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6950 Flash - Black Screen, even with original BIOS?

EdButler

EdButler

EdButler

Associate
Joined
14 Aug 2006
Posts
157
Hi All, I hope someone could please shed some light on this for me!

I hooked together a new build tonight and decided to have a go at unlocking the shaders of my Powercolor 6950 2GB (http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_features.asp?id=313). I followed a guide with a sample unlocked shader bios using winflash in the command prompt.

All seemed to go well until i rebooted, to which i was greeted with a black screen, no post and a red LED showing a graphics card error on my P8P67 Pro. So i switched to BIOS 2 to boot and tried re-flashing BIOS 1 again. Nothing.

I then tried downloading and flashing the original Powercolor BIOS to #1 - Nothing, still dead. Finally i saved the BIOS from #2 and tried flashing this onto #1. ATIWinFlash stated that the BIOS was already installed, yet it still doesn't work!

So now im a little stuck... Obviously i do not wish to corrupt BIOS #2 as i may end up with a dead card. Does anyone know what may have happened to my BIOS #1? Has ATI/AMD actually fixed the hole in the 2GB cards?

Many thanks in anticipation :)
 
Does the card work in bios position 2(backup bios)?
I'm assuming you are using W7 and I take it you still have your previous gfx card, if so then take out your powercooler and put it into pcie slot 2 with your old card in slot 1. Boot with only the monitor cable in your original card. If you get a normal screen then try and reflash the card again. If it's still black screens then try flashing a 6970 bios as this should make W7 install a new driver as it's going from the installed 6950 driver to a new 6970.
 
I have uploaded some instructions and bios here:http://hotfile.com/dl/110260020/378bd46/hd6950flash-Pcie_lane_2.rar.html
If you do try and flash the card again in slot 2 (remember you need your old card in slot 1), the instructions in the file tell you how to flash the 2nd card(powercooler6950), if you try it with the 6970 bios then just swap it into the hd6950flash folder. The 6970 bios is from the his 6970.
 
Thanks for your help tommybhoy but I think you slightly misinterpreted me, sorry.

I used that exact folder you mentioned to do the flash. I have only tried to flash BIOS1 so my computer will still boot on BIOS2 thankfully.

The problem is, no matter what BIOS I try in 1, it just wont boot. I am trying to flash the card to either a 6970 or just unlock the shaders. I always have to revert to BIOS2 though as it seems BIOS1 is always corrupted.

I dont want to touch BIOS2 so not to brick my card.

BIOS's ive tried to restore BIOS1 into working order:
Modified BIOS.bin (in that folder you mentioned)
Standard PowerColor 6950 Bios
Self Modifield version of PC6950
A copy of BIOS2
 
Last edited:
al4x said:
This
Click to expand...

Ahh thanks guys, didn't realise that the non reference ones weren't unlockable. I still have the Bios switch though which is strange. And on a certain other popular online shop they have reviews saying their unlocks were successful.

What confuses me more though is why I cannot get it to boot with a forced write of the original bios dumped from 2?!

Oh well never mind, the card is fast enough anyway :)

Thanks again for all replies :)
 
Ezyryder said:
The reason it doesn't work is because your card isn't a reference design am afraid.
Click to expand...

I have flashed the exact board you linked on the powercolor website (2DH) with the extra shaders (bat file method). I didn't even move the switch, it was in position one to start with. This card was brought at another shop as a gift to me.

Depending on how you view this you could send it back under distance selling regs.
 
Myshra said:
I have flashed the exact board you linked on the powercolor website (2DH) with the extra shaders (bat file method). I didn't even move the switch, it was in position one to start with. This card was brought at another shop as a gift to me.

Depending on how you view this you could send it back under distance selling regs.
Click to expand...

Ohh that's good news Myshra! Could you please tell me which bios file you used?

Thanks :)
 
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