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Blind flashing bricked 6950

nawe87

nawe87

nawe87

Associate
Joined
26 May 2011
Posts
42
I just tried to flash the bios in my new XFX HD6950 2GB with a 6970 one using ATI Winflash, and failed miserably, it seems. When I boot up, the monitor doesn't display anything, and the card's fans seem to go full blast (much louder than usual, at least). I don't have a second PCIe slot to fit my old card in, I don't have onboard graphics, and I don't have a spare PCI card to go elsewhere. I've tried "blind flashing" by formatting a USB stick into a DOS boot disk, with atiflash onboard, with my backed up, original bios (as a rom file), with "atiflash -f -p 0 bios.rom" as my autoexec.bat command, with no result.

Any further tips or tricks, or anything I may have overlooked in this process would be appreciated.

PS: My card doesn't appear to have a BIOS switch on it. Oddly, it has a 1 and 2 on the board, where the switch should be, but nothing physically there on further inspection. If I had noticed the switch itself was missing, I would have reconsidered :-(
 
Sympathies indeed. Maybe the card you have is a newer revision or something as all reference rev 1s had the switch. I read somewhere that the flashability of the newer revisions is removed at the hardware level.
 
I bought it from the overclockersuk site - which states "These XFX 6950 are revision 1 models which means they can be unlocked and flashed upto 6970 cards making these a superb bargain."

I'm thinking that the missing switch indicates they are telling porkies.
 
nawe87 said:
I bought it from the overclockersuk site - which states "These XFX 6950 are revision 1 models which means they can be unlocked and flashed upto 6970 cards making these a superb bargain."

I'm thinking that the missing switch indicates they are telling porkies.
Click to expand...

Get in touch with them via the customer service forum to see if it can be sorted for you.
 
nawe87 said:
I'm thinking that the missing switch indicates they are telling porkies.
Click to expand...

Or the website's not been updated or the packer picked up the wrong verison.

But, if you have been sent the wrong edition you will at least be able argue this point if you need to return it.

I would try a posting the OcUK forum (Edit: beaten to it)
 
I have had the same problems. I found that i flashed it with the 1 gig bios...
See kids dont drink and flash!

Its an easy fix mate. If you can just plug an old GPU in the first slot and the 6950 in the 2nd and just boot and reflash.

O and rename the .rom to .bin
 
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The board you have seems to have more than one 16x physical PCI-E lane. Is it a case of it not physically fitting or otherwise?

Is remote desktop enabled? Perhaps you could attempt to boot and see if it's even getting to Windows?
 
Where are you in the UK? I sure you must be close to one of use that can flash it one afternoon?

See useful posts :)
 
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My motherboard only has a single 16x PCI-e lane.

I don't believe it's booting to Windows, since the hard drive light doesn't flash/whirr as it normally does when Windows is loading.
 
I'm near Aberdeen :-P

I have posted in the customer service forum - I'd like to know if I have indeed been sent the wrong hardware 'revision'.
 
Are you sure you 'really' have a bootable Flash Drive? Put it in another PC and be sure it works.

Are you sure you have the proper version of atiflash? It takes the latest version to flash a 6950.

Are you sure your computer is actually booting to the Flash Drive? Some auto boot when a bootable Flash Drive is inserted most don't. You would have to be familiar with your computer.

If so the Flash Drive should end up at a C: prompt in DOS environment. So just try blind typing in the proper command (atiflash -f -p 0 bios.rom), press enter. Give it a couple of minutes and ctrl,alt,delete.
 
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joxang said:
You don't have to have a x16 lane for a second gpu? Which precise board model do you have?
Click to expand...
ASUS M4A77T/USB3

Tropic - Im fairly certain my USB stick is set up correctly, I have tried it on the same PC, with my old graphics card instead, and it loads DOS fine - though I do get a "High Memory Area Not Available" message before it loads up atiflash and the bios file. It eventually ends in "adapter not found" - which, I'm presuming, is the result of having my 8800gtx inserted instead of the ATI card.
 
I've just looked at your mobo specs and indeed you only have 1 PCIe 2.0 slot.
You are stuck for the time being.
Where did you get your new bios from?
Have you downloaded the wrong one? Go back and check.
I reckon that you have flashed with the wrong bios, 1 gig version instead of the 2 gig.
Go and get the 2 gig bios and try to blind flash it with that. If that fails then you will have to find someone who has a mobo with 2 PCIe slots and flash it that way.
It's not the end of the world.
I've borked a flash myself. For my :eek: and info follow link below....

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18235763&highlight=borked+bios
 
Speirs said:
I've just looked at your mobo specs and indeed you only have 1 PCIe 2.0 slot.
You are stuck for the time being.
Where did you get your new bios from?
Have you downloaded the wrong one? Go back and check.
I reckon that you have flashed with the wrong bios, 1 gig version instead of the 2 gig.
Go and get the 2 gig bios and try to blind flash it with that. If that fails then you will have to find someone who has a mobo with 2 PCIe slots and flash it that way.
It's not the end of the world.
I've borked a flash myself. For my :eek: and info follow link below....

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18235763&highlight=borked+bios
Click to expand...

It's definitely a 2GB bios I used - I also tried a few others once that failed - but mostly I've been trying to use the backup of the original bios Winflash saved.

After a bit of googling precise model numbers, I think I have indeed been sent the 2nd revision of the card. Whether that merely removes the dual bios switch, or is entirely unflashable and I've somehow buggered it, I'm not sure. I'm thinking the problem lies either there, or in my method of blind flashing. I'll stick my old card in tomorrow, and make a note of exactly what comes up when I boot from my USB stick with atiflash.

I'm aware that I could just buy a cheap PCI graphics card and try it that way (or would it keep trying to use the PCIe slot as the primary?), but obviously I'd like to try any alternatives before I buy anything else. Ideally OCUK could replace the card, since it isn't the one I ordered, though I'm not sure if my actions have made it unreturnable. If a (free) fix is available, that will shut me up too, even if it involves keeping it flashed as a 6950 (from what I hear, the difference in performance is marginal).

PS: I mentioned that the fan seems to go into full blast mode, which is a little disconcerting and makes me reluctant to keep it powered on for very long. Is that indicative of anything nasty, or just the result of a lack of a proper bios to take the reigns?

PPS: Thanks for the (non-judgemental) replies, folks :-P
 
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Dont worry about it we have all done daft things :)

TBH like i said i flash one of mine with a 1gig Bios and it did the exact same thing as your saying yours does.

If you have a mate with a x2 PCi-e slot board if so this is the Bios you need.

ati std bios
 
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