How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[fire2havoc]

It depends on what application you are running.
If you find a game or benchmark program throttling your speeds down, then increase power control 5% at a time until it stops throttling your speeds.

Personally, I find only Furmark benching intensive enough for the need to throttle my card's speeds. I use 10% for best heat generation vs performance.

So far none of my games are impacted with a 10% power control setting.

I just ran 3DMark 11 (performance) with and without the power control option.

Unlocked 6950 (not overclocked):
Without - 5021
+10% PC - 5012

Seems to be no impact, at least in the synthetic benchmarks.

 

[vivithemage]

Is it just me, or after unlocking my shaders (using XFX BIOS on my XFX cards to unlock shaders posted in this thread)...I get flickering at the desktop and in more intense GPU games (BC2, but not LoL).

 

[Quieto]

Hey guys!

I have been following this thread since it started, and got me a sweet Sapphire 6950 (Only modded shaders).
A few days ago i thought i would try to overclock it, i only tested it in Rift so it may be a problem with the game. But i set the core to 900 and voltage to 1175, to see if it could handle it. Didnt touch the memory)
But after like 10min of gaming the graphic driver stopped responding. And i thought "Hmm i just bump the voltage up" and i bumped it up to 1210, but it still chrashed!
Then i set the powertune on 10%, still crash.
But then i read that someone just had set Powertune on 10% and pushed his fan speed on 48% and then driver wouldnt chrash.
I thought wtf and set the fan on 50% just to see, and it worked! (I still had powertune on 10%, and voltage on 1200)
It cant have be overheating because it is only on 75c when playing Rift :O

So anyone have any suggestions what could be causing the graphic driver crashing when the fan is under 48%?

 

[Landrover]

O.k. So I did the 6950 bios hack and got the shaders and max OC, running stable as heck. I think I even picked up a few fps from when I had the 6970 bios, at least in the game Rift. I still have my voltage at stock and no issues.

Thanks for the help Power Up forums! EDIT: Sorry, just an FYI I have a HIS 2GB 6950 and I when I'm playing games I set the fan at 45%. Not too loud and it keeps the card around 80C.

 

[jayc]

I just ran 3DMark 11 (performance) with and without the power control option.

Unlocked 6950 (not overclocked):
Without - 5021
+10% PC - 5012

Seems to be no impact, at least in the synthetic benchmarks.

Yep, Maybe not in 3dmark11.
You will see a difference in Furmark.

But test your games, that's where it counts. Any slow down or stuttering could be signs of throttling.

 

[fire2havoc]

Yep, Maybe not in 3dmark11.
You will see a difference in Furmark.

But test your games, that's where it counts. Any slow down or stuttering could be signs of throttling.

I'll have to test it out more thoroughly. You may be right. I do notice a bit of stuttering when a map first loads in Bad Company 2. However, my card did crash on me yesterday so I'll have to test it further.

If there's no difference in the games, I might as well keep power control at 0%. There may be a difference in synthetic benchmarks (i.e. Furmark) but it's real-world performance that matters.

 

[Datenshi]

Does this mod work anymore? I just got my new "ASUS RADEON HD6950 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/DP" yesterday and i tried this mod both using the original article method, manually and the bat package. Looked like it flashed successfully but shaders didnt change at all. Then i tried the 6950 bios modification, with my original dump. But the same thing here, successful flash but nothing changed. Btw is the flash process suppose to take like 1 second? cuz compared to flashing the MB bios the writing process bar practically just "blinked" very fast.

Any news on this?

 

[fullinfusion]

Does this mod work anymore? I just got my new "ASUS RADEON HD6950 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/DP" yesterday and i tried this mod both using the original article method, manually and the bat package. Looked like it flashed successfully but shaders didnt change at all. Then i tried the 6950 bios modification, with my original dump. But the same thing here, successful flash but nothing changed. Btw is the flash process suppose to take like 1 second? cuz compared to flashing the MB bios the writing process bar practically just "blinked" very fast.

Any news on this?

It should work for you, but mabey you got a revised gpu from Asus. Try flashing again in windows and when prompted to restart just select cancel and no... Do a system shut down, unplug your psu for 30sec, plug back in and then power up. See if that works

 

[jayc]

Btw is the flash process suppose to take like 1 second? cuz compared to flashing the MB bios the writing process bar practically just "blinked" very fast.

Well, the firmware file is only 128KB afterall. Doesn't take long to erase and write 128KB.

 

[fire2havoc]

Does this mod work anymore? I just got my new "ASUS RADEON HD6950 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E DVI/HDMI/DP" yesterday and i tried this mod both using the original article method, manually and the bat package. Looked like it flashed successfully but shaders didnt change at all. Then i tried the 6950 bios modification, with my original dump. But the same thing here, successful flash but nothing changed. Btw is the flash process suppose to take like 1 second? cuz compared to flashing the MB bios the writing process bar practically just "blinked" very fast.

Any news on this?

Are you flashing with ATIWinflash or through command prompt?

 

[Deleted member 67555]

My flash took about 45 seconds

 

[CreexX]

hi everybody!
When i try to flash my bios winfalsh says that there is a mistake in the subsystem ids.
Does anybody know what is going wrong there?
thx

 

[fire2havoc]

hi everybody!
When i try to flash my bios winfalsh says that there is a mistake in the subsystem ids.
Does anybody know what is going wrong there?
thx

Try to flash through command prompt, as outlined by W1ZZARD in the article.

 

[Phobic]

Hey guys!

I have been following this thread since it started, and got me a sweet Sapphire 6950 (Only modded shaders).
A few days ago i thought i would try to overclock it, i only tested it in Rift so it may be a problem with the game. But i set the core to 900 and voltage to 1175, to see if it could handle it. Didnt touch the memory)
But after like 10min of gaming the graphic driver stopped responding. And i thought "Hmm i just bump the voltage up" and i bumped it up to 1210, but it still chrashed!
Then i set the powertune on 10%, still crash.
But then i read that someone just had set Powertune on 10% and pushed his fan speed on 48% and then driver wouldnt chrash.
I thought wtf and set the fan on 50% just to see, and it worked! (I still had powertune on 10%, and voltage on 1200)
It cant have be overheating because it is only on 75c when playing Rift :O

So anyone have any suggestions what could be causing the graphic driver crashing when the fan is under 48%?

yes, i'm pretty sure it is an overheating issue. i had roughly the same thing going, and i also thought it was voltage/power, and it didn't work. best solution for me was making a custom fan speed curve with MSI afterburner. mine was crashing in crysis when it hit around 90 degrees. with the custom profile, the temp settles out around 65-70 with acceptable fan noise. you could probably even get away with temps at 80. that's what my old 4850 idled at.

 

[fullinfusion]

the latest version of msi afterburner and Sapphire Trix wont work over clocking the 6950 in crossfireX

Any body know what im doing wrong?

I running 2 reference designed cards

Is there a program that will work. I'm able to up the voltage but as soon as I move the slider from 800mhz to 801mhz and click applie for the core I get a BSOD!

Any Ideas?

 

[kobebryant8885]

Hey guys

How can you flash back a video card if it does not start...

Can you do it puting it on secondery pcie and working whit another video card?????

 

[Makaveli]

Hey all,

I just finally picked up a Sapphire 6950.

The good news

Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro fits on the card no issues.

Now what is the recommended bios to use.

Do I just grab a sapphire 6970 bios?

or do I use the 6950 bios with unlocked shaders?

Suggestions?

 

[Makaveli]

ok so I have a problem now.

I made a backup of my Bios then took the bios editor and wanted to create an shader unclocked bios with everything at stock except for the CC overdrive limits I pushed those to 880/1375 as I wanted to test the card before just going straight to a 6970 bios. After 3 attempts I got the flash to work but now the machine will BSOD before getting to the desktop. I can boot to safe mode fine and if I switch the card to setting number 2 it works fine.

I believe the Overlimit change is what caused all the problems however I cannot get back into windows to flash it while its on Setting number 1.

Can I flip the switch from 1 to 2 while at the desktop then flash or do I have reboot?

The next course of action is I need a program that will flash from dos so I can just put the stock bios back on.

Need help Asap.


*update*

NM you can switch it while the machine is running and flash it back I should have read that on the first page of the instructions.

Shaders unlock still at default 6950 clock speed and Voltage.



idle Temps with AC Twin Turbo Pro

 

[Kitt]

I'm at my wit's end. I've tried everything suggested in this thread and many others (they've all said essentially the same things) and to no avail. I'm using an HIS 6950 2GB which I recently purchased (about a week or 2 ago). I am using the most recent version of both ATIWinflash and GPU-Z.

When trying to flash using the ATIWinflash GUI, I get the "Couldn't Erase ROM" error. Additionally, "Asic Revision", "Video memory", "Memory Clock", "Engine Clock" all report "N/A". If the information matters at all, ATIWinflash is reporting my DeviceID as 0x6719 and the Flash type as PM25LV010.

Next, I tried the unlocking method. I ran CMD as an Administrator, relocated to the directory that ATIWinflash is in (and also made sure the proper bios files are in there as well), and then did: atiwinflash -unlockrom 0 followed by atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin. This didn't seem to give any error messages, and a few progress dialog boxes poped up and disappeared nearly instantly. Upon a restart, GPU-Z still reports the shaders at 1408 unified.

My graphics card is in the second PCI-E slot from the top on my motherboard. Due to short cables, I can't actually install it in the top most slot. I have no other devices installed in any of my other expansion slots. I've also attempted doing the CMD unlock method using a 1 instead of a 0 - exact same results.

I've used many different bioses, including 6950 bioses modified to only have the shaders tweaked. Even stranger, whenever I try to "Load Image" then "Program" from ATIWinflash using my backed-up bios (which I obtained from GPU-Z using the button next to the BIOS version information) I get: "This version of VBIOS is already installed". This seems to indicate to me that I've never yet actually really flashed the bios.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on? I haven't found anyone else who seems to have this problem - for the few who have, unlocking using CMD fixed it. What am I doing wrong?

I have absolutely no idea what the problem is, and I've been at this for nearly 6 hours now

 

[Whoops!]

bios name

Just a long shot but is the bios that you are trying to flash to really called "BIOS.BIN" ?

And is BIOS.BIN located in the winflash folder?

 

[hobojo06]

Ok, well i've been using the modified bios for the sapphire 2gb 6950 over a month now and i'd like to share my results. I have shaders unlock to 1536 and my clocks set to 880/1375. For the first week my screens started to flicker randomly when on the net and I recieved messages on my traybar saying that my gpu isn't responding and needs to refresh. Now, my system tends to reboot after playing vigorous games like BC2 after like maybe 30 mins. I have increased my fan speeds to almost 100%, that didn't work and now i've reverted back to my old bios and that didn't help either. If i had to guess, it seems that my card is dying after prolong use with modified bios. Not sure exactly what's causing it but now i've left my clocks at 880/1250 with unlocked shaders... Let's see how that might work.

 

[manofthem]

My graphics card is in the second PCI-E slot from the top on my motherboard. Due to short cables, I can't actually install it in the top most slot. I have no other devices installed in any of my other expansion slots. I've also attempted doing the CMD unlock method using a 1 instead of a 0 - exact same results.

I have absolutely no idea what the problem is, and I've been at this for nearly 6 hours now

A while back, it was mentioned that it won't work unless the gpu is installed in the primary pci-e slot. Try to rearrange things to get it in the first slot

 

[Makaveli]

Ok, well i've been using the modified bios for the sapphire 2gb 6950 over a month now and i'd like to share my results. I have shaders unlock to 1536 and my clocks set to 880/1375. For the first week my screens started to flicker randomly when on the net and I recieved messages on my traybar saying that my gpu isn't responding and needs to refresh. Now, my system tends to reboot after playing vigorous games like BC2 after like maybe 30 mins. I have increased my fan speeds to almost 100%, that didn't work and now i've reverted back to my old bios and that didn't help either. If i had to guess, it seems that my card is dying after prolong use with modified bios. Not sure exactly what's causing it but now i've left my clocks at 880/1250 with unlocked shaders... Let's see how that might work.

Are you back to the original shader 1408 bios?

 

[Makaveli]

I'm at my wit's end. I've tried everything suggested in this thread and many others (they've all said essentially the same things) and to no avail. I'm using an HIS 6950 2GB which I recently purchased (about a week or 2 ago). I am using the most recent version of both ATIWinflash and GPU-Z.

When trying to flash using the ATIWinflash GUI, I get the "Couldn't Erase ROM" error. Additionally, "Asic Revision", "Video memory", "Memory Clock", "Engine Clock" all report "N/A". If the information matters at all, ATIWinflash is reporting my DeviceID as 0x6719 and the Flash type as PM25LV010.

Next, I tried the unlocking method. I ran CMD as an Administrator, relocated to the directory that ATIWinflash is in (and also made sure the proper bios files are in there as well), and then did: atiwinflash -unlockrom 0 followed by atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin. This didn't seem to give any error messages, and a few progress dialog boxes poped up and disappeared nearly instantly. Upon a restart, GPU-Z still reports the shaders at 1408 unified.

My graphics card is in the second PCI-E slot from the top on my motherboard. Due to short cables, I can't actually install it in the top most slot. I have no other devices installed in any of my other expansion slots. I've also attempted doing the CMD unlock method using a 1 instead of a 0 - exact same results.

I've used many different bioses, including 6950 bioses modified to only have the shaders tweaked. Even stranger, whenever I try to "Load Image" then "Program" from ATIWinflash using my backed-up bios (which I obtained from GPU-Z using the button next to the BIOS version information) I get: "This version of VBIOS is already installed". This seems to indicate to me that I've never yet actually really flashed the bios.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on? I haven't found anyone else who seems to have this problem - for the few who have, unlocking using CMD fixed it. What am I doing wrong?

I have absolutely no idea what the problem is, and I've been at this for nearly 6 hours now

I noticed similar things when I was doing my flash.

when I first tried it Atiwinflash would crash as soon as I used the cmd to unlock the card before flashing. After a few attempts I got it to go thru, you however need to see a confirmation prompt if you didn't see it the flash didn't go thru.

And you should be shutting down the machine after the flash not just rebooting.

Do as the other guy suggested move the card to the primary PCI E slot.

 

[Kitt]

Just a long shot but is the bios that you are trying to flash to really called "BIOS.BIN" ?

And is BIOS.BIN located in the winflash folder?

Aye, it is.

A while back, it was mentioned that it won't work unless the gpu is installed in the primary pci-e slot. Try to rearrange things to get it in the first slot

[snip]
And you should be shutting down the machine after the flash not just rebooting.

Do as the other guy suggested move the card to the primary PCI E slot.

Shoot, I was afraid of this. There is an 8 pin cable that has to stretch from the very very bottom of my case, to the tippy top and is literally too short to reach if I move the card up a PCI-E slot. It looks like I may need to un-attach the PSU from the case and let it hang loose just long enough to move the card up a slot and flash. After flashing, the card should then work in whatever PCI-E slot, correct?