Sparkle 9600GT 512mb (Vcore + Vmem)

[osmiumoc]

My first Vmod attempt. Excuse the bad paint skills and horrible mod, but its working 

Vcore
Datasheet for the controller: www.anpec.com.tw/ashx_prod_file.ashx?prod_id=643&file_path=20131217184206967.pdf&original_name=APW7088.pdf

FB to ground is 966 Ω.
I did not bother to find R1 and R2. I located the FB pin and found a connected empty pad right next to it. This is the spot I soldered my wire to. I used high quality 20 AWG silicone wires, which were much to big. I recommend going a lot smaller, but by cutting one end in half I managed to fit it on the pad without much of a mess. I covered the spots I touched with liquid rubber to make sure nothing bad happens.
Also I taped the wire down and glued it in a safe spot so there will be less strain on the connection to the tiny pad. I found it is very easy to rip these small pads off including the traces. From here I went into a dip-switch and from there into a 50KΩ pot and into gnd at the power connector.
I just used the 50kΩ pot as I'm running short on 20KΩ ones. By all means I would recommend you use 20x and go with a 20KΩ as I did on Vmem.



Vmem
Similar steps for Vmem. Located the FB pin on the APW7067N controller ( www.anpec.com.tw/ashx_prod_file.ashx?file_path=20080916144856171.pdf&original_name=APW7067N.pdf ). 
I found one resistor that it is connected to and the value checks out with FB to gnd. This time 910 Ω. I soldered to the end of the resistor that had 0Ω to FB (its the end on the right in the picture). I went with a 20KΩ pot this time, again with a dip switch in between to disable the mod.



And here is the final result. Mods work fine, I did not yet test for OVP or OCP limits tho. Due to the Vmem pot being only 18KΩ at max, just enabling the mod has Vmem going from 1.935V to 2.001V. On Vcore it took a few turns to get into a range where it gets going, but it's still controllable once turned down. Just to see if the mod works I raised it from 1.08V to 1.14V under 3D-load. Runs fine, no issues. Will test for OCP and/or OVP later.




For reference, this is the same model as my card. Crappy chunk of aluminium as heatsink.



I switched it for this cooler which dropped load temps (before mod) from 50°C to 31°C. And gave the VRMs atleast some airflow.
Now that the mod is working I'll actually bother to glue on some memory and VRM heatsinks.

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[Macsbeach98]

Looks Good but the size of that wire.
I use an old 80 pin IDE cable and strip one strand at a time they are a single strand of copper.

Another tip I get an old molex plug and get the connector out of it insulate the end with heatshrink or insulation tape would do. The multimeter probe slides in tight then solder it onto the output side of the choke or a cap leg and use another Molex connector and get a 3pin fan header cut the red and yellow wire off and solder your molex connector to the black wire then plug it into a spare motherboard fan header.
Now you dont have to probe the back of the card while its running and your making adjustments.
I will post a pic up later I am walking out the door now.

[Vinster]

Another option would be magnet wire (Clear insulated copper wire). there isn't any current going through those signals.

Vin

[osmiumoc]

Both core and memory reacted positive to the mod. With both mods disabled I hit a max. 767MHz on the core and 1134MHz on the memory. Just by enabling the Vmem, which raises voltage from 1.93V to 2.00V, I was able to max out the slider in afterburner to 1166MHz.
Core was able to get 817MHz stable with 1.22V. Scaling dropped very hard beyond that. 1.08V was stock, with 1.14V I got to 800MHz. I tried to get 820MHz as the next step but it was never stable, even with 1.3V. At that point I suspected some kind of OCP to trip as instead of crashes to desktop I got blackscreens with instant reboot. Maybe I can improve it just a tiny bit by adding some caps, there are only 4 on the output side. But I don't think I'll sink any more effort into this card. This is fun tho, looking forward to mod more cards in the future.

I still don't like the 3D-benches tho. Again need specific OS versions, tweaks, extra software tools etc.. Not a fan of that. I liked Vantage, that one seems to produce at least somewhat comparable scores as the GPU tests are completely limited by a card like the 9600 GT. But thanks to the verification link that I forgot to create I can't sub that one to the bot... Why does this have to be such a pain in the ***? I want fun not hassle. Gonna just bench myself in the future I think.

Oh slightly off-topic, what other software can be used to set GPU clocks? I maxed out the slider in afterburner for memory, is there a way to go higher without modding the bios?

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[Macsbeach98]

Try EVGA precision 4.2x you definitely wont max that out it will probably go up to about 1500mhz on the core memory will be higher.