Asus HD6950 Direct CU II - Unlocking!

Review samples and few first consumer revisions od DCII were unlockable. Now if you want unlock HD6950, you must buy reference model.

TheBluePanther said:

According to my retailer, the 2GB DCU II models have been phased out and replaced by the 1GB models. Also I bought mine around March - about a month from release.

Do you know how the ref DCII's were unlocked?

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Read this: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=335318&page=38

The ASUS 6950 DCU II is a non-reference card, some unlock and some don't. Edit;Just depends on when and where purchased, got mine end of April.will try to unlock soon(can't get both into current case).
I have two of them but I see no point in unlocking them at this time, overclocked they work just fine for me.

No luck here unlocking my recently purchased Asus HD6950 Direct CU II either. They must be shipping them with the newer laser cut shaders now.

Hi,

Managed to unlock shaders.
Asus DirectCUII HD6950 1GB DDR5.
No other modifications except shaders 1536.

Method : Php script unlock.
Download the BIOS

TheBluePanther said:

Hey everyone,

Does anyone know how to unlock the shaders on the HD6950 DC II 2gb? I've so far tried the following methods:

1.) Flashing with the HD6970 DCU II [changed ID and clocks to HD6970 but only 1408 shaders]
2.) Unlocking my original bios using RBE and then flashing with ATIflash
3.) Unlocking using the phb (.bat file pack) and then flashing with ATIflash

So far nothing seems to unlock the shaders.

Any help would be much appreciated!!!!

Thanks in advance,
Marc.

Click to expand...

I found a bios that worked great for me . (Asus 6950 DirectCUII 2GB)
I benchmarked before and after with ShaderToyMark and got about 3.5% improvement. Gpuz shows the shaders are unlocked.

I included the bios in the automatic install package from tpu for easy installation: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XVNFDHJ0

Hi guys, im new here
can someone give direct instuction on how to unlock 6950 asus direct cu2 2gb? I will do it on friday but need exact instructions,
thank you

PrEzi said:

Hi,

Managed to unlock shaders.
Asus DirectCUII HD6950 1GB DDR5.
No other modifications except shaders 1536.

Method : Php script unlock.
Download the BIOS

Click to expand...

Hi, what tools should I use for unlock (flash BIOS) this Asus DirectCUII HD6950 1GB DDR5 card?

Thanks

Asus are just really hoax..the real thing is the dual bios..Just flashed my ASUS EAH 6950 DCU II 2gb to the bios that discy post and it's stable 24/7, A big Thanks to youdiscy ,I was really desprate to trade it with a reference card..eehehhhe

I have finally flashed my Asus card with modded bios from PrEzi, but I have still 1408 shaders
I tried reinstall drivers, restart PC etc, but nothing has changed /cry

evillek said:

I have finally flashed my Asus card with modded bios from PrEzi, but I have still 1408 shaders
I tried reinstall drivers, restart PC etc, but nothing has changed /cry

Click to expand...

use the php script modder of W1zzard. you have to mod you're original bios to unlock the shaders.

Heres mine:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Ginnoskie said:

use the php script modder of W1zzard. you have to mod you're original bios to unlock the shaders.

Click to expand...

I have tried that too, but still same

Have to I do anything with the switch next to crossfire?

evillek said:

Have to I do anything with the switch next to crossfire?

Click to expand...

yes..You should switch it to 1 position.

When I flashed mine, I downloaded the w1zzard php modder..Use ATIwinflash, save my bios then mod my bios on w1zzards php modder. then used the command prompt after flash was done the system says to reboot then after reboot it was unlocked.

Ginnoskie said:

yes..You should switch it to 1 position.

When I flashed mine, I downloaded the w1zzard php modder..Use ATIwinflash, save my bios then mod my bios on w1zzards php modder. then used the command prompt after flash was done the system says to reboot then after reboot it was unlocked.

Click to expand...

I can't see any marks where is position 0 or 1. I have it on default position now (away from xfire).
My flash process was exactly same as your.

switch it close to the xfire..thats the writable bios then reboot..try to uninstall catalyst driver the reinstall it again..sometimes the shader won't show right unless you install/uninstall catalyst drivers.

I did everything, but still 1408.... cursed card

ouch..maybe it's not you're lucky day then mate..that really sucks

I have no luck either trying to unlock the shaders on my 6950 DCII 2GB (bought in 2011/10)
While digging in the bins, I did notice that my original bins are different from the ones you find floating around everywhere.
(format: offset: RestOfTheWorld -> MyCard )

0x0007: 00 -> 04
0xDE79: 2A -> 24
0xDEBA: 43 -> 44
0xDEBE: 79 -> 7A

Note1 that the build date/time have not changed, which is rather dirty of asus
Note2 these are the values for the default switch position 0 (pos1 has a similar pattern)

evillek (and others for whom patching does not work) maybe you can check if you have a similar difference pattern wrt the other 'orig' files...

Also strange is that if you apply the shaders patch via RBE it changes position 0x0007 (one of the different bytes).
The w1zzard script changes position 0x21 (hard coded in the script).
I don't know if this means RBE knows something w1zzard does not ?
But unfortunately neither of them work

If anyone has any ideas what the changed values might mean, shoot ....

Other question : For the ppl that can unlock their shaders successfully, does the position of the switch matter ? On the asus DCII, AFAIK it just toggles between 2 biosses with different output port configurations, there is no 'this one is special and not flashable position'. As someone in one of the threads i read mentioned, it is as if asus has some hidden fallback bios that is automatically used when you do illegal stuff in the normal bios, but it is not controlled by the switch position...

beamer145 said:

I have no luck either trying to unlock the shaders on my 6950 DCII 2GB (bought in 2011/10)
While digging in the bins, I did notice that my original bins are different from the ones you find floating around everywhere.
(format: offset: RestOfTheWorld -> MyCard )

0x0007: 00 -> 04
0xDE79: 2A -> 24
0xDEBA: 43 -> 44
0xDEBE: 79 -> 7A

Note1 that the build date/time have not changed, which is rather dirty of asus
Note2 these are the values for the default switch position 0 (pos1 has a similar pattern)

evillek (and others for whom patching does not work) maybe you can check if you have a similar difference pattern wrt the other 'orig' files...

Also strange is that if you apply the shaders patch via RBE it changes position 0x0007 (one of the different bytes).
The w1zzard script changes position 0x21 (hard coded in the script).
I don't know if this means RBE knows something w1zzard does not ?
But unfortunately neither of them work

If anyone has any ideas what the changed values might mean, shoot ....

Other question : For the ppl that can unlock their shaders successfully, does the position of the switch matter ? On the asus DCII, AFAIK it just toggles between 2 biosses with different output port configurations, there is no 'this one is special and not flashable position'. As someone in one of the threads i read mentioned, it is as if asus has some hidden fallback bios that is automatically used when you do illegal stuff in the normal bios, but it is not controlled by the switch position...

Click to expand...

Yes the switch really matter. because if you don't bump the switch you can't rewrite the bios because it's a read only bios so you can't overwrite it.

And another thing if you read on the forums about unlocking the Asus DCU II 6950 2gb don't use RBE because AFAIK only reference card is applicable to use RBE. I only used W1zzards php modder and used my own bios to unlock the shaders. then another thread here in the forums where I've downloaded the EAH DCU 6970 2g bios then tried flashing it using the CMD method then it was a success.


AFAIK when i flashed my Asus DCU II 6950 2gb after the flash was successful it will prompt to reboot you're PC then checked GPU-Z it show 890/1375 with 1536 shaders then i shutdown my PC and put the bios switch to default position and when i turned it on it was back to 810/1250 then shutdown the PC again. Switched the bios to Position 1 after that when i turned it on it was 890/1375 so it's very obvious that the switch is really a dual bios. not the HDMI switch or something..

From Left that's the clock I've been Using since dec. 2 without any issues or anything it is stable 24/7 and from right side that's the first time I've unlocked the shaders on my Asus DCU II 6950 2gb.

beamer145 said:

evillek (and others for whom patching does not work) maybe you can check if you have a similar difference pattern wrt the other 'orig' files...

Click to expand...

Sorry, Im not sure what do you mean... My English is not so good

@Ginnoskie
>Yes the switch really matter. because if you don't bump the switch you can't rewrite the bios because it's a read only bios so you can't overwrite it.

I don't have problems overwiting it. Meaning that even after a complete powerdown & restart, if I read the bios again I have the version I just wrote in it (and not the original version which should be the case if it is read only ) (but the shaders remain stuck at 1408 though).
So I don't think the read only story is true (probably on other cards but not the asus DCII).
I also makes perfect sense that they are both writable, because on the asus DCII, both switch positions really mean something different (= a different usage mode for the output ports). So if at some point in the future asus releases a bios update, their users must be able to upgrade BOTH bioses.
If however on your card, you really cannot write to the bios with the switch away from the connector, then that is yet another (huge) difference between your card and the version I am using.
Lastly, if you check the files in the 'Jul 3, 2011, 04:32 PM' discy post in this thread, you see that his original and modded versions also correspond the the switch away from the connector(contains the timestamp: 12/22/10 04:36).
So he was able to successfully do it with the switch in the original position.

I am betting you have card with a bios which has values
0x0007: 00
0xDE79: 2A
0xDEBA: 43
0xDEBE: 79

I would *really* like to know what asus changed there !
Probably something really stupid which causes the traditional unlock methods to fail, but it must also be HW related as flashing in the entire discy post bios does not help.
(another crazy idea is to replace both bioses with the versions of the old card and see what that gives, maybe he somehow checks them both)
It would also be interesting if someone could physically compare both versions of the card to see if there was a difference introduced in PCB stuffing.

@evillek
>Sorry, Im not sure what do you mean... My English is not so good
I suppose telling it in dutch or french is not going to be helpfull either so I'll stick to english:
1) dump your original firmware/bios to a file (you probably already did this as a backup)
2) open file in a hex editor (eg HXD is a good freeware tool)
3) open the original reference bios file for your card (a 1GB DCII i guess) from the techpower site in the hex editor
4) do analysis>file compare>compare on both files
If you have the same problem as me, you will see that they don't match in a few bytes though the time stamps are the same. See for example the list a gave in my post for my 2GB DCII.

(I have no solution for it, but it is probably related to the not-able-to-unlock problem we are facing if we both have this)

beamer145 said:

I don't have problems overwiting it. Meaning that even after a complete powerdown & restart, if I read the bios again I have the version I just wrote in it (and not the original version which should be the case if it is read only ) (but the shaders remain stuck at 1408 though).
So I don't think the read only story is true (probably on other cards but not the asus DCII).
I also makes perfect sense that they are both writable, because on the asus DCII, both switch positions really mean something different (= a different usage mode for the output ports). So if at some point in the future asus releases a bios update, their users must be able to upgrade BOTH bioses.
If however on your card, you really cannot write to the bios with the switch away from the connector, then that is yet another (huge) difference between your card and the version I am using.
Lastly, if you check the files in the 'Jul 3, 2011, 04:32 PM' discy post in this thread, you see that his original and modded versions also correspond the the switch away from the connector(contains the timestamp: 12/22/10 04:36).
So he was able to successfully do it with the switch in the original position.

Click to expand...

hmmmm i don't really know though..because when I tried to write the bois in the default position it always getting error..

Ginnoskie

Hi. Im also have bad luck. Could you share your unlocked bios with us? And standard?

sure thing man when i get home after work i will attach my modded bios and give you the procedure on how i did it.