Attention cheapskates- NForce4 chipset mod?

[Rave]

As any fule kno, Anandtech figured out how to mod an NForce4 Ultra into an NForce SLI chipset some time ago. It occurs to me though that there's no good reason why you couldn't mod the base model NForce4 non-ultra into an ultra to enable the SATA-II and Active Armor functionality. Compare the chipset photos here:

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/foxc...8mc-ers/g3.htm

and here:

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...rce4+mod&hl=en

It seems that the difference is the bridge at the very top right. Anyone got an NForce4 board and fancy trying this?

Rich :¬)

[Agent]

Ive been wondering this too Rave. I cant belive that Nv would use 2 different production line chips for such small differences.
Problem is, Nv have been updating their drivers to stop the SLi hack, and id imagine that they have already, or would do the same for this ?

[Rave]

AFAIK the Updated drivers stop SLI being used in a non 8x + 8x PCI-E lane configuration- it prevents people running a 16x + 2x config like MSI demonstrated on their NForce4 platinum board. I'm pretty sure the DFI Ultra board which can run in 8x + 8x mode still works fine once modded.

In any case, drivers can be hacked. The only reason why this wouldn't work as far as I can see, would be if those functions were dependent on the PHYs used or on bios functionality. The Gigabyte board Komplett are selling for £69 looks like a good candidate to me.

Rich :¬)

[Hans Voralberg]

Didn't nVidia said it's gonna disable the mod on every Ultra chip set, i have a DFI NF4U here, will try sometime in the weekend. If u can wait Rave, and anybody got the driver which support this mode. (no second vid to actually try out SLi fucntion though)

[Rave]

It's possible that NVidia will change the packaging of the chips I suppose, just as AMD eventually 'superlocked' AXP processors.