Unlock your ATI 6950 to a 6970 Thread

[DarkHorizon472]

Just a update, got my money back on the sapphire dual fan which was confirmed dodgy (and didnt unlock) ordered a powercolor hd6950 twin fan looks like the same one overclockers are selling, unlocked it within a minute using the RBE method perfect, matched 6970 clocks aswell! Lovely

That's good news after all the trouble you had

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

There is also an msi bios designed to unlock the shaders and let you overclock further. I used this and it worked fine and the card is now overclocked to 6970 speeds running bf3 completely stable.

Got a link to this bios mate?

 

[DarkHorizon472]

Got a link to this bios mate?

I got everything from here but it is at your own risk.

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/msi_r6950_twin_froz_iii_power_edition_unlocking,1.html

 

[Dan2kx]

I got everything from here but it is at your own risk.

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/msi_r6950_twin_froz_iii_power_edition_unlocking,1.html

just tried it on mine, shaders are unlocked, now for some more OCing!!

 

[bezzz]

ok, so I have just tried to run the automated bios flash by using the techpowerup link and well basically now my pc wont even boot.......

a. is it doomed to a new card or is it
b. fixable

any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[BurntOutMutha]

bezzz - Do you have a dual bios switch card ?

 

[bezzz]

How would I find this out?

 

[BurntOutMutha]

Have a read of your manual, does the card have a switch on it that lets you go back to the factory default bios ?

On mine, it's a tiny switch just to the right of the xfire connection on the card as you look at it installed in the PC.

 

[bezzz]

Thanks, I will check this when I get home. If not I am needing to buy a new card right?

 

[BurntOutMutha]

Not neccesarily, lot cheaper to get the card fixed

Good Luck !!!!

Carl

 

[Lum]

Even without a dual BIOS switch, you can try booting up with a different graphics card as the primary and attempt to flash back the original BIOS.

 

[bezzz]

Thank god for dual bios. Didn't even realise it had one. Thanks for that AWESOME suggestion!

 

[DarkHorizon472]

just tried it on mine, shaders are unlocked, now for some more OCing!!

The big gains are from the overclocking.

 

[Dan2kx]

The big gains are from the overclocking.

950/1450 in benchmarks stable, 925/1450 in games BF would take slightly more on the clock though, but crashed eventually

 

[Lum]

Thank god for dual bios. Didn't even realise it had one. Thanks for that AWESOME suggestion!

Now what you need to do is boot it up on the good BIOS and with the system running, flick the switch back over to the broken BIOS and have another go at flashing it

 

[Cyanide]

My XFX XXX 2Gb won't unlock

 

[BaNksY IV]

Just for peoples info, had to send one of my powercolors back as it was indeed faulty (how bad is the quality control on these things!) my 3rd powercolor 6950 also unlocked so thats 3/3 for me.

 

[djxput]

bought a 1gig 6950 sapphire - sitting at 1536 shaders and 881 core atm (err forgot the mem). Only got it 2 days ago so only did 1 test run to see if stable at stock 850 then 881 using trixx.
Nice card for the price ... also going to see what this card will run at as far as the core ...

well looks like <922 appears to be the max on the core ... 900 seems to be fine but did a 922 run and I locked up. Sitting here at 900 and going to leave that go for a bit to see if any problems; bumped the mem up to 1300 just to see; looks fine atm. Temps are 64 c (nice sapphire cooler); a bit hot in here also atm. idle seems to be about 44-47c.
kombustor works well to test the card ... havnt done anything about voltage but think Ill just leave it.

I actually think they get a chip from amd test it out to see if it can pass a decent clock with the 1536 shaders and if it cant then they bin it as a 6950 ... example - not much overhead here if the 6970 clocks at 880 but hey its all good for a 6950 with unlocked shaders etc ...

 

[Zeed]

well i got problems with Oc of mine 6950. In 2d mode no problem runs at 930. But when i play BF3 in 3d then after 10 minutes game freezes. I can run Furmark for like 10 minutes no problems. Not sure whats up :/ VRM overheats or something ???
I have put aluminium coolers on ALL CHIPS that card got. And i changed ****** thermal strip on VRMs with Arctic Silver.
Im thinking about watercooling atm heh.

 

[ViRuS2k]

well i got problems with Oc of mine 6950. In 2d mode no problem runs at 930. But when i play BF3 in 3d then after 10 minutes game freezes. I can run Furmark for like 10 minutes no problems. Not sure whats up :/ VRM overheats or something ???
I have put aluminium coolers on ALL CHIPS that card got. And i changed ****** thermal strip on VRMs with Arctic Silver.
Im thinking about watercooling atm heh.

Jesus stop using that POS furmark on 6xxxx or 7xxx series cards it does not stress the card correctly.
thats why your card is failing when gaming.
best stress test is to run 2 gpu hungry and memory hungry games. if after 2 hours and your not crashing then clock up again and retest

I beleave furmark is the program that mostly breaks cards by overvolting there VRMs.