Why pencil mod the 780i? - Overclock.net

MisterAutomatic · 02-24-09

I've come to notice allot people have pencil modded their 780i mobos, which in my "vast" knowledge I had no idea about until joining OCN. Can someone briefly explain the reason as to why I want to pencil mod and the dangers, or give me a link explaining?

The_Rocker · 02-24-09

The reason why we pencil mod 780i boards is because they have quite bad Vdroop, This being the difference between actual voltage and what you set in the BIOS. This can make it difficult for overclocking and lead to inaccurate voltage settings.

What the pencil mod does is simply lower the resistance of a resistor.

As Graphite is slightly conductive, drawing a few lines of pencil across the top of a resistor to connect the two ends provides a less resistant path through which the the electricity can travel, therefore allowing closer to the set amount to get to the CPU.

Danger wise, this pencil mod can't really go wrong to be honest, just try not to colour in the rest of the motherboard whilst doing it. The only thing I could think of going wrong is if you puts lines across the wrong resistor and it starts supplying more volts to something that it shouldn't be. However, your board will not explode, catch fire or go up in a cloud of smoke.

Any mistake is easily corrected with a regular pencil rubber.

I have done this mod on all my 680i boards, and both my 780i's with no problems.

P£P§! · 02-24-09

^what he said, before i penciled my board i would set my vcore to 1.45 in the bios and boot into windows and will be at around 1.39v , i did the mod and now when i boot into windows if i put 1.4v in bios its the exact same in windows no vdroop at all

Cryptedvick · 02-24-09

pencil modding reduces the vdrop and vdroop
basically, without pencil mod say you set 1.5v in bios, you get ~1.45 in windows idle and 1.4v under load
pencil modding reduces that drop depending on how much you pencil the specific resistor by up to 0.05 - 0.06v ... so you set 1.5v in bios and under load you get ~1.45v which allows you to set higher voltage without damaging your chip, thus allowing you more overclock

whe3ls · 02-24-09

when i had THAT baord voltage was so unstable i couldn't get to 3.6 after well i got to 3.8 along time ago

MisterAutomatic · 02-24-09

Thanks for the info guys. As soon as XFX gets off their rumps and gives me a service invoice for my mobo i can send it in and mod it when it comes back. Asus service is so much better.

glussier · 02-24-09

I would like to add just a precision, because people think that when they set the cpu voltage in the bios that they are setting the actual vcore of the cpu while they are not. The cpu voltage you set in the bios, is the maximum voltage the cpu will have when it transitions from a load to a no load situation. So, even if you have to set the voltage to 1.42 in the bios and you only get 1.3625 in windows, the actual voltage is 1.3625 and not 1.42. It is totally false to say the a vdrop/vdroop mod protects your cpu by enabling you to set it to a lower voltage, because the voltage that counts is the one you get in window.

The_Rocker · 02-25-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterAutomatic

Thanks for the info guys. As soon as XFX gets off their rumps and gives me a service invoice for my mobo i can send it in and mod it when it comes back. Asus service is so much better.

Do you mean you are getting an ASUS board?

You do realise ASUS boards are non-reference. I am therefore not too sure whether you can do this mod on them.

ASUS takes on Nvidia chipsets don't have a great reputation with quads either.

glussier · 02-25-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Rocker

Do you mean you are getting an ASUS board?

You do realise ASUS boards are non-reference. I am therefore not too sure whether you can do this mod on them.

ASUS takes on Nvidia chipsets don't have a great reputation with quads either.

With most Asus motherboards, you don't need a vdroop mod, as there are an option in the bios to take care of that.

What do you mean by non-reference? A motherboard is not a video card.

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Why pencil mod the 780i?

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