havli wrote:

Great work modding the Quadro! 😀

Regarding the memory cooling - I'm lucky owner of the "real" 5800 Ultra 🤣 and the GDDR2 are running very hot on my card, especially modules on the back side. The rear heatsink is too hot to touch, which means 60+ °C. Maybe Quadro is running lower voltage or using slightly different kind of DDR2... but still I recommend to keep an eye on the temperature.

Thanks!

The memory in the Quadro is exactly the same—at least according to this review, which even claims they'll do 550 MHz!—, but was indeed ran at a lower voltage, 2.3V as measured directly from the capacitors. The max I could reach with that voltage was 400MHz stable. I had to mod the supply to give it the usual 2.5V in order to be able to reach 500MHz stable.

Man, they get HOT indeed! I am trying, however, to keep the card as a single slot card: I ordered a replacement fan for the stock cooler, a centrifugal fan like the one seen in the Quadro FX 1500 (its a drop-in replacement), and some heatsinks for the RAM, but they are a way smaller than the ones that came stock: 25x25x5 mm^3. They should be better than the ones I have now, though.

The current "cooling system" I have now; delidded GPU, stock cooler, and 14x14x5 RAM heatsinks; can run at 400 / 400 speeds quite comfortably. Hopefully the new fan and heatsinks can take it all the way to 500 MHz without trouble. Otherwise, I'll just stick some huge heatsinks there and make it a double slot card 😉

If you ever go dual slot, try finding Zalman VF-700 or Pentagram XC-80 VGA coolers.

agent_x007 wrote:

If you ever go dual slot, try finding Zalman VF-700 or Pentagram XC-80 VGA coolers.

I'm negotiating for a Zalman VF900 at the moment, even if I don't end up using it, its good to have around. I like it over the 700 because its round and symmetric and nice. The shape of the 700 really irks me for some reason.

Hi man!
You have original FX5800 Ultra bios? Can you post here or send link please? I'am actually doing FX tests and need one.

Btw my old cooling upgrade on basic FX5800 😀

That's awesome! (and pretty much what's needed to cool the RAM 🤣 )

I imagine you'll be overclocking? I have worked out the voltmods if you need them 😉

The BIOS I was looking at I found HERE. If you're gonna flash the normal 5800 with the 5800u BIOS, the same strapping procedure outlined in the first post applies. (EDIT: same procedure, but not the same strap values!)

BTW, would you or anyone with a 5800 / 5800u be able to measure a voltage for me? I need the one between the 2 capacitors on the left of the top ramsink. You can measure ground at any ground point of the card. The positive lead at the inner pads of the capacitors, or right next to them there's a little via that you can find on the backside of the board and you can measure from there. I have tapped into the via in the next picture with the yellow wire, so you can see the location,

OK thanks for link.
This was 10 years back cooling mod for daily using with 120mm fans - because noise from original cooler of course.
Today I have several FX5800 cards but not planing any voltage mods, only tests or repairs. So hard find any piece today, voltage mod should make on FX5600/5700/5900 cards.

Measuring require running card, give me time. Actualy haven't place for other setup on my table 😁

chose007 wrote:

OK thanks for link. This was 10 years back cooling mod for daily using with 120mm fans - because noise from original cooler of c […]
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OK thanks for link.
This was 10 years back cooling mod for daily using with 120mm fans - because noise from original cooler of course.
Today I have several FX5800 cards but not planing any voltage mods, only tests or repairs. So hard find any piece today, voltage mod should make on FX5600/5700/5900 cards.

Measuring require running card, give me time. Actualy haven't place for other setup on my table 😁

Its true that they are rare. Around the web you find a figure of 100000 total NV30 chips, half of which were for Quadros, the rest divided between OEMs. I don't know if it's true, but that is a SMALL number.

Rare and all, I did a voltage mod on this one: stock DDR voltage for this card was 2.3V, as far as I can tell from looking online and looking at a datasheet for "similar" Samsung chips, they should run at 2.5V. I brought them up to 2.48V, which gave me some stability when clocking them beyond 400 MHz. Easy soldering to some test points that were nearby, easily reversible too.

Well now im going to flash my Quadro FX3000 to an FX5900 Ultra

candle_86 wrote:

Well now im going to flash my Quadro FX3000 to an FX5900 Ultra

If you have questions I can try to answer them 😀

Let us know how it goes!

Going old-school with this one in an attempt to keep it as a single slot: I hadn't lapped a heatsink in a while, so I figured I might as well.

Not too rigorous temperature observations from before and after, with the core / mem at 400 / 400;
-Before lapping, max temp. after a 10m Quake3 skirmish: 61 ºC
-After lapping, max temp. after a 10m Quake3 skirmish: 57 ºC

"Feast" your eyes on the delidded NV30 core and a polished heatsink.

very nice but id be afraid of cracking that die, id put liquid metal thermal paste on the die and reattach the heat spreader

Liquid metal is overkill here, regular good quality TIM is more than enough. Not to mention the risk of shorting the smal SMD near the core.

candle_86 wrote:

very nice but id be afraid of cracking that die, id put liquid metal thermal paste on the die and reattach the heat spreader

havli wrote:

Liquid metal is overkill here, regular good quality TIM is more than enough. Not to mention the risk of shorting the smal SMD near the core.

It will stay without the lid, unless I am incredibly careless AND incredibly unlucky, cracking the die is not going to happen with the given pressure and the mounting mechanism. I'm not a fan of liquid metal. Or more precisely, I'm a fan of Arctic Silver 5. I've been using it since it came out and gotten used to its viscosity, etc.

A 4 ºC drop is pretty good, hopefully the new fan / ramsinks come soon and I can test them out. I am mostly concerned about the ram chips and how hot they get, the GPU itself seems to be under control.

Thanks!

No problem, for fun just made other types and same result. You will put 5V there? 😁
I have few FX1000s too but lazy with searching them.

chose007 wrote:

No problem, for fun just made other types and same result. You will put 5V there? 😁
I have few FX1000s too but lazy with searching them.

Nah, Im just trying to bring the voltages up to "stock" 5800 levels. The QFX1000 had 2.5 V there. Would you actually mind checking the mem voltages too?

There are 2 different tensions, the upper caps should be around 2.5 V, but I wonder what is the value for the lower cap in your cards.

You're the best, thanks a lot!
(Dat AV8)

Previous ASRock was like testing rabbit for all unknown condition FXs. If anything going wrong - ASRock could die 😁
I decided use AV8 + A64 FX55 for tests. Will see if still working in OS or not.