Unlock your ATI 6950 to a 6970 Thread

[~Divine~Wind~]

I tried this with the Power Edition of the 6950 and it didn't seen to work, I used WinATIflash, followed the instructions and rebooted but nothing changed, the shaders are exactly the same.

UPDATE: HELP! I tried flashing the card numerous times and it didn't work at all.

Can someone confirm which is position 1 and which is 2? My PC only recognises the monitor when the gfx card switch is switched to the right side. I would assume that makes it position 1 since that cannot be flashed. Looks like I flashed position 2 (closest to the back of the case) with a corrupt or wrong file, although ATIwinflash said verified nothing changed. Any help?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-128-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

This card mate?

 

[Jay794]

Yeah thats the one

 

[Lum]

You can change the position of the switch while the PC is running.

Boot up in whichever position works, flick the switch, flash correct BIOS.

 

[Jay794]

Think I've ****ed up my card, every time I try to boot with the switch to the left (back of the PC) my monitor goes in to power saving mode.

I can boot fine with the switch facing forward, however, when I try and run more than one program at a time, the monitor goes black, pc still running but the monitor just dies, even though it does not display Power Saving Mode and the light stays fully on. I said it before and I'll say it again.

HELP!

 

[gareth170]

Think I've ****ed up my card, every time I try to boot with the switch to the left (back of the PC) my monitor goes in to power saving mode.

I can boot fine with the switch facing forward, however, when I try and run more than one program at a time, the monitor goes black, pc still running but the monitor just dies, even though it does not display Power Saving Mode and the light stays fully on. I said it before and I'll say it again.

HELP!

boot up on working bios then switch to failed bios and flash it back to default.

 

[Nymins]

Just bought this for £170 of that second hand place:

Appears to be reference and is the 2Gb model, so a good chance of unlocking? Hope I didn't over pay for it...

 

[Lum]

Does it have the little switch near the top of the PCI bracket?

 

[Nymins]

Does it have the little switch near the top of the PCI bracket?

Said on the listing: "I'm also told this card has a dual bios switch, not sure if that makes a difference to anyone."

So I think thats the thing you mean?

 

[Lum]

That's the one.

Is it actually there though?

 

[Nymins]

I assume it is if he mentioned it. Checked online for a review of the AMD reference version (i.e. no branding) and it came up with the exact same card (visually it looked the same) and it had a switch on the top.

 

[Nymins]

Well I got it unlocked. Flashed using the modded bios of the card itself (rather than flashing 6970 bios which I read can cause problems after awhile).

Good performance, but I think my X4 640 is holding it back. Can only get 3.6GHz out of the CPU, so I'm thinking of going i5 soon.

Gonna try overclocking the card to 6970 speeds now. Btw, for some reason after I press the power button to turn the PC on, the fans on the card spin really loudly, but then go to idle and then its fine? Is that just the fan profile kicking in?

 

[PESolution]

Just flashed my 6950 and it booted fine, and i can load gpu-z to see that the shaders have unlokced correctly, however shortly after the card crashes.... Any ideas?

 

[Nymins]

Could try upping the voltage a bit (I use the latest version of Afterburner, you need to tweak its .cfg though).

I thought mine was unstable at first, didn't seem to keep any overclock and crashed with "display driver not responding" in games, but was fine at stock 6950 speeds. But I upped the voltage to cope with the shaders and clocks of the 6970 and it seems fine so far.

 

[PESolution]

Could try upping the voltage a bit (I use the latest version of Afterburner, you need to tweak its .cfg though).

I thought mine was unstable at first, didn't seem to keep any overclock and crashed with "display driver not responding" in games, but was fine at stock 6950 speeds. But I upped the voltage to cope with the shaders and clocks of the 6970 and it seems fine so far.

Thanks for the reply mate, how do i upgrade the voltage - given that i have to mod a cfg?

 

[Nymins]

After you install Afterburner, go to its install directory and find the file "MSIAfterburner.cfg".

Open it and find the lines:

UnlockVoltageControl = 0
UnlockVoltageMonitoring = 0

Change the 0's to 1's and that will allow you to change the voltage in the program. Make sure you tick "Apply clocks on startup" and have the program open on startup too.

Also, you can overclock beyond what CCC allows by editing this line in the cfg (put the bits in bold in):

UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1

Make sure you turn off Overdrive in CCC or uninstall CCC altogether, because having them both run different clocks can mess things up a bit I found.

 

[PESolution]

ive made those changes but it wont let me modifty the volts.. it doesnt show a value.,

 

[Nymins]

Go into the settings in Afterburner and under the first tab under "Safety Properties", tick Unlock voltage control and Unlock voltage monitoring. Should work then.

 

[PESolution]

done, still no luck - damn .

Also i think ive flashed both slot1 and slot2 on teh card :/ is that possible?

 

[Nymins]

Which version of Afterburner are you using? I'm using 2.1.0

It is possible to flash on both bioses, i think? But you would have to do the same process twice.

 

[PESolution]

I did accidently do it on both bios's, and now have managed to flash back to a default 6950 on both - however only one of my monitors is working now - oh dear what have i done :/

and V 2.1.0 also