VGA Silencer rev3 - Install ? and Results ?

[mwheat]

Picked up the on the deal a couple of weeks ago at Newegg for the 256 meg version of the 9800 pro. And yes, it did flash to the 9800XT with no problems.

When I first flashed the card I ran it with the stock cooling. My temps were in the 66-69C range. Card seemed to operate fine, but I did get some artifacts when I ran the 3DMark 2003 Benchmark (usually in the nature scene). I noticed that newegg had a good deal on the VGA Silencer (15.99 shipped) so I went ahead and picked one up.

With the holidays, the cooler finally came in last night. As I was installing the cooler, I noticed that the stock heatsink/fan used a 3 pin wire to the card, while the VGA Silencer used a 2 pin power connector. On the stock fan, it used red/black/white wires - the Silencer, just red/black. So I jimmy rigged it by forcing the 2 pin power connector into the 3 pin slot on the board; lining up where the red/black went from the stock power line.

So my first question is this: Is that okay to do or did I miss something???? It appears to working in, although, I can not tell any difference when I select the high & low settings.

As for my second question: After installing the VGA Silencer my card is running at 60-62C right now. That is only about a 10% improvement. Although, it did take care of the Artifacts I was seeing in the 3DMark 2003 Benchmark. But now I'm back to not having any room to overclock. Is this normal results for the VGA Silencer? What temps is everyone else getting???

Thanks,
Michael

 

[PacFu]

irst thing I would do is check HERE to make sure you installed correctly. What manufacturer is your 9800?

My 9800 Pro only has a 2 wire connector. Latter end 9800 Pros have a square HS, not the parallelagram one. Cards that use this are 9800 pros using the 360 core (9800XT)and PCB (like Sapphire). This is why you were able to flash to XT so well. The XTs use a 3 pin connector.

For your issue, take a look at this CARD. A company named High Tech makes a 9800 Pro with a SOCK VGA SILENCER, also on the R360 core. Anyway, look at one of the pictures and you can clearly see the 3 pin connecter modified with 2 wires. I would suggest getting the connector off your old fan and splicing the wires to be modified as you see it on that card. Or just return the card and get this one Hope this helps.

 

[vash85]

What are the connector? Are you talking about the connector for powering the video card, at the corner of the card?

I have a ATI Radeon 9800Pro 256MB. I use ATI Tool and it says it has the 350 core.

 

[PacFu]

He's talking about the connector for the fan to the PCB. If its a 9800 Pro, yes it will say 350 core. The card in question uses the PCB for 360 boards, you can tell by the heatsink shape as well as ram type and transistors on the card.

 

[vash85]

So, it is not possible to softmod my Pro to XT?

 

[Megatomic]

The surest was to tell is to pull the stock hsf off of the core and check the GPU markings. I'll be doing that myself when I get my VGA Silencer later this week.

 

[VIAN]

First of all, you should've just overclocked. Easier, safer, better.

If you're 9800 Pro has a rhombus as the silver heatsink along with silver ramsinks, then it uses the 350 core.

If it uses a shinychrome plated heatsink with no ramsinks, then it is the 360 core.

 

[PacFu]

you technically can soft mod any 9800 pro to xt, as long as the ram size of the bios' are the same. OC'ing is alot safer. There is really no benifit modding other than speed.

 

[Megatomic]

Just overclocking might be safer and easier but it is NOT better. If you flash a 9800P to 9800XT the card will perform better due to optimizations made to the R360 core which go unused in cards with R360 cores and 9800P BIOSes.

 

[mwheat]

First off.... Thanks for the replies. Check my card again today and it appears to be working fine. I'm not sure what the white cord was doing on the original pin (I'm guessing grounding), it does not appear to be needed. As for the HIS card - think I will stick with mine. It cost me $100 bucks less ;-)

What kind of temp results are most people getting. From some additional research I have been doing this morning, I'm starting to think I "might" be in-line with expected results. Although, I would appreciate a couple of respones to either confirm or refute my thoughts.

Thanks again to everyone for responding.

 

[vash85]

VIAN, I think I have the R360, but ATI Tool says R350. I'll open it up and see for sure, because I just bought some OCZ heatsinks to put on the card.