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*** MSI 6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition - How To Unlock The Power ***

Spydell

Spydell

Spydell

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I had a feeling this was going to happen even more of a headache now....
Gcaster
What files did you use to make your boot device? and what usb drive did you use?
What bios setting did you flash it on silence or performance? (what position was the switch in?)
Did you change any of the files lettering example r6950pex.bin to R6950PEX.bin
Also why does it say that your card is running in x8 mode?
oh and congrats on unlocking your card.
 
Last edited:

gcaster

gcaster

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Spydell said:
I had a feeling this was going to happen even more of a headache now....
Gcaster
What files did you use to make your boot device? and what usb drive did you use?
What bios setting did you flash it on silence or performance? (what position was the switch in?)
Did you change any of the files lettering example r6950pex.bin to R6950PEX.bin
Click to expand...
I made my bootable USB using the HP Format Tool and the files I used to format it with are here (method's there too if anyone's unsure). The USB drive I used is a 4GD LaCie IAmAKey - nothing special.
Bios setting on the card was left as performance.
I didn't have to modify any of the files downloaded from the Vortez article. As I say, when downloaded it gives you 'ati389' and I didn't re-name this to 388. Inside this you have r6950pex.bin (left as is), origin.bin (left as is, didn't overwrite with mine) and atiflash.exe. All those files I left as provided and added my bios backup from GPU-Z 0.5.3 to the folder (named MSI Bios Backup).

capturesnh.png


I then put the ati389 folder onto the bootable USB, nothing else, and it ran succesfully first time.
Fingers crossed others might have a bit more luck and we'll start seeing some more of these flashing.

Spydell said:
Also why does it say that your card is running in x8 mode?
Click to expand...
This is my second 6950, my primary card (reference design) is watercooled and the way my loop's set up I can't fully remove the card from my case. As such the MSI card is plugged into the x8 slot on my mobo while my other card is suspended above the x16 slot awaiting crossfire.
 

gcaster

gcaster

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Yeah I have to say the overclocking has been a bit strange with mine.
Managed to get it running stable in Furmark at 960/1440 and rising but when playing Rift I kept getting driver crashes after about a minute or 2 right down to 920/1375 (where it seemed to run fine).
Will have a bit more of a play with it after the weekend, did you have the same issue?
 

Mr Krugga

Mr Krugga

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gcaster said:
Yeah I have to say the overclocking has been a bit strange with mine.
Managed to get it running stable in Furmark at 960/1440 and rising but when playing Rift I kept getting driver crashes after about a minute or 2 right down to 920/1375 (where it seemed to run fine).
Will have a bit more of a play with it after the weekend, did you have the same issue?
Click to expand...

Is that 1440MHz checked to not throttle down? It's easy to measure, do 3 runs in Heaven 2.5 and record the score then clock down by 20MHz and repeat, find the best 3 results of the lot by going down to 1300MHz. You'll also find any instabilities quickly as that will stress the graphics card pretty well. It's time consuming but worth doing if you're planning to run the overclock in a long term. Make sure to disable core overclock first, too. Might be worth bumping up the memory and AUX voltages a little if it's not stable.

SqualidChimp said:
think this bios would work for those people who have been unsuccessful unlocking shaders with asus 6950 directcu ii ? could be worth a shot, no? :)
Click to expand...

NO. Why the hell would you think the MSI BIOS tailored for their specific card would work on the Asus card?!
 

SqualidChimp

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Mr Krugga said:
NO. Why the hell would you think the MSI BIOS tailored for their specific card would work on the Asus card?!
Click to expand...

They are very similar cards, when you think of the cooling solution / supposed performance enhancements. Why would a BIOS written for a sapphire card work on an Asus card? There may be similarities in the way they have gotten around the shader issue. At the very least figuring out why this works and other dont might point someone in the direction of writing a similar bios "tailored" to the Asus card. Thanks for the negativity though. :)
HUMOUNGOUS DISCLAIMER: Any bios flashing carries risks, weigh it up before you decide to flash ANY bios since there may be no coming back.
 

Martini1991

Martini1991

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SqualidChimp said:
They are very similar cards, when you think of the cooling solution / supposed performance enhancements. Why would a BIOS written for a sapphire card work on an Asus card? There may be similarities in the way they have gotten around the shader issue. At the very least figuring out why this works and other dont might point someone in the direction of writing a similar bios "tailored" to the Asus card. Thanks for the negativity though. :)
HUMOUNGOUS DISCLAIMER: Any bios flashing carries risks, weigh it up before you decide to flash ANY bios since there may be no coming back.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: :p
 

gcaster

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Mr Krugga said:
Is that 1440MHz checked to not throttle down? It's easy to measure, do 3 runs in Heaven 2.5 and record the score then clock down by 20MHz and repeat, find the best 3 results of the lot by going down to 1300MHz. You'll also find any instabilities quickly as that will stress the graphics card pretty well. It's time consuming but worth doing if you're planning to run the overclock in a long term. Make sure to disable core overclock first, too. Might be worth bumping up the memory and AUX voltages a little if it's not stable.
Click to expand...
Yeah, doesn't throttle down at 1440MHz but a longer test in Furmark brings up some stability issues occasionally. Considering the little difference the mem clock is making (about 6-10 points in Unigine Extreme per 20MHz increase) I reckon I'll settle for 1400MHz on the MC which seems to be pretty stable for both cards in CrossFireX.
Time to up the Core Clock.

Mr Krugga said:
NO. Why the hell would you think the MSI BIOS tailored for their specific card would work on the Asus card?!
Click to expand...
Lal! There is a small possibility it would work but a much higher possibility that you'd brick the card. :p
 

J-FRO

J-FRO

J-FRO

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I hope it won't be a no show too, but I don't think it's entirely ScottiB's fault. The idea that you could unlock these cards was already out there it just seemed to be an extra way of helping to sell them quickly which many of us relied on. But I think Scotti, like most of us, genuinely believed we could unlock them.

Mines still in it's original packaging untouched and unused at the moment, would be nice if I could get a swap for the power edition/OC if that's the version that does unlock.
 

noobybooby

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Spydell said:
Another one was the noise the card makes i was expecting this card to be almost silent it might just be my card but its far form silent theres a weird buzzing noise from the card that can get loud (not all the time)
Click to expand...

I get exactly the same thing. I'm not sure whether its worth RMA'ing over. I'm thinking not, but it is a little irritating.
 
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