Poll: What caused your flashed 6950 permanent damage?

[arroyo]

1. Yes even 1 hour of wrong bios can damage the card.
2. When you have damaged card, you will see it in regular use. If green dots are showing you damaged your card. Mine HD4850 showed them after 2 weeks.
3. Unlocking shaders is safe. OCing with unlocked bios is also safe (somehow).

 

[wmblalock]

What I meant was, will a few ours using 6970 cause it to permanent damaged? That's my first question. (All I did using 6970 bios was to benchmark using 3D mark 3 times, 2 times 3D mark 06 and 1 time 3D mark 11)
My 2nd question (how to know my card is damaged) is now answered.
Thanks.

Anyways, so can I assume it's safe to unlock shaders?
And, will it bring any problem, if i oc the clock speed to 840 mhz?

A few hours with 6970 bios could damage the card, but most likely your fine. Most people are seeing issues after a week with the 6970 bios from what I gather. Unlocking shaders is safe, you can always flash back to stock to disable them again with no damage. As far as going to 840mhz, it just depends on how good your core is. Yous should be fine though. I use Afterburner to up my voltage to 6970 core voltage (1.175) and I'm able to hit 900mhz fine. Probably more if I really wanted to up the voltage some more.

 

[searingmage]

1. Yes even 1 hour of wrong bios can damage the card.
2. When you have damaged card, you will see it in regular use. If green dots are showing you damaged your card. Mine HD4850 showed them after 2 weeks.
3. Unlocking shaders is safe. OCing with unlocked bios is also safe (somehow).

Okay, thanks.
Hopefully mine wasn't damaged...

 

[wolf]

gotta say I've seen a few threads like this now... this worry's me about the 6950's... a lot of people tried unlocking theirs...

 

[Ulysses]

Although my 6950 still seems perfectly healthy, I did notice significant artifacting under ATI tool using 6970 @ stock 6970 clocks, while there are no artifacts using unlocked 6950 BIOS even @ 920 core / 1500 mem (stock volts / no other mod than single byte enabling shaders + O/C under TriXX).

 

[wmblalock]

Although my 6950 still seems perfectly healthy, I did notice significant artifacting under ATI tool using 6970 @ stock 6970 clocks, while there are no artifacts using unlocked 6950 BIOS even @ 920 core / 1500 mem (stock volts / no other mod than single byte enabling shaders + O/C under TriXX).

Just curious, what brand card are you using and which modded 6950 bios are you using?

 

[mysterfix]

I have a different theory, I think the failures may be due to improper core contact with the stock cooler which is compounded by flashing the cards with a different bios.

I recently swapped the stock cooler on my card for a water block due to heat concerns. What I found was a crap load of T.I.M. on my gpu. It was soo thick that it took me 10min. to scrape it off with a credit card.

With that much paste on the card it acts more like an insulator than a facilitator for heat transfer.

 

[wmblalock]

I have a different theory, I think the failures may be due to improper core contact with the stock cooler which is compounded by flashing the cards with a different bios.

I recently swapped the stock cooler on my card for a water block due to heat concerns. What I found was a crap load of T.I.M. on my gpu. It was soo thick that it took me 10min. to scrape it off with a credit card.

With that much paste on the card it acts more like an insulator than a facilitator for heat transfer.

Unfortunately, your right about the thermal compound, but it's the way video card manufacturers have done it for quite a long time. I don't understand it. But I don't think that's what is killing cards, especially if people are increasing their fan speeds like they should be. Either way the thermal spec on these chips is like 104*C or something, and I doubt anyone is getting past that even if they didn't increase their fan speed. Without increasing fan speed, my GPU was getting in the 80s under full load, but not near 104* for permanent damage.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

1. Yes even 1 hour of wrong bios can damage the card.
2. When you have damaged card, you will see it in regular use. If green dots are showing you damaged your card. Mine HD4850 showed them after 2 weeks.
3. Unlocking shaders is safe. OCing with unlocked bios is also safe (somehow).

How many confirmed damaged cards do we have? How many people have actually flashed to a 6970 bios? While recommending that people flash to a modded 6950 bios isn't bad advice but saying that a 6970 bios will damage you card also hasn't been shown to be true.

In the past three weeks since this article was released I would expect more reports of burnt out card. I've seen quite a few people on the forums blame driver issues (as has already happened in this thread), application issues, a bad overclock (a lot of people don't do proper stress testing), and stuff like that on their video card.

 

[mysterfix]

Your probably right, but it is something to think about. My card was getting into the 80's too during gaming. My vrm's were also getting very warm which I really did not like. I know those are also very robust components but in a 70ºf room you would think the vrm's wouldn't get to almost 90ºc during benching.

Either way the cards fine now and running very cool with water.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Your probably right, but it is something to think about. My card was getting into the 80's too during gaming. My vrm's were also getting very warm which I really did not like. I know those are also very robust components but in a 70ºf room you would think the vrm's wouldn't get to almost 90ºc during benching.

Either way the cards fine now and running very cool with water.

According to ATI the gpu's max safe temperature is 104C. They have been running that hot for a long time, same with Nvidia.

How do you monitor the vrm temps on these cards?

 

[arroyo]

How many confirmed damaged cards do we have? How many people have actually flashed to a 6970 bios?

17 dead cards were send to RMA last week from the shop, that I'm working in. Here (on TPU) there is more than 5 persons with problems (not driver related) with HD6970 bios on a wrong card. 2 or 3 on Xtremesystems. On three polish forums tham I'm addicted to (nvision,purepc,benchmark), there are more than 10 permanently damaged HD6950. All damaged cards have HD6970 bios.

I don't want to spend more time arguing that HD6970 bios on HD6950 card is bad thing since there is proper and simple solution (modded HD6950). This is my last post in this discussion, because it's just stupid. People like to learn on their own mistakes I think.

 

[mysterfix]

According to ATI the gpu's max safe temperature is 104C. They have been running that hot for a long time, same with Nvidia.

How do you monitor the vrm temps on these cards?

GPU-z under the sensors tab

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

17 dead cards were send to RMA last week from the shop, that I'm working in. Here (on TPU) there is more than 5 persons with problems (not driver related) with HD6970 bios on a wrong card. 2 or 3 on Xtremesystems. On three polish forums tham I'm addicted to (nvision,purepc,benchmark), there are more than 10 permanently damaged HD6950. All damaged cards have HD6970 bios.

I don't want to spend more time arguing that HD6970 bios on HD6950 card is bad thing since there is proper and simple solution (modded HD6950). This is my last post in this discussion, because it's just stupid. People like to learn on their own mistakes I think.

I don't know what to say about 17 rmas but on all of the forums that I visit combined I haven't heard half that many reports. At least one of the five people here admit that their issues were driver related. I haven't noticed any reputable reports on XS which I've followed pretty well.

I haven't seen any substantial proof that any cards have died due to the bios flash.

I think a lot of people including myself voted for the 'permanent damage' option, because they thought there card was damaged. They were just seeing the effects of rather crapy drivers/software(game and benchmarks). This time around they changed their votes to a more fitting option.

GPU-z under the sensors tab

Not in GPU-z 5.0

 

[arroyo]

I don't know what to say about 17 rmas but on all of the forums that I visit combined I haven't heard half that many reports.

Maybe people are complaining here, because modding HD6950 started here? Article on TPU was first on a whole internet.

I haven't seen any substantial proof that any cards have died due to the bios flash.

The cards don't just die after flash. The memory chips starts to degradate somehow under HD6970 bios. It takes some time. Then people starts to blame drivers and other stuff, because they already destroyed their cards. Just quick review of some posts tha I have found here:

As posted in this thread Poll: ALL 6950 and 6970 Owners, What's the curren..., I did notice significant artifacting under ATI tool using 6970 @ stock 6970 clocks, while there are no artifacts using unlocked 6950 BIOS even @ 920 core / 1500 mem (stock volts / no other mod than single byte enabling shaders + O/C under TriXX).

I experienced similar issues with the 6970 bios even at default 6950 clocks in ATI Tool. With the 6950 shader unlocked bios and at 840/1350 everything seems fine. How can I enable higher overclocking settings with the 6950 bios?

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=2160246&postcount=1222

That's true, but if you look over at my original poll here, you will see 12 6950 cards that WERE killed by the 6970 bios. Why they haven't voted here, I'm not sure, maybe they just didn't feel like voting again since they already did there.

techPowerUp! Forums - View Poll Results

So between the polls thats 26 cards and 13 have died, that's 50% failure.. I wouldn't risk it when you can do the same exact thing with the 6950 modded bios and then use Afterburner to up the voltage and clock speeds while leaving the correct memory voltage and timings.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

The thing is that thick paste isn't always bad, the only way to tell is case by case. To reapply yourself and see if it makes a difference. For instance with the twin frozr II cards they have massive amounts of paste practically gluing the cards together but often people still see worse temps after reseating. I had particularly good paste and was just able to just break even with the stock job.

 

[DigitalUK]

worth menchioning ati tool is old, i posted some screenshots a little while ago of 6970 with ati tool (cant find the post) but 3d view works ok but scanning for artfacts gets all screwed up straight away and has nothing to do with faulty card.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Maybe people are complaining here, because modding HD6950 started here? Article on TPU was first on a whole internet.

I haven't seen that many complaints here.

mine was one of those "killed card" votes from the other poll and i changed it this time to "My 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios has no problems after 1 week" because what i thought was a busted card was nothing else but driver/game engine bugs
there was a few other people that had the same problem of thinking their card was dead but it was just driver/game engine bugs

I think a lot of people including myself voted for the 'permanent damage' option, because they thought there card was damaged. They were just seeing the effects of rather crapy drivers/software(game and benchmarks). This time around they changed their votes to a more fitting option.

The cards don't just die after flash. The memory chips starts to degradate somehow under HD6970 bios. It takes some time. Then people starts to blame drivers and other stuff, because they already destroyed their cards. Just quick review of some posts tha I have found here:

Most of what I've seen is the opposite. You are comparing these cards to the early probably Qimonda GDDR5 on your 4850. I'm pretty sure that the ram on both cards is the same but the 6970 ram is of a higher bin.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=2160246&postcount=1222

H is down so I can't really reply but I see artifacting in Heaven too and apparently it's a common problem.

 

[DigitalUK]

took another screenshot for you, this is a screenshot from a perfectly working 6970 with 10.12a installed. this is ether a driver problem or because ati tool is really old now.

dont use ati tool to test your 6950/6970 its useless, use OCCT to test your cards if your get artifacts then downclock your card quickly. 3Dmark11 is simply a software/driver problem found in ati and nvidia cards. BFBCV is level specific bug (probably waiting for updates)

 

[mysterfix]

Not in GPU-z 5.0

No? I thought that's what those bottom 3 temps were monitoring. Did I miss something? What are the other temps for?

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

No? I thought that's what those bottom 3 temps were monitoring. Did I miss something? What are the other temps for?

They are each a different spot on the GPU die.

 

[searingmage]

17 dead cards were send to RMA last week from the shop, that I'm working in. Here (on TPU) there is more than 5 persons with problems (not driver related) with HD6970 bios on a wrong card. 2 or 3 on Xtremesystems. On three polish forums tham I'm addicted to (nvision,purepc,benchmark), there are more than 10 permanently damaged HD6950. All damaged cards have HD6970 bios.

I don't want to spend more time arguing that HD6970 bios on HD6950 card is bad thing since there is proper and simple solution (modded HD6950). This is my last post in this discussion, because it's just stupid. People like to learn on their own mistakes I think.

Just conforming, the modding one is this right? http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2137760&postcount=381
Cause I don't want to be using the wrong bios again.
And another thing, so it's safe to go to 880mhz for 6950 on a modded bios?

 

[wmblalock]

Just conforming, the modding one is this right? http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2137760&postcount=381
Cause I don't want to be using the wrong bios again.
And another thing, so it's safe to go to 880mhz for 6950 on a modded bios?

Yeah, that should be it. If you want, I just posted a small guide here:
How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 695...

880mhz should be fine on your 6950 but it varies and depends on what your chip will do. You might need to increase you voltage to at least 1.175v (stock 6970), but like I said, it just depends on your exact chip.

 

[Ulysses]

Although my 6950 still seems perfectly healthy, I did notice significant artifacting under ATI tool using 6970 @ stock 6970 clocks, while there are no artifacts using unlocked 6950 BIOS even @ 920 core / 1500 mem (stock volts / no other mod than single byte enabling shaders + O/C under TriXX).

Just curious, what brand card are you using and which modded 6950 bios are you using?

I have the vanilla Sapphire model, using the modded bios in the tech Power Up kit (which only has 2 bytes modified compared to the factory bios, at offset 21h and BD76h).

 

[bystander]

Those are bugs not problems with your flashing, i have a 5850 and a GTX 460 and both see those same things. its just problems with the applications themselfs

I didn't even realize those were bugs. I assumed it was a lens effect intentionally there.