ATi X1400 with dual pipe mod (complete)

Some of you make think this is probably one of the most retarded things done, that may be so, but I also no use of the other graphics card seeing it doesn't fit in the newer e1705 frame.

I wish it did.. if there weren't any resistors where a pipe for a screw goes, then i would have done it, but.. that didn't happen to be the case, so here I am with a dual pipe X1400.

I just got done playing some CoD World at War, and here I am.. idling 15 minutes later, and I still can't get the X1400 above 125 degrees F, meaning that the dual pipes have dropped the idling temperature down by 30 degrees F!

Yes I have used Arctic Silver 5, I did on the single pipe frame too, but it seriously didn't make that much of a different if one at all, maybe a whole 3 degrees tops. Seriously can't beat this haha, now I should be able to get a little more performance and possibly even be able to O/C this card just a touch to get some more performance out of this bottom of the line card.

Just for those curious, even when I was running CoD WaW the graphics card never got hotter than the CPU core.. I can't believe how much of a difference this thing is making.

Because the dual pipe frame did come from the XPS Gen2/9300 body I did have to make a slight modification and chop off one section of it. And for spending a whole 15 minutes chopping it off, one would never suspect it wasn't supposed to look like that.

And now since beginning typing this the GPU has gone up to 127 but has been sitting there for quite some time now.

One last thing, for those curious... the half hour I did play CoD WaW.. the GPU fan never even turned on

I will post a little whiles later after it really has been idling for a while, and yes the X1400 with the standard single pipe idles at 155ish degrees F.
(I would take a picture, but there's nothing to take a picture! It looks just like any top end graphics card but... isn't, but hell, this mod is making a HUGE difference)

Okay well.. Apparently the mid 120s is the idle range, it hit 132 degrees and the fan bumped on medium for about 10 seconds and turned off and it dropped down to 115 lol

awesome, can't wait to get to OCing!

So after some overclock excitements and mishaps, one other person online Enigma86 OC'ed his X1400 in '06 with the clocks @ 546/433 I'm assuming with stock cooling (not good)

For those curious, the stock clocks are 432/391.5

I've OC'ed mine to 560/460 and still trying to go up on the 2nd # the memory clock. I've run the engine clock 1st # up to 575 which is the highest it can go however there was an unnoticeable amount of speed increase so I left it at 560.
I've run the memory clock up to 490ish but then it craps out and locks up after a few minutes of use.. need to take it apart again and see if i can get the memories to cool using pads.

Not bad though, and still after OC'ing I can't even get it up to the previous idle temp, I can't overclock it enough to get close to its peak.

I'm using PowerStrip by the way.

Will do when I get back home, I think I'm going to take it apart, I really don't want to have to redo my AS5 on the GPU again cause I did such a perfect job haha, but I think I need to redo my CPU's AS5 because it's been running oddly warmer than it has been used to for some unknown reason.

Reason I want to take my GPU apart again is so I can put those thermal pads on my memory blocks to connect to the heat sink so hopefully if those transfer or hold enough heat then I might be able to get even more performance boost (hopefully).

Still haven't been able to get my card over 135 degrees F too so.. it's doing it's job.

I still have one more test to do, guess I could do it today, since it is an ATi card it has this thing where it underclocks itself to save battery life.. well I can underclock it even more using powerstrip, so I was talking to a friend last night, curious as to how much more battery life I will get out of.. I guess "double" underclocking it.

I guess I'll post some results back later!
expect pictures hopefully the beginning of next week

Sorry for the crappy pictures, sorry but you'll never see me use a flash lol I hate my pop up flash so much, and didn't feel like using my real flash I was kinda in a hurry and almost forgot to take pictures of it.

and actually put my camera into jpeg mode for once

The red is where the cut is, I could have gotten in close and all but from the top.. you really would never know it was cut, you can see a scar on the underside though but that's it

the yellow was a test to hopefully improve my temps with the original heat sink... it .. failed don't waste your thermal paste lol, one guy said it kinda helped, it didn't even get me 1 degree, but no more do i care because i can't even get it to it's original idle temp!

for those curious, all of those were taken before I actually put anything together so, if you're looking at the AS5 on everything just on there crappy, no worries all that was cleaned up and redone completely.

I could have taken far better pictures with my D40 but I personally didn't want to put on my fast lens and didn't see any purpose to see every tiny detail in everything lol.

Oh and forgot to add, the pictures with the keyboard in it, those purple things were the heat pads i put on some of the memory (which is why I took it apart this time)

lol white balance was off the grid i did it by myself but ..apparently it didn't save, oh no you know what, i remember why, cause first i was uploading the uncompressed jpegs and they were to big for the forum and i immediately deleted them like a retard and forgot to redo the white balance, owell!

they serve the little purpose they have lol


I forgot to mention my horror story which lasted a good 5+ minutes.
I was putting it all back together, plugged everything in and all and pressed the power button...

the HD started making clicking sounds, fairly fast clicking sounds, about 2 per second

lets just say I freaked out, as anyone would have in this situation, I thought i burned out my mobo when i was dusting it with my camera's blower thing i got a while ago.

take out my HD, held the power button, computer was still making clicking sounds, but not as loud as it had been with the HD back in, popped HD back in and opened the whole computer

put battery in with the parts all around it, still was making clicking sounds.

blood was just rushing to my head i was like hooooly sh*t this can't be happenening!

Randomly (well not completely randomly, this kinda sorta but not really happened once before when i originally put the new heat sink on), took out the graphics card, and tried again.. it started to boot
thank God!

because the right pipe is farther forward than the old one I had to trim down a LOT from the right fan (and there's still no gap at all lol), apparently however the graphics card doesn't like working if there's to much pressure built up on the pins on the connector to the mobo.

And that explains why a lot of those connectors have locks on them so you can tighten only so much, otherwise.. that will happen and scare you to death.