Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: aSTAR on January 15, 2004, 05:13:06 PM
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Need to replace Fan, I see 2 grommets on the front & back of the card, there a no screw slots just black covers over the retaining holes. How would I remove them without damaging the card, and removing the fan for replacement?
Thanks in advance.
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There are pins in the gromets that cause the gromet to expand on the back side of the card. All you have to do is pull the pins and the spring loaded gromets come out and the fan comes off. Needle nose pliers will do the trick.
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RGR, thanks, I think you suggested I pull the BACK grommets first correct?
Appreciate your follow up.
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No, the plastic pins are on the front of the card. It takes very little effort to pull them out. After removing the pins, the gromets will come out with a little harder tug, from the front, than it took to get the pins out.
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I almost have the same setup as you on the computer with the exception of the MoBo, ASUS P4C800Pro. How come your at 1000 MHz, I believe mine is 800 MHZ?
Thanks for the reply.
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s-eagle, I hope not to bore you with stuff you already know, but I'm avoiding work I really don't want to do so you get the long answer.:
It's seriously overclocked. The 800MHz front side bus is really a quad piped 200MHz bus. So 200 x 4 gives you the 800MHz efective speed. Processor speed is set by a multiplier in the chip so a 3.0GHz chip has a multiplier of 15, 2.8 = 14, 2.4 = 12. The front side bus speed is set in bios. So on my computer I changed the bus speed to 250MHz in bios giving it an 1000Mhz effective speed. Because the multiplier can't be changed by means available to me, the processor has to run at 3.75GHz (250 x 15). To get the processor to work at that speed, more voltage is required. More voltage generates more heat, which requires more cooling. I could not get past 240MHz on a fan based CPU heat sink so I went to a watercooling solution from Corsair. To get the most out of overclocking you have to have fast memory so the memory and processor run @ 1:1 ratio or close thereto. Without DDR500(PC4000) memory I'd have to run @ 5:4 or 4:3 which would hamper maximum performance. It is easier to overclock A 2.8 or lower chip as the lower multiplier results in a lower processor speed @ 1000MHz FSB. Much faster speeds (almost 5GHz) are atainable with prometia or vapochill coolers and lowered memory speeds relative to the FSB. Corsair has DDR550 memory out that will run 1:1 on an 1100MHz FSB.
Your ASUS mobo is a good board for overclocking. Cooling is the key.
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The cooling can be a problem, I was intending to install the Zallman VGA Heatpipe cooler with the fan.This is just to make sure the the vid card stays KOOL :)
Will not get involved with complicated OC'ng.
Thanks. Ed
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That's what I have. ZM80C-HP +OP1
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I am still using ver 3.7 cat. drivers for the vid card, have you found any significant improvement using the 3.1 cat drv?
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Take a look at this web site, it's me having fun with a P51D.
http://www.mts.net/~lcymbal/index.html
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I'm using cat 3.10. Benchmarked it against 3.9 and found no difference on a 9600 Pro. I've always believed ATI wouldn't release a driver unless it was an improvement in some way and so I've kept updating. Never used the 3.7 drivers that came with the card. I installed them and then immediately downloaded 3.9. I haven't perceived any difference in image quality (through the bifocals).
What a great experience flying the P-51 must have been. Closest I can come is driving race cars (amateur BMW Club Racing). Thrilling but tame compared to the P-51. Loved the pics.
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Heya S-eagle, been asking around on the AH forum about upgrading/overclocking for a couple of days now and today I did it.
Using a Radeon 9700 non pro, installed the same Zalman heatpipe with the fan, quite easy installation, took some time but the whole set was great, extra glue if needed (not needed in my case) and lots of extra parts and really good instructions.
There was only one thing I had trouble with, it was getting the old fan/heatsink off, I succeeded in finding out about the pins, just tried some stuff and found out they could be pulled straight up and after that just push the two black "plops" from the back. My heatsink didn't come off after that though as most (some better than others I guess) are glued aswell. If it is glued, thus stuck, take a hair dryer and warm it up some then gently twitch it from side to side till it comes off.
The Fan works great, running it at normal speed (highest of the two settings, ~2800rpm). I OC:ed the memory to 301 (310 gives artifacts so the margins are quite slim). The GPU is a whole other matter though, OC:ed it to 368 Mhz (from 275 normal) withouth any artifatcs, that's as high as Powerstrip wants to go, will see if I find another program so I can raise it further for testing purpose.
Score 5100+ in 3D Mark 03 with GPU at 368 and Memory clock at 301.
Good luck and let me know if there is any trouble installing the heatpipe, did it 6 hours ago so quite fresh :)
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GREAT stuff you mentioned, am starting to get courage to remove the vid card fan, your statements will help.
Do you think it's worth the trouble?
Thanks for repling to this topic.
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It's DEFINATLY worth it!
It was the first time I ever attempted any kind of serious overclocking, most I did before was 20mhz increasement on the vid card (and it gave artifacts probarly because of the Radeon 9700 non pro being locked for overclocking). It took me maybe 2 or 3 hours to assmble the whole thing, half an hour or more was to figure out how to get the heatsink removed
As it is now I've overclocked the GPU from 275Mhz (standard 9700 non pro) to 368Mhz and the Memory clock from 270 to 301. At those settings I get no artifacts, the fan and heatpipe seem to work really really good. I found another program instead of Powerstrip, it's called Radlinker, it alows you to overclock far more than powerstrip and instead of being a new program it just adds it self in the ATI controll panell. Will take the GPU up some more tomorrow morning (3am here now :D ) and let you know how it works.
But like I said, wether you wanna overclock it or not, the Zalman heatpipe and fan are definatly worth it, they run silent too and make the vid card look quite brutal :D
Spend the money and the time on it, well worth it.
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Ps, I gained almost 1000 more points in 3D Mark 03 using the 386/301 settings :)
Lower the immage quality some and I get 240 FPS in AH looking straight up.
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What is RADLIKER, and where do I D/L it from?
Thanks.
BTW do you remove the TOP black grommets first then push or pull out the bottom grommets?
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How did you clean up the VGA?
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S-eagle,
Rage3D Tweak (http://www.rage3d.com/?node=r3dtweak&54896) is the program I use. It integrates into the ATI Control Panel. To overclock, you just move two sliders, one for the VPU the other for Vmem. I recommend you start the 9800 @ 425/350. Go up 5MHz at a time and run theAquamark3 (http://www.aquamark3.com) benchmark (it runs much faster than the 3DMark benchmarks). Look for atrifacts, snow will be the first to appear testing the VPU and white horizontal lines on the memory test. Keep going up on the VPU in 5MHz increments till artifacts appear and back off 5 from that point. Now do the same for memory. My AIW 9800 pro clocked to 455/380 and ran the benchmark flawlessly. Scored 6900 on 3DMark and 51,000+ on Aquamark3.
The fan isn't really glued on but, the thermal tape used has some adhesiveness. When the fan comes off you'll be looking at a little square, the VPU, maybe 15mm on a side, surrounded by circut board surrounded by a square steel shim. The thermal tape residue on the VPU can be cleaned off with isopropanol, ethanol, or zylene on a Qtip.
The Zalman Cooler allowed me to gain 30MHz on the VPU overclock over the stock fan. Next, I'm going to put a waterblock on the vpu and hook it up to the hydrocool and giant ramsinks on the memory and see what I can get to.
One thing I should mention, If you run with v-sync on in AH as Skuzzy recommends, overclocking may not make any difference. My system runs @ 85 fps, monitor refresh rate, stock or overclocked. In AH2 it will make a difference of maybe 10 fps. I haven't tried running the monitor @ 100Hz to see if the card can keep it @ 100 or not (the picture is smaller on this monitor @100Hz). I ran it with v-sync off for a while and saw numbers in the high 200s but the fact is the monitor will not display frames in excess of its refresh rate. The excess frames are dropped which could lead to choppiness.
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A BIG thanks on that info, I have a couple of questions, but later,
again TY.
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Pull out the small pins from the top first (pull the thinest part of the top, like a small head) then push from bellow after that heat up the heatsink some so the glue is warmed up (use a hairdryer) and remove the heatsink.
Clean the GPU/VPU (same thing) with alcohol, I used a thing called "T-Red", bout 70% alcohol in it, the more alcohol the better, wouldn't go bellow 70% though.
Using this Zalman fan I can go up about 110Mhz on the GPU and 30Mhz on the Memory clock before I see artifacts so one hell of an improvement, you won't be able to go up as much as you're using a 9800 though, it's a bit warmer afaik.
I'll be away from home for two weeks now so might not be able to get a computer and answer questions.
Good luck!
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Originally posted by ChasR
s-eagle, I hope not to bore you with stuff you already know, but I'm avoiding work I really don't want to do so you get the long answer.:
It's seriously overclocked. blah blah blah
You're running stable at that speed? Prime95 runs without error for 24 hours? If so, I'm impressed considering most of the people I know couldn't reach that speed and survive prime95 without error.
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Hadn't run prime95 on it. Now that I have, I guess I'll eat some crow and join the club with most of the rest of the people you know. I couldn't get it to run prime 95 @ 3.75GHz at any voltage between 1.6 and 1.75 (It locked up in windows @1.75). It ran memtest fine, and PassMark burnin test without error and certainly seems stable @ 3.75Ghz but won't run prime95 through the first test (less than 5 min). It will run it @ 3.6GHz (240 x 15). I'll just have to start from there and see where it tops out. I thought I might max out the 3.0Ghz chip before getting the bus speed up to 1000MHz and considered buying a 2.8 instead, but whatever, it's still pretty fast even if I don't make my target.
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Why is everyone want to get 1,000,000 FPS, when anything over 25 FPS will give you enough definition and flying capabilities:confused:
I am guilty of this, but are we just going on to beat the Joneses:D
Must be a marketing thing:confused:
OK, back to OC the computer:aok
BTW, thanks to all for the help on this, a GREAT FORUM this is:aok
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Originally posted by ChasR
Hadn't run prime95 on it. Now that I have, I guess I'll eat some crow and join the club with most of the rest of the people you know. I couldn't get it to run prime 95 @ 3.75GHz at any voltage between 1.6 and 1.75 (It locked up in windows @1.75). It ran memtest fine, and PassMark burnin test without error and certainly seems stable @ 3.75Ghz but won't run prime95 through the first test (less than 5 min). It will run it @ 3.6GHz (240 x 15). I'll just have to start from there and see where it tops out. I thought I might max out the 3.0Ghz chip before getting the bus speed up to 1000MHz and considered buying a 2.8 instead, but whatever, it's still pretty fast even if I don't make my target.
Did you disable spread spectrum? Still a damn good OC if you ask me...
I've got mine at 3070, I seem to fail prime95 any higher. I think with better ram I'll be able to push it. I can run it at 3.2 with no stability issues but can't pass prime95 :(
My 9800 non pro is running right now at 391/330 :) and continuing to clime, thanks to your link on the util.
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I'm not familiar with "spread spectrum". Where does one disable it and why?
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Spread spectrum is disabled in the BIOS, under Advanced Chipset Settings, IIRC. Toms hardware says this:
"Spread Spectrum Control: This function is used for meeting the specifications when complying with the CE acceptance test. Enabling it leads to a noticeable deterioration in performance. That's why it should always be disabled! "
Memory timings : http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/p4-mem.html
BIOS Guide: Good read
http://www.rojakpot.com/freebog.aspx
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Spread spectrum isn't an option in the bios for the IC7-MAX3. It is in the bios on the NF7-S so I disabled it on my work computer. Aquamark 3 score went up about 16 pts.
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D/L 2504 OMEGA drivers, WOW, MUCHO FPS (30FPS)additional Plus DingBat's suggestion on disabling Spread Spectrum has really
smoothen out and increased my FPS:aok
I get 403 FPS looking up, 173 in tower no clip board, and usually 200+ while flying straight ahead.
Need to stop this clean up or my Monitor will go to the MOON:lol
Thanks ALL for your help in achieving these wonderfull results.
S-EAGLE
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Dingbat,
After reading the article on memory timings, I started playing with them to see if the Corsair DDR500 memory would run with tighter timings now that it's running @ DDR490 (and running prime95). I got it down from 3-4-4-7 to 2.5-4-3-5 and low and behold the computer is faster than it was @ 1000MHz. Thanks for the link.
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Any time, I found that link to be a goldmine, the read was very loong but packed with info...