ATI 9500NP / 9800SE Hardmod

[W1zzard]

Before doing this Mod it's suggested that you verify that your card works perfectly stable with 8 Pipelines (use the softmod from here (http://softmod.techpowerup.com)).

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/105/images/r3504p.jpg http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/105/images/r3508p.jpg

On the 9500 Non-Pro and 9800SE the resistor is in position 1-2.

On the 9800 Pro the resistor is in position 2-3.

To enable eight pipelines make a connection between 2-3 (you can leave the resistor in place).

After making the connection you have to flash an 8 pipeline BIOS with the same memory configuration as your card. The 9500NP should use a 9700NP Bios, the 9800SE a 9800NP or 9800 Pro BIOS.

When the BIOS is flashed your card will be recognized as a full eight pipeline card by Windows - the softmod drivers are no longer required.

If you have artifacts with the softmod, the hardmod will not fix them.

[DeX]

hi , scheint ja recht einfach zu sein.
hat jemand diesen mod schon gemacht ?

[Frozen]

Post in the German forum DeX....

[Slayerstaps]

Jah vielen haben diesen mod gemacht aber ich nicht...

[W1zzard]

english only please, except in the german forums.

i did the mod .. works great

[Frozen]

Im thinking about doing it.

Now what can i use to connect the points? :p I ran out of conductive stuff, and my dad put his solder gun somewhere....

I tried numerous things........

[Ramon]

Hi Wizzard.


I have a Sapphire 9800SE L-shaped ram (266bits) with the R360 core. I removed the heat sink and it is the 360. softmodded all right until I flashed it to an XT (why not , it's a 360 after all?). The oly driver able to go from 9800Se to XT I have found is the Omega driver, but they don't have the 4.9Beta :mad:

2 Questions:

#1 Why your driver (V47 and V49) refuse to install (Unrecognized hardware error) ? The 9800XT is not supported yet ?

#2 Is the hardmod the same for the 360 core ?


Many thanks,

Ramon

[Frozen]

You cant mod a 9800SE to XT through drivers. That requires hardmodding and flashing to XT.....

[W1zzard]

well actually i have never seen any performance increase from a pro to xt mod .. if you clock a real xt at pro speeds, performance is the same as a real pro ..

[Frozen]

Well the R360 has shader optimizations i think, so you DO score higher on benchmarks......

[W1zzard]

got any numbers to back that?

[Frozen]

Look in the endless OCfaq archive...some people get a boost from about 5400 to 6500 in 3dmark 03. If i clock my card to XT, i get about 5900 now (i also get around 5400 stock) The small jump from 380/340 to 412/365 shouldnt boost you 1100 points....

[tomy_j]

Hello, I'm new member here.

Last week I bought a brand new Sapphire Radeon 9500 nonpro 128MB 256Bit with L shape 3.3ns Infineon memory layout.

I got my Sapphire R9500 softmodded successfully into R9700 and I OC-ed it into 325/300 core/memory with stock cooling.

I consider to use Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Rev.3 to replace the stock cooler. ;)

I got 7200 in 3DMark2001 SE.
While I got 4700 in 3Dmark2003.

My PC specs:
Intel PIV 1.5GHz
MSI MS-6534 i845
384MB PC133 SDRAM
Seagate 7200.7 40GB
LiteOn CDRW 52x32x52
400 Watt PSU

Is that scores good enough?

I wonder why my 3DMark 2001 SE is too low. :rolleyes:
Can anybody give me some explaination?

Sorry for my English.

Thanks.

[Unregistered]

Its a old version use the 3dMark2003 its the same dumb qeustion as why is my videocard slower with old divers :S

[mulder]

I have an Xpertvision 9800SE that runs flawless with the softmod drivers.
I would like to do the hardmod by connecting pins 2-3.The thing that troubles me is that the resistor that used to be moved from 1-2 to 2-3 is around 5 Kohm.Won't I be damaging my card by just "shorting" 2-3.Is there any successful mods out there that used this method?

[W1zzard]

nope .. many people have done it successfully .. never heard of any problems

[Unregistered]

Do you only need to make a connection between 2 and 3, and not cut any between 1 and 2 ?

[jkabaseball]

do i need to flash to pro bios after connecting the 2 pins?

[CjVirus]

Hi gues i am a new ati owner ......( i had geforce 2 mx!).
I have softmoded my Club 3d 9800 se 256 bit to 9800 and now i want to hardmod it
so here are the question......
Were do i find the PRO rom and the flashing program?
Does anyone heared that something went wrong with club 3d card by hardmoding them?

[W1zzard]

bioses at http://bios.techpowerup.com

[CjVirus]

I tryed to hardmod but i have a problem....my card has Etrontech 3.3 bios chip but there is no Etrontech bios for pro.I have tryed to flash with other manufacturers bios but it doesnt work.Now i have the original 9800 se bios again.

The question....What sould i do to upgrate to pro?

[CjVirus]

Nobody?Anything?

[jkabaseball]

your in the same boat as the Infineon users, nothing you can do but overclock it.

[LiOneL]

I did the mod on 9500 Non Pro L shaped memory card... Soft mod worked just fine before i tried hard mod. I unsoldered the resistor and moved to position 2-3. The computer doesnt started... Problem VGA says D-Bracket.. I unsoldered resistor again and put to position 1-2 card still dead. Is it possible that i damaged the GPU? Can the GPU be replaced if its damaged? Are the R300 and R350/R360 GPUs compatible? I dont think that there are available R300 GPUs anymore ...

Also when i was mounting the AMD cooler (replaced stock cooler with AMD one before tried this hard mod) on card Screw driver slipped away a little bit and hit the board, but i think it dont do any visible damage to the card... Any advices?

[CjVirus]

try with another gfx card and also try your 9800 to another pc.Good luke dude

[Übermench]

Im sad to say it didn't work for me to enable the 4 extra pipes without artifacts.

So anyways... is it theoretically possible to only enabling some of the extra 4 pipes. And if so, can I choose witch ones, so I can locate the busted one?

---
Got the Zalman ZM80C, and its hot as a 6-shooter

[LiOneL]

CjVirus: I already tried that... Card is damaged. The voltages on card are ok, so I guess GPU is screwed. Can the surface and lines arround specified resistor be damaged when soldering? W1zzard?

[Schpeedy]

I did the hard mod... but flashing the bios causes artifact like natures... now i have the softmod drivers they work fine and i can overclock it up to an XT... but when i flash a normal pro on it it has a shit.. whats wrong? i have a Powercolour 9800SE with the 'L' 256bit connection.

[Ritchey]

Hi guys :)
I have a Hercules AIW Radeon 9800SE 256-bit 128MB...
Im all the time using softmod and it works perfect but now I would like to hardmod it...
Do I have to do both things like new bios & join pins 2-2?
And what bios should I use?
I got samsung memory... i have to find out what timing is it...
Thanks for answering

[fr33ze]

@ wizzard

nice little article mate, really clear as too what people should do.

for all those wondering about resistance values and stuff shorting works fine, i did this on a 9800se aiw about 6 months ago and it worked a treat. A solder blob is the most reliable method although you can use conductive paint as well.

[Ragutom]

As you can see by the Title,
My SOFTmod works great, ATITool says 8 active pipelines, no artifacts, on my R350 PowerColor 9800SE 128 meg. So here is the question I pose to you.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO HARDMOD WHEN SOFTMOD WORKS FINE!!
Is there a hidden performance benefit that I am not aware of? Is it a confused mental state? Bragging Rights to your friends???
I just don't see the point in letting amateur morons run around with soldering pens, working on their $160 SE's. Especially when there is no performance benefit other than Windows now calls our cards 8 pipeline Pro's. I think this knowledge should have been limited to the mentally fit.....

Thats my Rant.
If someone can convince me that there is a performance gain to hardmod over softmodding, I will.

Tom

[wazzledoozle]

As you can see by the Title,
My SOFTmod works great, ATITool says 8 active pipelines, no artifacts, on my R350 PowerColor 9800SE 128 meg. So here is the question I pose to you.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO HARDMOD WHEN SOFTMOD WORKS FINE!!
Is there a hidden performance benefit that I am not aware of? Is it a confused mental state? Bragging Rights to your friends???
I just don't see the point in letting amateur morons run around with soldering pens, working on their $160 SE's. Especially when there is no performance benefit other than Windows now calls our cards 8 pipeline Pro's. I think this knowledge should have been limited to the mentally fit.....

Thats my Rant.
If someone can convince me that there is a performance gain to hardmod over softmodding, I will.

Tom
I feel your irony, though a little different. All these newbs are running around flashing their 9600 series cards and screwing up etc. when there is absolutely no reason to flash.

[Vylator]

I had a go at the softmods, they install fine but I get artifacts in some games.. Is it worth doing the hardmod and flashing the new bois or do you think I would still get artifacts in games??

I have the xpertvision 9800se 128meg/256bit card

[fr33ze]

@Ragutom/Tom

Your right in that hardmodding is not for everyone especially those who don't really know what there doing but for a few of us there are reasons to hardmod.

In some cards there have been reports of it bringing a slight performance advantage expecially in DX9 games (like to poitn out that i'm going on what other people have said here and not personnel experience).

My reason for doing it was so that i had a greater choice in terms of drivers, whilst w1zzard has done a great job in realeasing softmod drivers for a long time now i wanted to try some of the older ones which can give better results in 3dmark01 (i know this counts for very little but im a benchmark junkie and had my reasons).

Then for some there is the bragging rights in the same way that people overclock a cpu purely for a screeny, it's not for everyone but some people enjoy it.

I do agree with you though that hardmodding is not for everyone and to be honest the risks do far outweigh the benifits which is something that should probably be made clearer.

[Ragutom]

Ahhhh What a relief, I thought I was going to get really flamed for that one.....

w1zzard is the MAN for releasing these Softmods.
I DO think that I was a little out of line when I said that these articles shouldn't have been released. Being one of the guys who can handle a soldering pencil with extreme ease, (Note to Everybody: COMES WITH PRACTICE), I wouldnt mind or feel in danger Hardmodding. I just feel that I have no reason to....until w1zzard stops releasing softmods ;-)

Another future consideration, If ATI catches on... (or even cares) They might implement a Check into their PRO Windows drivers to see if those pipelines are legit (If possible) or some kind of check to see if some value represents a true PRO card. Then everyone that hardmodded will have to stay with the current drivers, or unsolder and reflash and go back to softmodding.

Just some thoughts...........

Once again w1zzard ROCKS
Tom

[Ragutom]

On the issue of "will hardmodding fix artifacts if they exist while softmodding," as previously stated in the first post: they will not fix this issue. This is a result of physically INCOMPLETE or DAMAGED pipelines Or a result of extreme overclocking (Which happens to mine... Core is good up till about 387MHZ. Then I start getting artifacts. I dont normally run overclocked).

Off to buy HL2!!!
Tom

[Unregistered]

Has anyone noticed the new 9800 (not pro not se) 128 bit 256 MB cards on the 9800 Pro/XT boards with L shaped ram and a molex (hdd) power connector, does anyone think that these would be hard/softmoddable?

[fr33ze]

wouldn't have thought so, you need the card to be 256bit for it to be modable and i'm guessing that card would already have 8 pipelines active anyway.

[Unregistered]

I have a question, I have a Sapphire 9500NP with Etrontech 3,3 Memory 128bit ("I"-shaped). Is this card ready for hardwaremod? Only a connection between 2-3?

[fr33ze]

You can try but the card wont run as a 9700 pro. Also dont try the hardmod until youv tried the softmod and found out that it works.

[aegis]

Hey, I got a question. Do I need to use a soldering iron to short the connectors, or can I pencil it in with graphite? I am not sure I am ready to commit to a soldering iron when I have no experience with it and I know that the softmod works fine (9800 SE to Pro @ Pro core/ram speeds), but if I can pencil it in and erase if it doesn't work, then I may give it a try. Also, sorry if I am asking what was already made clear, but is there any real, tangible, hard evidence that hardmodding actually helps? I read through the thread but didn't see any solid answers. Thanks in advance.

[flo]

hi I have a palit 9800se 256bit samsung 2.8 ns I tryed a soft mod and it have artifacts even on the desktop what should I do help pls

[Nobru_rv]

I think it has been spoken clearly.
1. Hardmod is only a PERMANENT opening 4 additional pipes. It doesnt convert any card to another. If u have 9500 np or 9800se 128bit,it will remain 128bit,it will just work with 4 additional pipes. A great boost also.
2. If u have artifacts with softmod DO NOT HARDMOD it because it will not fix artifacts.
3. HARDMOD is only a way to keep all 8 pipes open even when softmodded drivers are uninstalled.
Thats it.

[flo]

ok thanx I will dont flash with a pro but I want to flash with another 9800se bios or with my original with modified clock speed and it give me this error when I tryed to flash:error: block protect not disabled, status=0E help pls

[flo]

well if the softmod doesent work maybe a volt mod will boost some performance and of course I change the stoc cooling (a cpu cooler :D ) and also have ramsinks. I found a guide for 9800\pro but I dont know if this work for my card it has the same pcb the diference is the numbers on voltage cip controler
eg: for gpu sc 1175 csw and for me is apw 1175) I prefer the pencil trick

[JC]

3-DMark2005-pro give's in original state 1444 (378/338)

After installing:
Zalman cooler 80-D (fan on 7 v) & Softmod 0.023 & DRV Cat 5.3 :8 pipe-lines and score 2233

Biosflash to Pro: still needed softmod to open the 4 extra pipelines, 3D-score (383-345):2252
Back to orginal Bios and Softmod (378-375) gives 2268 but not stable enough for long playing.

ASUS AV733 Athlon2000
Xp-pro +SP2
160 Gb Samsung 2mb
1GB RAM

How to gain more speed, any solution?

[themacmeister]

I have a dual-boot system WinXP/Fedora Core 3 Linux.

As far as I can ascertain, there is no softmod at all for Linux, so the only way to get eight rendering pipelines would be through the hardmod, as mentioned previously.

My question is this - in the xorg.conf file for X-Windows, you can virtually fool Linux into thinking you are using an 8 pipeline card...

Obviously Windows softmods make no hardware alterations, so do you think this would be enough to "softmod" Linux, in a way...??

Cheers,

themacmeister

[JuStAdsor]

ok thanx I will dont flash with a pro but I want to flash with another 9800se bios or with my original with modified clock speed and it give me this error when I tryed to flash:error: block protect not disabled, status=0E help pls


use this command : flashrom -p -sst 0 bios.bin -f

I have the same card and it worked for me.. But.. I can't find any pro-xt bios for it :p
You can try bioses in dows with this : http://www.radeon2.ru/bios/util/rambios.zip

Please tell me if you find a good one.
I'm trying new bioses directly with flasrom.. because i have a spare pci card.. and works like a charm for restoring :D

[JuStAdsor]

Here it is Palit 9800XT :p
9800XT (http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,34/func,view/catid,12/id,16321/#16321)

[grazzhoppa]

Is using another manufacturer's bios then the one that built my card safe?

I have a Sapphire 9500 with infineon 3.3 ram, but the only infineon sapphire 9700 bios in this site's collection doesn't specify the ram speed. It simply says "Infineon." I know that there are 2 types of Infineon ram put on Sapphire 9500s, 3.0 and 3.3, so I can't take chances with unmarked bios.

There is a Powercolor with infineon 3.3 bios and also a GrandMars bios with infineon 3.3.

Also, does anyone have any soldering tips for doing it on such small parts. Is there any material that could mask off tiny parts of the processor without being burned by the solder?

Finally, why do I get the idea that flashing a video card bios is much more error prone than a motherboard bios, why do people mess the flash up so often?

[JuStAdsor]

VGA bios can be restored by booting with an aditional pci card. So It's less error prone :p

[JuStAdsor]

Palit 9800SE to XT
I've finaly did it. Palit 9800se 128M 256Bits With Samsung 2.8 ms memory to XT
Try this at your own risk.
1. Hardmoded it using a graphite pen.
2. Put ati silencer 1 rev 2 on it
3. Flash with my bios using this command for flashrom 2.40: flashrom -p -sst 0 bios.bin -f

Bios.bin is your bios file.
If you don't use this command the card won't flash because it's locked.
Other thing: if you don't flash this bios, It won't work!!! Simply the card won't boot, and you need an aditional pci card to restore it.

This bios Is set XT default speeds 412/365 and optimized so it will support this speed if you have a silencer on it.
I had to edit several mem settings, because Palit 9800SE mem settings are more agressive then XT.
The reson that this card won't accept any other bios is some sort of code added to bios image, so I had to edit it from original bios.
This one is R360 core (mine) if you wan't one for R350 mail me.
By the way ... Before hard moding and patching the bios I had some sort of checker bord in some games 9some areas) :). Disabling hierarchical z makes them dissapierd. Now I think that it was an error generated by moded drivers, or diferences betwin R360 and R350 cores. .. but must probable from moded drivers :p
But now it's completly gone!!! SO I THINK IT WORTH HARDMODING
And if You have a R360 core THE ONLY WAY TO TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF IT IS HARDMODING!!!
Just flashing the bios and installing Omegadrivers to patcht to XT WON'T work!!! I've already tried.. for example: I fist flashed the bios, installed omega drivers to XT.. Resulting benchmark in 3dMark2003 was with 400/365 ---- 5890 PCT .. After I've hardmoded it and flashed my bios the score for 380/320 was 5950 pct. Take a good look at frecvencies :p :p :p
I've spend 1 hour trying to unlock it with graphite pen. If intersted.. I'll make a post how to doit :p
The reson that this metod isn't so known for 9800se cards is that the surface is mutch like writing on glass :p

By the way on XT bios, 412/365 I've scored 6500pct in 3dmark2003 :eek:

[JuStAdsor]

Here it is the new bios for palit 9800XT (samsung and hynix)
now 100% use of R360 core

http://www.chip.ro/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59073&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=palit+9800xt&start=30

[hamish72]

I just completed the hard mod and bios flash all worked perfectly thank you
Havent benchmarked it but every thing shows 8 pipe lines with no artifacts

[g0dM@n]

I just did the hardmod to my PowerColor 9500np with 3.6ns infineon.

Which bios should I now flash it to?

I looked in the list and found the appropriate PowerColor 9500np 3.6ns infineon bios, but I'm supposed to download the 9700np bios to ensure that my hardmod works correctly, right?

I only see a 3.3ns powercolor 9700np bios... I don't see a 3.6ns one.

Which bios should I use?

[gman]

1. Have all ati 9800SE 256bit 2.8 samsung a R360 core?
2. What about 9800PRO? Have all 9800PRO with 2.8ns a R360 core?

[JuStAdsor]

Don't Know.. just remove heatsink and see what core do you have..

[gman]

i don't own such a card. i want to buy a 9800SE or 9800PRO so that i can mod it into a XT. i need a R360 for this and i want to know what should i tell the guy from the computer shop.

[gman]

i want to know what's the chessboard effect. when does it occur and how do you fix it?

[pham_nams]

what do you use to connect 2-3. It is too small to touch. Can I use a pencil ?

[g0dM@n]

I guess no one visits here anymore cuz we haven't had our questions answered. The softmod on my 9500np was successful, so I moved onto the hardmod.

Now, my 9500np is artifacting like crazy no matter what. A cap fell off when I was trying to take the stock HSF off. I didn't even touch it... it was on the other side of card by PCI Slot bracket... it didn't really break off so to speak. It just fell off the solder points cleanly. I tried to solder back on and the solder pad on the PCB came out... I guess I'm S.O.L. :( I don't know if it's the hardmod or the cap that is causing the problems, but I feel strongly that it's the cap for some reason... since it may not be back on right.

I also bought a PowerColor 9800se L-shaped. I decided this time that I wouldn't hardmod, and just stick with softmod. I did the softmod and got green checker effects when 3dmarking... looks cool, but I guess that meant it wasn't softmoddable.

Put me down for 2 unsuccessful mods!! I've currently flashed and unlocked two nvidia 6800s, six X800GTO²s, and one Connect3D X800GTO. Looks like the 9500/9800 series of cards are not my game anymore!

[Jakell]

I have just bought a strange beast of a 9500 np. For a start it was purchased as a 128mb card and the sticker confirms this. the memory chips are in an L-shape and are on both sides, however they are of different manufacturers (Samsung 3.3 on one arm of the L. and hynix 3.3 on the other side of the L). This configurqation tells me that it is a 128mb 256bit card (hooray!).

However, ATITool Rivatuner and windows hardware inf. inform me that this a a 64mb 128bit card (boo!). so i am puzzled as the hardware layout seems to indicate a 128 mb card.

my question is this... could the bios information be incorrect and be giving out the wrong info to these progs. Is there any way of definately confirming the memory for sure?

one positive point... I can definately open up the extra 4 pipelines so all is not lost

[g0dM@n]

I have just bought a strange beast of a 9500 np. For a start it was purchased as a 128mb card and the sticker confirms this. the memory chips are in an L-shape and are on both sides, however they are of different manufacturers (Samsung 3.3 on one arm of the L. and hynix 3.3 on the other side of the L). This configurqation tells me that it is a 128mb 256bit card (hooray!).

However, ATITool Rivatuner and windows hardware inf. inform me that this a a 64mb 128bit card (boo!). so i am puzzled as the hardware layout seems to indicate a 128 mb card.

my question is this... could the bios information be incorrect and be giving out the wrong info to these progs. Is there any way of definately confirming the memory for sure?

one positive point... I can definately open up the extra 4 pipelines so all is not lost
I don't know that much, but I can sure tell you that I've NEVER heard of any 64mb 8 pixel pipeline video card, of any manufacture/model.

[bikr692002]

ahhhh oldschool. :)