volt modding geforce: the horror story

Anyone else here ever volt modded a graphics card? Well I decided to dabble in it just for fun. I bought myself a geforce 7900gt about 6 months ago and had been messing with the volt modding since the beginning. I used a silver-something another pen that let's you draw circuits to attach components. Well first I bumped it up to 1.4V, (from the default 1.2V) and it worked fine, then to 1.5V, and it worked fine. Well after a while of 1.5V I started getting occasional glitches in my games; pixels would occasionally shoot out like a laser beam and such. So I put it back down to 1.4V. Then I concluded the problem was my processor, so I downclocked it from the BIOS and clocked my geforce up to 1.55V. Well, I think it was the constant voltage changes that did it in. After I realized the graphics glitches were becoming more numerous I wiped off all traces of the silver pen, but my card was still stuck at 1.4V instead of going down to the original 1.2V. And the graphics glitches got worse. I used ATITools to test for artifacts and immediately when loaded the whole artifact screen goes yellow (yes, that's really bad). Well now my games are unplayable and I'm in the market for a new card.

Moral of story: Don't screw around with things you don't know much about and you just saw on the internet and thought it was cool.

On a side note: The one positive thing out of this was now I can buy the much better Geforce 8800gt to replace it and my wife won't get pissed about it since my other card died.

Is it me or does a partnership often sound like being whipped?

I've never quite understood why people pay $100+ more on a bleeding edge piece of hardware for a 25% performance increase or start messing around with amateur electronics, soldering guns and the like for a similar increase.

To be honest, my PS2 pumps out enough graphics for me. I'm not one to go goggle-eyed over the latest pixel shader or OMG HDR DirectX 10 lighting mode.

</rant>

Oh and also CAT scans are loud. I never knew that before. They give you crappy foam earplugs but it doesn't work. If you ever do get that CAT scan, consider deafening yourself beforehand. Or save up on the wax.

hmm im saving up for a cool new computer for gaming( gonna spend like £800 when i have it). Anyway i wouldn't overclock. i don't see the need apart from to show off really.

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Originally Posted by cuddleyperson

hmm im saving up for a cool new computer for gaming( gonna spend like £800 when i have it). Anyway i wouldn't overclock. i don't see the need apart from to show off really.

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I would highly recommend NOT messing with voltages :)

BTW, if you are looking for a good deal, I just bought this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125089

I'll let you know how it handles when it comes in.

I've done it with a 7900GS and 7900GT. But I did have Zalman VF900 coolers on them, so I ran 1.55V through them, and they peaked at 65-70C during the summer. So I was within temperature limits.

It was great overclocking the card from 500MHz (or whatever stock was) to 700MHz.

Now I own a 9600GT and the only way to volt mod it is to do an actual hardware mod, which is just out my league being that I'm a poor college student and can't be be risking $100+ for a minimal performance gain. You can bet that once I've got the funds flowing I'll be doing stuff like this to my computer should the time be available. :D

8800GTs are like $100 now aren't they? Best Nvidia deal for a long time.

yeah my friend just got a 512mb 8800GT, the company is like BFG or XFX or something( really their basically all the same, sometimes for £15 more one companies card will be a tiny tiny bit faster, but generally there's not much in it, unless it clearly states it's been way overclocked, then you'd probably see some performance boost). Anyways she has this game called Spellforce, when she used to play on her old computer it turned into like a slideshow, like 4 frames a second kinda thing. Now it just does not slow down, it's really something.

£120 here..( $240, damn you Americans and your cheaper electronics)