X800-X850 AGP/PCIx POSSIBLE EXTRA PIPE UNLOCKING

X800 all models and X850 all models AGP/PCIx POSSIBLE EXTRA (16) PIPES UNLOCKING

Owners of "not-modable" X800 and X850 cards AGP and PCIx I believe that Xmas has come for all of us. I consider that ATI's secret was solved (from me ).
W1zzard you say "no sir" when I proposed to get out of the box and to search for something simple.

The solution could be genius and meanwhile very simple but the simple things are not always genius.
I hope that you were not right saiyng that. Yes the solution is simple "like bean" and now I am 99.9% sure that I know how to do it

My suspicion about very sophisticated core protection gave a proof (laser cut is protection but the reason for doing this is different than just protection, all cores are the same after production and before testing and marking ). The transformation takes place later on but only with lase cut (one or two).

The problem with extra pipe unlocking on all "not modable" cards could be solved easy. Other issue is how the unlocked pipes will perform. But the second good thing is that the modification is 100% convertible. Every pipe squad (4 pipes) could be shut out at any time.

It becomes too late and I am going to sleep. Tomorrow I will explane how the mod can be done with examples and pictures.

Good night

Very funny, if there isn't interest on my modest resurch of how to unlock the extra pipes on R420...........R480 cores I can keep the results for me . But I don't even have such "locked" card . Why am I loosing my time with this

Ok fresko you will be the first and also the honor will be for you. I presume that you have R420 X800PRO Non VIVO with 2.0ns ram. Don't worry it will "reveal" his pipes, trust me . But there are no guarantee that pipes will work properly and you have to be ready for that.
It will be necessary to connect the laser cut but not only. I will attach picture and you have to find out the place on the back of the card's PCB. It will be necessary to unsolder / solder very small resistor. If you can't do it find somebody who can.

Today I have sent all the materials (results of my study) concerning pipes to w1zzard and hope that he can prepare some modding guide soon.

Now you have everything needed.

Success and don't forget to post feedback.

W1zzard 1 hour ago I have sent the materials through yahoo. But pictures are big and I have to split them in two packs. Also I have sent a pdf file with the results of the research on the address given by you.
Please check it again and if there is nothing received alarm me. I will send them again. But probably it will happen in the morning.

Regards

Just lieing in the bed and thinking few hours. Of course closer look on my X800XT PE, background in electronics, incredible ability to see the obvious which is inaccessible for the others even it is obvious. Haveing idea what means logistic and how difficult is to manage many goods. And some other merits but enough for me let's be humble .

Guys I have also very nice BIOS modds 256MB 9800XT to 128MB 9800XT with Overdrive and 2.8ns memory. The BIOSes are for 128MB PRO cards with XT PCB. But I am sure that nobody have seen this also posted here. But the questions are like a rain. Most of the issues are allready explaned in the forum.

See you tomorrow.

I have no card with locked pipes to try. As you can see only one resistor moves. If you have card available you can check with multimer the resistance (connection) between laser cut ends (one end needed) and the middle pad of the resistor which can be moved. On the PCB I saw some other posibilities for changing the resistor configuration but I am almost 99.9% sure that this is the resistor. Ofcourse there is 0.1% chance to make mistake but we will see.

Yes fresko edit the BIOS with RaBit and uncheck (disable) the VIVO feature after that save the new BIOS (.bin or .rom it isn't important). There is NO guarantee that the mod proposed by me will work, but you have nothing to lose if you try. The best will be to have 16 pipes (this will be equal to correct deducation from my side ). The worst will be still 12 pipes and twice moving the resistor (this will be equal to incorrect deducation from my side ).

Case two means bad news for all the people waiting development in pipe modding (unlocking). But the life is cruel .

Guys the key hides in the information. It is possible to have also some differences in the resistor configuratin on the front side of the "unlockable" cards (I mean PRO's without VIVO) but I haven't pictures with high resolution to compare with. (Pictures of both sides will be well accepted - without heatsink of course). The PN (Part Number of the PCB - on the top of the front side something like PN 109-Axxxxx-xx) is also important. These simple things can help to solve the problem with pipe unlocking which is good for all .
Almost everywhare I can find XT pictures but not PRO . You should thing about this because wrong (insufficient) information = wrong conclusion.

If you have such pics or if you cam make them use my mail: vgd_new@yahoo.com

Fresko one more thing dump the original BIOS of your PRO before to the resistor mod. After finishing with the hardmod don't flash it but dump the BIOS again. Name these BIOSes with "before" and "after" and send them to vgd_new@yahoo.com to see the difference. After that run RivaTuner with the command line RivaTuner.exe /rr990 /rr994 /rr99c /rr402c and also post the result. Meanwhile you can check the nunber of pipes with ATITool (probably 12).

Now you can flash modded XT (disabled VIVO) and again ATITool, RivaTuner and finally techpowerup

Successssssss

Sean it is true (they are responsible for the VIVO chip) and also other resistors which changes their places. From the front side of the PCB has the same "resistor panel" which is equal on PRO, XT.
Resistor/s configuration is the way to block on the hardware level the number of active pipes but like combination with BIOS. In fact BIOS does that.
The BIOS itself has sections with constant data (programmed) and sections with variable data. Based on that it generates commands. (For example number of active pipe lines).
Let imagine that for 4 working quads (16 pipes) it is necessary to have four logical "1". XT BIOS reads the info coming from the hardware (let accept 8 bits - 01010101) it generates 16 pipe configuration.
But if we have hardware blockage (01010100) BIOS compares the data and generates 12 pipe configuration. You can obtain 00 in the last bit connecting the reading point to GND. You can't unlock the remaining pipes with connecting the bridge (laser cut).

With this idea I don't want to say that moving resistor N4 will 100% unlock the pipes (probably it is necessary to move also 2 or 3 resistors in order to obtain a XT resistor configuration) but I am trying to say that I belive that the secret is hiden in the PCB resistor configuration not in the core itself

If we change the resistor configuration (4 resistors at all on the back side) from PRO to XT we can lie the BIOS that is XT board even without VIVO chip and to get 16 pipes. If I have such X8x0 PRO for sure I would do all these changes step by step and will follow the change/s in the core registers with RivaTuner until I get needed result. Something more - the only resistor connected to GND on PRO board is R577. It is also directly connected to the core. All other "configurable" resistors are connected to GND on XT and on the second position on PRO. Back the R577 is connected to GND only on PRO bords. I will pledge money on R577.

I haven't problem with pipe unlocking because my card is X800XT but yet I am trying to do something. Probably I will not be able to do it at first attempt but it is only one battle . (It happens with 9800XT 128 BIOS modding. It takes me two months to find what I looked for but I succeed )

I start to think for buying X800PRO NON VIVO and to work on it but it does't make any sense ?

Enough for today.

I am still waiting fresko995 to do some try and to post results.

Nobody has dare to do hardmod and it is understandable having idea how small the resistors are but all of these people who have such cards prefer to flash them thousands of times but not to try something different.

I have background in electronic and can say that it is possible the last quad to be disabled by fuseing (w1zzard told me and some other people - which is permanent ) after testing but as long as it is not proved I will consider that there is no sense to make laser cut after fuseing .

If I was so desperate with pipe unlocking for sure I would try this and also some other resistors movements (2 more) to see how it influences register 990 in RivaTuner and whether the resistor position/s influences something in general.

This will give the real answer about pipe unlocking possibility .

About X850XT PCIx and X850PRO the cores are equal but are marked with gold/silver dots. Gold means 16 working pipes, silver 12 working pipes. The last quad is disabled by removing of two - core power supply elements (XT - 8, PRO - 6). You can't unlock the pipes by flashing BIOS. It is probably possible if some enthusiast adds the missing components. Even here I don't believe that the pipes are fused but for sure it means that ATI predicts the option to switch off every quad (or at least last) separately!!!!
In R420 probably such option is not foreseed but there is some way to block the last quad (laser cut, BIOS lock, PCB resistor configuration and finally fuseing )

It would be interesting to see RivaTuner results from X850XT PCIx and X850PRO Non VIVO or other with unlockable pipes.

But I don't see any interest of the people even doing soooooo easy operation like starting the command line in RivaTuner and posting these fuc.....g results which can help to somebody searching the answers .