by Anna Filatova
01/08/2003 | 03:36 PM
As you probably already know, the developer of the RivaTuner utility and SoftQuadro utility, aka Unwinder, has already found a way of enabling all the 8 pipelines in RADEON 9500 based graphics cards on the software level. Those of you who do not feel like resoldering anything, can now wait patiently for the new version of RivaTuner with the built-in driver hacking algorithms.
However, we have every reason to suppose that ATI will do its best to protect its graphics solutions against software modifications, and every new driver version will be provided with new protection means. This is, actually, the way NVIDIA took trying to prevent people from using SoftQuadro. And this means that when the new drivers from ATI are released, we will have to wait again for the new RivaTuner version. Of course, hardware modifications and BIOS reflashing, which we have already discussed here, here and here, do not have these drawbacks. However, far not all overclockers are good at using the soldering iron and can afford to take the risks of modifications like that without being hundred percent sure that they succeed.<%BANNER[article]%>
Our friends from the Russian Overclockers.ru site shared their new findings with us, which deal with the simplest and safest way of modifying your RADEON 9500 hardware without any soldering. So, thanks to Serg, we are glad to offer you something really sensational.
Well, all you need to put this brilliant idea into life is a tube of conductive glue. Instead of soldering the resistor anew, we simply drew a line connecting contacts 1 and 2, i.e. the contacts, which were supposed to carry the new resistor:
The resistance between pins 2 and 3 remains around 5-6KOhm, however, between pins 1 and 2 the resistance is now just a few Ohm. And as is known, the electric current goes along the path of least resistance :) So, now we just have to reflash the new BIOS, which is an easy task as well.
Attention! Do not let the glue leave larger spots on the chip, which could cover more than two pins at a time. Namely, do not allow anything like this to happen:
...otherwise nothing good comes out of it. If there is a spot like that instead of a nice line, you should wash it off as soon as possible. You can do it with some alcohol or acetone. If you keep failing to draw a neat line, then you could simply isolate all the other pins with some lacquer, for instance, and leave just those two pins, which you need to connect:
After that you can safely draw this line with the glue.
Good luck, guys! No more soldering, choose the method you like most! :)