Awhile back I scored a clientpro 424 for peanuts:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=696
but even with the RAM maxed to 2GB it's a bit of a dog... intel graphics seem to be the bottleneck (it runs 7 with SLIC'd BIOS)
I opened it up to find that despite that all of the GPU parts are there minus the GPU. Heatsink, fan, and all (no thermal pads, but I have some sheet stock I can cut from).
what came out was this:
(ignore the crap in the background, yes IK my desk is a mess)
the chipset heatsink also had similar contacts for lower RAM chips.
sadly these units are rare and "identical" GPU modules nearly impossible to obtain and they're pretty pricey (like $90 out of Taiwan).
The mod:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400761557640
IMHO it's not bad for $30... it's a Quadro FX 770 aka a OpenGL optimized Geforce 9600. 512mb too. a far cry from the 256MB ATI x1600's it was designed for.
It's a mod because I'll have to remove the 4 studs that used to hold the HP heatsink... nothing I can't do as they're usually press fit with a back bracket which I bet I could remove without too much trouble. I once removed some pressed studs from some socket 604 coolers (Ratdude's main rig V2) so IIRC some careful punch work will do the trick.
Once removed, all I should have to do is cut new thermal pads and AS5 the die... and screw it on to the heatsink.
To check before I purchased, I scaled the image to the dimensions of the dummy and HS and then compared them... the holes match up allright.
My svideo out probably won't work after this but honestly, who gives a shit?
Wish me luck...
PS- before somebody screams "BIOS WHITELIST!!!", the bios was cool with me cheating in a spare intel 5100 A/G/N card into the TV tuner's mini PCIe slot /o any complaints... it's basically a desktop BIOS as far as I can tell.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=696
but even with the RAM maxed to 2GB it's a bit of a dog... intel graphics seem to be the bottleneck (it runs 7 with SLIC'd BIOS)
I opened it up to find that despite that all of the GPU parts are there minus the GPU. Heatsink, fan, and all (no thermal pads, but I have some sheet stock I can cut from).
what came out was this:
(ignore the crap in the background, yes IK my desk is a mess)
the chipset heatsink also had similar contacts for lower RAM chips.
sadly these units are rare and "identical" GPU modules nearly impossible to obtain and they're pretty pricey (like $90 out of Taiwan).
The mod:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400761557640
IMHO it's not bad for $30... it's a Quadro FX 770 aka a OpenGL optimized Geforce 9600. 512mb too. a far cry from the 256MB ATI x1600's it was designed for.
It's a mod because I'll have to remove the 4 studs that used to hold the HP heatsink... nothing I can't do as they're usually press fit with a back bracket which I bet I could remove without too much trouble. I once removed some pressed studs from some socket 604 coolers (Ratdude's main rig V2) so IIRC some careful punch work will do the trick.
Once removed, all I should have to do is cut new thermal pads and AS5 the die... and screw it on to the heatsink.
To check before I purchased, I scaled the image to the dimensions of the dummy and HS and then compared them... the holes match up allright.
My svideo out probably won't work after this but honestly, who gives a shit?
Wish me luck...
PS- before somebody screams "BIOS WHITELIST!!!", the bios was cool with me cheating in a spare intel 5100 A/G/N card into the TV tuner's mini PCIe slot /o any complaints... it's basically a desktop BIOS as far as I can tell.
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