• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Radeon 9800 Pro Volt mod help!!

T

Tooden

n00b
Joined
Jan 4, 2004
Messages
16
Well, I am just learning how to solder, and I plan on doing a 9800 pro Vgpu and Vmem volt mods. I am practicing solderon an old modem, and trying to find little spots that look like similar to what I will have to solder onto my 9800 pro.

I have a couple questions.

1) When practicing with the modem, sometimes the solder will come off the conenction point. I will push it back on with the tip of the iron, but now the PCB is tainted a darker color. If this were to happen, would my 9800 pro be fried?

2) I am using 24 guage speaker wire. Will this stuff work for the connections?

3) I am trying to decide what to do, on some volt mod guides, I see they have a wires taht have a little grabber on the end. Where can I get this because I am scared to death of messing up the soldering on the chip pins.

5) Do you have any techniques I can practice so that the success of my vmods will be increased?

4) Do any of the questions I have asked send a red flag out to you? If so, what have I asked that seems like a big nono.

My soldering iron is a 15 watt radio shack basic.

Thanks in advanced!
 
If it's your first solder job and you give a shit about your graphics card, don't. Else, try it.


>the PCB is tainted a darker color

It's oxidized. Solder won't stick to that.

>I am using 24 guage speaker wire. Will this stuff work for the connections?

Get something smaller.

>wires taht have a little grabber on the end

"Grabber?"

Stop there. Get someone to do it for you.
 
By grabber I mean something that looks like this: -->-<

You pinch one end, and the other side opens up. When you release, the grabber will "grab" the ping going into the chip.
 
I would definatly get a better soldering iron than a POS radio shack one, it makes a huge difference. Also, grab some soldering FLUX! this is liquid that u spread on the area you are soldering and makes it exactly 1,000,000 times easier!!! ;)
You will also need some isoprolly alcohal to clean what flux is left afterwards but it is definatly worth your trouble.
 
If you're serious about learning to solder get yourself a nice Weller 25w iron and the smallest pointed tip you can find. That'll run you about $40, but it's a very worth while investment if you plan on taking up electronics as a hobby.

Go to Radio Shack and buy some protoboard. That's the stuff that looks like a PCB, but just has a bunch of nonsense holes in it. It has white paint around the holes on top and copper around the holes on the bottom. It'll cost you about $2.

To solder you first "tin" the soldering iron by getting it hot (a cold iron ain't worth the metal it's made of), wiping it off with a wet sponge, putting some solder on it and wiping it off again. That'll make it real shiny like silver.

Take some wire and put it up through the top of the board (stripped wire of course) so you see the wire & the copper around the hole. Apply the tinned, hot soldering iron to the copper pad on the board and the wire for about 2-3 seconds until it's hot. Apply the solder to the opposite side of the hole... to just the pad & the wire and the solder will "flow." Flow is when the solder becomes liquid and covers both the wire and the pad... that's called a "joint." Tin your soldering iron after every joint. At least until you know the difference between a dirty tip and a clean one.

Practice, Practice, Practice.
It takes some practice, but you'll get it eventually. Do this until you can make 10 perfect joints before you even ATTEMPT to put that soldering iron near your video card.

If I'm a betting man I wouldn't give you 10-1 odds at succeeding at this. One little slip of the solder or iron and you have a dead video card. Let's just hope it's an Nvidia card and not one of those nice Radeons. ;)

<edit> Holy crap i just saw the thread title! You stay away from that 9800 with a soldering iron son or you'll have yourself a very poor paper weight!
 
Oh, i almost forgot. The solder with 2-4% Silver is the best, but it's harder to get good flow & joints. I wouldn't even bother with it until you feel comfortable making clean joints with some 60/40 lead/tin rosin solder. 60/40 rosin core flux solder
 
Maybe I shouldn't actually do this... Do you know of any places were I can just have it professionally done? Then I will just take it back, plug it in, and adjust all the resistors myself? I wasn't even gonna attempt do this for a few more weeks until I could solder well. But now that more then 2 peeps have said don't do it... I think I might just listen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top