Gigabyte FX5600XT recap

[trodas]

My sis got this board, as attempt to make the Sims2 on her machine run a bit faster over Radeon 9000. The card history is long, but to make long story short, it served me as backup card well, when I killed my FX5700Ultra, and it even show great O/C potencial (under watercooling), but novadays I did not have any use for it, and sis like it.

 

 

However I noticed that in extra stresfull situations (like in 64k intros fr-019: poem to a horse there http://farb-rausch.de/ or Life Index (curiously not present in download section, but you can grab it there: http://ax2.old-cans.com/life_index.zip ) that the image like to freeze and then re-appear (no change to music or intro run) later. This indicate that the core have a problem. Either overheating, or undervolted on load. Quick test (decreasing O/C to stock) proved it is the second case, and quick look at the card shoved Evercon caps.

 

Now I already suggested them to be added to the bad caps brand, based on my experience with JetWay N2PAP Ultra board, I know what went wrong.

 

There are five 1500uF 6.3V Evercon caps. There are also a Sanyo 510uF 4V Oscon cap too, but only one. I heard that these are excelent, so no change. Tough I planed I used there a 560uF Pannasonic FM one, I skipped this idea, because it turned out to must be a SMD one and the Panny it is not.

 

 

Now what we all waiting for - the results.

 

The Gigabite 5600XT card is what XT mark in nVidia. Pure crap. Come with default 235/200MHz clocks. With watercooling I manage it to unbeliable 375/268MHz. Now the question is, what happen on passive only cooling (Zalman ZM80-HP) in fanless case, yet with exchanged caps from Evercon ones to Samxon GC ones.

 

 

Why Samxons? Because Pannasonic FM ones are too big (won't fit under the cooler, even the Samxons are very close - curiously enough - the Evercon ones are even 3mm less tall that the Samxons!) and because Big Pope was very helpfull for providing this small testing sample to me free of charge

 

 

There is another reason for it, I just recapped the whole sis mainboard with Samxons and gained excelent results, but that is for other thread I preparing to create.

 

 

Anyway, the clock results. First at all, core has to get into 355MHz to be stable - yet this is still good, considering that the card is not watercooled anymore like it was:

http://ax2.old-cans.com/s.php?p=wc&id=30&c=8&d=1&v=v2

(illustration pic, DangerDen Maze4 GPU block on FX5200)

 

Now the rams, well, they started crapping out a very little on 283MHz now!

That is pure 15MHz increase, just for caps exchange. Well, for stable run i backed down to 275MHz just to be sure, but then again - the demos won't stop anymore like they used to do before and 275MHz is still a 7MHz increase

 

 

Very very very good, if you ask me

 

Of course, the card is oldie crap and nothing help it, but... The overclock from 235/200 to 355/275 is impressive. Is not it?

Any mainly - stable!

 

And there is a valid lesson learned from this card. Most of the big caps (with exception to one), could be replaced with also SMD variants. They are usually with lower specs, so no interest from me, but... but the orientation of the caps not seems to be right. The white parts of the PCB, that says "ground" are in the wrong place. When I followed them, the caps are reversed and quickly start bulging...

So I have to replace them once more.

 

Therefore lesson learned - never trust the mainboard ground orientation for anything - especially when it did not seems to be right when soldered caps. Therefore measure first. Also pay attention witch caps hole has a rectangle around the hole - that is the positive hole! Always. Even in this, reversed example.

Edited January 3, 2014 by trodas

[trodas]

And now it is time to get back to this card to test one suggestion - stacking ceramic caps!

 

First at all, I replaced every caps for a top-spec Nichicon ones:

 

 

 

Gigabyte FX5600XT

----------------------

1x 1800uF 4V Nichicon CK SMD (d10) (5600XT) PCK0G182MCO1GS

3x 1500uF 2.5V Nichicon LE (d10) (5600XT) PLE0E152MDO1

2x 1200uF 4V Nichicon R5 (d10) (5600XT) RR50G122MDN1

2x 1800uF 6.3V Nichicon LG (d10) (5600XT) LG0J182MDO1

2x 180uF 6.3V Nichicon CG (d5) SMD (5600XT) PCG0J181MCO1GS

17x 10uF 6.3V Murata SMD 0805 (5600XT) GRM21BR70J106KE76L

 

...and then I tried something, that I never did before. And that is "stacking" the ceramic caps. The thing is, that todays are made caps at size 0805 (that means they are 2mm long and 1.25mm wide!) even at 10uF specs for 6.3V (beware of DC bias, at 6.3V the cap has -60% of his capacity, it holt it's specs up to around 2V, on 2.5V it is like -10% capacity, so...) and therefore I try support overclock of this card by this means

From the top side of the card, it was easy. Just push the little cap near the existing one, holt it by small stick and solder quick and carefully from one side (it is 2 x 1.25mm big!) and then from other side and it is done:

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately from the bottom PCB side, there are troubles. There are in very close proximity, where the side-stacked ceramic cap ended up, soldering points to some PCB layers. Not that will lead to instantly soldering the cap to them also, witch in the end could kill the card, or at very least to make it not working well.

At first I got an idea, that I could add there just for the soldering some pad, that then I will remove after the soldering and I have guaranted that there is air space between the added cap and the soldering point(s). However upon second tough, when I will remove the pad, then it could damage (rip off) the original PCB and cap from it as well... Also when it get bendt back to the PCB by some manipulation, then it create instant card crash... So that was not a good idea.

Second idea looked at first as a very bold move - just place the cap on the top of existing and solder it to it. Hmmm. First problem is, that the stick is notably thickier that the caps lenght are... :lol: Yea, that is fixable Second problem is breath, because even deeper inhale or exhale move the cap and mostly knock it out of the bottom one...

 

But after a while trying I made it and the caps are added - stacked:

 

 

 

And now the best thing - the card is still working! :nana: I'm amazed by it myself...

Edited January 4, 2014 by trodas

[der8auer]

Cool work Thanks for sharing this!

[trodas]

Thank you. The HW is old, but "anyone" can do similar on new stuff... Frankly spoken, I have no idea, how much people can do the same soldering, but I wanted to show, that this IS possible. It was not just "some idea" on BadCaps forum, it is possible to do it.

 

Next time I will not be so affraid to do it.

 

Now - time to re-apply the tin and try some O/C Cannot wait to see, if I manage to push the Hynix chips to some serious speeds w/o volt modding.

[Hyperhorn]

Lately most of the interesting threads I discover at the Hwbot forum are yours. Please keep sharing the oldschool modding reports, I appreciate it!

[ObscureParadox]

I'm in agreement with Hyperhorn, whenever I see someone doing something with old hardware I have a sneeky suspicion that it's going to be a thread of yours Trodas. On a side note where do you got those heatsinks from they are huge

 

Keep going bro!

[trodas]

Thank you very much, guys Glad to hear that I'm not the only one, who is having good time resuscitating and repairing (and then overclocking) some old stuff. I did more work recently (Soltek SL-KT600-R mainboard recapped, for example), but I was in hurry and did not took photos. And also did not managed to run it stable (always error at Prime95 or SuperPi), even with all caps replaced and another PSU used. So a bit fail ATM...

 

But back to the card at hand. The heatsink(s) are Zalman ZM80A-HP - a old passive heatsinks for VGA cards. They cool reasonably well even with nearly next to none airflow. When there is a 120mm fan pointed at them, they could perform pretty well.

In fact, the card could run just like you see it on the picture with polymers, when the fan is blowing air at it. At lest it managed thru the Aquamark 3 with only the block of aluminium on the GPU + air. It was hot as hell, tough

 

But after all the years, I don't know, if I should even exchange the TIM under the heatsink. I probably skip it and use the Thermalright white TIM for the heatsink parts and heatpipe connection, that get just added on the basic core block and then we see, how far the overclocking go. I will just run the ATI tool overclocking utility with "find the max frequency" and find it for ram and then for GPU.

 

And we see, if it could get faster with these caps and mods At least I hope for few MHz more on the rams, as I probably will not touch the watercooling results for the core - 235 to 375MHz for core...

 

But if I get hold of any Core2Duo AGP board, then I will probably make a dedicated watercooling loop with some variation of cascade block, that will cool way better that the old simple DangerDen block and then I squeeze most out of the core

[Antinomy]

On a side note where do you got those heatsinks from they are huge

You mean the Zalman ZM80A-HP? It's the first noiseless VGA cooler.

[trodas]

Exactly. And I put it back again and have some preliminary OC results. And things are looking pretty good. The default clock is very low 234/200MHz (sometimes reported as 235MHz).

 

But I managed the old scores again w/o breaking any sweat - so 375/269MHz!

http://hwbot.org/submission/2476519_trodas_aquamark_geforce_fx_5600_xt_15849_marks

 

That is IMHO pretty serious overclocking - 234/200 to 375/269MHz

 

But I just finished another Aquamark 3 run at... hold your breath - 375/271MHz!

 

This is nuts... How far it can go?

 

Edited January 4, 2014 by trodas

[trodas]

Aquamark 3 passed at....

 

 

...and now running at 395/278, but I seen artefacts... So 400/278MHz is possible for screenshots, but looks like the rams cannot handle clocks over 275MHz and the GPU is probably top at 390 or 395, where it in both times finished Aquamark 3, but at the 395MHz was the score low, because of the memory errors. At 400MHz it crashed.

 

That call for watercooling

 

Edited January 4, 2014 by trodas

[trodas]

 

[trodas]

Fitting Accelero Mono Plus cooler on Gigabyte FX5600XT card is possible - you just have to tweak the bottom heatsink holder a "bit":

 

 

Original looks this way: http://www.dvhardware.net/news/2011/arctic_accelero_mono_plus_2.jpg

 

...and then it fit:

 

 

Next thing - glue the heatsink on this mosfet:

 

...and hope for even higher overclock that was before

 

[subaruwrc]

beat the shit out of that gpu!