy duty video card forensics when you RMA it, which they aren't apt to do.

I'd like to add that if you RMA a video card which YOU fried by cranking the voltage, you instantly become a low life sack of dogshit in my book.
Click to expand...


People saying that they dont RMA the hardware they break during overclocking are Hypocrits!
nothing personal against you,just a comment on the statement.
 
Come on guys, of all the companies you want to screw over its EVGA? Their customer service is great. Blue Falcon just has morals. Now I wouldn't be as against it if it were XFX or another company but EVGA is great, and ruining your card from something you are risking out of warranty and then wanting others who buy EVGA products to cover your bill is pretty low.
 
I did the 1.4v mod to my evga 7900gt. It maxes out at 649/1700 (stable), if I try to play a game or a bench @ 650 core my computer freezes everytime, but backing it down to 649 makes it rock solid :cool:

I've had it voltmodded for almost 6 months now without any issues. I would have gone further with the voltmod if I had the money to burn
 
If you have decent cooling and stay below 1.5v, volt modding is perfectly fine. Your only going to damage it if you dont cool properly or do a horrible job at drawing the ink line and short something.
 
I volt modded my 7900gt CO SC last weekend. Has to be of the easiest and cheapest mod. I used scotch tape and the conductive ink pen from Radio Shack. Only bumped it up to 1.4 as I think 1.5 or 1.55 really doesnt gain you much. See sig for what I got out of mine.
 
DemoMode said:
People saying that they dont RMA the hardware they break during overclocking are Hypocrits!
nothing personal against you,just a comment on the statement.
Click to expand...


How exactly am I a fucking hypocrit? :mad:

You just made one hell of a generalization there, kiddo.
 
i just went to radio shack today to get some solder to resolder a transister back on lmao, also picked up a conductive ink pen. the fixed card seems to be working fine gunna run stability tests tonight on it and tommorow mod it to 1.4v and hopefully get it more stable. they currently run at 520/720
 
my 7900 is on its way. yayyy. here's hoping. i may do the 1.4 mod. 1.5 is not recomended huh? even with after market kooling?
 
Well, what I heard is that the core of the 7900GT is the same core as the 7900GTX, which is made to run at 1.4 volts. So, in all actuality, if you run it at 1.4 volts, you will not decrease its lifespan at all but will instead be running the core where it was designed to run. Going up to 1.5 volts is just the same as running a regular 1.4 volt card at 1.5 volts. Its up to you if you're willing to try that.
 
Betatester said:
i just went to radio shack today to get some solder to resolder a transister back on lmao, also picked up a conductive ink pen. the fixed card seems to be working fine gunna run stability tests tonight on it and tommorow mod it to 1.4v and hopefully get it more stable. they currently run at 520/720
Click to expand...
:eek: WOW!!! Nice timings on those xms2 cosair 6400 obviously cas3. How in the hell did you get those timings?!?!
 
well i volt modded one of my cards to 1.4v and about to do the other one. right now im running ATI Tool and scanning for artifacts and its been almost 10 min without any but my temps without my other card in, and the door iff is 75-78c according to nvidia control panel YIPES! stock cooling is crap. but i can tell my card is far more stable. i had it at 600/1000 but temps were just to high so i lowered it to 550/850 which is a minimal overclock but atleast for now its more stable then it was at stock :D

520/720 -> 550/850

edit: the timings, i tihnk its cuz the freq. is so low... someone told me my divider was 1:1 but i have a hard time believeing it. :S the ram wouldnt budge at all when i started but once i got my cpu overclocked i tightened the timings to as much as my mobo would let me >< untill i get better cooling i dont think im gunna get more out of them....

cpu-z pics -> http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3534/cpuzle2.png

edit: ran 3dmark06 before i voltmodded (all default settings) and got 8099.
after voltmod with the 550/850 settings i score 8600
 
I just did the 1.4V and I'm thinking of doing 1.5V mod. I've got copper ramsinks and a VF-900. My eVGA 7900GT KO "AR" stay pretty cool at 42 idle and 51 full load.

Think I should go for 1.5V?
 
Those temps are nice. I would. If the overclock/temp is not worth it you can always go back. I'm at 1.55v idle high 40s low 50s. Thats with not so cool California weather with no ac.
 
You guys thinking of doing the voltmod to 1.4v might want to check your card with a multimeter, because the newest batches of cards already run at 1.4v.

(Make sure and test while a 3D app is running)
 
well its to late for me, what am i running at if it was 1.4? i mean the card was really unstable before i did it. wouldnt even go up 1mhz. now i can go really high at the cost of heat.

XFX 7900 GT VIVO with Black PCB and the Bar
 
Betatester said:
well its to late for me, what am i running at if it was 1.4? i mean the card was really unstable before i did it. wouldnt even go up 1mhz. now i can go really high at the cost of heat.

XFX 7900 GT VIVO with Black PCB and the Bar
Click to expand...

Well if you can keep it cool enough go for it, but you might want to invest in a multimeter to verify voltages. :)
 
Blue Falcon said:
Well if you can keep it cool enough go for it, but you might want to invest in a multimeter to verify voltages. :)
Click to expand...

i had planned on getting one so i can do the pencil mod aswell, for now my setup kinda sucks i gotta figure out how to get better airflow, the sli card on top stays a fill 10c cooler then the one on the bottom cuz the heat goes down and bounces off the x-fi and back up :\ im looking at watercooling...which sadly is gunna set me back 500 or so......expect to see a thread by me asking if my parts are decent in the WC board :D ;)
 
Holy smokes! I just did the 1.5V mod (checked it with Multimeter while running 3DMark05).

I got a HUGE improvement from 1.4V to 1.5V. Remember this is a single eVGA 7900GT KO "AR" with VF-900 and copper memsinks (fan is running 3/4 full(silent))

These are my best OC's (I know there's way better OCs out there, but I'm happy I got an "AR" card this high! Look at the jump between 1.4V & 1.5V!) These are the highest Coolbits would let me set the clocks:

1.2V - (575/1540) 3DMark05 9,990

1.4V - (595/1580) 3DMark05 10,352

1.5V - (650/1680) 3DMark05 11,099

Woot!
 
What about volt modding to 1.3V? I have my VF700 fan at very low speeds, my card loads in the fifties now and I don't want to raise my fan speeds.
 
Betatester said:
i had planned on getting one so i can do the pencil mod aswell, for now my setup kinda sucks i gotta figure out how to get better airflow, the sli card on top stays a fill 10c cooler then the one on the bottom cuz the heat goes down and bounces off the x-fi and back up :\ im looking at watercooling...which sadly is gunna set me back 500 or so......expect to see a thread by me asking if my parts are decent in the WC board :D ;)
Click to expand...


A little tip for when you do your pencil mod for the memory:

Once you have the voltage you want and are satisfied with it, apply a dab of clear nail polish over the resistor. It will help keep the graphite from wearing away over time... we used to do this with the pencil mods on the original Socket A Athlons. :)

Ummm... it doesn't have to be clear nail polish... but cotton candy pink might get you some funny looks.... :D
 
Blue Falcon said:
You guys thinking of doing the voltmod to 1.4v might want to check your card with a multimeter, because the newest batches of cards already run at 1.4v.

(Make sure and test while a 3D app is running)
Click to expand...

link? (I'm assuming you're talking about AR cards)
 
Blue Falcon said:
A little tip for when you do your pencil mod for the memory:

Once you have the voltage you want and are satisfied with it, apply a dab of clear nail polish over the resistor. It will help keep the graphite from wearing away over time... we used to do this with the pencil mods on the original Socket A Athlons. :)

Ummm... it doesn't have to be clear nail polish... but cotton candy pink might get you some funny looks.... :D
Click to expand...
thanks for the tip ill be sure to use it :)

also to Brahmzy whats the temp is load @ on 1.5V?
 
quadnad said:
link? (I'm assuming you're talking about AR cards)
Click to expand...

This is what I've been told by two different people at VGA... don't take it as gospel though because that might not be the case. A few people with the new "RoHS" cards here have posted overclocking and voltmod results that seem to contradict that altogether.

I'm about to break out my multimeter and test my own 512MB card and see whats up...
 
did 1.4 GPU volt mod on my BFG 7900 GT

it's running right now...overclocked to 620/800 stable..

the thing is..i wanna make sure it is indeed 1.4..

i tried to use multimeter to check but i'm too stupid to make it work..(don't know how...already read about it still dont' get it)

is there a software monitor that detects GPU voltage?
 
firewolf said:
Also, does upping the voltage on the GPU raise memory overclocks.
Click to expand...
i believe it makes the entire card more stable (ive read alot of people do the volt mod and the entire board just gets better results but im not expert on the subject other then the fact that i know my cards can go high....and hot :-p ) but theres another equally easy mod you can do to bring that up as well by putting graphite from a pencil on a spot of the card then testing it with a multimeter. and blue falcon said to put clear nail polish on it to prevent the graphite from wearing away :)
 
On 1.4Volts I am running 655/875 100% stable. I back it off to 635/835 for daily use though since I am paranoid. I have a Zalman vf-900 and live in a hot desert city that is over 100degrees everyday. Temps are usually 39-43 idle and 58-62 full load.
 
96redformula said:
On 1.4Volts I am running 655/875 100% stable. I back it off to 635/835 for daily use though since I am paranoid. I have a Zalman vf-900 and live in a hot desert city that is over 100degrees everyday. Temps are usually 39-43 idle and 58-62 full load.
Click to expand...
thats cool, i think i must be running 1.5 by accident i spent like an hour carefully doing each card and making sure i did 1.4 but who knows... and uh...uh huh *points* "EVGA 7900gt 1.4Vmodd 650/850 all the time!" :D
 
Betatester said:
thanks for the tip ill be sure to use it :)

also to Brahmzy whats the temp is load @ on 1.5V?
Click to expand...

Quite a bit more than stock. :) It's about 46 idle and 61-62 full load.

Man oh man it's worth it though.

firewolf said:
Also, does upping the voltage on the GPU raise memory overclocks.
Click to expand...

It sure does - BIGTIME.
 
Niiiice, I took it to 1.3V and my clocks went from 560 to 630 on the core and 800 (unstable) to 809 (almost stable :D). My load temps went to 60C with higher fan speeds though...I might lower the clocks until I actually need them that high...
 
firewolf said:
Niiiice, I took it to 1.3V and my clocks went from 560 to 630 on the core and 800 (unstable) to 809 (almost stable :D). My load temps went to 60C with higher fan speeds though...I might lower the clocks until I actually need them that high...
Click to expand...

What card do you have? (Model number?)
 
The NV560...I think that's the number I know it's the lowest eVga model they sell. I used a VF700 and pulled the wires out ot the plug from it's fan and used them in the card so I can control speeds from the driver.

I got lucky though, my first one only went to 530 (I never tried the volt mod) and I RMA'd it...it showed some artifacts no matter what clock it was on. I only got them in FarCry and it never bothered me but I replaced it because I might get a better overclock on the new card :D. I was right.
 
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