GeForce GTX 980M voltage regulator mod

[DoenerBoy123]

Hello guys,

 

I have some questions regarding the GeForce GTX 980M. I'm using this card for 2 almost two years now and it's still impressive how much power this card has, especially if you think about the age. I was first using this card in my M17x R4 until I got a M18x R2 for an outstandingly cheap price. I upgraded the M18x with the 980m from the M17x and everything worked fine. As the cooling is better than the 17 I flashed an unlocked vBios(svl7's bios) to get the full potential out of this card. This was working fine for the last two weeks until yesterday. I played GTA V for two hours. Temperature was fine and the card pulled around 110-120w. Then suddenly the screen went black and the overcurrent protection of the PSU(330W Dell/Delta) took place. After a few minutes of measuring I found the GPU, specifically one of the MOSFETs to be the culprit. I replaced the MOSFET with one I found on a K2100M I had lying around(it's the same part, CSD87350D). The card works perfectly fine again and beside the MOSFET luckily noting else was damaged.

 

Long story short: How much can the power stage withstand with three MOSFETs and does it make sense to add the other three "missing" ones? And how much current can the MXM port of the M18x R2 deliver without being damaged? 

[MS-16L13]

5 hours ago, DoenerBoy123 said:

Hello guys,

 

I have some questions regarding the GeForce GTX 980M. I'm using this card for 2 almost two years now and it's still impressive how much power this card has, especially if you think about the age. I was first using this card in my M17x R4 until I got a M18x R2 for an outstandingly cheap price. I upgraded the M18x with the 980m from the M17x and everything worked fine. As the cooling is better than the 17 I flashed an unlocked vBios(svl7's bios) to get the full potential out of this card. This was working fine for the last two weeks until yesterday. I played GTA V for two hours. Temperature was fine and the card pulled around 110-120w. Then suddenly the screen went black and the overcurrent protection of the PSU(330W Dell/Delta) took place. After a few minutes of measuring I found the GPU, specifically one of the MOSFETs to be the culprit. I replaced the MOSFET with one I found on a K2100M I had lying around(it's the same part, CSD87350D). The card works perfectly fine again and beside the MOSFET luckily noting else was damaged.

 

Long story short: How much can the power stage withstand with three MOSFETs and does it make sense to add the other three "missing" ones? And how much current can the MXM port of the M18x R2 deliver without being damaged? 

Due to the age of some details I do not remember too well, the complementary MOSFET is indeed useful, but do not expect it can work for a long time at high power consumption. The card's default state gives 110W of power consumption is relatively safe, different manufacturers of materials also vary so it is impossible to generalize. Replacement of better MOSFETs and inductors may be able to make it work at 130W, in fact I know someone really did, but in the end his 980M or burned up. There is a reference example, HP's P5200 C version is basically the end of this type of standard MXM card, it can withstand the maximum power consumption is 150W, more than this will burn, I have burned a P5200.

 

 

 

[jaybee83]

yep classic tale of the 980M and its wimpy power delivery...im actually using a premamod vbios with an undervolt applied to the core to max 1.00V to curb the power consumption at stock and make the card last longer. not in the mood for a burned gpu...

[DoenerBoy123]

 

On 9/16/2022 at 7:25 PM, MS-16L13 said:

Due to the age of some details I do not remember too well, the complementary MOSFET is indeed useful, but do not expect it can work for a long time at high power consumption. The card's default state gives 110W of power consumption is relatively safe, different manufacturers of materials also vary so it is impossible to generalize. Replacement of better MOSFETs and inductors may be able to make it work at 130W, in fact I know someone really did, but in the end his 980M or burned up. There is a reference example, HP's P5200 C version is basically the end of this type of standard MXM card, it can withstand the maximum power consumption is 150W, more than this will burn, I have burned a P5200.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info! Have you just add the additional MOSFETs or did you replace all with matched ones?

[DoenerBoy123]

This thread is a little bit old now but I want to to give an update about this mod. It’s already a few months past since I’ve mod this card and so far the results are pretty good. I’ve took the mosfets off of an old half working quadro and a 680m I’ve had laying around. The soldering itself was not a big deal, but requires some experience. The maximum power draw with the prema vbios seems to be around 170 watts. The test was done with furmark for a very short time to see how much this card can pull(this was with a 200mhz oc on the core, voltage untouched).

In most games the power consumption goes up to around 140-150 watts max with the temperature settling at 65-70 degrees(M17x R4)

[i.bakar]

On 2/18/2023 at 3:23 PM, DoenerBoy123 said:

This thread is a little bit old now but I want to to give an update about this mod. It’s already a few months past since I’ve mod this card and so far the results are pretty good. I’ve took the mosfets off of an old half working quadro and a 680m I’ve had laying around. The soldering itself was pretty easy and not a big deal for me as I have quite a lot experience now. The maximum power draw with the prema vbios seems to be around 170 watts. The test was done with furmark for a very short time to see how much this card can pull(this was with a 200mhz oc on the core, voltage untouched).

In most games the power consumption goes up to around 140-150 watts max with the temperature settling at 65-70 degrees(M17x R4)

my 980m in SLI config. draw 150w each however i couldn't help but notice that mine is missing some parts comparing to yours , is urs different or mine is really missing some parts and iif so the do u know what parts is those ? i attached a picture of mine 

[Tenoroon]

12 hours ago, i.bakar said:

my 980m in SLI config. draw 150w each however i couldn't help but notice that mine is missing some parts comparing to yours , is urs different or mine is really missing some parts and iif so the do u know what parts is those ? i attached a picture of mine 

Your 980m is normal. @DoenerBoy123manually added some extra MOSFETs to smoothen and strengthen the power delivery for his 980m. Yours is completely stock, so don't worry about it missing any components.

[i.bakar]

On 3/11/2023 at 11:14 PM, Tenoroon said:

Your 980m is normal. @DoenerBoy123manually added some extra MOSFETs to smoothen and strengthen the power delivery for his 980m. Yours is completely stock, so don't worry about it missing any components.

thanks for the clarification, i saw that he added extra MOSFETS i just wasn't sure how many. 

 

[Vasudev]

On 9/17/2022 at 5:03 AM, jaybee83 said:

yep classic tale of the 980M and its wimpy power delivery...im actually using a premamod vbios with an undervolt applied to the core to max 1.00V to curb the power consumption at stock and make the card last longer. not in the mood for a burned gpu...

How did you do that? Been using prema vbios for long time but nvinspector reverts the voltage to default every time I set it to 0.98V or 1.00V

[ssj92]

I want to undervolt my 980M to 1.00v , how would I do that in maxwell bios editor?

 

 

Or better yet, is it possible to unlock the voltage, power, and clock sliders? I would love to be able to slide the voltage down in nvidia inspector or msi afterburner 

[DoenerBoy123]

For those who might be interested, I've done something similar to a Zotac GTX 1070, also to increase the available power. There are three unused pads left for a total of 10 MOSFETs. The powerstage for the Vcore circuitry consists out of 5 phases, so at the end you have 2 MOSFETs per phase. The stock config has two phases with 2 MOSFETs and three with 1 MOSFET per phase. I already saw a few cards that had these single MOSFET phases burned up, which is another reason why I did this. All these mods were made on a PCB preheater and with leaded solder to decrease stress on involved components.

After that I flashed the vBios from the MSI GT72 to raise the powerlimit from 90W to 115-120W

I hope that my text is not too confusing, I'm quite tired ....

 

[Meaker]

On the 980m it was useful for me when volt modding for stability. I lot some memory clock but volt modded that too.

 

I ran at 1400 core 1500 (6Ghz data clock) for the more stressful tests.

[TheQuentincc]

In my experience, always solder the max amount of mosfet on an MXM card, their mosfet cooling solution (depending on laptop) is so poor that they get reeally hot even at stock. In the end it improve efficiency and makes the losses spreaded across more mosfet/surface area.