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Removing the HSF from a 9600pro

S

Spewn

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 5, 2001
Messages
3,459
So, as many of you may know, the 9600 pro video cards come with the HSF epoxied on, not attached via the two holes on either side of the core, as the northbridge heatsink is usually attached(and as many other video cards have their heatsinks attached). I've read briefly that the best way to remove the stock heatsink is to toss it in the freezer; what's the danger in doing this? Am I very likely to wreck my card? I had a bad experience with a GF2 mx once that I don't want to repeat lol

While we're on this topic; generally, is ram overclocking limited simply by the circuitry itself most of the time, or can ramsinks actually help with overclocking? I've read mixed reports on this heh :/
 
Hmm... my BBA 9600pro was not epoxied on... uses two holes (albeit, it was really hard to remove them)
 
my 9600 n/p comes with a pin/2 hole config, and all the 9600 pro's i've seen have come with the mounting hardware as well... do you have a specific link to your card? I doubt ATI would epoxy the heatsink on, as they have bare cores, and if someone were to bump the heatsink too hard it's likely the core/silicon would be damaged, since (AFAIK) the 9600 series does not have a shim.

Ram is generally limited by voltage given by the card, ramsinks generally wont help you get any more than 10 mhz from the ram, most of the time the ram isn't really limited by the heat. You can do a volt mod, just google unoid 9600 and it should be kosher :D
 
Throwing it in the freezer will not damage it, electronic components are made to operate at real cold or hot temperatures. When you go to pry the HS off, careful of the surrounding components, I've destroyed a GeForce 3 doing this.
 
So it turns out it does infact have those mounting pegs/holes, I Just didn't notice them I guess because the PCB is dark, and they're black :p

From what I've been reading, it doesn't seem like changing to a better heatsink(like for example, a 1U copper heatsink/fan) will provide *that* much better cooling. My card only clocks to 435/316 as is :/ Which, from my understanding, is pretty bad for a 9600pro.(Although, I've yet to determine the cause of instability at higher clocks, as I've yet to step the core up slowly on it's own, I'm impatient :p lol). What's the formula for figuring out what your ram "should" be able to do? To the best of my knowledge the sapphire 9600pro comes with 2.8ns ram, so shouldn't it be good for a bit more than 316mhz?
 
that should be good to 350...
I have 3.3ns ram... ati went cheap on rev2 9600pro's... and I could get 345 before putting on ramsinks that were included with my iceberq4, but haven't really tested new limit.

I replaced stock HSF cuz it was so darn loud. I now control my iceberq with speedfan at 2%, more or less inaudible...
 
Hmm, I don't remember what the ram on my Sapphire 9600 Pro is (and I unfortunately forgot to write it down when I put ramsinks on), but I recently replaced the stock fan with a VGA Silencer because the fan was starting to whine. My OC on the card before ramsinks and VGA Silencer was 480/325. I remember when the first batches came out and some of them were hitting 500+ on the cores.
 
I got the idea because I remember reading a review(possibly on hardocp?) where a reference card had the hsf epoxied on. Also because I didn't immediately notice the tabs.

So, it seems as though my memory is worse than I thought :/ At least according to sapphire, it IS 2.8ns ram, but 304mhz is the best it'll do. The core will do 480 though, everything stock. I *can* push the memory higher BUT, I notice artifacts during the nature game demo in 3dmark2001SE(and ONLY that game/game demo, nothing else..but still, artifacts are artifacts).

I'm debating whether it's worth upgrading the cooling to push the core just a bit further or not...I have a feeling the memory bandwidth is gonna hold me back a bit.
 
google unoid + voltmod

if you're willing to change stock cooling might as well go all the way ;D
 
Well, I've actually been thinking that if I'm gonna do that, I might as well go ALL the way, and set up my watercooling rig to watercool my video card as well :p I don't know how comfortable I am with soldering my card though...

Overvolting ram(video card ram, or system ram, ram in general); what downsides does it have? Can it cause permenant damage, does it require cooling, will it cause instability? The DDR "400"(hah! If I wanna run ASS timings) ram I have, generic ram, when overvolted, can actually run half-decent timings. But am I gonna damage it by overvolting it? Same goes for video card ram; do I need to add ramsinks and a fan in order to overvolt my ram without fear, or is it just a matter of decreased life?
 
what i would do, get a Vantec Iceberq4, get 4 extra ramsinks, because it only comes with 4, and get the radlinker overclocking utility : as you'll see in my signiture, i got some pretty good clock rates out of the core and the ram, btw... all 9600 pro's come from the factory with the core at 400mhz and the memory at 600mhz.
 
Before you try removing the ehatsink Play some very intensive games first to heat the Crap they use for thermal Goop. This will make it come off easier. Try a slight twisting method once you have the pins out to pull off the heatsink. Then Simply clean off all that goop using isopropyl alcohol 75% pure or better.

You're really getting dogged on those OC values. If you have a multimeter you should check your vgpu adn vmem values.

I find it hard to believe a 9600pro core will only manage 430mhz unless its core is juiced to about 1.19-1.20V

Good luck and as they've said you can check out my site for cooling/modding ideas: http://unoid.net/9600pro/
 
Originally posted by Unoid
Before you try removing the ehatsink Play some very intensive games first to heat the Crap they use for thermal Goop. This will make it come off easier. Try a slight twisting method once you have the pins out to pull off the heatsink. Then Simply clean off all that goop using isopropyl alcohol 75% pure or better.

You're really getting dogged on those OC values. If you have a multimeter you should check your vgpu adn vmem values.

I find it hard to believe a 9600pro core will only manage 430mhz unless its core is juiced to about 1.19-1.20V

Good luck and as they've said you can check out my site for cooling/modding ideas: http://unoid.net/9600pro/
Click to expand...

The core will actually do 480, I found out, it's the ram that won't really go any higher than 305 or so(so, 610, I guess).

Thanks for the tips. I'm still looking around, but I'll get ahold of a multimeter and figure that stuff out.
 
480 is good then, Maybe some new cooling for anotehr 10-15mhz on the core and some ramsinks to hit 315-320mhz mem.

you got 3.3ns it seems.

You're pretty much set.
 
that's a bit misleading then, since sapphire says the memory is 2.8ns :/
 
My stock cooled Sapphire Radeon 9600pro "Fireblade Edition" can only reach 465mhz Core and 350mhz Memory.

Was going to take a trip down to maplin and see what they have by the way of GPU coolers.
 
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