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Unlock your ATI 6950 to a 6970 Thread

Razzi said:
I heard a rumour that 6950's being shipped now may have the hardware fuses blown so the extra shaders can no longer be unlocked by flashing the BIOS, so may be best to buy one asap to try and get one that will work ...
Click to expand...

Really? Glad I checked this was thinking of ordering the sapphire dual fan card an hoping to try the unlock?
 
djay said:
Really? Glad I checked this was thinking of ordering the sapphire dual fan card an hoping to try the unlock?
Click to expand...

Absoloutely, a card that I ordered 10 months ago would not unlock regardless of the method that I tried. A new card from Dec/11 unlocked easily. It is still a lottery based on my results so even if you order a new card, it may not unlock by probably will.

Good Luck,
Carl
 
Yesterday I installed a sapphire dual fan 6950 (after some headaches)
Ive booted with the switch on either setting but both only show the standard shaders =o(
Im gonna give the flash a go but cant remember what side the switch should be to safely mod the bios.
Any ideas?
 
hmm - not looking like i will be able to unlock...
what is the latest way of unlocking? spent most of the morning looking at all different threads.
i have winflash installed and rbe editor.
if i cant unlock the shaders will a overclock be just as good using trixx?
 
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Damnit, I've had my non-ref XFX 6950's (695x-cnfc) now for 7-8 months, I was almost 100% sure when I got them that even a shader unlock wasn't possible.

Decided to have a dig and a shader unlock seems more than possible and many have done so with the cards!

Before I do anything what are the realistic odds that I will bork my card? as I have no reserve bios switch!

Edit: bah maybe not, a little more reading people are having to use a hard-mod to get it to unlock shaders :( ah well.
 
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BurntOutMutha said:
Absoloutely, a card that I ordered 10 months ago would not unlock regardless of the method that I tried. A new card from Dec/11 unlocked easily. It is still a lottery based on my results so even if you order a new card, it may not unlock by probably will.

Good Luck,
Carl
Click to expand...
I got a HIS IceQ x Plus 6950 in november, flashed with modded bios, flashed ok but no shader unlock:( bahh poo poo

Edit : Anyone Had any luck with this card ??
 
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Unlocked my 2GB VTX3D 6950 today bought from here at the start of Jan 2012. I can confirm that my card has a BIOS switch which helped to put my mind at ease :).
 
Bought the sapphire 6950 dual fan today, unlocked no problems but when I matched the clocks with the 6970 BF3 crashed after a few minutes. Works fine on stock clocks. Is this a power or heat problem. Surely I shouldn't need to overvolt to get to 6970 clocks?
 
Spenty said:
Bought the sapphire 6950 dual fan today, unlocked no problems but when I matched the clocks with the 6970 BF3 crashed after a few minutes. Works fine on stock clocks. Is this a power or heat problem. Surely I shouldn't need to overvolt to get to 6970 clocks?
Click to expand...

It might just not be as a good of a clocker over others. I run my 6950 at 1.175v (Stock 6970) and clock up to 950Mhz core in BF3 and 1450Mhz memory. You may need a little more voltage than me but that's entirely up to you. It would also answer your question.
 
Spenty said:
Doing the +20% power control option in AMD Overdrive has sorted it out. It mustn't have been drawing enough power to be stable.
Click to expand...

Wow, that caused BF3 to crash?. I read it in your other thread after I posted.

That is crazy, I thought it would just slow it down, not cause it to black screen on you. My power control settings are set every time before I start gaming so I've not experienced this. The cards were buzzing all over the internet with the unlocking of the shaders and W1zz4rd had tested with the power control settings so luckily I knew before the card arrived.

I thought at best it would just limit the FPS, not cause a crash though. I've had thermal throttling due to heat before. Dust in the fan. The games I noticed this in would go really choppy and drop more than 50% in power in FPS. More like 65-75% but they never crashed.

Glad you've got it sorted any way :). Any plans on trying 6970 stock voltages to push it any higher?. I've had mine up to 1Ghz but I never got it stable with 1.2v and been lazy to try again.
 
Hi there, I bougth the dual fan edition 6950 and decided to try for the extra shaders.

I originally tried to flash, which came with teh mismatch, so I went through 'cmd' which didn't work either, so I switch the BIOS over. Went through the 'cmd' method, and it worked, asked me to reboot which I did.

However upon rebooting, the computer would turn on, but it wasn't properly booting up, and my monitor wasn't turning on, it done this several times, restarting itself each time.
I switch it off, tried again, same problem again.
So I switch the switch over to the original position, and it booted up fine, although I had an error message which basically said something along the lines of system wasn't able to recognise because of overclocking. (Something along the lines, I can't remember now), and it gave me details of my CPU, with the ghz value, the bclk value and something else, I continued by this, and then it booted up no problem.
Everything seems fine, my gfx card is just normal 6950 settings as expected, and played a game no problem there.

So anyone know what the problem was with the switch ?
 
Your card has two BIOSes and that switch selects between them.

For whatever reason your flash screwed up, maybe you flashed the wrong BIOS, who knows. When you flicked the switch to the other position, you selected the BIOS that you haven't broken, turning your card back into a vanilla 6950.

If you want to have another go at flashing it, then boot it up as a 6950 and flick the switch back while the computer is running this will select the currently broken BIOS for flashing but your computer will continue to run normally in the meantime.

If it works, great, if you stuff it up again, just turn it off, flick the switch, and boot as a 6950 again. Repeat as many times as it takes to get it to work, or you give up.
 
The BIOS in the graphics card is only used during boot to display the POST screen and the Windows loading screen. Once your graphics drivers load they pull all the info they need out of the BIOS (e.g. number of shaders and clock speeds) and then the BIOS itself is not needed any more.

The main function of the BIOS really, is to provide a lightweight crappy graphics driver for the POST screens and Windows boot screen, and then to tell your graphics drivers exactly what card it is you have.

So switching it over once you're at the desktop will basically do nothing as the shader/clock information is in RAM at this point, however when you attempt to flash your BIOS it means you will be flashing the one you've already stuffed up rather than flashing the one that still allows your computer to boot.
 
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