GTX480 Zombie Power Card

[mllrkllr88]

Hey W9!

Some time ago I made power cards from dead GTX480's.  Its a really nice VRM for old cards, excellent for removing pesky OCP/OVP or bringing a dead card back to life.  There are many uses for an external VRM.  I never published my research (not even my native OCN) but I think its time to release this into the wild so others can have fun.  If you want to make a power card from a GTX480 here is how...

Parts list
-GTX480 (reference design)
-Buck converter LM2596 EBAY LINK


Directions
-Cut the GPU as seen below (rough cut then use sandpaper on the cut edge to remove any shorts on the inner layers)
-Short the sense pins on the PCIe connector (middle ground pin of 6 pin is sense, short to any ground)
-Check the resistance of core and make sure its not shorted 
-Remove memory choke and/or surrounding VRM components (maybe not required)
-Hook up the buck converter to +12v and tune it to 3.3v output 
-Apply 3.3v from the buck converter to 3 places on the power card. 




Example:

[ozz]

i dunno how you know to do it mate, amazing,

[Macsbeach98]

Nice David.
I thought GTX480 were prone to blow the VRM with too high voltage although would make a good zombie for smaller cards where not as much current is required.

[Vinster]

Well Done.

Vin

[mllrkllr88]

Mar 2, 2018 7:12:57 GMT -5 Macsbeach98 said:

Nice David.
I thought GTX480 were prone to blow the VRM with too high voltage although would make a good zombie for smaller cards where not as much current is required.

The reference 480 VRM when used for a 480 lol...is pretty bad.  For the 480 core its barely enough and as you mentioned with LN2 volts/current things go poof pretty easily.  That being said, if you take the 480 VRM and strap it on an 8800GTS or 9800GT for instance...its outstanding.  I have used them on lots of old 8xxx and 9xxx cards, they work excellent for LN2 volts/current.

I had a broken GTX570 DC2, which is a big power edition card.  I slapped 480 power card on it and I was able to bring the card back to life.  Just for the fun of it I tried max OC, I was able to achieve a few mhz more OC than the previous max.  On that 570, I think she might pop out the blue smoke if I tried LN2 volts haha.

If you want to get serious tho, I can show you how to make a GTX580 Lightning power card.  That VRM is pretty much an EPower...its a beat. 

[mistone]

i've stumbled upon a thread where ludek was making power card from a 8800gtx and using it to power a mobo overclock.pl/forum/threads/9834-8800GTX-Zombie-by-ludek111
have you seen this one?
also awesome job