Club3D 9800 SE Hardmod.

[Tenacious]

I know, im sorry, im sure these questions have been asked a million times, and I have searched the forum, and come across a guy in my situation aswell, but I want to be sure before I proceed. Plus I wanted to say hi to everyone :D my first post ;)

Ok Ill be asking for a lot of advice on here as I dont subscribe to forums lightly, and dont like to hit and run. Ok ass licking outta the way.

I found the hardmod for 9800 SE's Im brave and have already soldered whats needed. I just need to clarify the BIOS image to use. I also am unsure what memory I have on the card, guessing its hynix, due to the memory id on the chip starting with hy####..

Also is there as much danger in flashing a gfx bios as there is a mb bios? will a failed write/wrong image, make my card unusable?

I have also put a thermal sensor close the gpu to get an accurate reading, at first I lifted the heatsink and placed under that, but when the temperature rose above 144 Degrees C I thought naa, that wont work looool. What is a dangerous temperature on a gfx card, cos whilst im writing this its at 66 Degrees..?

Thanks for your help in advance,

PS.

Also I just remembered that the Bios page also has the clock speeds for that BIOS and my speeds are 378/337.50, if this helps

[spectre440]

cant help you much with bios selection, im not even sure you *can* flash an SE to something else... but there isnt as much risk in flashing a video card is there is a mainboard.
if a video flash goes wrong you can always boot using some other device and just reflash the video card to its original bios (which you should definantly back up in you intend on flashing with different bios).

and as for temps, 66 is a tad high, but no cause for any real concern, although if you want to extend the life of the card, you really should get a new cooler for it.

my 9600 (450/250 from stock 400/200) can run as hot as 80 degrees when im playing something...

but then again, i *am* trying to burn that card out...
in any case, you need only start worrying about temps when you start getting into the 75-80 and higher realm...

[dolf]

As a beginning read this: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=101&var2=0 ;)
After that post what you achieve because we are very happy when somebody succeeds after haveing support from the forum :D
My advice is to start with Omega drivers!
If everything is OK (no artifacts, stable 9800Pro speeds: 380MHz - core and 340MHz memory for the 256bit variant) after softmod you also can make it permanent flashing the BIOS with 9800PRO BIOS :cool: but meanwhile don't forget for better cooling!!!

If you decide to flash here it is the BIOS collection: http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/

[Tenacious]

have tried omega b4, but didnt understand really what i was doing, so i will give it another go, and double check that my cards ok with 8 pipelines.

[dolf]

It seems that you succeed to unlock the additional pipes? Are you?
If yes and you have not artifacts that's mean you were enough lucky to receive card with 8 working pipelines :D .

Meanwhile I didn't understand what exactly 9800SE you have 256 or 128 bit? (I suppose that it is 256bit) :confused:

You don't understand what you are doing? Here it is the simple explanation: In the BIOS is writen how many pipes are active (4 on 9800SE), softmoding with Omega driver changes the number of active pipelines (temporarily) and unlocks the remaining 4 pipes.

Can you ensure 8 pipes working in Windows without any visual artifacts for reasonable time? (20 min or more)

Post the results in 3DMark03 with 4 and 8 pipes.