9800 Pro to 9800 XT Special! (56k warning)

Discussion in 'Links' started by WildStyle, Jul 10, 2004.

  1. WildStyle

    WildStyle Guest

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  2. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    Okay people, i got something special for you.

    I recently purchased a 9800 pro, and converted it to a 9800 xt.

    I decided to turn it into an online project, and show you what I did, to help you modders out there thinking about turning there 9800 pro into an XT.
     
  3. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    [​IMG]

    I purchased the above cooler from Newegg.com

    these are pretty rare, and I was lucky enough to buy one. Any cooler would do AS LONG AS THE CORE CONTACTS THE HEATSINK ( i had a problem with my 9800 pro that it would not make contact in several ways )
     
  4. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    [​IMG]

    this was an earlier project where i tried to take off the shim (the silver border around the core) which ended up me damaging the card beyond repair. The shim was tightly glued, and i tried a sawing motion to cut it off. I ended up scratching the interior green pcb. The risk is yours attempting this mod.

    At the upper left, you can see that I purchased the vantec copper ram coolers ($12 at Fry's Electronics) for my memory chips.
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2004

  5. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    [​IMG]

    This was the replacement card i recieved, let the modding begin!

    Note: the heat sink push pins are black instead of silver/gold, this was a good sign that it was an 9800 xt core. The memory chips were also the 2.8ns Samsung 8E-GC2A batch 404

    Purchased at Newegg.com
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2004
  6. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    [​IMG]

    the heatsink carefully taken off...

    I used rubbing alcohol to clean off the core. i was very careful to not smudge any of the thermal grease, and if i did alittle, i would dab a cotton swab and clean it up.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2004
  7. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    [​IMG]

    this is the ram sinks attached with artic silver epoxy also purchased at Fry's. This shows the back of the card with the ATi Silencer 1 installed.
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2004
  8. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    [​IMG]

    Okay, I had a problem installing the silencer 1. it looked like the plastic exaust was touching a part of the card...

    [​IMG]

    so i modded the part by cutting the highlighted piece off... (oops, i highlighted the wrong part, THE CORRECT PART TO CUT OFF IS HIGHLIGHTED BLUE)
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2004
  9. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    Now it made a perfect fit!

    [​IMG]

    and lookin good!

    [​IMG]
     
  10. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    Now, i used this bios...

    http://mbnet.fi/elixir/Radeon/XT/R360-128/Sapphire.9800XT.128MB.Samsung.E-die.bin

    cause i found it to be stable with the card i purchased. With another bios (gecube that i tested) i got some small artifacting after 10min gaming in doom 3 (testing at 1024x768 high). Using the above bios got rid of the problem. You can test other bios' found in the guide link in the first post to see which one best fits you.

    STATS:

    Test System: A64 3000+/PC3200 512MB Ram/K8T Neo-FSR/350W Sparkle Powersupply

    Sapphire 9800 Pro 128MB turned to Sapphire 9800XT 128MB
    Original Core: 380MHz core and 340MHz memory
    Score in 3Dmark01: 18000's (average)
    Current Core: 412MHz core and 365MHz memory
    Score in 3Dmark01: 19500's (average)

    If there was another annoying thing about the ATi Silencer 1, other than me having to cut it, it was that the fan was alittle too low, so I was unable to put one of the ram sinks on the ram chips.

    The ATi Silencer is super quiet, and i can feel it pushing warm air out from the case, even though its very faint, the air is very warm. The ram sinks is something you can possibly skip, to save you some money, as long as your case has some good airflow. I chose this fan cause it has a raised surface to make good contact with the GPU.

    The reason I flashed the Bios is cause I heard there were benefits to the R360 core that the R350 core didnt have, other than the higher clock.

    Note: I used a cutter (you can see it in this pic http://home.comcast.net/~mario.aviado/Project/ati4.jpg the one with the blue handle, not teal) to cut the a square piece of plastic out of the exhaust.
    I also used Artic Silver 5 for GPU to heatsink contact.

    Ill leave the topic open for any questions
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2004

  11. Spike1977

    Spike1977 Master Guru

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    I have modded my old 9800 Pro into an XT, the card is now sitting in my kid's PC and they love playing Doom3 + AVP2 over a LAN.

    I had a problem to start with, the core was a R350 and the heat sink push pins where black - So that's that one out of the window for start's. :p

    The R350 is not moddable, it will not handle some of the code that the XT's have and will show this well in 3DMark03 - Ragtroll.

    So I tried, but found that it wouldn't work with the R350, I got myself an Arctic Cooling Revision 3 VGA Silencer and worked great with the OC'ing - but had to back down to the orig bios with the mod.:mad:

    I then thought that I could be real bad, so I did, I went back to the place where I purchased the card from (11 months, 3 week's and 4 day's since I purchased the card - i.e 3 day's left before the on site warrentey ran out) and told them it was faulty.
    ;)
    20 min's later I had a brand new HIS 9800 Pro 256MB on my table - again with an Arctic Cooling Revision 3 VGA Silencer already installed (So I have got one spare now!).

    Out came the screw driver and off came the fan/cooler.

    I was hopeing for a R360 and once I had cleaned away the grease - A full R360 :D

    Back on went the fan/cooler, into the PC for a test and then on with the BIOS mod.

    All worked great and now have a full 9800 XT running in the kid's PC.

    There is no Overdrive tab, but have tested it out to the max with games and benchmarks and it rock's - but not as nice as my X800 Pro - Which by the way is modded to an XTPE :D - Before that went into my PC that had a new fan/cooler installed and within about 10 min's was a XTPE:p

    to the Arctic Cooling Rev.4 ATI 1, is not true, you can get them from almost anywhere that does PC bit's and will set you back £13.51 in the UK.

    Why would these be rare? these are a new rev of the coolers! and will still be in demand:rolleyes:

    As for the photo's good to see someone give it a different angle, bit worried about the tool's in the shot's though:eek:

    Only need a screw driver!

    Also make sure 100% that you read the above link on the 1st post on this thread, as you can kil your card more than one way and that's even before you remove the basic fan/heatsink.

    As long as you have the R360 core, you can be sure to mod the 9800 pro into an XT for sure.

    Spike1977:cool:
     
  12. Session

    Session Master Guru

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    damn no wonder i got artifacts too using that gecube bios :( i have the same card as you and those ramsinks and it still artifacted :0 did your card come boxed in a saphire box? or BB ATI? cause it turns out mine was BBATI but it had a saphire bios :s

    i suppose i will try this bios now :D
     
  13. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    when i purchased mine on newegg, the second i purchased it, it was out of stock.

    i see now they are back in stock.

    Mine was an OEM Sapphire Radeon 9800 pro 128mb bought from newegg.
     
  14. V6 Knight

    V6 Knight Master Guru

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    WOW, i really should have done this eariler, i flashed my 9800np with 3.3 samsung ram with r360 core to XT and it runs flawlessly. WOW, i remember when i bought this card too. i lucked out with this non pro.
     
  15. ross

    ross Master Guru

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    I definitely recoommend this, only takes about 20 minutes. Sure it is scary, but it's an almost guarantee if you follow all directions. Thank you, I got a 9800 XT for $199 (and I payed for this 9800 Pro like 8 months ago.)

    Also, I can run this card at 9800 XT speeds with stock cooling, so I went ahead and flashed it, (ran it at XT speeds for about a week or two). I have hynix ram too.

    Good luck to all you people who can and probobally will do this mod.
     

  16. PITTM

    PITTM Active Member

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    i just did the whole mod last night. flashed it and then installed the ati silencer 1. i had the same problems of the exhaust touching the board. but i just screwed it in tight and the core and heatsink make contact so its all good. im not getting that great of overclockability out of my memory still though. i think im gonna buy some mem heatsinks today. the mod worked great. thanks to everyone who provided directions and made this so easy.

    rj
     
  17. Mithent

    Mithent Guest

    I've always read that the only way to check if you have an R360 is to check the physical chip. However, on my Sapphire 128MB 9800 Pro Ultimate (heatpipe cooling), I ran a RivaTuner diagnostic report, and found the following:

    ---------------------------------------------------
    ATI VGA BIOS information
    ---------------------------------------------------
    Title : R360 Hynix DDR 113-A18812-100 B...

    As my card currently has an R360 BIOS, wouldn't this indicate that it's an R360 chip? The card reports itself as 'R350 (8x1)'.
     
  18. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    strange, never encoutered that before... the only way to be totally sure is to look at the core.
     
  19. temporal

    temporal Master Guru

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    I hope it lasts longer than my last modification experience...

    PowerColor 9800SE hardmoded to a 9800 Pro and overclocked (through bios modification) to slightly higher than 9800 XT frequencies. Finished off with a Thermaltake VGA Giant III and Vantec Slot cooler.

    It was working just fine, but after returning from a short trip I discovered it no longer capable of full screen 3D. Very wierd.


    Now I'm waiting for my ATI Silencer 4 to arrive so I can clock my existing card back upto reference speeds (and beond? ;)).

    ATI Tool is capable of detecting the core version.
     
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2004
  20. David Deed

    David Deed Don Alfa Terga Inconiti

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    Actually, ATI Tool just pulls the bios information stored in the chip.

    Like I said, only way to be totally sure is to pull the heatsink off and look at the core.
     

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