# 7970 DCII voltage locked, how to unlock it?



## psyside (Jun 24, 2012)

Anyone got idea how can it be done? does vBIOS help? please answer me, all of the recent 7970 DCII/TOP cares are being voltage locked


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## radrok (Jun 24, 2012)

Have you tried with turboevo? The Asus proprietary software.


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## psyside (Jun 24, 2012)

I will be honest, i still don't have the card, i want to buy it, but i'm really scared if its impossible to unlock, because many users tried, different vBIOS, different software (trix,gpu tweak, afterburner etc) and nothing seems to work 

BTW turboevo, its for Mobos as far as i know? :/


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## radrok (Jun 24, 2012)

yes, sorry it's called GPU Tweak, I used turboevo naming because that's what I use for my ASUS motherboards.

I've never bought an Asus GPU though only MSI/Sapphire.

http://uk.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/AMD_Series/HD7970DC2T3GD5/#download


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## erocker (Jun 24, 2012)

psyside said:


> all of the recent 7970 DCII/TOP cares are being voltage locked



That's good enough for me not to buy that card. Look for something else. Yeah those coolers look cool, but they don't work as well as they should.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jun 24, 2012)

meh mine works fine voltage unlocked tops out at 55c at 60% fan speed (silent until 70% is reached) at 1125 core, sucks if they are actually limiting the cards potential these days.


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## psyside (Jun 24, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> meh mine works fine voltage unlocked tops out at 55c at 60% fan speed (silent until 70% is reached) at 1125 core, sucks if they are actually limiting the cards potential these days.



Thanks, when did you buy the card?



erocker said:


> That's good enough for me not to buy that card. Look for something else. Yeah those coolers look cool, but they don't work as well as they should.



Thanks.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jun 24, 2012)

bought mine in February


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## razaron (Jun 24, 2012)

Just now I managed to unlock the voltages. The only bad thing is that the voltages are stuck in 3d mode. 
Anywho, here's how I did it:

- Download and unpack the ATIWinflash onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
- Save this BIOS in your Winflash folder and name it asus.rom
- Click Start Button
- Type "cmd"
- Right click the entry and select "Run as Administrator"
- Black command prompt windows opens
- Type "cd %USERPROFILE%\desktop\winflash"
- Type "atiwinflash -unlockrom 0" <-- the 0 means first adapter, if you have multiple cards, physically uninstall all but the one you want to flash
- Type "atiwinflash -f -p 0 asus.rom"
- It should complete the flashing process with a message saying something with "verified".


This is a copypasta from w1z with some modifications.

EDIT: I'm not sure why, but, my Heaven score has increased...
EDIT2: I changed the 2d clock to the lowest it will go, 465/2760 @943mV. It used to idle at 33C, now it idles at 40C.


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## psyside (Jun 25, 2012)

razaron said:


> Just now I managed to unlock the voltages. The only bad thing is that the voltages are stuck in 3d mode.
> Anywho, here's how I did it:
> 
> - Download and unpack the ATIWinflash onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
> ...



Thanks alot for this! can you please tell me did unlocking get your oc better/higher? is this metod safe? can i brik the card? thanks again!


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## razaron (Jun 25, 2012)

psyside said:


> Thanks alot for this! can you please tell me did unlocking get your oc better/higher? is this metod safe? can i brik the card? thanks again!



So far I haven't noticed a difference in the max OC. When I slap on the waterblock next week I'll check again. The card has 2 BIOSes.

EDIT: However, you should note that what's stable at 1080p/1200p is a crash-fest at 1600p.


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## psyside (Jun 26, 2012)

Thats disappointing, and led me to think that this card where locked with reason, looks like this card have VRM/Power delivery issues, because your the second user who unlock his card, and got 0 increase regarding overclocking even with voltage control unlocked, so disappointing


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## Iactus (Jun 28, 2012)

razaron said:


> Just now I managed to unlock the voltages. The only bad thing is that the voltages are stuck in 3d mode.
> Anywho, here's how I did it:
> 
> - Download and unpack the ATIWinflash onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
> ...



Doesnt work.

yes it unlocks the option in Asus GPu Tweak but it doesnt actually give you any type of control over the voltage

GPU tweak shows 1.084v No matter what voltage i put on that slider, it never raises
Max overclock is the same

MSI Afterburner still cant change the voltages.


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## vadimua (Jun 28, 2012)

It works on my DC2T. 
This BIOS is not stable, but you can overclock fine.
Attention.


> GPU tweak shows 1.084v No matter what voltage i put on that slider, it never raises


After flashing the BIOS, do not touch the switch on the card. 
And do not change the BIOS settings MB.

If this happens, and the voltage stays 1.08
1. Flash your old BIOS from DOS.
2. Login to Windows, and reboot.
3. Flash the OC ASUS bios fom DOS.
4. Login to Windows and open Tveak GPU. And use.
So it works for me.
Sorry bad english.


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## Iactus (Jun 28, 2012)

can i see the Monitor that shows your voltage at a higher level?

I havent touched the Bios Switch, I flashed it from in windows, there is no need to use DOS when the ATIWinFlash is so stable.

Mine is a DIrectCUII Not the Top version so i may have a deeper hardware limitation to the volts


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## vadimua (Jun 29, 2012)

*Iactus*

Standart BIOS




OC BIOS


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## Iactus (Jun 29, 2012)

You lucky Bugger

Mine is locked still 

Also Your GPU tweak looks So much better than mine, i have the same version aswell

Seems the DC2 TOP Is a better card than the Non TOP version


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## Fimconte (Jul 12, 2012)

Took a leap of faith and flashed the test bios to my DCII non-top (HD7970-DC2-3GD5)
'lo and behold, voltages unlocked in GPU Tweak!

The only problem so far is that DVI Port 2 (the DL/SL variable one) doesn't work.

Which is a minor annoyance for now (I used a DVI monitor in the DL slot and a DVI->HDMI adapter for a HDTV in slot 1), but since I ordered 2 DP->HDMI adapters that problem should be solved soon (unless the bios flash did something to the DP ports as well...).

Which ports did you use @vadimua, @razaron?

Going to do some benchmarks to see if I can break 1200mhz now (had artefacts in Furmark with 1.175mV @1170mhz+)


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## razaron (Jul 13, 2012)

I'm using DP through an active adapter.


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## radrok (Jul 13, 2012)

Fimconte said:


> Took a leap of faith and flashed the test bios to my DCII non-top (HD7970-DC2-3GD5)
> 'lo and behold, voltages unlocked in GPU Tweak!
> 
> The only problem so far is that DVI Port 2 (the DL/SL variable one) doesn't work.
> ...



Let us know how much you can gain by using that bios and the full 1.4v man


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## Iactus (Jul 13, 2012)

Fimconte said:


> Took a leap of faith and flashed the test bios to my DCII non-top (HD7970-DC2-3GD5)
> 'lo and behold, voltages unlocked in GPU Tweak!
> 
> The only problem so far is that DVI Port 2 (the DL/SL variable one) doesn't work.
> ...



Please link us to the download for this bios and what u did exactly.

Also which drivers are you using?


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## Fimconte (Jul 14, 2012)

radrok said:


> Let us know how much you can gain by using that bios and the full 1.4v man


Seems like no gain...

Although for some reason I have a lot of vdroop from 1189 to 1.117mV, Coincidence?
I mean I can push 1200mhz, starts off fine, but once the vdrop kicks in, so do the artifacts.

Alternatively, maybe my PSU is dying... It is starting to get quite old now, and perhaps it can't feed 7970 enough power...

Either way it's disappointing that I have to flash some test bios to unlock voltages, when reference card has these unlocked by default and can hit quite high core clocks.
Going to see if I can return the card next week I think...



Iactus said:


> Please link us to the download for this bios and what u did exactly.
> 
> Also which drivers are you using?



Same bios as posted in the above guide.

12.7 Drivers.


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## fullinfusion (Jul 14, 2012)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> meh mine works fine voltage unlocked tops out at 55c at 60% fan speed (silent until 70% is reached) at 1125 core, sucks if they are actually limiting the cards potential these days.


Mabey these batch of chip's cant handle the higher volts and is why there locking them down


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## Iactus (Jul 14, 2012)

gThey fly when hardmodded.

I suspect that guys unlock did nothing but mafe it seem it uped the volts.

If it did he would hit 1.25gz easy.

So it seems they are still locked.

I will be hardware modding mine


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## psyside (Jul 14, 2012)

I ended up getting 680DCII should be here in 2 days, way to much hassle and gambling with 7970DCII cards....


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## radrok (Jul 14, 2012)

psyside said:


> I ended up getting 680DCII should be here in 2 days, way to much hassle and gambling with 7970DCII cards....



With no voltage control either man.

Can't wait for the HD 7970 Matrix, it has voltage plug sockets so you can link it directly to a Rampage IV or Maximus V without soldering.


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## psyside (Jul 14, 2012)

I know but they overclock to 1300 like np, so its fine.


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## Fimconte (Jul 15, 2012)

Iactus said:


> gThey fly when hardmodded.
> 
> I suspect that guys unlock did nothing but mafe it seem it uped the volts.
> 
> ...



I'm not so sure about that. 
For example when I leave the core at default (925) and only increase voltage, I do get thermal increase (Hit 100c+ with 1.250)

However I also get the "stuck at" 1.08v bug whenever I hardlock the system. 
I think this is because my motherboard might change some settings in bios to ensure "boot" after hardlock.

Hence having to flash default bios->reboot->flash test bios->reboot after every hardlock can get annoying.


Anyway the store where I bought from said they can't offer a refund unless there's some technical problem (locked voltage is working as intended apparently, thanks Asus!)...
So I'm stuck for a while with this card.


P.S. 
Did some testing between 1.225 - 1.190, 
Best I managed was 1150 core / 5500 memory @1207mv, while with both test and stock bios I get 1160 core / 6000 memory @1175mv...

Anyway went back to original bios, since I plan on fiddling with the CPU overclock instead and thanks to the 1080mv bug and no gain from unlocked bios for me at least.

That said, there might be two issues affecting my success.

a) High Temperatures I have the Silverstone FT02 and vertically mounted DCII cooler might not perform optimally, but there's mixed reports on that. 
I did get absurd temps (105c+@1225mv) so there's that.

b) vdroop. Currently running 1175mv in GPUTweak, reads 1158mv idle , 1097mv under full load (Xtreme Burn-in Furmark).
Interestingly in BF3 the voltage doesn't drop lower than 1152, so maybe it's just furmark pushing absurd loads onto the gpu. Granted I haven't tested it out on full servers yet, only empty conquest large maps.


I remembered that when I had huge problems with P5Q-Deluxe a few years back I promised never to buy another Asus product... I should've stayed true to that promise


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## Iactus (Jul 16, 2012)

i dont think your vcore actually raised at all mate

I can get 1150 @ 1.080v.... vdroop down to 1.064v


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## Fimconte (Jul 17, 2012)

Iactus said:


> i dont think your vcore actually raised at all mate
> 
> I can get 1150 @ 1.080v.... vdroop down to 1.064v



What causes the extra heat then?


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## Iactus (Jul 17, 2012)

i dont know, But if the voltage did raise you would see a good overclock, this is based on when you hardmod one of these you can get very nice clocks with the added voltage


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## Chrisoldinho (Aug 6, 2012)

Hi all,

Looking for some help, made a real mess up of flashing a 7970 DCII TOP.

To cut a long story short, both BIOS's have been flashed with the Test BIOS http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/113309/Asus.HD7970.3072.120104.html and I have no backup BIOS's (crazy I know...)

I use a single DVI cable to connect to my monitor, currently I get no display output whatsoever. 
I have a spare PCI-E card that I can run to get atiflash up and running and then put the TOP card into a second PCI-E slot to flash it back again.

I recall seeing the stock BIOS being an something along the lines of ***.AS05.U3, when I check the VGA database, I see there is a BIOS 6798.15.12.0.4.AS05.U3 so I am thinking of flashing this one across as I believe it will match what I was running before.

The second problem I am going to have is that it was my understanding:-

Bios Number 1 Is for Dual link DVI and only 2 DP ports
Bios Number 2 is for Single Link DVI and all display ports

As I don't know which BIOS has been uploaded to the techpowerup database, it's likely I am going to loose some functionality on the card (if I can get it working again).

As you can see, I have some thoughts on how to fix it, but would welcome any additional advice before I do anything else.

Thanks


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## Chrisoldinho (Aug 6, 2012)

Fixed it, back up and running again


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## Iactus (Aug 15, 2012)

any news ?


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## Fimconte (Aug 30, 2012)

Iactus said:


> any news ?



Well I inquired with Asus Nordic and they said they are aware of the issue and that it's been forwarded to the BIOS team...
But that's the same response that's been given to others before.

So most likely we're SoL as Asus is probably not supporting this card actively any more.


I went back to the original BIOS and managed a decent overclock @ 1130mhz core, 1705mhz memory. 
Not quite in the 1250+/1800+ range that some other 7970s can do, but with locked voltage our hands seem tied.


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## vadimua (Oct 16, 2012)

GPU Tweak 2.2.1.4


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## crazyeyesreaper (Oct 16, 2012)

^ yea good luck with that one i already tested it voltage is unlocked yes but your limited to 1125 max. have to mix and match gpu oc tools which resulted in some fun BSODs


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## vadimua (Oct 16, 2012)

voltage unlocked
frequency unlocked
everything works fine
http://img.maryno.net/images/3fd0425a294a303db93802febd87e806/3fe252eac173f04df3d6c8036014f4bc.jpeg


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## crazyeyesreaper (Oct 16, 2012)

well thats nice but its not what im seeing tested it on two installs now and did a registry wipe of software to make sure no change. 

But considering their are different variations of the Direct Cu II 7970 TOP available the software will work for some but not all.


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## TiNo-man (Nov 14, 2012)

razaron said:


> Just now I managed to unlock the voltages. The only bad thing is that the voltages are stuck in 3d mode.
> Anywho, here's how I did it:
> 
> - Download and unpack the ATIWinflash onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
> ...



I do all this but i get"eror" now my ASUS 7970DC2T won't boot anymore 
I think i flash on first bios,which is write protected.On7970DC2 dont write which is factory protected bios.I try to get back with factory bios,but wont work.No i cant bot my card from that bios.And which is write protected bios?
PLEASE HELP


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## Jacksonn24 (Jan 12, 2013)

i used the asus tweek that was posted that allows move voltage and afterburner and got higher OC on core from 1150 up to 1202 so idk if it increases voltage but 1st time i could ever run 3dmark 11 over 1150/1650 i just ran it at 1202/1651


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 12, 2013)

So wait, you got a 7970 DCII and tried tweaking the voltage. You couldn't then you got a GTX680 DCII thats also voltage locked? 

And don't believe what you see online about the GPU being able to clock to 1300+. I thought the 680 I got could do 1300+ and even maybe hit 1400 on water, and that definitely didn't happen. But good luck, I think you might be surprised. A lot of Kepler cards are averaging out at 1250mhz.


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## p3gaz_001 (Jan 18, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> So wait, you got a 7970 DCII and tried tweaking the voltage. You couldn't then you got a GTX680 DCII thats also voltage locked?
> 
> And don't believe what you see online about the GPU being able to clock to 1300+. *I thought the 680 I got could do 1300+ and even maybe hit 1400 on water*, and that definitely didn't happen. But good luck, I think you might be surprised. A lot of Kepler cards are averaging out at 1250mhz.



one of my 2 680L does 1437mhz on stock cooler @ +150mv


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## dannygunit007 (Jan 19, 2013)

*asus 7970 dciit bios*

this has fucked my card
when I turn on my motherboard stays indication LED at 62
not start
not even enter the bios
I think as my asus killed: (
if saves as reset the bios manually with me please Back
my email is leandrogunit007@hotmail.com



- Download and unpack the ATIWinflash onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
- Save this BIOS in your Winflash folder and name it asus.rom
- Click Start Button
- Type "cmd"
- Right click the entry and select "Run as Administrator"
- Black command prompt windows opens
- Type "cd %USERPROFILE%\desktop\winflash"
- Type "atiwinflash -unlockrom 0" <-- the 0 means first adapter, if you have multiple cards, physically uninstall all but the one you want to flash
- Type "atiwinflash -f -p 0 asus.rom"
- It should complete the flashing process with a message saying something with "verified".


This is a copypasta from w1z with some modifications.

EDIT: I'm not sure why, but, my Heaven score has increased...
EDIT2: I changed the 2d clock to the lowest it will go, 465/2760 @943mV. It used to idle at 33C, now it idles at 40C.[/QUOTE]


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