16 pipes on X800 pro thread questions thread...

ThreeDee

ThreeDee

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I am aware of saphires getting successfully modded to open up all 16 pipes ..but am wondering if any of the VisionTek , Powercolor ..or any other brand X800 pro cards have been successfully unlocked ..
 
I think visiontek? Sapphire are among the cheapest ones anyway, why do you ask?
 
just curious ..as to what brands are most likely to be able to unlock pipes on .. reading on net it looks like BBA cards dont take the mod .. so just collecting data is all .. I have a powercolor X800 pro coming ..that I might (emphasis on Might) mess with
 
The article on the [H]ardOCP home page seems to suggest that it has to do more with what core your X800Pro ended up with. One's with certain numbers will unlock and the others won't.
 
Well considering that most of the cards including VisionTeks are BBA's anyways, they should all be the same reference design even if they weren't. Some will have luck with it, some won't. Alot of ppl doing this mod are NOT rubbing the contacts down till they see the post before using conductive ink and Filling the gap between posts before applying the ink. So they are not getting a true connection. You really have to take your time and have a steady hand. I am just trying to find time to do this, only I am going to use Solder and make it more permanent and true connection. I have the contacts rubbed down to the posts. Just haven't made the leap yet. (time restraints) ;)
 
Well, I just checked mine before I head off to the store for materials.

It is infact one that can't be modded supposedly by this guys article.

The numbering is as follows:GB8808.1

Well, if I post today or tonight everything will have went right. If not, I probably will have shot myself.. :D j/k Kind of nervous about this.....
 
lol ...good luck :)
SnowBeast said:
Well, I just checked mine before I head off to the store for materials.

It is infact one that can't be modded supposedly by this guys article.

The numbering is as follows:GB8808.1

Well, if I post today or tonight everything will have went right. If not, I probably will have shot myself.. :D j/k Kind of nervous about this.....
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You can't really destroy your card with this mod. If it doesn't work; just wipe the mod off, and it's a Pro again...
 
Well the Defogger kit didn't work. Really wasn't that great of a job. Went back to clean it off and solder it and rounded out one of the screws holding the cooling unit on. DOH!! :rolleyes: So I will wait for some really good after market cooling(Artic Cooling for the X800) before drilling the screw out. Hopefully the solder will work. Don't have a floppy to flash the Bios. Thought just connecting the two dots would work. Will try later down the road.(Saturday I will do one final attempt at this mod.)

Sorry guys. I tried.
 
Well after reading the [H]ardOCP front page link to that website that had the information concerning the activation of the other pipes being possible with several brands of cards and with all serial numbers ending in .1 I think I am going to try it.

I got my conductive pen today and when I leave the woman's house and go home I'll give it a shot.

Theres one thing that bothers me though. Do I really need to flash the BIOS to unlock the other pipes? Or will the hardmod be enough. Because I can set the clock speed myself and don't need the BIOS to do it. Finally I don't need the Rage Theatre chip error in the device manager. The little exclamation things in the device manager annoys me. I also don't care what device manager calls it. It can be called a X800XT or X800Pro or whatever.

Also I wouldn't think the driver would matter. Being an X800XT or an X800Pro unless that matters with the overdrive funtion of the driver.

I may experiment with these things. But initially I think I am going to try this the way the articles outline.
 
M4d-K10wN said:
Hmm. What brand is your card, again?
Click to expand...

Built by ATI

And Sir Fragalot, I would think all these cores end in 1. Its the starting two letters that have me concerned. The GA would be the earlier releases and modable. But mine is a GB which indicates a later production I would think, and not modable. Still, I am going to try to solder and see if it works. If not, I have solder remover so no big whoopee.

Can someone answer SF on the having to do a Bios Flash. I didn't think you did, but after correctly doing the dot-to-dot connection I am wondering myself if I will have to? I would like to know before soldering also. Maybe that why its not working for me? :confused:
 
from what i understand ..you dont need the bios flash ..ati-tool will show the 16pipes if mod is successful and you will experience slight performance boost ..you can use other overclocking utility to get to XT speeds
 
Well if it's true about connecting the tracepoints and being able to get 16 pipes without the BIOS flash then either I didn't do a good job or it won't work with my card.

The issue is my stupid conductive pen isn't working right. The thing barely lets ANY of the conductive material out and I can even get enough out to do a straight line. So the job is sloppy and I don't think I got enough on there. I am pretty sure that I scraped the contact points pretty good though.

Well crap it's late and I'll F with it tommarow.
 
Ok this damned conductive pen is pissing me off. The one I got doesn't work worth a crap. This is seriously hindering my efforts.
 
Hmm. Can you make a simple circuit using the pen, a battery and a lightbulb?
 
I got it fixed. It's done. Either you have to do the BIOS update or it doesn't work. I'm working on flashing the BIOS now.
 
I got my Visiontek X800 Pro today and tried to mod it. I went and bought a conductive pen (wasn't easy finding one) and did that, flashed the bios and restarted. I installed that ATItool which tells you how many pipes are active, and alas, only 12 were. I did everything I could think of and nothing worked. After I flashed the bios, Windows installed the Rage theater chip (odd) and it set the clock to XT speeds. It can run easily at XT speeds, but the pipes were still 12.

I am happy with the performance of the X800Pro, but it would have been nice if it would have modded to the XT.

Hopefully there will be a method of modding the Visiontek to the XT sometime soon.
 
I was wondering if this would work.
Cover up all the other holes(tape) and make a connection with solder between the 2 points. And when you don't want the connection jsut use a solder wreck to take out the solder.What do you guys think?
 
StArWaRrIoR said:
I got my Visiontek X800 Pro today and tried to mod it. I went and bought a conductive pen (wasn't easy finding one) and did that, flashed the bios and restarted. I installed that ATItool which tells you how many pipes are active, and alas, only 12 were. I did everything I could think of and nothing worked. After I flashed the bios, Windows installed the Rage theater chip (odd) and it set the clock to XT speeds. It can run easily at XT speeds, but the pipes were still 12.

I am happy with the performance of the X800Pro, but it would have been nice if it would have modded to the XT.

Hopefully there will be a method of modding the Visiontek to the XT sometime soon.
Click to expand...

I just had the same experience. I did the same thing. The Rage Theatre chip gets installed for the simple reason that the X800XT-PE has them. So when you flash the BIOS to a X800XT-PE BIOS that's what your going to get.

I tried the mod without scraping the contacts. Now I may try it with the scraping. There seems to be a debate about if this is needed or not. But some people have done the scrape thing and it didn't hurt anything. I haven't heard of anyone damaging thier X800Pro yet. So I will try when I get home in a few hours.

What curious is one site I read. Linked from the HardOCP home page, said in it's article that all the cards that had a certain serial number on the chip worked and the others didn't. Didn't specify from what manufacturer. IT was only said that it was from various ones.

My card has the specific serial designation for the cards that have worked so far. Yet mine didn't. I may try and redo my paint work and see what happens.

I also read somewhere that 4.6 Beta cats were needed. Is this true? I wouldn't think so since my system sees all the X800XT-PE's additional hardware.
 
i think one of main reasons some peeps not having success is that they are not getting the protective coating (whatever it is) off of the the 2 points of which you need to make contact between ..im still waiting for my card to arrive and I think i will go ahead and just try the mod after all ..was debating before. I have a tv repair guy friend that does all my soldering for me for modding mobos and what not ..will take card to him to do the procedure.
 
I didn't attempt to remove the surface of the copper... I wonder if that's why mine didn't work? It's a bit scary scraping something on a $400 video card. lol

If anyone else is in the same boat, meaning that they attempted the mod without scraping the contacts and it didn't work, post here if you get it to work after scraping them.
 
StArWaRrIoR said:
I didn't attempt to remove the surface of the copper... I wonder if that's why mine didn't work? It's a bit scary scraping something on a $400 video card. lol

If anyone else is in the same boat, meaning that they attempted the mod without scraping the contacts and it didn't work, post here if you get it to work after scraping them.
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The material on top of the copper is NON conductive, very carefully remove the top coating untill you see the copper, then do it. Please let me know what happens because I want to do this to a VisionTek X800Pro thats comming in soon.
 
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