The Radeon 9800 SE To Radeon 9800 Pro Mod Guide Posted!

every degree helps. but i got a nice boost in oc when i used the stock msi heatsink with as5.

 

My first post..

I have purchased the following card - XpertVision Radeon 9800SE 256MB 128Bit running Core @ 380Mhz, Memory @ 275Mhz.

Currently my PC is an old P4 1.7ghz (100MhzFSB with 17x multiplier) with only a 4x AGP port .

Using the 4.12 Catalyst drivers I achieved a 3DMark03 score of 2954.
Using the Omega drivers unlocking 8 pipelines I achieved a 3DMark03 score of 3610.
(only minor artefacts on Pixel Shader 2.0 images as the water in Mother Earth had artefacts. So my 4 new pipelines seem pretty good, no problems with far cry ).

Note: I have not overclocked the card.

In your article you say a new heatsink is a must, but my question is, if you only open the pipelines and DO NOT overclock will it generate more heat, and/or will the existing heatsink be sufficient.

Attached is a picture of my card and a picture of a 9800 Pro with 256bit and 8 pipelines.

From what I can tell the heatsinks are the same so my assumption is that the XpertVision card will handle the 8 pipelines.

Also One final question, if I try to overclock the Computer CPU beyond 103Mhz FSB, the Video Card will raise errors when running, VPU Recover says something like “timeout waiting on a hardware deadlock”. At 109Mhz FSB the computer won’t boot properly. Any ideas why this would be happening? (previously with my Nvidia MX440 I was running at 109Mhz FSB).

Cheers
John

 

yes it will generate more heat. ur letting more electricity pass thru the core.

as for the FSB, it's cuz ur probably not locking the pci/agp buses frequencies. 66(agp)/33(pci) is where it should always be. reason why ur mx440 could do higher is cuz nvidia cards can tolerate higher frequencies.

 

Well, I recommended that you change it. high temps will decrease the lifespan of your hardware...

 

My friend came up with a simple method to help cool the GPU.

He basically had a spare 8cm fan lying around and some cardboard, bit of metal and some tape

Check out the attached pics. The setup just draws cool air directly from outside and blows it at the GPU. It's prolly nowhere near as good as getting a new heatsink and fan though.

I'm also underclocking my GPU at the moment cos not really playing 3D games at the moment apart from Rome: Total War.

3Dmark 2003 results...
9800SE = 3660
9800SE@PRO = 5200
9800SE@PRO with 300MHz GPU (down from 380Mhz) & same 300Mhz ram = 4600

it gets warm/hot either way, but i can still touch it fine and far from getting burnt

 

WOW!
Thats a great idea!

I actually though of doing it a while back but didnt have the materials...

 

hello all,
i am new here, have just read this whole post and i did feel confidant about preforming the mod myself however upon receiving my card this morning things have changed and i have a few questions. i purchased my card on ebay, see here, and discovered things to be inorder as far as the RAM placement, type of ram, etc... when i lifted the Heatsink off of the CPU i discovered a wonderful suprise, a R360 GPU. i was expecting a R350. anyway i am wondering if i can take this card to the max and make it a Radeon 9800XT, if not then i will be perfectly happy with a radeon 9800 PRO for ~150US, CHeers!!

 

Hi, to tell you the truth, no one has attempted the SE-->Pro-->XT mod... Why dont you just give it a try? The card looks like its using a 9700 PCB....

 

yeah that looked suspicious to me as well, eh the GPU seems to think it is a R360 because its etched in to the top of it, wierd. anyway this thing is going to make a nice se -> pro mod, that is if everything is in working order. anyone tried this mod on windows XP 64 bit edition? if not then i will be the first(well not really but it sounds cool)

 

Well, if someone makes the hacked drivers for the 64bit version of Windows Xp, then it shouldn't be a prob.

 

well i don't know wether or not to be excited or frustrated. when i changed to the omega drivers everything worked and the machine booted just fine. then when i went in to the ATI tool (v0.0.23 for those of you who care) it said that i have TAA enabled and that it would cause artifacts. so i ignored it and ran the scan and there were artifacts. so im wondering how do i turn off TAA? i looked and couldn't find it at all. its strange though when i run the test now it says that there are errors but the rendered picture looks fine. please help, i know this is probably something stupid i just can't see it

 

Well, I don't see why anyone would turn Temporal AA off. Don't use ATI tool to check for artifacts... You have to stress test it and watch for it on your own...

 

nope, stock 9800se speeds


before


after

are there any tools that you guys would reccomend to test or should i go balls out and play games till i pass out

 

Just run 3dmark03 (the first 4 tests). That would show if there are really artifacts or not. Doom3 would too I think.

 

im sceptical about this but it could be some stupid setting. i have had settings do that on other radeon cards before. we shall see.....