Poll: What caused your flashed 6950 permanent damage?

[wmblalock]

In attempt to get to the root cause of why modded 6950 cards are starting to develop permanent damage, I've created this poll. If you have permanent damage to your 6950, even after going back to the stock bios, please take the poll and choose which option most closely describes the status of your card when it FIRST STARTED TO DEVELOP PERMANENT DAMAGE. Hopefully we can figure out from this thread what the real issue is. Is it the memory clock speeds? Is it memory timings from the 6970 bios? Is it something related to the enabled shaders in the gpu? Lets find out. Also, once you vote, post your exact bios and speeds in this thread. Thanks guys!

 

[sliderider]

This is the first i've heard of this, but my guess would be it's because of the difference in the power connectors if anyone is suffering damage after a BIOS flash. The 6970 has a 6 and an 8 pin for a reason. It probably pulls more amps than a 6950 so when you flash it with a 6970 BIOS it pulls more than the two 6 pin connectors can safely handle and the extra power ends up frying something. If the 6950/6970 could both safely handle the same power load then the power connectors would be the same on both cards. The two extra grounds on the 8 pin wouldn't be needed.

 

[Falkentyne]

95% any issue is going to be RAM/timings. GPUs themselves don't usually die from stuff like that...they either work, or crash. voltage and heat can damage gpus, not frequency...

And is it me, or is RAM a lot more fragile than it used to be? I never remember DDR or DDR2 on much older cards dying from being clocked to the edge of stability...only voltage used to kill that stuff...

These days, you get RAM slowly dying even when run at rated timings...remember Micron D9's?

 

[wmblalock]

95% any issue is going to be RAM/timings. GPUs themselves don't usually die from stuff like that...they either work, or crash. voltage and heat can damage gpus, not frequency...

And is it me, or is RAM a lot more fragile than it used to be? I never remember DDR or DDR2 on much older cards dying from being clocked to the edge of stability...only voltage used to kill that stuff...

These days, you get RAM slowly dying even when run at rated timings...remember Micron D9's?

I know what you mean. We used to be able to overclock memory on video cards until it artifacted, then back off a bit and it would be fine for the life of the card. Now, this stuff is dying after a week after the first sign of artifacting... it sucks.

Also, I wonder if it is just the clock speed killing the memory or if it is in fact timings as well. Has anyone been able to prove if the memory timings are different on the 6970, or is that all a myth for now?

 

[f0d]

6970 bios, stock 6970 memory and gpu speeds (1375/880)
took about a week

 

[davetheshrew]

is this a huge issue then? Ive not witnessed anything yet, most people just reinstall drivers etc and all is good in the world, im going to watch this closely.

 

[wmblalock]

It seems to be a growing problem in every 6950>6970 thread that I keep up with... I'm trying to help everyone figure it out collectively now so they can be informed. I don't want to see everyone end up with dead cards in 2 months if we can prevent it

 

[KainXS]

its the ram timings not the gpu more than likely like ocing a cpu but not remembering to change the ram timings to cope with the higher bus clocks, different partners sometimes use different ram so you have to change them and make sure your ram is the same or else you will damage the card, therefore i say its your faults for not checking.

 

[wmblalock]

its the ram timings not the gpu more than likely like ocing a cpu but not remembering to change the ram timings to cope with the higher bus clocks, different partners sometimes use different ram so you have to change them and make sure your ram is the same or else you will damage the card, therefore i say its your faults for not checking.

I think it's ram as well, but I'm not sure if it's timings or just the pure clock speed that's killing it. I wouldn't say "its your fault for not checking" though, it's not exactly easy, maybe not even possible to know what your memory timings are supposed to be and what they actually are in the 6970 bios you are running.

 

[Falkentyne]

Some people were flaming 6970 owners, saying how they "wasted their money" Funny how those people have completely vanished now....maybe I'll head over to the [H] forums and stalk the guy who said that, to see what he has to say now.... or was it on XS, I forgot...

I remember one doubter saying "I think it's best to wait and see if the cards hold up to this cross flashing" (Btw, this is always a good reason to wait a month before buying anything...you let the early adopters be the guinea pigs), and it looks like his suspicions are correct. The only cards NOT having problems are the ones with shader unlocks only; if the shaders work, you're good to go...

 

[KainXS]

I think it's ram as well, but I'm not sure if it's timings or just the pure clock speed that's killing it. I wouldn't say "its your fault for not checking" though, it's not exactly easy, maybe not even possible to know what your memory timings are supposed to be and what they actually are in the 6970 bios you are running.

ehh i know there are other things you can check also though, all cards are supposed to follow the reference design but some partners use cheaper components even still, for example XFX makes a cheaper version of the 4890 that barely runs stock clocks of and you can't tell because the parts they cheaped out on are under the shroud but its still AMD's reference design, if its something like that or you had a lower binned gpu I wouldn't exactly say its your fault because theres no way to know that until you get the card and look or try it since the card is completely covered by the heatsink

actually its something to look at, if all the cards have the same exact components.

like with my 6950 it has some different caps than some other ones so I haven't flashed it yet.

 

[wmblalock]

ehh i know there are other things you can check also though, all cards are supposed to follow the reference design but some partners use cheaper components even still, for example XFX makes a cheaper version of the 4890 that barely runs stock clocks of and you can't tell because the parts they cheaped out on are under the shroud but its still AMD's reference design, if its something like that or you had a lower binned gpu I wouldn't exactly say its your fault because theres no way to know that until you get the card and look or try it since the card is completely covered by the heatsink

actually its something to look at, if all the cards have the same exact components.

I agree, I wish I knew exactly which memory chips were on my card, only problem is that some companies, like xfx, put warranty seal stickers on the screws that hold on certain parts so you can't take it apart without voiding the warranty :-/

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I'd imagine it must be timings (in memory cases) because it's extremely atypical to see ram degrade from being overclocked at stock voltage. If that's the case then even people who don't flash would be having issues and a recall would become necessary.

 

[DigitalUK]

the problem with something like this is you only tend to hear from the ones whos cards fail, which could have been faulty or slightly faulty on arrival. alot of people dont fully test the cards before doing this sort of extreme mod.
id did wonder at the begining of all this 6950>6970 flashing how long it would be before card failure.

 

[bystander]

Wouldn't it have been nice to have seen a "no damage occured" option? I'd like to know how common these problems are in the first place.

 

[Qed]

I'd imagine it must be timings (in memory cases) because it's extremely atypical to see ram degrade from being overclocked at stock voltage. If that's the case then even people who don't flash would be having issues and a recall would become necessary.

6950 and 6970 have very different rams.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

6950 and 6970 have very different rams.

Yes??? Anyways anyone have a link to the modded 6950 bios, the one that just enables the shaders.

 

[wmblalock]

Yes??? Anyways anyone have a link to the modded 6950 bios, the one that just enables the shaders.

You can use this script here to modify your very own 6950 bios
http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I don't have a 6950. Do I just download a 6950 bios and drop it in the same folder?

 

[wmblalock]

I don't have a 6950. Do I just download a 6950 bios and drop it in the same folder?

Why are you trying to get a modified 6950 bios if you don't have a 6950? If you just want a modded 6950 bios file for the heck of it, there are plenty for download it the 6950>6970 mod thread. I just suggest modding your own bios for your own card.. which you don't have?

 

[Falkentyne]

Maybe he plans on getting one?
But he has a GTX470; why the hell does he want a 6950?

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Ugh. Needless discussion is needless. Give a guy a link, don't give a guy a link. Efficiency people! lol It's for a friend's that already flashed and deleted the backup. I just downloaded his card's bios from the database and modded it.

 

[wmblalock]

Ugh. Needless discussion is needless. Give a guy a link, don't give a guy a link. Efficiency people! lol It's for a friend's that already flashed and deleted the backup. I just downloaded his card's bios from the database and modded it.

If I'm not mistaken, you could have saved his bios from his secondary backup bios on the card, then modded that and flashed to to the writable primary bios. None the less, what you did will probably be fine. I would have given you a link if I had it, but you can search just as well as I can

 

[f0d]

the problem with something like this is you only tend to hear from the ones whos cards fail, which could have been faulty or slightly faulty on arrival. alot of people dont fully test the cards before doing this sort of extreme mod.
id did wonder at the begining of all this 6950>6970 flashing how long it would be before card failure.

i thoroughly tested the card before i modded it and it was fine
i thoroughly tested it after the 6970 mod and it was fine

after about a week of everything running without a problem i started to notice glitches

it happened very rarely, at first i wasnt sure if it was even artifacting and i couldnt reproduce it but now it happens all the time in bfbc2 and its getting worse

 

[JrRacinFan]

Subscribed to watch. Interested in the final results.