# Radeon HD 4850 Voltmods



## W1zzard (Jun 28, 2008)

Show article


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## boogerlad (Jun 28, 2008)

wizzard, is the smd capacitor that you are showing on the vgpu voltage mod ground?


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## Scrizz (Jun 29, 2008)

thx


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## newtekie1 (Jun 29, 2008)

How are the overclocking results with these mods?  Does it help the poor overclocking issues any?


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## W1zzard (Jun 29, 2008)

the big yellow cap on the left side of the vgpu mod is gnd


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## Kaleid (Jun 30, 2008)

I'm thinking about doing the pencil mod (for the first time since the days of Duron)
I'd like to have a bit more information if possible.

1. What kind of pen to use?
2. How much do you shade with the pen? 
2.5 As I've understood the more shade the less resistance and thus higher voltage. Correct?
3. Do I need a Digital Multimeter to measure the VDC+resistance (I'd rather not at all)
4. Do I need to download a new firmware to the card? If so, then where? (Ordered a Sapphire 4850)

Thank you for your hard work


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## calvary1980 (Jun 30, 2008)

#2 pencil and a multimeter.

- Christine


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## Kaleid (Jun 30, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. I guess I have to chicken out then...


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## scamps (Jun 30, 2008)

Thank you, W1zzard!

Is there already any software to manipulate the VGPU under Windows when I have done this Voltmod? Or is it necessary to flash the bios for each alteration?


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## HeLLscream (Jul 6, 2008)

Thank you so much.I searched a lot this.


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## ViciousXUSMC (Jul 7, 2008)

Just connect the two solder dots the pencil point is pointing at to short that out?  Seems easy enough, but was wondering why only one picture actually shows a line drawn between the points?  I guess it has something to do with the "paint"?

Anyways wonderful guide!


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## W1zzard (Jul 7, 2008)

the line in the picture is to clarify that you have to pencil between the points across the pcb. usually you pencil on a component like a resistor


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## ViciousXUSMC (Jul 7, 2008)

Thats what I thought, thanks for clerifing.

Im dead in the water right now with both my 4850's I think a bad bios flash, or corrupted drivers.  O a combo of both the bios flash made the drivers go fubar.


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## DavyGT (Jul 16, 2008)

I know that this is an ubernoob question, but how do I measure the VGPU voltage? I'm guessing it doesn't matter where the + and - leads go, just at one any one of the points. Am I correct?
Can someone also post some benches of their new overclocks as well?


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## ShadowFold (Jul 16, 2008)

What kind of pencil would I need to do a pencil mod?


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## DavyGT (Jul 16, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> What kind of pencil would I need to do a pencil mod?



A good 2B or 4B pencil. I used my Faber Castell 2B pencil. Strangely enough, my 4B pencil doesn't decrease resistance at all, only adds to it, so always have an alternative at hand.


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## W1zzard (Jul 16, 2008)

DavyGT said:


> I know that this is an ubernoob question, but how do I measure the VGPU voltage? I'm guessing it doesn't matter where the + and - leads go, just at one any one of the points. Am I correct?
> Can someone also post some benches of their new overclocks as well?



you put the red probe to the measure point and the black probe to any ground which could be case metal, molex connector black cable, pcie power plug gnd or a million other spots. the grounds are all connected with each other


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## boogerlad (Jul 18, 2008)

another uber noob question: how much wattage for the resistor? i found various 100k ohm variable resistors, but they come in different wattages.


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 21, 2008)

Any ideas on how long the pencil would stay on there for once modded? Never done this before and don't want to have to keep applying every two weeks, thanks.


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 21, 2008)

so for that first pencil mod are we  putting it on top of that one already filled or the empty one next to it?


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## LifeOnMars (Jul 21, 2008)

no worries, all sorted. Now at 790/1180 stable  £117 quid well spent


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## yanahs (Jul 23, 2008)

hi guys.. quick question if I use the first pencil mod.. which only alows 1.4 volts (no more).. does that mean i can actually just pencil as much as I want without worrying overvoltage? (no need a dmm)?


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## tomcug (Jul 23, 2008)

Yes, I think you can't kill your card with the first pencil mod, but everything depends on your cooling. If you have a good aftermarket cooler, you don't have to worry about anything. But if I were you, I wouldn't do this without DMM.


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## yanahs (Jul 24, 2008)

I got an accelero on it and i get 38 ide 45 load.. what do you think sufficient?


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## tomcug (Jul 24, 2008)

If you have Accelero S1 on it, then you can try that pencil mod. But remember to check temperatures all the time, especially #2.


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## yanahs (Jul 25, 2008)

great.. thanx bro.. btw you got you4 4850 @850 on which mod? pencil or soldered


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## Scrizz (Jul 25, 2008)

I got 850 on mine with pencil


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## yanahs (Jul 25, 2008)

1.4 nice 850.. that means you only had to do the first pencil mod.? dude theres 3 measuring point why 3 is it like point one idel, point 2 load, point 3 i dont know.. or do we  only have to read measure one of them?


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## tomcug (Jul 25, 2008)

I overclocked my card to 850MHz with first pencil mod (1,38V). It won't make any difference which one of measuring points you'll use.


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## yanahs (Jul 25, 2008)

ok thanx guyz will post results


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## yanahs (Jul 28, 2008)

I've peciled my 4850 and I got it running up to 825/1100 but when I edit the bios to 850/1100 gpuz reports 825/1100 any ideas? 
another thing is it possible to run 4850 x fire with a 500 watt pure psu?


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## ViciousXUSMC (Jul 28, 2008)

yanahs said:


> I've peciled my 4850 and I got it running up to 825/1100 but when I edit the bios to 850/1100 gpuz reports 825/1100 any ideas?
> another thing is it possible to run 4850 x fire with a 500 watt pure psu?



A 500w PSU would be pushing the limits severely I wouldn't attempt it especially with overclocks and volt mods.  Something like a PC P&C Turbo SLI 510 would probably be fine, but your standard run of the mill 500w is gonna fall short.


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## tomcug (Jul 28, 2008)

Really nice results  If you want to overclock your card more, you can use AMD GPU Clock Tool instead of editing BIOS.


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## yanahs (Jul 29, 2008)

tomcug said:


> Really nice results  If you want to overclock your card more, you can use AMD GPU Clock Tool instead of editing BIOS.



I'll check it out.. but that means i've gotta do the other mod? i cant stick it with the current mod?


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## tomcug (Jul 29, 2008)

Yes, you can stick with the first mod.


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## yanahs (Jul 31, 2008)

is there an alternative to using pencil like a hair of wire which i could just tape on it? to reduce risk of degradation?


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## me_martin (Aug 2, 2008)

Hi all, I just did the pencil mod #1 and i gott 1,495v, I did not expect that.
I used this for the mod : http://www.kemo-electronic.de/de/zubehoer/l100/index.htm
This is the english manual: http://www.kemo-electronic.eu/datasheet/l100.pdf
Is that substance to pure or what? Because 1,495v is way to high for my cooler.


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## yanahs (Aug 4, 2008)

1.495 pretty big jump  so what speeds are you hitting?


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## yanahs (Aug 4, 2008)

@ tomcug
I've downloaded amd clock tool.. tried it but it wouldn't let me pas 750.. any ideas?


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## tomcug (Aug 4, 2008)

I've never had such problems with this tool. Post a screenshot, so I'll be able to help you.


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## me_martin (Aug 5, 2008)

yanahs said:


> 1.495 pretty big jump  so what speeds are you hitting?



I didnt max the card but I did get up to 917MHz 
But unfortunately I had to remove the mod because of the temp


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## sydbod (Aug 5, 2008)

yanahs said:


> @ tomcug
> I've downloaded amd clock tool.. tried it but it wouldn't let me pas 750.. any ideas?



I believe reading that ATI/AMD have messed up the clock multiplier the same way as they did with the HD3xxx series so that one can not go higher than 750MHz.
If this is true, then the settings from around 830MHz should be OK again.

Can anyone confirm this information?


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## mrg666 (Aug 5, 2008)

Just stopped by to say thanks for the Vmod guide, bios file, and bios editor. I did the first pencil VGPU mod with my Visiontek 4850, flashed with newer version Powercolor bios, edited with RBE. 

                  Stock     Overclocked
Clocks         625/993     800/1100
VGPU           ~1.1v        ~1.26v
Load temp     48C         55C   w/ Accelero S1+120mm_1500RPM_fan
Crysis GPU     33fps       39fps   15 loops, all high, 0AA
bench 

Thanks again !!!!


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## mYrAn (Aug 5, 2008)

Hi, i was just wondering how you can count what voltage you have? Ive done the 2nd pencil mod, the one where you draw on the PCB, and i went from 5.12 to about 4. My multimeter always jumps from like 1.3 to 1.4, so i dont know my exact voltage. So, is there a way to calculate what voltage my core is getting by having the ohm? And how high voltage is considered safe? Thanks in advance!


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## me_martin (Aug 6, 2008)

I did the pencilmod #1 with a B2 pencil this time and got 820MHz on 1.25~1.26volt on the GPU.
My load temp is 42C and Idel is 35C 
Just whants to thanks for this mod, nice work


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## yanahs (Aug 7, 2008)

what was your temps before with 1.495v? that L100 stuff is pretty good huh? chemical store or  do drug stores have em?


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## yanahs (Aug 7, 2008)

just to make sure.. this first mod cant provide egough juice cannot kill my card right.. so it safe to say that I can use something with zero resitance on it?


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## W1zzard (Aug 7, 2008)

yanahs said:


> just to make sure.. this first mod cant provide egough juice cannot kill my card right.. so it safe to say that I can use something with zero resitance on it?



yes if your resistance is too low, the voltage will go WAY high and WILL kill the card


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## W1zzard (Aug 7, 2008)

mYrAn said:


> Hi, i was just wondering how you can count what voltage you have? Ive done the 2nd pencil mod, the one where you draw on the PCB, and i went from 5.12 to about 4. My multimeter always jumps from like 1.3 to 1.4, so i dont know my exact voltage. So, is there a way to calculate what voltage my core is getting by having the ohm? And how high voltage is considered safe? Thanks in advance!



buy a better multimeter  it's like $5


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## cp# (Aug 7, 2008)

yanahs said:


> just to make sure.. this first mod cant provide egough juice cannot kill my card right.. so it safe to say that I can use something with zero resitance on it?



Show me something with zero resistance, please 


I don't believe the people with 42-45C load temps.  What cooler are you using?  Please prove me wrong.  I max out at 55C running the ATI Tool scanner with an Accelero S1


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## W1zzard (Aug 7, 2008)

cp# said:


> Show me something with zero resistance, please



he's probably talking about a wire which is almost no resistance, it will still your kill your card.


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## yanahs (Aug 7, 2008)

W1zzard said:


> yes if your resistance is too low, the voltage will go WAY high and WILL kill the card



so if i use a single piece of wire there is still the risk of killing my card with the first mod? right now i'm getting 1.3v.. any chance i can safely boost it up ?with the first mod?


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## yanahs (Aug 7, 2008)

I don't believe the people with 42-45C load temps.  What cooler are you using?  Please prove me wrong.  I max out at 55C running the ATI Tool scanner with an Accelero S1[/QUOTE]

Im using an Accelero S1 tied two 12cm fans on them.. when i dont use the fans it  goes up to 60c.. i only use rthdrblt to test load up my gpu though..


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## W1zzard (Aug 7, 2008)

yanahs said:


> so if i use a single piece of wire there is still the risk of killing my card with the first mod? right now i'm getting 1.3v.. any chance i can safely boost it up ?with the first mod?



you need to use a resistor as instructed. of course you can have wires leading to each end of the resistor (duh?).


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## me_martin (Aug 7, 2008)

yanahs said:


> what was your temps before with 1.495v? that L100 stuff is pretty good huh? chemical store or  do drug stores have em?



In load my temp was like 80~85C and i think thats to high :S
Presumably the chemical store will have it.


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## yanahs (Aug 8, 2008)

thanx wizzard


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## yanahs (Aug 8, 2008)

me_martin said:


> In load my temp was like 80~85C and i think thats to high :S
> Presumably the chemical store will have it.



wow that is pretty hot.. and that with aftermarket coolers?


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## kingkongtol (Aug 8, 2008)

what the safest temps degree?, im almost 60C, with just pencilmod @750/1175
and, i dont know why my memclock can go higher, beside im just doing vgpu mod, and not vmem mod...


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## yanahs (Aug 8, 2008)

@kingkongtol
I'm not sure about the safest max limit temp.. but i read somewhere that these 4series may run upto 90c to 100c?? but i like to keep mine under 70.. 

my mem gave me artifacts @ 1150 (during 3dmark06 / cpu test only) when i went down to 1100.. arties were gone.. 

cheers bro


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## me_martin (Aug 9, 2008)

yanahs said:


> wow that is pretty hot.. and that with aftermarket coolers?



I got an Accelero S1 R.2 with two 120mm Noctua fans on it, but it couldn't cool down the GUP enough at 1.495v (thats my opinion )


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## quasar923 (Aug 9, 2008)

why do i need a multi reader?  and if i really really need one where can i get one and for how much?


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## W1zzard (Aug 9, 2008)

you mean a multimeter? any cheap $10 one should do. you need 3.5 digits, 2.5 digits is not accurate enough


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## DJSUB (Aug 9, 2008)

i'm completely noob with this. 
i just want to ask what settings to use in the digital multimeter to measure the voltage?
i already killed 2pcs. 4850 because of the pencil modding without a multimeter 

how can i measure the idle & load voltage of the card? 
is it safe to measure the voltage while benching or doing some stability test to get the load voltage?

sorry for my bad english 

thanks!


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## Drizzt5 (Aug 10, 2008)

I'm preparing to pencil mod my 4850, I just got done doing a bios flash. I can't clock any higher then I could before (I think I can clock lower) and an unusal thing happened. On load i used my DMM and it said that there was 1.3v's going through the vgpu....

All i did was flash the bios ? I don't think it's suppoused to go that high?

Did I measure it wrong? If I don't have something properly grounded will it measure higher then it's suppoused to? And I'm still on the stock cooler for the moment (my s1 is sitting right next to me, ready to go) and my temps seem good. I don't think I'm measuirng correctly. But I tried all 3 of the vgpu spots that I know of.


Anyone have any suggestions?


P.S. my card is the Asus 4850, and I flashed it using this bios.


> leonarderman said:
> 
> 
> > *3. Asus HD4850 Light Overclocked. DF Core 700MHz Mem 1100MHz Auto Cool Fan.*
> ...



I'm also using this DMM






And i set it to the 2 for DCV (right side of the dial) :/ If thats the wrong spot then I guess thats my problem there 

Thanks in advance.


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## tomcug (Aug 10, 2008)

Drizzt5, I think you should begin with checking your card's voltage with stock BIOS. It's impossible to reach 1,3V with just modded BIOS. What's more, the BIOS you flashed your card with has a stock 3D voltage. I think you've set your DMM to right spot, so this isn't your problem. I always use my case as a ground and it works pretty good, voltage measure is accurate.


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## Drizzt5 (Aug 10, 2008)

So I should reflash to my orignal bios then?

If i still have 1.3v's don't you think it's the DMM that I am doing wrong with.

I changed the DMM to 20 instead of 2 so It wouldn't round and I still got something pretty high. 1.29v's vgpu....


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## me_martin (Aug 11, 2008)

yanahs said:


> wow that is pretty hot.. and that with aftermarket coolers?



Unfortunately yes


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## tomcug (Aug 11, 2008)

Drizzt5, use the stop marked in yellow as a ground. If you'll still read 1,3V, then I'm out of ideas.


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## Drizzt5 (Aug 11, 2008)

It was a bad DMM, thx for suggestions. I went and purchased a good one.


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## pablo NZ (Aug 13, 2008)

so if i'm reading this right, I can use silver conductive ink instead of a pencil for pencil-mod #2? 

I just prefer ink over pencil as my pencil mods have a tendency to degrade


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## Drizzt5 (Aug 13, 2008)

Nice thanks wizard, I'm 780/1000 stable with the first pencil mod. I'm going to take the card out again and just try to squeeze up to 1.32-1.35 vgpu if I can. Right now I'm only at 1.28.


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## yanahs (Aug 14, 2008)

me_martin said:


> Unfortunately yes



@me martin
I dont suppose I could  trouble you for the resistance value of you L100 magic stuff.. so i can compare the resistance values with these alternatives

I'm thinking of some alternatives to pencil with the first mod (just for fun) 

1.
http://www.permatex.com/products/au...uick_Grid_Rear_Window_Defogger_Repair_Kit.htm

but as the tds says high conductivity.. i'd rather be safe and get the resitane value first.. adn compare it with your L100

2.
get a small piece of paper load it up with pencil lead, then tape it on the resistor .. 

maybe i can get 1.4 with these options..  
or can can somone help with the res value needed for the 1.4 bump.. or does it differ from each card?

cheers


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## Hayder_Master (Aug 14, 2008)

w1zzard, i say only one think about guys who using pencil voltage mod they are professionals , and you are one of them


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## awdrifter (Aug 16, 2008)

How low do I need to shade the resistance down to (in ohms) will I get 1.4v on this mod? Thanks.


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## tomcug (Aug 16, 2008)

I've shaded it to 500Ohms and set 1,15V in BIOS to reach 1,4V. That's all you need.


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## awdrifter (Aug 16, 2008)

Thanks for the reply. I will give it a try.


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## Drizzt5 (Aug 16, 2008)

I could not get more then 1.28 with that first one, I had to use the 2nd one to get my desired voltage, and be very careful how much you put on the 2nd one, a few strokes and it goes up like a bitch.

Of course, the pencil I'm using could just be crap.


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## awdrifter (Aug 17, 2008)

tomcug said:


> I've shaded it to 500Ohms and set 1,15V in BIOS to reach 1,4V. That's all you need.



I just measured that resistor, it's 1880ohms, so I need to shade it down to 500ohms?

Edit: I shaded it down to 1730ohms, I got 1.275v under load now. I'm maxed out in CCC at 700mhz core but only 1085mhz on mem (I didn't do the vmem mod). I'm sure I could get to maybe 725-750mhz on the current voltage. Hopefully There will be a third party tool supporting it, or the RBE 1.14 release will fix the checksum correct flash.


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## tomcug (Aug 17, 2008)

awdrifter said:


> I just measured that resistor, it's 1880ohms, so I need to shade it down to 500ohms?
> 
> Edit: I shaded it down to 1730ohms, I got 1.275v under load now. I'm maxed out in CCC at 700mhz core but only 1085mhz on mem (I didn't do the vmem mod). I'm sure I could get to maybe 725-750mhz on the current voltage. Hopefully There will be a third party tool supporting it, or the RBE 1.14 release will fix the checksum correct flash.



You can use AMD GPU Clock Tool or newest ATI Tray Tools. Which pencil mod have you used? The first one or the second one?


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## awdrifter (Aug 17, 2008)

I did the first pencil mod. I tried the newest ATI Tray Tools, it worked great. Now I'm at 725mhz core.


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## tomcug (Aug 17, 2008)

awdrifter said:


> I did the first pencil mod. I tried the newest ATI Tray Tools, it worked great. Now I'm at 725mhz core.



You sure you shaded it to 1730Ohms and reached 1,275V? Seems a bit too high for me at 1730Ohms.


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## awdrifter (Aug 18, 2008)

Stock is 1880ohms, and I shaded it down to 1730ohms. It gives me 1.275v (measured) with Racedriver Grid loaded (CCC set to 700mhz). But after I got ATI Tray Tools, I set the voltage option to 1.158v, that gave me 1.325v (measured) with Grid loaded. I have a Asus brand 4850 btw.


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## ASOrkan (Aug 24, 2008)

When i was erasing my pencilmod i think i erased too much and i cleaned up the black area of the solder (circuled one in the picture). Now its totally silver. Should i replace it with something or leaving it with this situation gives nothing bad to my card?


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## tomcug (Aug 24, 2008)

ASOrkan, it won't cause any damage to your card, you can use it without any troubles.


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## ARH (Sep 6, 2008)

*my 4850 died*

I tried 3th voltmod method for increasing Vgpu up to 1.4 but I didn't find pencil in our lab, so I try to short between point with small zero resistance, when I finished soldering, the card did not shows any thing in the screen and it's Fan speed riched to highest value. 
after this, I tried to remove the contact between points . then card works well but when I install the Driver in the windows, it's can't show any graphical image like windows desktop image. the Vgpu after removing zero resistance increased automatically by 0.036 volt.
also I try it under crossfire configuration in slave mode, but it didn't accept slave crossfire mode to. note that my soldering was very accurate and nothing in the board damaged in this work.
Please let me know your idea about this problem or probable solution to solve it. 
what is the best solution for me in order to increase Vgpu in 4850 ?


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## tomcug (Sep 6, 2008)

ARH, I'm not sure, but I think that you could have killed your card by soldering between these points. Your card could have been fed with more than 1,6V voltage.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 6, 2008)

Sorry to say arh,but unless you are sure of what you are doing,you should not volt mod.

You need to use a pencil for the pencil mod,by shorting the contacts,you have used zero resistance,thereby feeding your gpu 1.6volts at least,you have probably killed the gpu.

If you get another one,please *do not* try to vmod it unless you are 100% sure of what you are doing.

There are loads of people on here who can guide you through the process before you jump in and try it.


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## tomcug (Sep 6, 2008)

What's more, I bet he did this with stock cooler . Another card in the heaven .


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## ARH (Sep 7, 2008)

hi

thanks for your comments friends. hope Gigabyte RMA accept my damaged video card, and I can try again with your respect guides.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 7, 2008)

I think if you get a new card arh,you should just run it stock.


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## tomcug (Sep 7, 2008)

I think you should run your card at stock settings too. However, if you really want to pencil mod it, then you'll have to use PENCIL and always measure resistance.


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## ARH (Sep 8, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> I think if you get a new card arh,you should just run it stock.



I need to do this volt mode guys, If I can get new card I will do it with your valuable aids.you know that volt mode is a risk and when I decide to do this, I have accepted this risk.  I should appreciate for your guides again.


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## Folken (Sep 10, 2008)

And what about Sapphire's 4850? They have different PCB design. Dark-blue PCB, VGPU supply between the chip and DVI connectors, VMEM supply near the 6pin power connector. Anyone tried to solder or pencil-mod them?


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## awdrifter (Sep 18, 2008)

tomcug said:


> You sure you shaded it to 1730Ohms and reached 1,275V? Seems a bit too high for me at 1730Ohms.



Just got a new multimeter and redid the mod. Now I got it to 658ohms but it gave me 1.36v underload. I got the Zerotherm cooler and it kept my temp at 76c, so I think I'm ok temp-wise.


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## superfly (Sep 23, 2008)

Hi,

I have the HIS 4850 Turbo ICEQ4, but it dosnt seem to have the reference board?! its got the same memory component to pencil mod but for the GPU mod theres no component there, theres just a gap!!!

Does anyone know where this component has moved to and how to pencil mod this card?

So far i have managed to overclock using Ati Tray Tools with voltage of 1.158(1.2v) which gets me a core at 700 and mem at 1159 (so far) but i think im nearing my limit on the core so i really need to find how to pencil mod its voltage to get more!

I have a pencil and a voltmeter ready. 

My cooling is good, and the card at its current overclocked load state never gets above 60 and idles at 38, so im not too scared of temps.

So the Questions:-
1) is there anyone else who has successfully pencil modded this card?
2) if i am able to mod the mem voltage, what limit should i aim for, it dosnt say in the guide?
3) when volted to the max, what core/mem could i expect...750/1250???

Thanks, any advice is welcome and appreciated.


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## SplitBURST (Sep 24, 2008)

*Voltmods on Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 OC 1GB???*

Hi guys please help me 

I wanted to do this pencil mod on my Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 OC 1GB. So I removed my GFX and for a about 1 hour I tried to find where to do the modding! 

My card is blue not red. I figured that ATI/AMD made all the cards and all that was different was the "cooling solution" and the bios? I must be mistaking, because I cant seem to find those numbers RC85, C659, R710 shown on the pictures  so i have no clue where to do the modding. I guess GigaByte have named things differently. I really need your help it must be possible to do this volt mods on the Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 OC 1GB as well right? ...

PS: Sorry for my bad English (grammar)


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## Folken (Sep 24, 2008)

To Wizzard (and other people who invent pencil-mods): 
How do I determine which component to shade if no voltmods are described yet for my PCB? The component layout is slightly different. Nevertheless, I've found where to solder for the soldering mod, but I need to keep the warranty for the card, so pencil mod is my only option...

BTW, here's the board itself (Sapphire Radeon HD4850 non-reference):
http://i1.sinaimg.cn/IT/h/2008-09-16/6dae2c0ac1e8a733d8c0378afdc27c09.jpg
http://i2.sinaimg.cn/IT/h/2008-09-16/9e72db2903228e31b106c6e03ff89c13.jpg
http://i1.sinaimg.cn/IT/h/2008-09-16/3e306e3a61e5143c68d680e0e0f67bbb.jpg
Note the location of the power circuitry.


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## kohan69 (Sep 30, 2008)

I'm having trouble with:






I've used mechanical and wood #2 pencils, and the lowest I could get it is ~1500Ohms

is there any other way to pencil mod?

Is the first mod on resistor illustrated above required for:





?

How do i check the resistance decrease using the second one?

:shrug:

:help:


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## fishnchips (Sep 30, 2008)

whats the point in doing these mods? what will it achieve in the long run?


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## kohan69 (Sep 30, 2008)

fishnchips said:


> whats the point in doing these mods? what will it achieve in the long run?



long run?
greater voltage = greater maximum overclock. Same as for a CPU

So increasing the voltage from the bios's max 1.2v to 1.4v or higher will yield to greater clock speeds. From ~700MHz on stock voltage to 800MHz+ on 1.4v


----------



## Folken (Sep 30, 2008)

BTW, what resistance is needed to achieve 1.4V? (I mean what's the setting of the variable 100k resistor?)


----------



## fishnchips (Sep 30, 2008)

hmmm so by increasing the volts you over clock it and there for burn out the card faster... as we all know cards are not ment to last, just like cpu's they will increase heat so therefore we have to get better cooling incoming and outgoing to cool things down...my  honest opnion is just get sli and a faster cpu and faster memory saves all the B/S of O/C..
but if ya happy to do it then go for it...


----------



## DavyGT (Oct 1, 2008)

kohan69 said:


> I'm having trouble with:
> 
> 1. I've used mechanical and wood #2 pencils, and the lowest I could get it is ~1500Ohms
> 
> ...



1. Try a different pencil, like a 2B pencil and make sure it's sharp. My 2B seems to have hit a bottleneck as well, at 1000Ohms.

2. You don't check the resistance for that one, you measure the vGPU voltage.


----------



## kohan69 (Oct 1, 2008)

fishnchips said:


> hmmm so by increasing the volts you over clock it and there for burn out the card faster... as we all know cards are not ment to last, just like cpu's they will increase heat so therefore we have to get better cooling incoming and outgoing to cool things down...my  honest opnion is just get sli and a faster cpu and faster memory saves all the B/S of O/C..
> but if ya happy to do it then go for it...



You misunderstand.
By doing a voltmod, you increase the maximum voltage of the video card, increasing it's maximum overclock.
Then you accompany it with aftermarket cooling and edit the bios to use less voltage than stock, you are actually increasing it's lifespam more than triple of what it could serve under the stock cooler and settings.


----------



## fishnchips (Oct 1, 2008)

seams like a lota work just to get xtra bang for your buck in my books. im heading out tomorrow and getting another 4850 for sli and another mobo quad core and faster memory and a bigger p/s then place a server fan on the side case and 2 fans on the inside one at the front to suck in air and one on the back to suck in the warm air out.
im a suckker for mods but not that into modding a video card when i can go sli. so anyway i see where ya comming from if it extends the life spand longer then thats a good thing for the average user who dont have the $$ to upgrade when it hits the market. shit my bank balance is gonna be poor as a homeless man on the street after this i tell ya  but with the games  pumping out these days im gonna need the xtra oomph. and yes i can do the mod to my card but dont want to void warrenty is all.


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## Wile E (Oct 1, 2008)

fishnchips said:


> seams like a lota work just to get xtra bang for your buck in my books. im heading out tomorrow and getting another 4850 for sli and another mobo quad core and faster memory and a bigger p/s then place a server fan on the side case and 2 fans on the inside one at the front to suck in air and one on the back to suck in the warm air out.
> im a suckker for mods but not that into modding a video card when i can go sli. so anyway i see where ya comming from if it extends the life spand longer then thats a good thing for the average user who dont have the $$ to upgrade when it hits the market. shit my bank balance is gonna be poor as a homeless man on the street after this i tell ya  but with the games  pumping out these days im gonna need the xtra oomph. and yes i can do the mod to my card but dont want to void warrenty is all.


Yes, it can be a lot of work to do a voltmod, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a second card.

Also, what if you don't have a board with 2 gfx slots, or don't have a board that supports Crossfire (ATI's version of SLI)? You're left with no choice but to buy the best card you can afford, and to make it as fast as you can.


----------



## fishnchips (Oct 1, 2008)

your right some times things need to be moded in thoes cases.


----------



## Steevo (Oct 1, 2008)

Hot damn, anyone here have a Sapphire 1GB card info, or do I get to test and tweak myself this time?


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## Deleted member 24505 (Oct 1, 2008)

Fishnchips,2x 4850's is crossfire not sli,and you cant do crossfire with a sli board.If you are buying a new board/chip,make sure you get a crossfire one.


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## fishnchips (Oct 2, 2008)

ahh i c. well crossfire is what i will have to use then i guess 
brought the other gear thinking i should go the whole hog and get the 4870 double that and then i can use the 42" lcd tv full time now.
i have the K8 sli am2 motherboard as  a spare now
so running two id card's i'll do crossfire on that one in future cause i have the 4850 on that already may as well add another one 
now i have wi fi im a lil bit happy cause now i can add logo's to my start up screen in bios  anyway thanks for clearing that up for me  h ave a great weekend


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## alex8 (Oct 3, 2008)

Hello!
I'v pencilmodded my ASUS 4850(first pencil mod). I have now 1150 Ohm, 1.325 V and 765 MHz stable. Isn't stable frequency too low for this voltage?
I use Accelero S1, 120mm+92mm fans.
And my card began to emit strange squeezing noise. What's that?
Thanks, sorry for poor English. Really need help with that noise.


----------



## Folken (Oct 3, 2008)

You mean buzzing noise? The inductors are subject to make noise when overloaded. Можно перепаять катушки на другие, если известны номиналы... Но гарантия тю-тю.


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## alex8 (Oct 3, 2008)

Folken said:


> The inductors are subject to make noise when overloaded.


Is that normal or dangerous? I plan on using card in 24/7 mode with those settings...
Thanks for the answer.


----------



## Folken (Oct 3, 2008)

Just make sure they're not overheating. They will not blow up, relax.


----------



## alex8 (Oct 3, 2008)

Folken said:


> Just make sure they're not overheating. They will not blow up, relax.


I mean dangerous for inductors themselves, not for my flat... Thanks!


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## Spekkie (Oct 5, 2008)

Hi guys, I think I hit the monday mornig model since my card is maxed out at 775 @ 1.5V (1st pencil mod) while running on full cover water. And if that isn't bad enough my mem is chewing on 2.3V @full load while I didn't do the vmem mod .
Do you guys think I could RMA this one since the card is running without any problems but for how long and the memIO temps are almost twice as high as the core temp at full load...

Or do you guys have any other suggestions?


----------



## Folken (Oct 5, 2008)

Spekkie said:


> Or do you guys have any other suggestions?


Maybe you should replace the batteries in your multimeter?


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## fishnchips (Oct 5, 2008)

If you aint done any soldeing then just wipe off the pencil marks with isopro and then leave it alone lol.. but as one guy said you need to add an after market cooler to the card, because it will run hotter.


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## CozaMcCoza (Oct 8, 2008)

Any info on the shorter PCB cards?  If it helps I've included a couple of pictures to look at.  I wouldn't know the first place to start with locating the right connectors to pencil mod my 4850 and would really appreciate some assistance as this seems the most knowledgeable forum for this type of thing from what I've found.

Many thanks,

Coza










PS Please excuse the shocking screw setup on attaching my Swiftech waterblock to the card.  I found using the smaller screws to fiddly and couldn't connect it securely with a decent even pressure so used longer ones and some springs and thumb screws.


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## Brainless (Oct 13, 2008)

Hi CozaMcCoza,
I have the same card. I've successfully done pencil-mod on my card, but it's not a good overclocker. Will post some pictures with right places soon.
Without voltmoding, i was unable to get even 20MHz over stock setting (625MHz).
Now I running it at 750/1075, but not all games are stable. Using ATi tray tool for overclocking.
Overclocking through bios is not good option for this card, unless You set all clocks same (for idle and for load). Crapy power supply on this card can't take a big sudden changes in power demands (when card goes from 500MHz-idle to 750MHz-load for example).
I will try capacitor mod, but waiting to receive a couple of good ultra low ESR capacitors for that purpose.
p.s. Sorry for my poor English.


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## CozaMcCoza (Oct 14, 2008)

If you could get some pictures that would be great thanks!  I'm new to BIOS modding on the 4850 but will research it thoroughly enough before attempting anything.  I'm not too fussed about the idle/full load clocks being the same as I'm always folding on it if not playing games.

I've read in a few places that the shorted revised PCBs are supposed to have better power management but I guess this depends on the layout as I've seen more than one shorter PCB design out there http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/10/14/palit-xpertvision-radeon-hd-4850-sonic/1

I've been able to get mine to 675/1000 seemingly stable as loaded it for 24 hours stress testing it which was fine.  After a few hours of normal computing the display driver crashed so I've dropped it back down to stock for now till I find out more.

Does ATi/vendors release updated BIOS's for cards like they do for motherboards or is it just for modding the GPU BIOS?  I haven't seen any which makes me think they don't

Edit extra

My card is the following:  http://www.xpertvision.com/main/vgapro.php?id=175  I've noticed that they specify the RAMDACs at 400 MHz.  Can this be OC'd or is this something not too relevant with OC'ing?


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## Brainless (Oct 14, 2008)

> I've read in a few places that the shorted revised PCBs are supposed to have better power management but I guess this depends on the layout as I've seen more than one shorter PCB design out there http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...d-4850-sonic/1



This is "SONIC" model. It is with 3-phase power supply (much better that 2-phase on your and my cards).

RAMDAC has nothing with overclocking. It is responsible to send video information to your monitor.

And here are the pictures:







http://g.imageshack.us/img241/xv4850c2ee1.jpg/1/
First one is for VGPU, second is for VMEM.
Be very careful when shading this resistors(with yellow border).
I also put small heatsinks over chips with red border. I noticed that when this chips get hotter, voltage also increase and this provoke more load over them( and more heat respectively). Almost fryed my card. VGPU was 1.35V at idle, and after couple of minutes under FurMark, reached over 1.5V.


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## Gregsm (Oct 15, 2008)

I tried the first pecil mod, using some HB2 pencil, to make few strokes on that black thing in the middle. It made no effect. I dont have multimeter, but my temps were usual 48.5 under 98% load. While with core 750mhz I got BSOD after min in COD4. Do I need to flash it for voltage or whats wrong?


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Oct 15, 2008)

Welcome to tpu

Please dont try to pencil or hard mod your card without a multi meter.People have done so before and killed their cards.


----------



## fishnchips (Oct 16, 2008)

you can buy multi's at dicksmith NZ-AU or any electronic's shop for 10 bucks set it to volts and ohm's for other checks


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## Brainless (Oct 16, 2008)

Never try pencil mod without multimeter. It's suicide for your video card.
I noticed that on my card, changing voltage through bios does not give any effect.


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## Gregsm (Oct 16, 2008)

Fine, I just bought this one...
I didnt see any 2,5 or 3,5 accuracy mentioned on the package though, so dunno whats this. I hope it has all necessary measurements.
So what now? what to put it on?


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## Wile E (Oct 16, 2008)

Gregsm said:


> Fine, I just bought this one...
> I didnt see any 2,5 or 3,5 accuracy mentioned on the package though, so dunno whats this. I hope it has all necessary measurements.
> So what now? what to put it on?
> http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/2946901956_77b9e820c3.jpg?v=0



Put the positive lead on any one of the vGpu measure point in the pic, and put the negative lead on any ground on your computer. I use a screw on my mobo.


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## Gregsm (Oct 16, 2008)

No, I mean the switcher


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## Wile E (Oct 16, 2008)

Gregsm said:


> No, I mean the switcher



Oh. lol. I'd put it on 2000mV (2V) on the voltage selections on the left of off.


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## Gregsm (Oct 16, 2008)

After 4th try to apply pencil to that thing, I increased just 0.04v. From 1.2 to 1.24 under load. Either my pencil is wrong (some HB2, while I read you suggest B2), or Im not doing this right... I draw vertical lines, from one edge to other, on that little rectangle that pointed with pencil on the pic. Am I supposed to make connection with other point near by? Left or right, like in 2nd mod... 

EDIT: I did few more strokes and voltage increased further by 0.02 to 1.26 under load. Perhaps I should try more... Does pencil darkness matters?

EDIT: Ok, I managed to draw 1.35v on load, and I'm testing 800 mhz core for artifacts, with ATITool. Core temp below 56 for more than 5 min. Memory, which is 1130 Mhz, below 72c.


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## fishnchips (Oct 16, 2008)

wouldent it be better to get a pure carbon pencil from an art supply store, as thats what pencils are glued carbon sticks.


----------



## Gregsm (Oct 16, 2008)

If I knew what is it... Anyway this works for now. 800 core. Shame that ram cooling so poor.


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## fishnchips (Oct 16, 2008)

What bugs me the most is video card makers say there card is the bomb! there card is better than any thing and is the fastest on the market. you have 20 guys telling you there card is good and then you think what do i believe, each card has some thing good if not better than the others
do these card makers really get input from the end user as to what they would like? what works best etc, i have noticed that most people have issues with cooling, ya think the makers would put a better cooler on there top notch card eh.. pity one can not get all the best cards and cannibalise them to make one super duper card with all the mods one can wish for.
who knows what to believe these days so many cards out there eh


----------



## boogerlad (Oct 20, 2008)

btw, what is the lowest bios volts that you can set for idle? what is the stock idle voltage?


----------



## Gregsm (Oct 20, 2008)

Well I opened my 4850 BIOS with Radeon BIOS editor, (BIOS aquired with GPU-Z), and it set 500/750 @ 1.046v, and 500/933 @ 1.084v. I didnt measure with multimeter though. I wonder when does it run 500/933... 
Lowest 0.892, and its what I set for idle clocks after pencil mod. Now I just measured with multimeter and got 1.02 idle and 1.362-1.356 load. I guess I should set idle voltage to next setting, 0.930, to be closer to default voltage. But on second thought what does it matter if as soon as something heavy loaded, the card switched to max voltage anyway...


----------



## escd101 (Oct 29, 2008)

Hello all. I have HIS HD 4850 IceQ 4 1GB GDDR3 Card. Card can be o/ced to 680/2100 at stock voltage, but its pretty cold so i decided to make a 1st pencil mod (1.4v) but my card components differs a little from reference. What will happen if i will connect target solder pods directly? I afraid to fry my card  (this card part is marked with red circle in my attachment)


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## Wile E (Oct 29, 2008)

escd101 said:


> Hello all. I have HIS HD 4850 IceQ 4 1GB GDDR3 Card. Card can be o/ced to 680/2100 at stock voltage, but its pretty cold so i decided to make a 1st pencil mod (1.4v) but my card components differs a little from reference. What will happen if i will connect target solder pods directly? I afraid to fry my card  (this card part is marked with red circle in my attachment)



Do not solder any points together like that. It's a surefire way to fry a card.

You can try penciling between the 2 points. Sometimes that will work. But absolutely make sure you have a digital multi meter to confirm voltages.


----------



## haldir (Nov 1, 2008)

escd101 said:


> Hello all. I have HIS HD 4850 IceQ 4 1GB GDDR3 Card. Card can be o/ced to 680/2100 at stock voltage, but its pretty cold so i decided to make a 1st pencil mod (1.4v) but my card components differs a little from reference. What will happen if i will connect target solder pods directly? I afraid to fry my card  (this card part is marked with red circle in my attachment)



I have the exact same card and I tried both mods.

First pencil mod doesnt work cause on our card theres no resistor there. So its basicaly an open circuit. Resistance reads something like 90kohm so open circuit.

Second pencil mod WORKS!!!!! The one u have to pencil across the pcb.

Before pencil resistance is about 2.7 kohm.

For me after pencil resistance droppd to about 2.3 kohm and Vgpu at 1.32 idle 1.34 load.

Im at 800 currently and 500 sec of ati testing no artifacts WOOOOT!


----------



## fark (Nov 1, 2008)

Hello guys!!  First off, thanks W1zzard for this voltmod guide, this TechPowerUp forum is awsome and a exellent information source even tho my English is crap.(I´m from Sweden)

I would be really,really grateful if anyone of you could provide pictures or something of how/where to pencilmod Sapphire 4850 dual slot (with the blue shorter PCB + different cooling)

This particulary card sells very well here in Sweden, probably in the whole world with it´s low price. So I think there are many of oss who would be grateful for a image/picture of where on the PCB to "pencilmod" and measure ohm + volt. 

  BR: fark


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## fishnchips (Nov 1, 2008)

Phew! im sure glad you guys have bucks to spend on video cards. if ya screw up on the mods and fry ya card in butter and garlic and mushrooms, at least you can buy another one


----------



## dlxmax (Nov 2, 2008)

After six pages of discussion over several months, I'm surprised to be the first one here to say:

*DON'T DO THE PENCIL MEMORY VOLTAGE MOD!*

However, the pencil mod for the GPU is great. It allowed me to get up to 750mhz reliably.  My memory was even acceptable with stock volts allowing 1170mhz.  But I wanted to give the memory mod a shot and see if I could push it a little further.

So I put a little pencil on the resistor, then used canned air to blow away the excess.  Booted up the computer and immediately reached for the multimeter to check the voltage, when the computer shutoff.  It didn't even finish posting.

I cut all power, and wiped down the modded resistor with some isopropyl alcohol, then dried it off with canned air.  No boot.  No power. DEAD.

The horrible part of this story is that this is the second 4850 I've killed with the memory voltage mod.  I killed one last week by lazily shading the resistor while the computer was running (total bonehead move).  Of course I know better than to do that, I just wasn't thinking.  A quick trip to the local service center resulted in a card exchange.  But now I've killed the exchanged card.  Crap.  I don't think the service center will be as nice the second time around since I was just there and they'll remember me.  I could wait a few months, but I think I'm going to get a friend to go exchange the card instead.  I hope that'll work.


----------



## fishnchips (Nov 2, 2008)

LoL not your day is it  did it send up smoke rings as it died


----------



## Filu (Nov 20, 2008)

Hi @ll,

thanks for this guide, I´ve made the pencil mod and reached 1,31V under load. My Asus HD 4850 works w/o any problems @ 800/1200. I´ve got two questions:

1. Is it possible that if u do the pencil Vmod - the memory OC`bility increases too?? Since I made the pencil mod, I could oc the memory further. Before it wasn´t possible to set 1200 Mhz, but now no problem at all.

2. Does anyone tried to set CCC limit further then 800 Mhz? Rivatuner doesn´t work since Catalyst 8.11

in the end: sorry for my english - I´m german - no... I´m Turk living in Germany ^^

greetz


----------



## hapek (Nov 21, 2008)

Brainless said:


> This is "SONIC" model. It is with 3-phase power supply (much better that 2-phase on your and my cards).
> 
> RAMDAC has nothing with overclocking. It is responsible to send video information to your monitor.
> 
> ...



Hey, it helped me alot as it works fine for me. But my lil problem is i dunno measure points i  just noticed much better OC results. Could you post them as well please ?


----------



## szuma (Dec 2, 2008)

Hi.
I have the GIGABYTE R485MC-1GH.





Does anyone know where how to pencil mod this card?

Szuma


----------



## Drizzt5 (Dec 2, 2008)

dlxmax said:


> After six pages of discussion over several months, I'm surprised to be the first one here to say:
> 
> *DON'T DO THE PENCIL MEMORY VOLTAGE MOD!*
> 
> ...




Is there any truth to the memory pencil mod not working? I haven't tried it and have put it off for later.


----------



## alex8 (Dec 4, 2008)

Hello!
Does anyone know something about pencil Vmodding ASUS 4850/HTDI/512M/A
(it has non-reference Glaciator cooler, non-reference board design but standart clocks).
Thanks.

Here are shots of the board:




















http://www.imgx.org/public/view/full/12853
http://www.imgx.org/public/view/full/12854
http://www.imgx.org/public/view/full/12855
http://www.imgx.org/public/view/full/12856
http://www.imgx.org/public/view/full/12857


----------



## dread_stef (Dec 6, 2008)

For anyone that's interested: I think this is where the pencil mod for the Sapphire non reference (blue PCB, round dual slot cooler) card should be applied:
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/1804/vmodareawm9.jpg

It's at the DVI connectors end of the card, in between the 2 pins that hold the VRM cooler.

I'm not sure though, and I haven't found the right points to measure yet. If anyone has a closeup of the vGPU measurement points that'd be great. I'm a bit psyched because this is my second card, the first one lasted about half an hour (no mods, no overclock), it just died on me.
Also, I've heard someone say that the VRM's on this card cannot cope with 1.058v. Does anyone have any experience with this?


----------



## sno.lcn (Dec 8, 2008)

Drizzt5 said:


> Is there any truth to the memory pencil mod not working? I haven't tried it and have put it off for later.



Yes, I did it on my card, and it wouldn't come on.  Thought I bricked the card, but I erased the pencil and it started working fine again


----------



## dread_stef (Dec 8, 2008)

Found this on another forum:
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5333/p1000188zb5pe9yh0.jpg

Pencil mod for the sapphire 4850 dual slot non reference card.

Just applied it and it's running at 1.36v. Might be a bit high for 24/7 but I have no experience with it. It's currently running at 785mhz but I think I can push it a lot higher.
EDIT: Even at this voltage 785mhz is the max I can do. Guess I have a bad card or something, anything over this speed generates artifacts at atitool. It can't be the temps because I'm using a Thermalright HR-03 GT with a 92mm Zalman fan at max speed which gives me a max temperature of 56 degrees C.


----------



## miloshs (Dec 13, 2008)

dread_stef said:


> Found this on another forum:
> http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5333/p1000188zb5pe9yh0.jpg
> 
> Pencil mod for the sapphire 4850 dual slot non reference card.
> ...




Do you happen to know if this card of your has the same layout as my Palit 4850 Gold?






Is there any way anyone can help me in locating where i should pencilmod my 4850? Just help me find the spot? I'd be happy to take a high res 8mpix photo of the back of the card? Can anyone locate the spot by just looking at the highres picture?!?!


----------



## Wile E (Dec 14, 2008)

miloshs said:


> Do you happen to know if this card of your has the same layout as my Palit 4850 Gold?
> http://www.techpowerup.com/img/08-08-20/hd4850.jpg
> 
> Is there any way anyone can help me in locating where i should pencilmod my 4850? Just help me find the spot? I'd be happy to take a high res 8mpix photo of the back of the card? Can anyone locate the spot by just looking at the highres picture?!?!


A high res shot of the back of the card would definitely increase your odds. It's a good idea.


----------



## miloshs (Dec 14, 2008)

Wile E said:


> A high res shot of the back of the card would definitely increase your odds. It's a good idea.



Figured as much, but i didn't just want to slap a 3.2mb photo into the thread! 
Lets say if anyone feels he can determin the spot with the help of a photo i can send it to him/her to theri e-mail adress... or PM

How do you actually find the spot u need to pencil mod? Does it include measuring lot of stuff of off the back of the card with a multimeter, or is it just a specialy numbered resistor?!

What i mean is do all the manufacturers number the required resistor with the same number or not?

Another thing...   the first mod with the soldering of a 100k ohm resistor onto the card...   why is it a 100k ohm one? I mean with pencilmoding in the thread you guys are talking about 500 ohms, and all of a sudden soldering one is 100k ohms...  
Whats the actual relationship between the first (soldering) mod and second (pencil - 1st one)...

Im actually tying to understand the stuff im about to do, hence all the silly questions, i hope you guys don't mind...

P.S. my friend is a pro electrician, so i figured i'll ask him for the 100k ohm soldering. Is the soldering mod in any way better/safer then pencilmoding - if done by a pro ofcourse (wouldn't do it myself anyway )

Thanks guys, hope this is not too much whoop-ti-doo for you.....


----------



## miloshs (Dec 18, 2008)

Wile E said:


> A high res shot of the back of the card would definitely increase your odds. It's a good idea.



I uploaded a zip file, since i cant upload a 1mb jpeg file...  if you can just take a look at it, and help if you can...  

Praise


----------



## kvadzio (Dec 23, 2008)

heya guyz - one question from me - whats the highest voltage that wont kill my core? (watercooling, 30-35C load)


----------



## lycanwrath (Dec 25, 2008)

Hi everyone, Merry Christmas too all 

I have managed to take my HD4850 to GPU: 680 MHz and Memory: 1265(x2) MHz
I can't go further without volt modding my card.

Can you help me out please, I have attached a pic of my card.

Hope you can help me


----------



## lycanwrath (Dec 31, 2008)

Hope for some help in 2009


----------



## panev (Jan 3, 2009)

Are there any pencil mod for Sapphire 4850 512mb Toxic?


----------



## shank89 (Jan 5, 2009)

Ok guys, im a complete beginner.

I have managed to learn how to bios flash, but max voltage is like 1.158 i use that for clocks 3 and 9.

I set the core to 650 and mem to 1100 in both.

I flashed the bios and i ran 3dm06 it crashed with a d3d error then after i downclocked a bit more i got a lock failed vertex error.

It is a palit hd 4850, with a t-rad 2 and 2 zalman fans attatched

idle 30 - 33 load 40 - 43.

Any ideas what i should do.

Pencil mod needed?

E8400 and mobo is ep45 ds4p.


----------



## shank89 (Jan 5, 2009)

I have the same card as miloshs (the high res picture that he uploaded)


----------



## elev8rsh0es (Jan 5, 2009)

dread_stef said:


> Found this on another forum:
> http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5333/p1000188zb5pe9yh0.jpg
> 
> Pencil mod for the sapphire 4850 dual slot non reference card.
> ...



ok guys i have a sapphire HD 4830 and im wanting to voltmod it
it is 100% identical to the non reference hd 4850 

will the same voltmod work for this card as its just a 4850 with 640 vs 800 shaders


----------



## shank89 (Jan 6, 2009)

The palit is no where near the same, i have taken it out tried to find the right place to soulder even using this guide

http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/hardware-hacking/39385-diy-volt-mod-guide.html

No luck, i found some data sheets for the chip at the top left of the card, but had no fb pin.

Someone please help!

I want to pencil mod but cant find the right spot!


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## lycanwrath (Jan 7, 2009)

lycanwrath said:


> Hi everyone, Merry Christmas to all
> 
> I have managed to take my HD4850 to GPU: 680 MHz and Memory: 1265(x2) MHz
> I can't go further without volt modding my card.
> ...



Seems nobody in this thread can help


----------



## Gaul (Jan 8, 2009)

with softmode im only touch GPU 750


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## Gaul (Jan 8, 2009)

BTW, this some SS :


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## Drizzt5 (Jan 12, 2009)

Gaul said:


> with softmode im only touch GPU 750



Your using the max voltage for bios mod right?


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## spktst (Jan 18, 2009)

shank89 said:


> The palit is no where near the same, i have taken it out tried to find the right place to soulder even using this guide
> 
> http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/hardware-hacking/39385-diy-volt-mod-guide.html
> 
> ...



this guide is written 2007, way dated.  I have a new ASUS 4850 TOP (Not reference) 680/1100 @720/1105, but I want more too.  Perhaps someone will come around or point us to somewhere else.  I looked pretty extensively for the past 3 days and really only find this thread on the subject



Gaul said:


> BTW, this some SS :



Gaul, can you help me out with an ASUS 4850 TOP, thanks
The PCB is marked B501PML Rev 1.01 on the front.  Sorry I do not have a camera for a pic


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## yanahs (Jan 23, 2009)

lycanwrath said:


> Seems nobody in this thread can help



Try lowering the memory.. my his 4850 ref could only go 1100 without the pencil mod


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## Drizzt5 (Jan 24, 2009)

Anyone have 2x 4850's that have been volt modded or pencil modded in crossfire? Could I see some screenies.


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## LoWRiDeR82 (Feb 8, 2009)

Hello peeps.
I have a sapphire 4850 (red pcb, should be same as reference) and installed an accelero twin turbo on it (35-36 idle - 45 full load with 690/1050 - 1.158v from ATT). I am thinking of pencil modding it but I am scared shitless of doing so.I have a digital multimeter but i am a noob and have no idea on how to use it.is there any good soul that would like to guide me maybe through msn messenger through the whole procesS??just pm me your msn id if so!Thanks in advance.


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## Excellence (Feb 11, 2009)

*It Wont Work*

i tried the 1st pencil mod with a HB, 3B and 6B pencils and it wont work it only does 1.05 v at all times even when loaded which it is suppose to go to 1.2 v, do u think my cards vGPU regulator is broken?


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## Drizzt5 (Feb 12, 2009)

Excellence said:


> i tried the 1st pencil mod with a HB, 3B and 6B pencils and it wont work it only does 1.05 v at all times even when loaded which it is suppose to go to 1.2 v, do u think my cards vGPU regulator is broken?


You have to SCRIBBLE the hell out of that thing if your doing the 1st pencil mod, and I mean really really scribble that thing. Also you should do a bios flash so that it's higher then 1.05.... thats like lower then stock isn't it?

I would try to do the 2nd mod if thats your problem. The 2nd pencil mod that is because it is supposed be used when you need to go above 1.35v's.


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## Excellence (Feb 14, 2009)

i SCRIBBLED it, both of the mods and nothing works it has no affect, how could i convince ncix its broken even thought it works fine but wont pencil mod?


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## theorw (Feb 17, 2009)

From what u say it sounds like u want to rma your card right?
Well theres one way i use and it has always worked!Flash your card with a bios(even the original) and at the moment it says:dont turn off or restart ,DO IT!!!RESTART your pc and the card wont have a bios to boot and it will be in operational!!!
Of course the shop wont susspect that!Or will it??


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## theorw (Apr 7, 2009)

u dont mention the volts u sere running it...also what mod?pencil or solder?
and u did it on a reference cooler????????u NEVER voltmod on stock!!!NEVER!!!!


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## theorw (Apr 7, 2009)

There it is!PENCIL MOD!!!
It has happened to me too something similar.The card was unstable on cod4 and crashed after 3 minutes of play.I run it on 1,34volts and guess what?I measured the vcore and it was 1,24!!!The pencil is removed through time of palying due to air movement mostly and u have to reshade the resistor!After i did this it works great again at 1,34.So in your case there must have been sunned removement of pencil from the resistor and the card coldnt even boot.I t might have been posible to reshade and make it work again!!!Did u try that?


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## theorw (Apr 7, 2009)

well u could try at least force a reflash through atiflash to the stock bios and see what happens.I am curious for your case cos from the 4 months i vae it i only bought musashi 4 days ago,and all this time i had it on 1,34/2.45 core mem@781/1150 with no probs!!


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## theorw (Apr 7, 2009)

yeah it will be great!!!!!but does your mobo support it?!!!And now that i think of it,why dont u RMA the card???????Put the stock cooler back on and send it back..??


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## W1zzard (Apr 8, 2009)

pyckmeister banned for posting rickrolled link


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## Drizzt5 (Apr 9, 2009)

Excellence said:


> i SCRIBBLED it, both of the mods and nothing works it has no affect, how could i convince ncix its broken even thought it works fine but wont pencil mod?





theorw said:


> From what u say it sounds like u want to rma your card right?
> Well theres one way i use and it has always worked!Flash your card with a bios(even the original) and at the moment it says:dont turn off or restart ,DO IT!!!RESTART your pc and the card wont have a bios to boot and it will be in operational!!!
> Of course the shop wont susspect that!Or will it??



That is the best way, and it is reversible with another bios flash.

But you should know that when you die you will go to tech-hell for doing this... If you posted this on XS (if it was up) you would get a ban.


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## theorw (Apr 9, 2009)

Drizzt5 said:


> That is the best way, and it is reversible with another bios flash.
> 
> But you should know that when you die you will go to tech-hell for doing this... If you posted this on XS (if it was up) you would get a ban.



REALLY???I didnt know that...But its well known way for RMA!!!Anyway from now on i ll just refer to it as the UNFORTUNATE BLACK OUT DURING FLASHING.Is that LEGAL???!!!!


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## masquevale (Apr 24, 2009)

burn my las gpu on this. XD


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## BrooksyX (Apr 25, 2009)

I am having a hard time figuring out what resistor I need for a permanent volt mod. How many watts does it need to be?

Can some please direct me in the right way for the resistor I need. Thanks!


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## Scrizz (Apr 26, 2009)

xfx 4850/4830 non-reference pcb

shot of the back






front


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## theorw (Apr 26, 2009)

This is the XFX card right?
With NON REFERENCE design it will be difficult to find the mod man...


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## TrekBMX18 (Apr 27, 2009)

Has anyone else found that when they measure their voltages before doing any mods that it is higher than it should be?  I tweaked my voltage up to 1.158v by modifying a CCC profile but when I took the multimeter to my card it is showing 1.198v.


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## Drizzt5 (May 25, 2009)

TrekBMX18 said:


> Has anyone else found that when they measure their voltages before doing any mods that it is higher than it should be?  I tweaked my voltage up to 1.158v by modifying a CCC profile but when I took the multimeter to my card it is showing 1.198v.



Your multimeter could be bad.


----------



## TrekBMX18 (May 26, 2009)

No, my multimeter is definately working fine.  Tried multiple different ones.


----------



## Drizzt5 (May 26, 2009)

TrekBMX18 said:


> No, my multimeter is definately working fine.  Tried multiple different ones.



Have your temps gone up a lot? Idk never heard of that happening.


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## TrekBMX18 (May 28, 2009)

Load temp hits about 80C with fan speed at 65%


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## Velvet Wafer (Jun 19, 2009)

*results*

voltmodded my Sapphire Radeon 4850 Toxic a few weeks ago (its reference design with high quality ram, that can do 1200 memclock for sure)...despite it had an vf-900 on it, its load temperatures went to 100ish temperatures i improved it to 90ish temperatures mit liquid metal (which one time during a hot period here and many hours intensive gaming at those temperatures somehow lost 90% of its volume and truh touch of the badly constructed fan mounting it formed an air pocket somehow. neithertheless i got 780-790 corestable and somewhat 1225-1250 ddr3 clock (theire samsung 1200mhz rated,lightly voltmodded). later my psu degraded, i somehow erased mod because i thought it somehow degraded truh the fans pushing air at it, it crashed me constantly (but in fact it was my psu which was degraded,not able to hold the clocks and crashing thru overload, and its dieing right here in this rig atm, i sometimes hear a quiet humming frum it, while i write this). with new mods i tried i wasnt able to do more than 765-735 in 2 weeks trying . i got me a miltimeter and found that nothing beyound 1,25 could be given on the card before it died heatcrash at 765 (way lower than former mod, despite i had no multimeter in the beginning)... so 1,25 was not that what was needed to get to 800 stable... memory clocking good though producing more heat and energy fluctuations... with only VERY MILD increases i was able to reach the 1250 realm with 2,3v vmem again. the temps went like 5c° up just trough 25mhz clock increase. on the attempt to reseat the cooler with new paste (in fact it was tacens silver goop, with just 25% silver, had nothing else). on the applycation in a not so well lit room, i somehow got a tiny amount of the goop on the transistors surrounding the die, but i didnt noticed and remounted the VF-900. after sticking it in my rig, i booted,went to bios,bios crashed with screen error
i rebootet and tryied the foolish attempt to boot in windows. it hummed and crackled, screen went black, card crapped.... (in fact im too poor to just go buy a new one like i prefer, i cleaned card and rmad, hope i have luck, or i will have to stay onboard for a while, but thats nasty, i cant play crysis properly, i have to vomit if the config is lower than 1152x864 (without aa and af) and at least high (even that seems too low). am i sent to techhell now?


----------



## Wile E (Jun 20, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> voltmodded my Sapphire Radeon 4850 Toxic a few weeks ago (its reference design with high quality ram, that can do 1200 memclock for sure)...despite it had an vf-900 on it, its load temperatures went to 100ish temperatures i improved it to 90ish temperatures mit liquid metal (which one time during a hot period here and many hours intensive gaming at those temperatures somehow lost 90% of its volume and truh touch of the badly constructed fan mounting it formed an air pocket somehow. neithertheless i got 780-790 corestable and somewhat 1225-1250 ddr3 clock (theire samsung 1200mhz rated,lightly voltmodded). later my psu degraded, i somehow erased mod because i thought it somehow degraded truh the fans pushing air at it, it crashed me constantly (but in fact it was my psu which was degraded,not able to hold the clocks and crashing thru overload, and its dieing right here in this rig atm, i sometimes hear a quiet humming frum it, while i write this). with new mods i tried i wasnt able to do more than 765-735 in 2 weeks trying . i got me a miltimeter and found that nothing beyound 1,25 could be given on the card before it died heatcrash at 765 (way lower than former mod, despite i had no multimeter in the beginning)... so 1,25 was not that what was needed to get to 800 stable... memory clocking good though producing more heat and energy fluctuations... with only VERY MILD increases i was able to reach the 1250 realm with 2,3v vmem again. the temps went like 5c° up just trough 25mhz clock increase. on the attempt to reseat the cooler with new paste (in fact it was tacens silver goop, with just 25% silver, had nothing else). on the applycation in a not so well lit room, i somehow got a tiny amount of the goop on the transistors surrounding the die, but i didnt noticed and remounted the VF-900. after sticking it in my rig, i booted,went to bios,bios crashed with screen error
> i rebootet and tryied the foolish attempt to boot in windows. it hummed and crackled, screen went black, card crapped.... (in fact im too poor to just go buy a new one like i prefer, i cleaned card and rmad, hope i have luck, or i will have to stay onboard for a while, but thats nasty, i cant play crysis properly, i have to vomit if the config is lower than 1152x864 (without aa and af) and at least high (even that seems too low). am i sent to techhell now?



If I were you, I would take off the vmem mod. I have found out the hard way that raising the voltage on most video cards' mem chips is a bad idea, unless they are undervolted from the factory.

As far as the core, the VF-900 isn't the best cooler to use for these cards. It was designed in a time that the heat output of our cards was lower in general. If you want to vmod, upgrade your cooler to something a bit stronger.

Also, if your psu is dieing, quit using the computer. It can kill absolutely everything hooked up to it if/when it blows. Mobo, cpu, ram, HDD's and all.


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## Velvet Wafer (Jun 20, 2009)

I know its dangerous, but i use it with undervolting to 1.163v for my proc,and 2v to my rams. as soon as i hear thunder,the pc will be shut down by me, other guy asked me to do so if that happens. do you know how much dangerous the vmem-mod is on samsung chips? theyre rated for 1200 0.8ns  (theyre K4J52324QH-BJ08)... and 2.05V (on the next card, i want to do everything right...and i know that this baby needs bandwith more than coreclock.)

im having a twin turbo sent to me with my new psu, dont worry^^


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## Wile E (Jun 22, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> I know its dangerous, but i use it with undervolting to 1.163v for my proc,and 2v to my rams. as soon as i hear thunder,the pc will be shut down by me, other guy asked me to do so if that happens. do you know how much dangerous the vmem-mod is on samsung chips? theyre rated for 1200 0.8ns  (theyre K4J52324QH-BJ08)... and 2.05V (on the next card, i want to do everything right...and i know that this baby needs bandwith more than coreclock.)
> 
> im having a twin turbo sent to me with my new psu, dont worry^^



I just don't do vmem mods anymore, unless the card comes with the ram voltage lower than it's rated to handle. So if the mem is rated for 2.0V, but the card comes at 1.8v, I'll mod up to the 2.0V. Every single time I've ever gone over the factory rating, my memory has degraded over time, and eventually died.


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## Velvet Wafer (Jun 22, 2009)

its rated at 2,05 and ran 2,0-2,1...  dangerous?


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## Wile E (Jun 22, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> its rated at 2,05 and ran 2,0-2,1...  dangerous?



That might be OK, but I wouldn't go any higher at all. The Samsungs on my 8800GT were rated for 2.0, I ran them at 2.06 and they died on me. So do it at your own risk.


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## Velvet Wafer (Jun 22, 2009)

luckily, everything beyond 2.2 produced too much heat to go further... thru this i was able to push to 1250 stable. i had stock-heatsink-temps, but i needed bigger 92mm fan on the vf900, second 92 mm fan for the pwms, 3 fans pushing fresh air, one blowing it out of the case. if the accelero isnt cool enough, i will repeat the process with 120mm fans on the card this time.(i will first use arctic ceramique, but later maybe will use liquid metal) what dou you guess the toxic can do with adequate cooling? on core and memory?.. 1200 mem are stable without voltage increase


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## cr1pz (Jul 12, 2009)

W1zzard , I saw you're the ''MAN'' here , I have a question : After making the voltmod I have to increase Core vaules with RBE tools and flash it with atiflash , etc ? ... Beacause  I' ve been doing bios flashing and the Overdrive option in CCC disappeared after flashing... 
By the way , I haven't done any vmod yet.. only changed values in RBE tool .
Thank you


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 12, 2009)

for voltage change, try ati tray tools... that helped for me, after doing the mod


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## cr1pz (Jul 13, 2009)

Thanks velvet


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## theorw (Jul 13, 2009)

cr1pz said:


> W1zzard , I saw you're the ''MAN'' here , I have a question : After making the voltmod I have to increase Core vaules with RBE tools and flash it with atiflash , etc ? ... Beacause  I' ve been doing bios flashing and the Overdrive option in CCC disappeared after flashing...
> By the way , I haven't done any vmod yet.. only changed values in RBE tool .
> Thank you



It disappears if the oc ed values u put in the bios are higher that the MAX ALLOWED from ccc it happens to my 2nd 4850 that is @821mhz.1st worked fine @ccc though,WHEN it was @650!!!
There is an aption in RBE that allows u to increase the ccc oc limits so u could try this too!!!

As for the ram volts, i run my reference 4850 @821/1200 with 2,34VOLTS!!!They sure get hot but nothing more than that!!!Just a Musashi on it!


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 13, 2009)

theorw said:


> It disappears if the oc ed values u put in the bios are higher that the MAX ALLOWED from ccc it happens to my 2nd 4850 that is @821mhz.1st worked fine @ccc though,WHEN it was @650!!!
> There is an aption in RBE that allows u to increase the ccc oc limits so u could try this too!!!
> 
> As for the ram volts, i run my reference 4850 @821/1200 with 2,34VOLTS!!!They sure get hot but nothing more than that!!!Just a Musashi on it!




i would throw rbe in the bin... use amd gpu clock tool, its doesnt voids your warranty if you kill your card.

your ram will die soon... theyre specificated at 2.0v... with this volts+improper cooling they will degrade fast. mine did 1200 at 2.1, and that already is dangerous from what ive heard...


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## Wile E (Jul 13, 2009)

theorw said:


> It disappears if the oc ed values u put in the bios are higher that the MAX ALLOWED from ccc it happens to my 2nd 4850 that is @821mhz.1st worked fine @ccc though,WHEN it was @650!!!
> There is an aption in RBE that allows u to increase the ccc oc limits so u could try this too!!!
> 
> As for the ram volts, i run my reference 4850 @821/1200 with 2,34VOLTS!!!They sure get hot but nothing more than that!!!Just a Musashi on it!



You are asking for serious issues running your ram volts that high.


----------



## Meecrob (Jul 13, 2009)

yeesh, ddr2 can take that kinda volts, but why would anybody push ddr3 to 2.3+ volts?


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## Wile E (Jul 13, 2009)

Meecrob said:


> yeesh, ddr2 can take that kinda volts, but why would anybody push ddr3 to 2.3+ volts?



Don't know. All of my GDDR3 degraded at just .1V over stock. And I've tried every brand. Even the Samsungs degraded when overvolted.


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## theorw (Jul 13, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> i would throw rbe in the bin... use amd gpu clock tool, its doesnt voids your warranty if you kill your card.
> 
> your ram will die soon... theyre specificated at 2.0v... with this volts+improper cooling they will degrade fast. mine did 1200 at 2.1, and that already is dangerous from what ive heard...



Well it seems to be doing fine at the moment...I ll go on water soon though...+theres no way that the ratailers i buy from will ever know it was clocked or pencil ed!!!I put the stock cooler on and RMA or get credit coupon worth 210EUROS(thats how it cost then..!)



Wile E said:


> You are asking for serious issues running your ram volts that high.


U might be right but its the only way for 1200 SOLID



Meecrob said:


> yeesh, ddr2 can take that kinda volts, but why would anybody push ddr3 to 2.3+ volts?



As i said to be SOLID @1200...


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## theorw (Jul 13, 2009)

Wile E said:


> Don't know. All of my GDDR3 degraded at just .1V over stock. And I've tried every brand. Even the Samsungs degraded when overvolted.


Define degraded please...
Like died?


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## Wile E (Jul 13, 2009)

theorw said:


> Define degraded please...
> Like died?



Well, they started to not be able to use the high clocks, and I eneded up having to downclock them at the same voltages. Had to go from 1150 to 1100, for instance, tho the voltage didn't change.

After the initial degradation, they got worse and worse, to the point were they wouldn't even run at stock speeds anymore.


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## theorw (Jul 13, 2009)

Interesting...and frightening!
Well i have them for like 6 months now at this condition and they seem to be SURVIVORS!!!
But in any case RMA is very common here...So i think i should be fine!!!Thanks for the insight though!


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 13, 2009)

the manufacturer of your graphics card is surely able to read if an original bios is flashed. but i dont know if they do it... 

btw
got a shortened 4850 in rma... its pretty common here too.


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## cr1pz (Jul 13, 2009)

wow , anyway  I think I'm happy if I can reach at least 750 o 770 Core clock after voltmodding ... 
does anybody know where I can find some template for VGA waterblock ?


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 14, 2009)

i had the same problem too. it was related to heat, and general overheating of the pcb and major components, especially the mosfet area. dont use single slot coolers, even when theyre high quality. Coolers like AC Twin Turbo,AC Accellero s1/2,Scythe musashi are more efficient and thereby far more silent than the vf-1000 for example.

templates would be company secret, of their respective developers... full cover plates are quite difficult to machine tho... i think, whatever you may plan regarding DIY, you better invest your time/money in an el cheapo gpu-only cooler and a good fan... this would probably bring you better/safer results.... modern hardware gets so hot, selfbuilt or oldskool designed blocks tend to build up heat, so was my conclusion.


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## cr1pz (Jul 14, 2009)

Yeahh , you goddamn right ... But I have some cheat then , here in Buenos Aires computer houses are trading Vga water blocks  , but in some cases they're even more expensive than a VGA WC itself !! I have some people able to machine a Water block , all i have to do if I have no template is extract the stock cooling system and copy the block which sticks to VGA core ... then take measures and calculate the screw holes .  Anyway what i find hard to get is a CPU template :S .. I just can't believe their absence on the web ... Right now is winter and everything is nice , but when the summer come , even with an ambient AC System components are gonna get madly overheated


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 15, 2009)

cant you lend a block to show it and give it to your people, so they can measure exactly? that would make it easier for you, i think


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## cr1pz (Jul 15, 2009)

Once Again You're Right Friend , But I'd Be Really Fifficult For Me To Get A Borrowed Block .. But , I Can Get Some Tools For Measuring My Video Card Gpu And All That Stuff , I'd Never Give Up


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 15, 2009)

you surely will get a nice block if you have the machining tools


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## cr1pz (Jul 15, 2009)

I can make some use of the High school i used to go , they've a really big workshop full of tools of all kinds, the even have a Lab , and i have some ex teachers crazy enough for leaving work to help me doing some phase change (lol)


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 15, 2009)

a phase? you wanna try some serious overclocking or what?^^


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## cr1pz (Jul 15, 2009)

I don't even know friend haha  , I think I should use that phase for cooling my head always overworking ^^... Anyway you're right , yes I want to push my sistem a little bit more ... and I thought that a WC for the VGAand a phase for CPU would be a nice idea... I always wanted to make one , since I first saw it on a PC's magazine , even more , sometimes when I'm walking home at 12 o'clock I smell like burnt and I don't know if it's my neighbour's kitchen or my processor getting toasted  
Last two weeks I've invested more time modding my Case and Vcard bios all for making games fluent ... games that I've not played because I used my time for the Case and hardware Issues , It's like the one who works hard lot of time for buying a Cabriolet Chevy corvette , and then that one doesn't even have time to enjoy it xD


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 15, 2009)

burnt silicium has is own unique smell.... you will know its a part of you computer dying, when it will do so


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## cr1pz (Jul 15, 2009)

yes i know  I was just joking , you know Here in this topic some people report that some pencil volt mod have gone with time , is that true ? is it better to soldering ?
what about the stock cooler , shall I wait untill my WC is ready ?
thanx


----------



## cr1pz (Jul 15, 2009)

one more thing , today I've got my Far cry 2 crashed and my pc rebooted , and before it happened the same as in Dark sector , When I tried to move the player left , it was like he got stuck , and i had to retry moving left , after 4 or 5 retries  the game crashed. In Far cry 2 It was solved by pushing the core volt to 1.5 Volt since It's 1Ghz over the stock freq. besides I increased the Mch voltage , everything normal , But if it happen to fail again , I'll try reflashing my ATI bios to the stock one , and then test the game again , for being sure is not my cpu who's tricking me .


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 15, 2009)

if youre feeling comfortable enough to solder on an array of sensible electronic components, then this would the the permanent and better one, regarding overclocking. never voltmod a card on its stock cooler. better wait for your wc-setup


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## cr1pz (Jul 16, 2009)

Yeah , and that's what I'm going to do  , If system keeps unsteady all I have to do is to under clock the VGA to it's stocks values  , after all I've finished crysis and GTA 4 two of the heaviest in textures , so I'm not in need of that extra power  At least untill EA boys release crysis 2  .
I wonder if the conductive Ink which Ocer's used for Core 2 pin modding is useful for doing a more durable pencil mod.


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 16, 2009)

be careful with conductive liquids/paints/silver based stuff... they can short out your card in a sec.. silver paste killed my 4850... it got on the resistors surrounding the core.. it tried to boot in windows... CRACKLE.... card dead.


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## cr1pz (Jul 16, 2009)

Daamn man ,that might hurt :S !! 
so the best I can do is to patiently make some soldering once I have the cooling system ready... Is the safest then , I'll avoid the mod to fail because of false ''pencil'' contact and not to kill the card afterall.
Thanks for the advice


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 16, 2009)

also be careful with too much heat... the components hate that... safest would be pencil mod with a hb pencil...it doesnt crumble much


----------



## theorw (Jul 16, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> the manufacturer of your graphics card is surely able to read if an original bios is flashed. but i dont know if they do it...
> 
> btw
> got a shortened 4850 in rma... its pretty common here too.


I wouldnt be so sure...
If u flash the original bios back i dont think they will notice anything!


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 16, 2009)

if its dead, you cant.


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## cr1pz (Jul 17, 2009)

So , I bought a Staedler 2b , I should get an hb one then.
Thanks a lot Velvet  ...


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 17, 2009)

lol you own a german pencil... staedler is like ferrari of pencils 

btw.
MY 4850 TOXIC is back from RMA!!! lets see what it does!


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## cr1pz (Jul 17, 2009)

Congrats man  ,is the one you got killed by voltmod ?
About the pencil , as for me they're the best pencils ever , always i had to design or copy something's design  at the Industrial High School I went I used Staedler


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 17, 2009)

no, i never failed at volts... but at silver paste on the transistors surrounding the core... i will never use that on gpu anymore..

EDIT: my card doesnt wants to clock to more than 10 mhz increase in memory... its at 1100 already, but the used samsungs are specced for 1200 mhz, and they did on my last card... today ram clocking went really bad after i changed to AC twin turbo... any ideas?


----------



## Wile E (Jul 18, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> no, i never failed at volts... but at silver paste on the transistors surrounding the core... i will never use that on gpu anymore..
> 
> EDIT: my card doesnt wants to clock to more than 10 mhz increase in memory... its at 1100 already, but the used samsungs are specced for 1200 mhz, and they did on my last card... today ram clocking went really bad after i changed to AC twin turbo... any ideas?



Do you have cooling on the memory?

And the memory may be either undervolted, or be running tighter timings, and that might be why you can't get any higher on the memory.

I'd focus more attention on the core speeds anyway, they'll show the most benefit.


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 18, 2009)

its a toxic.... vrm and rams with heatsinks.... mem is at 2.1v stock

i thinks its otherwise... the core is mighty enough... a 4870 is not much stronger in it.... but its rams.... are much faster.... so... until 1250mhz ram i had performance increases with my pre-rma model. even with 700 core. what do you say to that? what are your results`.

core fails at more than 745 with 1.19-1.20... but 745 is rock stable... more volts? how?


----------



## Wile E (Jul 20, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> its a toxic.... vrm and rams with heatsinks.... mem is at 2.1v stock
> 
> i thinks its otherwise... the core is mighty enough... a 4870 is not much stronger in it.... but its rams.... are much faster.... so... until 1250mhz ram i had performance increases with my pre-rma model. even with 700 core. what do you say to that? what are your results`.
> 
> core fails at more than 745 with 1.19-1.20... but 745 is rock stable... more volts? how?



I got increases by increasing my ram as well, but once I hit 1100MHz mem, I got larger increases by increasing the core speeds.

As far as more core volts, if your card has the digital voltera regulators, you can increase volts in BIOS or by using a program like ATI Tray Tools, GPU tool, or RivaTuner.

If it doesn't have regulators that can be controlled by software, the only thing you can do is a hard mod, or if you are lucky, there might be a pencil mod for your card.


----------



## theorw (Jul 20, 2009)

Wile E said:


> I got increases by increasing my ram as well, but once I hit 1100MHz mem, I got larger increases by increasing the core speeds.
> 
> As far as more core volts, if your card has the digital voltera regulators, you can increase volts in BIOS or by using a program like ATI Tray Tools, GPU tool, or RivaTuner.
> 
> If it doesn't have regulators that can be controlled by software, the only thing you can do is a hard mod, or if you are lucky, there might be a pencil mod for your card.




4850s dont have Voltera s...
Theyd cost 40+ more bucks for this...
They only thing u can do is pencil or hard mod man!

Sapphire toxic 4850 has referrence PCB so u wont have problems finding the pencil or hard mod !


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 20, 2009)

u dont understand, i believe. i already did it to my last toxic (toxic is reference design,as said)... but, now, on the rma model the memory sux at proper voltage...and i dont know why... it runs even at 1230 with artifacts... but they only stop at nearly perfect 1100... i cant overclock even 10 mhz on that...WHY?

otherwise, how much volts can i put in a twin turbo, and what overclock should i reach until ive done the mod?


----------



## rico82 (Jul 21, 2009)

*powercolor 4830, more Vgpu ... which resistor to pencil or alternative bios flash?*

hi
i need help with the pencil mod or an alternative vgpu modification (up to 1.3V).

i cannot find the right resistor to "pencil" to 0.9 ohm.

ive already edit the bios with rbe to the max that was possible (1.158 V) -- and reached 770 / 1003.
with the 0.9 ohm (+DMM check) i want to pencil it to ... 1.25-1.3 V.  (stock cooling solution , fan manually raised up to 100%)

or is there another solution without penciling it --- like a "unlocked 1.26V gpu" bios flash for my card, that works with my pcb ?
(the org bios is about 64k big)

its a
powercolor 4830 512mb
and the chip (vmod for gpu) says ...

uP6201BQ
VLP88N

pic // backside:
Powercolor 4830 
512mb ddr3







maybe someone of you can help me out.

thanks in advance.
rico


[img=http://www.abload.de/thumb/img_2327lzsc.jpg]

additional pics of the card:
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=img_2341tw4b.jpg
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=img_2338rnx6.jpg
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=img_2339h8da.jpg
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=img_2336t8u9.jpg


----------



## Wile E (Jul 21, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> u dont understand, i believe. i already did it to my last toxic (toxic is reference design,as said)... but, now, on the rma model the memory sux at proper voltage...and i dont know why... it runs even at 1230 with artifacts... but they only stop at nearly perfect 1100... i cant overclock even 10 mhz on that...WHY?


Probably used lesser quality ram, or they tightened the timings on it.



Velvet Wafer said:


> otherwise, how much volts can i put in a twin turbo, and what overclock should i reach until ive done the mod?


Sorry, but the only way to figure that out, is to test for yourself. Every single card is different (as you have found out thru the ram not clocking).


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 21, 2009)

i meant the operating temperature... how much should i have maximum when i try to clock past 800+?

edit: remeasured the volts of the ram... under full load its 2.02-03... underspecificated.... could this be the problem?

theyre specced at 2.05 +- 0.5... meaning i can use 2.1 safely,am i right?

http://www.samsung.com/global/syste...oduct/2008/5/22/841580ds_k4j52324qh_rev10.pdf

i made the vcore mod yesterday... with 1.25 i get 770 stable, att goes until 784, then it finds an artifact


----------



## Scrizz (Jul 21, 2009)

them mem doesn't make as much of a difference as the core.
Once you hit 800+ on the core u will see big gains.
the card can take 1.3v vgpu np
I had mine at 850/1100 @1.4v vgpu


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 22, 2009)

LOL.

Now the card is crap. after lowering resistance from 1380ohm to just 1150ohm, first no screen, after removing the pencil, nice bar like artifacts... the ram must be faulty from the beginning, it never got far from its minimal running spec, i suppose theyre binning is shit today...or i just had bad luck. i just penciled a QUARTER of the transistor, i was very careful... dead. only with artifacts. i would like to puke, and die from that.

besides from that, that somehow fucked with my bios.... he didnt recognized 2nd harddrive at first, only after 5 reboots, sometimes it appeared in bios, but not as bootable. system was horribly sluggish, so sluggish that it was nearly a crash (at 3.8 it got worser)

now everything is alright (besides the card) sapphire have an rma to await.


----------



## Wile E (Jul 22, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> i meant the operating temperature... how much should i have maximum when i try to clock past 800+?
> 
> edit: remeasured the volts of the ram... under full load its 2.02-03... underspecificated.... could this be the problem?
> 
> ...



1.25V isn't even as high as a 4870 yet.

These things can handle insane core temps. It's the vregs you must watch, keep them as cool as possible. At least under 90C, preferably under 80C, imo. (I'd say the same for the core as well.) A twin turbo should be ok all the way to 1.4v, so long as you keep the vregs cooled well.

As far as the mem, 2.1 should be ok, if that's what their specs are.


----------



## Wile E (Jul 22, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> LOL.
> 
> Now the card is crap. after lowering resistance from 1380ohm to just 1150ohm, first no screen, after removing the pencil, nice bar like artifacts... the ram must be faulty from the beginning, it never got far from its minimal running spec, i suppose theyre binning is shit today...or i just had bad luck. i just penciled a QUARTER of the transistor, i was very careful... dead. only with artifacts. i would like to puke, and die from that.
> 
> ...


Just saw this. A dying card won't do that to your mobo. Check your psu. A dying one will cause problems like that. It will even cause the graphical artifacts.


----------



## Scrizz (Jul 22, 2009)

PSUs are the last thing u want going bad in your system.
One bad PSU can equal one dead rig (ie mobo fried, gpu, mem, hdd, etc..)


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 22, 2009)

my psu is a month old. all values except 5v are above theyre minimum level.

bios settings somehow work when i dont load saved profiles.
drive is found, but i had to run chkdsk from windows 7 to got many errors repaired that somehow appeared. now wcg will work again....

UPDATE: my computer froze, sound looped, but a few sec later it came back to life,suddenly... the computer freezes a few sec and then works again. it did 5 times during writing this.

what now?

i never encountered such strange behaviour... after reseating cables, drive got recognized normally
im somehow desperate... should i rma the card? whats with my psu?

*VELVET WAFER TAKES A PILLOW AND CRIES MADLY*


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## Wile E (Jul 22, 2009)

Anything can cause that. From bad drivers, all the way to a failing mobo. Either way, something isn't right. I'd back up my important data now, if I were you.

And the psu being a month old doesn't mean it is good, nor does software giving good voltage readings. You have to see what it does under heavy load with a multi-meter.

First thing I would do is run the memtest 86+ boot disc, and test my ram.

Next thing I would do is back up my data, then try a clean install of Windows to see if my problems stop. If not, I would start testing the rest of my hardware.


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 22, 2009)

update.... opening of my RIGHT sight panel fixed the drive and sluggy probs somehow... now i will try the card.. i believe its dead anyway...

i have to say that the main cable string is most times stuck between a not so unsharp edge and the panel... do you think this can cause problems, even when the material coating of the cables isnt damaged?

memtest is integrated in my mobo... at least it looks the same... until now, the random crashes disappeared... but i feared to put my side panel on again


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 25, 2009)

sry for doublepost, but: card is clearly dead... i cant display even windows... just the windows load screen. i make it ready for an rma, what do you say?

btw the other problems dissapeared somehow, after reconnecting every power cable leading to my drives, and to lay the ide maindrive and the fans on different connectors. pleased me somehow...


----------



## Wile E (Jul 26, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> sry for doublepost, but: card is clearly dead... i cant display even windows... just the windows load screen. i make it ready for an rma, what do you say?
> 
> btw the other problems dissapeared somehow, after reconnecting every power cable leading to my drives, and to lay the ide maindrive and the fans on different connectors. pleased me somehow...



Did you try uninstalling the drivers in safe mode, then reinstalling them? A corrupt driver install will cause that issue. If that doesn't fix it, I'd say it's rma time.

And sounds like you just had a loose connection somewhere causing your missing hard drives. Probably bumped it installing the card, or something like that.


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 26, 2009)

even when the driver is corrupt, the card should display the bios normally... no chance..

looks like these, but 3 times harder and unclearer, and if i try to get in windows, the screen displays 40-50 1cmx1cm artifact rectangles which spread themself with 1cm space between them.

http://img248.imageshack.us/i/screen9uf.gif/

it could have been that i messed with cables, but normally my cable management should prevent me from doing so. at least the rig works again...


----------



## Wile E (Jul 26, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> even when the driver is corrupt, the card should display the bios normally... no chance..
> 
> looks like these, but 3 times harder and unclearer, and if i try to get in windows, the screen displays 40-50 1cmx1cm artifact rectangles which spread themself with 1cm space between them.
> 
> ...



Oh yeah, that's RMA time for sure. Dead memory on the card.


----------



## Velvet Wafer (Jul 26, 2009)

it died from a tiny scratch of pencil... very cheap ram... my last ran fine with 2.3 (a short time) until i removed it. but no artifacts or even something in this direction. just heat-crashes because of the vf-900.

are RMAs of RMA´s accepted? i mean, do they make problems if an RMA-Part gets RMA´d?

ill send the card in on monday... it not even 2 weeks here then...


----------



## Wile E (Jul 26, 2009)

Velvet Wafer said:


> it died from a tiny scratch of pencil... very cheap ram... my last ran fine with 2.3 (a short time) until i removed it. but no artifacts or even something in this direction. just heat-crashes because of the vf-900.
> 
> are RMAs of RMA´s accepted? i mean, do they make problems if an RMA-Part gets RMA´d?
> 
> ill send the card in on monday... it not even 2 weeks here then...



Yes, you can RMA an RMA, as long as the warranty is still good on the original card.

And are you trying to use a vf-900 on these cards? If so, stop it. lol. The vf-900 is overpowered by these cards.


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 26, 2009)

lol no i got a toxic... its delivered with it... for OC-purpose i got myself a twin turbo, lapped ;-)


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## cr1pz (Jul 26, 2009)

Hey ! wassup everybody  

Hey velvet you might have read about peltier cells , haven't you ? I found out they're really cheap in my country ! lol , do you think is a good method for cooling a vga? I know they're really cool as much as you manage to keep the hot side cool.

But what i don't know is that issue with the power ,I mean there are some cells working at 136 watt , some other at less power range , maybe 56 watt in fact those are cheaper...
I'll keep gathering intel in order to get the best option


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 26, 2009)

if you plan on using peltiers, combine them with a watercooling loop and insulation... if one fails, your card isnt too prone to dying... if you put the peltier directly on the core, chances are high, that if it fails, your card will fry in seconds, or if youre lucky, it will shutdown immediatly...

i wouldnt use peltiers for anything other than chilling water. its too dangerous, even if its cheap and effective (if you plan on removing the additional peltier heat, dont use air cooling.... this could be toasty in a case, you should at least use water... so you see... peltiers are not the best idea, you WILL have to invest in Water, if you want to keep it cool AND safe)


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## Wile E (Jul 26, 2009)

You need to water cool a peltier for it to be effective. You should also have a dedicated power supple, just for the peltier. Now, throw in the fact that most gpu water blocks can only fit 40x40mm peltiers, and you can only get 80w peltiers in 12v. Not worth the effort at all. You could look at 24v peltiers in 40x40mm, but then you need to buy a 24v peltier power supple, which is usually a little more expensive.

It actually becomes very expensive to run peltier cooling on your graphics card. It's not worth the trouble.


----------



## cr1pz (Jul 27, 2009)

I am planning to do some water cooler anyway ,but as I see , it'd be enough with the WC , enough to keep a good range of temperature and to avoiding accidents .. 
thank you guys


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## Velvet Wafer (Jul 27, 2009)

if you ever want to have below ambient temperatures for low money, build you a bong cooler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bong_cooler


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## overclocking101 (Sep 13, 2009)

ok guys i did the hardmod! i figured someone on the forums had to right??? well here it is in all its glory the core resister need to still be glued down same with the vcore/vmem molex reader but its done all the same soon as i plug it in ill hit you up with screen shots!!!


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## theorw (Sep 13, 2009)

overclocking101 said:


> ok guys i did the hardmod! i figured someone on the forums had to right??? well here it is in all its glory the core resister need to still be glued down same with the vcore/vmem molex reader but its done all the same soon as i plug it in ill hit you up with screen shots!!!


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## Scrizz (Sep 13, 2009)

overclocking101 said:


> ok guys i did the hardmod! i figured someone on the forums had to right??? well here it is in all its glory the core resister need to still be glued down same with the vcore/vmem molex reader but its done all the same soon as i plug it in ill hit you up with screen shots!!!



let's see how high you can clock that sucker.
penciling mine game a 225MHz increase over stock


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## Wile E (Sep 14, 2009)

overclocking101 said:


> ok guys i did the hardmod! i figured someone on the forums had to right??? well here it is in all its glory the core resister need to still be glued down same with the vcore/vmem molex reader but its done all the same soon as i plug it in ill hit you up with screen shots!!!



Be careful with the mem voltage. My experience with it shows that GDDR3 is pretty sensitive. I quit doing vmem mods for 24/7 use. I do it on benching cards only.

And I vmodded my 4850 30 minutes after I got it. Popped it in to make sure it wasn't DOA, took it back out, fired up the soldering iron, did the vgpu mod, threw a water block on it, and threw it back in. lol.

1.4v got me to 900Mhz bench stable, probably around 870 game stable.


----------



## theorw (Sep 16, 2009)

Qustion:Can i use a 20KOHM resistor for the solder mod?


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## Wile E (Sep 16, 2009)

theorw said:


> Qustion:Can i use a 20KOHM resistor for the solder mod?



No.


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## theorw (Sep 16, 2009)

Wile E said:


> No.



Why is that?
Could u explain please?


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 16, 2009)

theorw said:


> Why is that?
> Could u explain please?



Ok so you don't want to do this because of Ohm's law.  In other words, the amperage of the card would be too high, as well as the wattage.  







And if you still don't get it, IT WONT WORK.


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## overclocking101 (Sep 16, 2009)

so far just tested for working vmod and it does work. after im done messing with my new 4870's (maybe vmodding them to) ill test for high clocks


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## Wile E (Sep 16, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> Ok so you don't want to do this because of Ohm's law.  In other words, the amperage of the card would be too high, as well as the wattage.
> 
> http://www.angelfire.com/pa/baconbacon/images/HOMSLAW.GIF
> 
> And if you still don't get it, IT WONT WORK.



Thanks PVT. I have so much experience in electronics, that I just assume that everyone else understands the basic principles.

@theorw - It's as PVT says. The voltage will be too high if you use a 20k ohm resistor. The lower the resistance, the higher the voltage. You need a 100k ohm 15(or higher) turn resistor for this.


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## theorw (Sep 16, 2009)

Wile E said:


> Thanks PVT. I have so much experience in electronics, that I just assume that everyone else understands the basic principles.
> 
> @theorw - It's as PVT says. The voltage will be too high if you use a 20k ohm resistor. The lower the resistance, the higher the voltage. You need a 100k ohm 15(or higher) turn resistor for this.



I know the ohms law guys...
Just wanted to hear an explanation.I am studying electrology at uni and not electronics(houses are different that PCs...),i think the next year maybe...
Anyway i just put 2 20kohm+a fixed 50ohms soldered together and it worked
Now i get like 0.8 more volts and still i have to max out the 2nd 20ohm resistor!
The problem is this.When i have my card @820 @1,30 volts it runs flawlessly every bench and game but @ 1,38 volts the system will shut down after 5 minutes.And NO its not overheating...
Maybe my PSU is maxed out then?

PS:check out my ULTRA pro voltmod!
[url]http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9530/dsc01801df.jpg[/URL]
[url]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/1566/dsc01802y.jpg[/URL]
[url]http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2843/dsc01803kj.jpg[/URL]


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## Wile E (Sep 16, 2009)

theorw said:


> I know the ohms law guys...
> Just wanted to hear an explanation.I am studying electrology at uni and not electronics(houses are different that PCs...),i think the next year maybe...
> Anyway i just put 2 20kohm+a fixed 50ohms soldered together and it worked
> Now i get like 0.8 more volts and still i have to max out the 2nd 20ohm resistor!
> ...


1.38V idle? And what program are you testing with?


----------



## theorw (Sep 16, 2009)

Not idle.Load.
Idle i get 1,29volts.
gpuz 'course...
U reckon the card cant handle it?Should admit its almost a year @1,33volts@821mhz core and 1200mem.
Could it be that the vrms have aged faster?Or that the card cant handle that much volts?
I got musashi on it,u keep in mind!


----------



## Wile E (Sep 16, 2009)

My card cuts out if it hits over 1.4V under load, regardless of temps or clocks.

But, if you are 100% positive the card never goes above 1.4V, then I would make sure your vrm cooling is up to the task.


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 17, 2009)

Oh looks like my pic 404'd...  Anyway...  Ohm's law is:

V = IR

V is volts, I is amps, R is resistance!

EDIT:  Here is my question thought, what I REALLY care about.  Someone do the math...  Clearly we want both voltage and resistance to change, that means we would have to make amperage a constant?


----------



## theorw (Sep 17, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> Oh looks like my pic 404'd...  Anyway...  Ohm's law is:
> 
> V = IR
> 
> ...


 Well isnt P=V*I ??
I dont think that the amperage is a constant...Wattage (P) increases so amperage increases as well.


----------



## theorw (Sep 17, 2009)

Wile E said:


> My card cuts out if it hits over 1.4V under load, regardless of temps or clocks.
> 
> But, if you are 100% positive the card never goes above 1.4V, then I would make sure your vrm cooling is up to the task.



I monitor the card having the DMM plugged in all the time and the volts never go over 1.38.
In addition, my vrm have sinks on both chokes and mosfets and the musashi blows over them...
So it might be age or the card reaching its limit on the vtm capabilities...


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 17, 2009)

theorw said:


> Well isnt P=V*I ??
> I dont think that the amperage is a constant...Wattage (P) increases so amperage increases as well.



But then again do we actually know wattage or amperage?  Actually we might know wattage which is why that equation might work to get the amperage and then plug it into my equation posted above.


----------



## theorw (Sep 17, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> But then again do we actually know wattage or amperage?  Actually we might know wattage which is why that equation might work to get the amperage and then plug it into my equation posted above.



Well i think 4850 has 110 peak wattage so it goes like this=V*I=>110=1,158*I=94,...AMPS.
Well its odd isnt it?I dont think that the current is 94 amps
Am i getting the default voltage wrong or what???

havent used these equations since highschool....


----------



## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 17, 2009)

94 amps seems VERY high.  I will see if I can find the technical data sheet on the subject.


----------



## Wile E (Sep 17, 2009)

The overall power draw of the card on the psu occurs at 12V. So, 110W on a 4850 = 9.16A total power draw.


----------



## belial13 (Oct 23, 2009)

so i got a sapphire 4850 for some time now, one of the firsts and strapped S1 on it with dual fans

today i finally tried the pencil mod with a B2 pencil and NOTHING, not .01 volts of "improvement" , i am supposed to shade that middle one right ? and one thing i noticed, i got the uP6201BQ chip but its not VLP824 but some other (will check later) does that matter ?


----------



## Vhozard (Dec 5, 2009)

*HD4850 pencil mod results*

I did the first (easiest) pencil mod and it worked out great! 
I came from 670 / 1065 and ended with 770 / 1100 stable. 
My load temps did increase, from about 55 to 74.

Before:







After:


----------



## theorw (Jan 3, 2010)

Very nice job mate!!!What volts do u have @ these clocks?
Take it for someone that v modded to of them in xfire(me) 
@1,35 core/2,35 mem they can do 820ish/1200 24/7!
Just have good cooler and sinks on memory and VRMs.
I had 2 musashi...


----------



## luke05 (Jan 11, 2010)

Deleted, I've changed my video card!


----------



## overclocking101 (Jan 11, 2010)

Wile E said:


> Be careful with the mem voltage. My experience with it shows that GDDR3 is pretty sensitive. I quit doing vmem mods for 24/7 use. I do it on benching cards only.
> 
> And I vmodded my 4850 30 minutes after I got it. Popped it in to make sure it wasn't DOA, took it back out, fired up the soldering iron, did the vgpu mod, threw a water block on it, and threw it back in. lol.
> 
> 1.4v got me to 900Mhz bench stable, probably around 870 game stable.




well you sure were right about this! fried my memory controller big time! I can still get the card to post and boot windows but major artifacts as the memory isnt getting correct constant volatge lol. i had it running 790 core and 1150 mem and trimmed up the mem voltage a bit more looked down an was watching sparks come off the mem controller shut down and boom dead controller oh well you live you learn. I got another 4850 coming this time i wont vmod the memory just the core lol


----------



## luke05 (Jan 13, 2010)

Hi,

this is my HIS 4850 IceQ TurboX - 512Mb:



 




I think it's non a reference one, so...  I'l like to do just a simple pencil mod for the VGPU,
can you help me, please? 

It seems that it's not possibile to do the "first" pencil-VMOD, because there is no resistor there.

The second one, for more that 1,4V for VGPU, is possible, according to you or not?


----------



## Wile E (Jan 13, 2010)

overclocking101 said:


> well you sure were right about this! fried my memory controller big time! I can still get the card to post and boot windows but major artifacts as the memory isnt getting correct constant volatge lol. i had it running 790 core and 1150 mem and trimmed up the mem voltage a bit more looked down an was watching sparks come off the mem controller shut down and boom dead controller oh well you live you learn. I got another 4850 coming this time i wont vmod the memory just the core lol



Yeah, I don't know if it's just my luck or what, but I have a 100% failure rate on vmem modded cards. And we aren't talking crazy voltages, I'm talking going from a stock 2.0 to 2.05 or 2.10 with additional cooling on the memory.


----------



## pita (Jan 22, 2010)

Hello,i am new here and i wanted to ask how low can i put the resistance on gpu mem,and where i could measure gpu memory voltage?My card is sapphire 4850 dual slot fansink with accelero s1 on it.http://img341.imageshack.us/i/pict0068a.jpg/%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4954/pict0068a.th.jpgThe picture.


----------



## theorw (Jan 22, 2010)

luke05 said:


> Hi,
> 
> this is my HIS 4850 IceQ TurboX - 512Mb:
> 
> ...



Having modded 2 4850s,reference and not i a pretty sure its reference design so look at the forums start for more info on pencil orhard mod!


----------



## pita (Jan 23, 2010)

pita said:


> Hello,i am new here and i wanted to ask how low can i put the resistance on gpu mem,and where i could measure gpu memory voltage?My card is sapphire 4850 dual slot fansink with accelero s1 on it.http://img341.imageshack.us/i/pict0068a.jpg/%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4954/pict0068a.th.jpgThe picture.



bump


----------



## arroyo (Feb 12, 2010)

Hello,

I want to make v-mod on the reference HD4850 simplest way possible. I do not trust my soldering skills and I do not like pencil mods, because they change their properties after some time. However, I ran an idea: 

What do you think about this: 
1. I change BIOS voltage values using RBE 4 units down (instead of 1.158V will be 1.006V, etc.) 
2. I would flash the card with the modified bios. 
3. I would paint a resistor with conductive paint using method similar to pencil mod (method for below 1.4V)
4. I would OC and change the voltage in bios. 

What I should get:
Since the pencil mod on the resistor provides a maximum of 1.4V under stress, I will reduce this value in the BIOS to 1.24V. I could peacefully (without the use of potentiometer) flash card to voltage that I like (maximum of 4 units higher, so 1.28V, 1.32V, 1.36V and 1.4V). Resistance will not change after a month, because mod will be executed by paint instead of graphite pencil. 

What am I afraid: 
- That the short-circuit resistor hurt anything. 
- That a maximum of 1.4V at the method of the resistor is fake, and indeed it is a much higher voltage 
- That despite the settings in the BIOS, the card will receive the maximum voltage (> 1.4V) 
- That no one never tested it and it is madness. 

Can anyone allay my fears before I burn my HD4850


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## Necrofire (Feb 18, 2010)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> 94 amps seems VERY high.  I will see if I can find the technical data sheet on the subject.



Well, 110W would be the whole card, not just the core.
But, at 110W, the card would be pulling ~9.2Amps at 12V. This would come out to ~94A if everything on the card worked on 1.158Volts. So the core alone draws somewhat less than 94 amps total, but it would still be a hefty number given how relatively low the voltage is.

Think about it this way:
Given a cpu says it's TDP is 125W. If the voltage is 1.4, then it would be using ~90 amps.
I bet those traces would start getting warm at that amperage.


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## Necrofire (Feb 18, 2010)

arroyo said:


> Hello,
> 
> I want to make v-mod on the reference HD4850 simplest way possible. I do not trust my soldering skills and I do not like pencil mods, because they change their properties after some time. However, I ran an idea:
> 
> ...



I don't see why it wouldn't work, but one word of warning:
Conductive paint has a much lower resistivity than graphite. You basically risk just shorting the whole resistor with even a very small amount of paint.


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## theorw (Feb 19, 2010)

Necrofire said:


> Well, 110W would be the whole card, not just the core.
> But, at 110W, the card would be pulling ~9.2Amps at 12V. This would come out to ~94A if everything on the card worked on 1.158Volts. So the core alone draws somewhat less than 94 amps total, but it would still be a hefty number given how relatively low the voltage is.
> 
> Think about it this way:
> ...




dude u are making a  mistake...
The card uses 12v that is then transformed into 1,158...so 12v are the ones to use in the P=VI formula....so the AMPS are 9,1A...94A cannot be supplied by a PSU..


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## Vhozard (Feb 23, 2010)

UPDATE: I freakin' trashed my card!

It all started good: increased GPU clocks and memory clocks, but also a temperature raise (not too big luckily).

But then one particular game started crashing: World in Conflict would crash after 10~20 minutes (random), making my screen filled with blue/red/gray vertical lines. 
Maximum temperatures were only 74 degrees under load, but it couldn't have been anything else than my HD4850. 
So I tried to lower the clocks to stock, but that didn't help. 
I even lowered them to 500/750, but no deal. I went from  to 

Now I've cleaned my card with rubbing alcohol and it still crashed. 
Only after cleaning up the pencil mods and lowering the clocks to 690/995 it doesn't crash. 
FurMark makes my card 50 degrees tops (after 1 hour Xtreme Burning) and shows no artifacts.

Maybe I fucked up when I applied the memory pencil mod? Or was the GPU mod the killer...
FurMark (1.8.0) can't crash my card with all settings on (including Xtreme Burning Mode) while showing 99~100% load in GPU-Z, but World in Conflict can?

PS You can rule out memory/cpu/psu problems, it's definitly my HD4850

Some more pics of cooling (Accelero S1):


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## Wile E (Feb 24, 2010)

The artifacts you mention suggest memory. I highly suggest NOT doing vmem mods. GDDR seems much more sensitive to voltage than standard DDR memory types. Every card I have ever vmem modded, even by as little as going from 2.0 to 2.05V has resulted in degradation for me.

Do the vgpu mod, and leave the mem volts alone.


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## Vhozard (Feb 24, 2010)

Yes, that's what I've learned too. Memory mod probably screwed it up.


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