How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[Shrike]

i dont know why but i have afterburner running with unofficial oc on 1 and i still can change powercontrol, its at +10% right now and my card is running in crysis with 900, 1400, 1.175v corevoltage without any problems,
crysis 1.0 @ultrasettings and always more than 35 fps
so im happy enough right now )

 

[englandr753]

Sorry if I missed some info in previous threads, I read what I could on the fly.

I have the XFX 6950 flashed to the Saphire 6970 BIOS and increased the voltage to +20. I tested in heaven 2.1 with the stock BIOS 3 times to get an avg, then switched over to the 6970 BIOS to test again and I lost video to my monitor. I could still hear the sound of the benchmark running so I rebooted. I went into ccc and increased the fan speed and tried again. This time I lost the video again and the sound was distorted as if you were touching speaker wires to the connectors on the back of your system and crossing them up so I did a hard shut down and let the system cool.

This am I plugged everything back in and went to set back to default voltages and 6950 BIOS but the voltage menu isn't available in ccc.

I'm off to work and can't read or post anything further but I will check this thread from work later if I get a chance and try to properly read more.

Any suggestions?...

 

[itsdanny]

i dont know why but i have afterburner running with unofficial oc on 1 and i still can change powercontrol, its at +10% right now and my card is running in crysis with 900, 1400, 1.175v corevoltage without any problems,
crysis 1.0 @ultrasettings and always more than 35 fps
so im happy enough right now )

Yes, but restart your computer, then open CCC again, it should be set to 0%. And just because you see it being set at 10% in the CCC GUI, does not mean it is applied.

Sorry if I missed some info in previous threads, I read what I could on the fly.

I have the XFX 6950 flashed to the Saphire 6970 BIOS and increased the voltage to +20. I tested in heaven 2.1 with the stock BIOS 3 times to get an avg, then switched over to the 6970 BIOS to test again and I lost video to my monitor. I could still hear the sound of the benchmark running so I rebooted. I went into ccc and increased the fan speed and tried again. This time I lost the video again and the sound was distorted as if you were touching speaker wires to the connectors on the back of your system and crossing them up so I did a hard shut down and let the system cool.

This am I plugged everything back in and went to set back to default voltages and 6950 BIOS but the voltage menu isn't available in ccc.

I'm off to work and can't read or post anything further but I will check this thread from work later if I get a chance and try to properly read more.

Any suggestions?...

To make you feel better, don't worry, I experienced the same as well. It's just the drivers crashed, and that's why you lost video but audio was still going. I found a way to get the drivers to restart if the drivers were to crash, and it seems fairly efficient.

Any way, you mean the Power Control menu isn't available in CCC? If it has disappeared, best you can do is reinstalling CCC. That helped me, and many others.

Good luck.

 

[englandr753]

I'll reinstall ccc to see if that works. How did you get your drivers to restart after they crashed? Maybe since it appears something is going on in the ccc with the voltage settings menu disappearing, I may just need to reinstall to see if that fixes everything. I'll repost later tonight when I get back in and report back after a few more benchmarks...

 

[Ulysses]

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).

 

[GSG-9]

...Maybe since it appears something is going on in the ccc with the voltage settings menu disappearing, I may just need to reinstall to see if that fixes everything.

A driver uninstall via the installer, and then a fresh driver install after restart made the voltage come back for me (and it functioned). When I used Guru3ds driver sweeper I had some strange things happen, (IE the voltage control was in CCC but immediately after change it would revert.) It could have been for a different reason though.

 

[MaxGeek]

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?

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

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?

People with a real 6970 have that artifacting in Atitool too.

 

[wmblalock]

Hey guys, I just changed my setup a little bit in effort to make everything work as smoothly and easily as possible, so I figured I would update you guys. I also have a question to ask at the end.

I have my 6950 using it's own bios, except modded to enable all shaders. I had been using Afterburner, with unofficial overclocking enabled, to control the clocks, voltage, and fan speed. The problem I had with that setup was that by enabling "unofficial overclocking" (to increase overclock limits), Afterburner would disable Powerplay and also functionality of the Power Control Slider in CCC. By disabling Powerplay, the video card would run at full 3D voltage / clocks all the time. I did not like this, as it seems like necessary stress on the card. Yes, you can set 2D and 3D profiles in Afterburner, but I found a bug where Afterburner goes back to the cards default fan curve every time it automatically changes back and forth between the 2D and 3D profiles. So, that's no good. With that said, I set out to find another, simple, single software solution... here is what I came up with.

I have since gotten rid of Afterburner and now use only Trixx 3.02 beta to control the card. The advantage to this is that Trixx, by default, has unlocked high overclock limits, BUT it does NOT disable Powerplay, or the functionality of the Power Control Slider in CCC. So I can now overclock as I want, but the card will still idle down when in 2D mode. Trixx also properly works a custom fan curve. The only down side I can find is that Trixx doesn't yet support voltage control for our cards. But that is ok, now I just use RBE to adjust my core voltage. I honestly think this is the best setup for our cards, and the only thing that could make it any more perfect would be for Trixx to enable voltage control for our cards.

So, for people who are new to modding your 6950 and have questions, here is a summary of the best / easiest way to mod and overclock your 6950 as I see it. I will post back later if I find anything better. The consensus seems to be that this method is less risky and better for your card's longevity than just flashing a 6970 bios to your card.
1. Save your cards bios using GPUz to your desktop:
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
2. Use this script to modify YOUR exact bios and enable all shaders:
http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip
3. Use this script to flash this modified bios to your card with your card's bios selection switch on '1':
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1920/HD_6950_to_HD_6970_Flashing_Tools.html
4. Download and install Trixx 3.02 beta:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S71ZJ4SW
5. In Trixx, immediatly go to the 'fan control' screen and click 'custom', then setup a custom fan curve that keeps your card at least around 40*-45* idle and 80* or less at full load.
I have my curve setup with 35% fan speed up until 70*, then a constant slope up from there to 100% fan at 100*.
6. Use Trixx to overclock as you wish, If you want to up your voltage for more overclocking, download and use RBE until Trixx enables voltage control:
http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/
If using RBE to up the core voltage, you may have to adjust VID3 or VID4, some cards use VID3 for 3D core voltage, and others use VID4 for 3D core voltage. See which one generates more heat and higher overclocks with increased voltage.



This setup is good because it uses YOUR EXACT bios, which eliminates any issues that could possibly occur by using a modded bios from someone else's card or from a card of a different manufacturer such as different memory, timings, or anything else for that matter.

This brings me to my question, which I will post in a separate post in a few minutes..

 

[wmblalock]

So I have a question about changing the gpu voltage in RBE. I'm a little confused, maybe someone can help clarify. When I open my bios with RBE (my stock bios, or my stock bios modded with the shader mod), here is what I get for my VID settings currently on the card.

Some people say change the VID that has 1.1v in it because that is supposed to be the 6950s stock 3D voltage, others say change VID4 because that is always the 3D voltage on this card.

I have come to believe that VID4 is the correct one to change because it increased my 3D temps when increased while increasing VID3 did nothing.

I thought the 6950s were supposed to have a stock 3D core voltage of 1.100v (as in VID3), but as you see, my bios suggests 1.065 is our stock voltage if we go by VID4. Trixx reports stock voltage as 1.060 and Afterburner reports stock voltage as 1.100.

Why do you think there is such discrepancy in what our stock voltage is?
Do you think maybe it just depends on what each cards core takes to run at stock speeds and thats what the manufacturers set it as?
Or maybe different manufacturers just use different voltages?

If VID4 is the one that makes my 3D temps go up, then obviously its the one I need to adjust for my GPU core when overclocking, correct?

Does anyone have a clue as to what VID3 is then, and why its set at 1.100v, which is what most people say our stock voltage is supposed to be? Also, why would there be an extra voltage (VID3) that is higher than my 3D voltage (supposedly VID4)? What would a higher voltage be used for? Could this be a problem when overclocking since after VID4 is increased for overclocking, it will be higher than VID3... VID3 stock was higher than VID4.

 

[MaxGeek]

Thanks Wmblalock, the info you posted was very helpful. I'm going to give Trixx a try.

 

[ale86cuba]

but now that i have the 6970 bios on my 6950 how do i go back?

 

[itsdanny]

but now that i have the 6970 bios on my 6950 how do i go back?

If you used the script, it would have made a backup. Along with that in the folder, there's a file called "flash_back_to_6950", run that and it'll be fine.

 

[f0d]

So I have a question about changing the gpu voltage in RBE. I'm a little confused, maybe someone can help clarify. When I open my bios with RBE (my stock bios, or my stock bios modded with the shader mod), here is what I get for my VID settings currently on the card.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/959/voltagesu.jpg

Some people say change the VID that has 1.1v in it because that is supposed to be the 6950s stock 3D voltage, others say change VID4 because that is always the 3D voltage on this card.

I have come to believe that VID4 is the correct one to change because it increased my 3D temps when increased while increasing VID3 did nothing.

I thought the 6950s were supposed to have a stock 3D core voltage of 1.100v (as in VID3), but as you see, my bios suggests 1.065 is our stock voltage if we go by VID4. Trixx reports stock voltage as 1.060 and Afterburner reports stock voltage as 1.100.

Why do you think there is such discrepancy in what our stock voltage is?
Do you think maybe it just depends on what each cards core takes to run at stock speeds and thats what the manufacturers set it as?
Or maybe different manufacturers just use different voltages?

If VID4 is the one that makes my 3D temps go up, then obviously its the one I need to adjust for my GPU core when overclocking, correct?

Does anyone have a clue as to what VID3 is then, and why its set at 1.100v, which is what most people say our stock voltage is supposed to be? Also, why would there be an extra voltage (VID3) that is higher than my 3D voltage (supposedly VID4)? What would a higher voltage be used for? Could this be a problem when overclocking since after VID4 is increased for overclocking, it will be higher than VID3... VID3 stock was higher than VID4.

actually im quite sure it is vid3 that is the 3d voltage (for the 6950 anyways)

you can see in afterburner that vid3 is getting used for 3d (1.175v)
i think there is a bug in trixx reading vid4 instead of 3

 

[HI.]

Thx for sending this bios. I've tried it, and something is wrong.
1, I uninstalled the drivers.
2, cleaned keys...
3,Installed bios + restart.
4,Installed driver + restart.
Tried Heaven benchmark. with 840/1250.. It gave +2 fps on average that's cool.BUT that's not the problem.
Seems like the card is giving me a weird image, in windows, and even more when there's action like little little, hardly noticable cloudy image. but it annoys my eyes to see hte image wrong can some1 explain?

EVEN Worse when i rolled back to the first driver this cloud effect look like stand still!.

 

[f0d]

Thx for sending this bios. I've tried it, and something is wrong.
1, I uninstalled the drivers.
2, cleaned keys...
3,Installed bios + restart.
4,Installed driver + restart.
Tried Heaven benchmark. with 840/1250.. It gave +2 fps on average that's cool.BUT that's not the problem.
Seems like the card is giving me a weird image, in windows, and even more when there's action like little little, hardly noticable cloudy image. but it annoys my eyes to see hte image wrong can some1 explain?

EVEN Worse when i rolled back to the first driver this cloud effect look like stand still!.

is it ok when you go back to standard bios?
i havnt seen this issue yet as it was fine on mine so i dont think i can help much
anyone else have this problem?

 

[HI.]

no they are not fine when im back to normal that's just not awsome... now i really regret lol

thing is. my resolution look like all smaller, icons my game page. with darker colors.

 

[f0d]

no they are not fine when im back to normal that's just not awsome... now i really regret lol

thing is. my resolution look like all smaller, icons my game page. with darker colors.

was this with an unlocked only bios? if so thats weird, nobody i know of has had troubles with an unlocked only (not 6970) bios

 

[HI.]

yes an unlock Only. from this thread. so none would have crossed this??hmmm another thing im wondering is would the 3d have activated , that could explain the smaller icons, blurry image?

 

[f0d]

yes an unlock Only. from this thread. so none would have crossed this??hmmm another thing im wondering is would the 3d have activated , that could explain the smaller icons, blurry image?

not sure but i doubt it - can you screenshot it?

 

[HI.]

ill try finding a flagrant missing precision image.

 

[HI.]

or get to the link and open it as 1920-1080, i swear those detail werent as weird as this.

 

[Tatty_Two]

yes an unlock Only. from this thread. so none would have crossed this??hmmm another thing im wondering is would the 3d have activated , that could explain the smaller icons, blurry image?

I had similar when I first flashed mine with just a modded XFX 6950 bios, I simply re-installed the driver (only) and everything was OK again.

 

[Gaul]

6950 @ 1GH/1500

 

[Mp0wer]

You can't change voltage in Trixx