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Flash 6950 given up the ghost?

Durzel

Durzel

Durzel

Soldato
Joined
10 Oct 2003
Posts
5,518
Location
Wiltshire
Been running a 6990 + 6950 (flashed to full 6970: clocks, volts, shaders) for a while without issue. Switched on PC today to have a blast of Mass Effect 3, get as far as the menu screen and PC hard locks. Proper looping sound instadeath lockup.

Tried BF3, same thing - map loaded, PC hard locked while showing the flashing cursor in the bottom right.

Wiped the ATI drivers fully and upgraded to latest ones (12.2). No difference.

Removed both cards and reinstalled the 6950 in the top slot where the 6990 was. Seemed to get a little bit further doing this but that could just be a fluke as it didn't always lockup instantly on the menu, but it would within seconds. Got as far as loading a save, walked about 5 steps, screen goes black - hard locked.

Switched back to vanilla 6950 BIOS using the dipswitch, card now running at whatever 6950s run at as standard (810 core?). Load game, walk about 5 steps, black screen, hard lock.

As I type this I've removed the 6950 card from the PC completely and am using just the 6990 card back in the top slot. Booted Mass Effect and ran about for a bit with no locking up.

So, card seems to be dead... anyone else think I've missed anything obvious? It doesn't artifact or show signs that it's about to crash, and it was working perfectly yesterday. In the space of a few hours it's gone from playing several hour long sessions of games to not being able to run a game for more than a few seconds at 3D clocks before hard locking.

It seems to work ok on the desktop (2D) if that counts for anything.

Thoughts?
 
Doesn't sound good and you've ruled out any PSU issues by just running the 6950 on its own.

May be RMA time. At least you still have a working computer, shame it's "only" a 6990 in there at the minute ;)
 
:)

Forgot to say I've got a nearly brand new Corsair AX1200 so it's obviously not a power issue, but yeah I thought I'd try and cover off all the obvious bases first. Was surprised that the card locked up when running completely stock.
 
I'm guessing that the unlock and overclock on the 6950 have taken their toll on the card. Even though some unlock and overclock doesn't quite make them the equal of a straight 6970, or at least that's what I read way back when I bought mine.
 
I would like to flash my 6950 to the 6970 but, Im a tad wary to do it, cos I will be prob keeping the card for 3-4yrs untill games start to chug. So I dont want it to die early
 
could be faulty psu,even if it is brand new

and theres all different memory timings on a 6950 compared to a 6970,its this what ruins the cards over time,safest flash is the shader unlock but the cores/memory/voltages i wouldnt do personally,id deffo test with different psu just to rule it out or rma as corsair should replace it without issue
 
If the PSU is faulty it basically means one or more of the PCI-E rails has stopped working or something, because the 6990 runs fine?

edit: Played about 4 hours of ME3 last night with just the 6990 with no lockups. Am confident the problem is localised to the card (given it was locking up even in the top slot which the 6990 now occupies again)
 
Last edited:
Phil2008 said:
I would like to flash my 6950 to the 6970 but, Im a tad wary to do it, cos I will be prob keeping the card for 3-4yrs untill games start to chug. So I dont want it to die early
Click to expand...

Don't flash it to a full 6970! I used RBE to create a custom BIOS, by just unlocking the shaders. I set the voltage to 1.175V for both my Crossfire cards.
I now overclock it by unlocking the limits in CCC, with Smart Doctor or the Registry hack, and set them both to 900MHz core and 1375MHz (5.5GHz effective for gaming) been like this now for a year no problems whatsoever!

Jon.
 
Anyone got experience of Asus RMA? Didn't buy the card from OCUK originally but the etailers website talks about going direct to the manufacturer after 30 days. Can't find any RMA form or information on Asus's website for love nor money.

Closest thing seems to be this, which seems to relate to notebooks, EeePCs, etc.
 
The plot thickens...

Took the card around to stick in a mates PC. He only has a PCI-E 1.0 motherboard but already had a 6970 in it so knew it worked. Put card in and couldn't get it to lockup at all. Ran 3DMark Vantage and Battlefield 3 and it was fine... :confused:

So, figured I'd go for broke and re-flashed it to a 6970, put it back in my PC when I got home fully expecting it to be unstable again... yet I've just played a game of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer for about an hour without any lockup, in exactly the same configuration as I had when I was having problems.

Anyone got any thoughts on this? Would simply reseating the card a couple of times (in a different PC etc) solve any problems?
 
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