How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[HawkFest]

Please help me! I Flashed my 6950 to a 6970 easily and it was running great for about a month. Until my girlfriends games updated my drivers (the ones for the 6950) and now i can even install any drivers for the card nor can i flash it back to 6950 or to a 6970 again. Please help me out ive been trying to figure this out for about 4 hours now.

It's awesome to notice how so many "girl friends" can be used as an excuse for any error we make (even though we didn't need that kind of information)... We love you so much dear ladies! For your question, I'll only answer to your girlfriend ;-P

Seriously, a game title cannot update your driver (only Microsoft DirectX, IF your DirectX is an old one - even though it shows that it's installing, it won't replace anything more recent). Now a simple thing you could do is use your BIOS switch on top of the card and put it on position "2" (assuming you've flashed your BIOS while in position "1"). Then shutdown (completely, even the PSU) for about a minute and reboot. All should come back to stock BIOS settings on your 6950. Note that if you've never switched your BIOS to position "1" before flashing, it means that you have replaced your default stock BIOS settings.

Regarding the later case, unfortunately (that was my case with a Gigabyte card), the CMOS called up by switch position "1" is empty, it does not contain a copy of the BIOS targeted by position "2" (before playing with RBE and my card's BIOS, trying to boot from position "1" gave me a blank screen and nothing else happened apart from rotating chassis fans). So if you have flashed your BIOS over switch "2" (meaning you forgot to switch to position "1" before flashing), I really don't know what you can do... Always remember that the first thing to do before anything else is to backup your stock BIOS from position "2" to position "1", just in case you forget to switch to position "1" on the day you'll want to flash your BIOS.

EDIT - maybe there's a solution: copy the stock BIOS file on the root of a flash drive or floppy drive or CD drive (whatever medium can be used in the boot-up sequence before the hard drive), and the system should automatically load that BIOS... Hopefully... I've read that somewhere but never tried it.

 

[NameonPrime]

FlASHING MY HD 6950

Yeah i dont have alot of money,
but i thought that the only difference between, the 6950 and 6970 were the shaders

wont unlocking the shaders be the same as a hd 6970 flash? provided that i up the clocks as well.

also after unlocking the shaders(using shader mod) and upping to 6970 clocks, would i need to up my powertune to 20%?

after you guys flashed using the hd 6970 bios what was your core voltage? (that being the stock core voltage of a 6970)

in the end, when i get my card, im planning to:-

unlock the shaders using the shader mod

increase the clocks and voltage to hd 6970 spec

up my power tune to 20% (if i need to, so tell me if i do)

shouldnt this be a fully fledged hd 6970 except for the memory timings/volts?

please answer on all my questions

 

[renq]

Yeah i dont have alot of money,
but i thought that the only difference between, the 6950 and 6970 were the shaders

wont unlocking the shaders be the same as a hd 6970 flash?

also after unlocking the shaders, would i need to up my powetune to 20%?

Just a post or two above it's been clarified. 6970 has:
* higher clocks
* more shaders
* better memory chips and thus has higher mem voltage and tighter mem timings

Most, if not all 6950, can unlock all the shaders without any problem, however, the extra voltage and tighter timings have killed memory on the 6950.

 

[NameonPrime]

I once again post this, and i need informative replies please,

i thought that the only major difference between, the 6950 and 6970 were the shaders

wont unlocking the shaders be the same as a hd 6970 flash? provided that i up the clocks as well.

also after unlocking the shaders(using shader mod) and upping to 6970 clocks, would i need to up my powertune to 20%?

after you guys flashed using the hd 6970 bios what was your core voltage? (that being the stock core voltage of a 6970)

in the end, when i get my card, im planning to:-

unlock the shaders using the shader mod

increase the clocks and voltage to hd 6970 spec

up my power tune to 20% (if i need to, so tell me if i do)

shouldnt this be a fully fledged hd 6970 except for the memory timings/volts?

please answer on all my questions

 

[JupiPupi]

I have unlocked shaders from 1408 to 1536 on a XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB card.
Model of my card: HD-695X-ZNFC Version A.1 [card has dual bios switch]

But im not still sadisfacted
I have problem with unlocking my processor and memory frequencies.
The maximum for a processor is 840, and for a memory 1325Mhz.
I would like to move that limit up, and put a 6970 card frequencies, but I dont know how.

I tried with "Radeon Bios Editor v1.28" to change a frequneci and voltage, but after flashing with that BIOS I get BSOD when trying to boot Windows.

Anyone has idea how to solve this problem?

 

[manofthem]

I have unlocked shaders from 1408 to 1536 on a XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB card.
Model of my card: HD-695X-ZNFC Version A.1 [card has dual bios switch]

[url]http://www.pohrani.com/t/6/gO/3oENUOw/gpu.jpg[/url]

http://www.pohrani.com/f/12/wS/1Y6PzUUF/cpu-z-1536.gif

But im not still sadisfacted
I have problem with unlocking my processor and memory frequencies.
The maximum for a processor is 840, and for a memory 1325Mhz.
I would like to move that limit up, and put a 6970 card frequencies, but I dont know how.

I tried with "Radeon Bios Editor v1.28" to change a frequneci and voltage, but after flashing with that BIOS I get BSOD when trying to boot Windows.

Anyone has idea how to solve this problem?

Download MSI Afterburner and OC with that. As long as you enable unofficial overclocking, you should be able to hit higher clocks. THat's the case w/ the 2GB models

 

[manofthem]

I once again post this, and i need informative replies please,

i thought that the only major difference between, the 6950 and 6970 were the shaders

wont unlocking the shaders be the same as a hd 6970 flash? provided that i up the clocks as well.

also after unlocking the shaders(using shader mod) and upping to 6970 clocks, would i need to up my powertune to 20%?

after you guys flashed using the hd 6970 bios what was your core voltage? (that being the stock core voltage of a 6970)

in the end, when i get my card, im planning to:-

unlock the shaders using the shader mod

increase the clocks and voltage to hd 6970 spec

up my power tune to 20% (if i need to, so tell me if i do)

shouldnt this be a fully fledged hd 6970 except for the memory timings/volts?

please answer on all my questions

Take your 6950 and unlock the shaders. Then OC it to the clocks of a 6970. When you do that, you'll see that it still doesn't reach the same bench scores as a 6970, so there is obviously something different. But the difference is negligible.

You will not need +20%PT to run at those speeds either. Perhaps the only thing that PT will help with is Furmark.

And all your questions have been answered in this thread many times over, even on the last several pages. So instead of getting an attitude in your posts, read up a bit, and then ask your questions with some deference.

 

[NameonPrime]

flashing my hd 6950

yeah, thanx for all your replies all,

just one basic question

what is the stock hd 6970 core voltage ?(you know - 880Mhz/1375Mhz)

so that i can apply it to my hd 6950 when i unlock and oc to 6970 specs.

 

[cadaveca]

1.175v for 6970. Seem to me fan profile might be a bit different for 6970, too.

 

[JupiPupi]

Download MSI Afterburner and OC with that. As long as you enable unofficial overclocking, you should be able to hit higher clocks. THat's the case w/ the 2GB models

Frequencies in MSI Afterburner are limited two.

 

[Sinster]

Frequencies in MSI Afterburner are limited two.

No it's not 11.4. You need to enable unofficial overclocking. You can do that by:
-Make sure you have the newest verison of MSI AB
-Go in to the program directory (example C:\Program Files(x86)\MSI afterburner) and open MSIAfterburner.cfg
-Scroll to bottom and enter the following values
[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1
AccessibilityCheckingPeriod = 0
-Open Afterburner and you can now clock higher than default 840/1325
-Open settings in MSI AB, and on the front tab, click "Unlock Voltage Control" and optionally "Unlock Voltage Monitoring"
-Restart MSI AB
You can now increase voltage and increase core/memory clocks. Only increase voltage as much as needed for a given clock speed.

Let us know how it goes and what clocks you reach!

Do this.

Make sure you type in "I confirm...."

 

[manofthem]

Frequencies in MSI Afterburner are limited two.

I made you a pretty picture! Wihoo!

 

[JupiPupi]

I made you a pretty picture! Wihoo!
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc208/manofthem/prettypic.png

manofthem & Sinster YOU ARE MY NEW BEST FRIENDS! Thanke you very mutch!

 

[manofthem]

manofthem & Sinster YOU ARE MY NEW BEST FRIENDS! Thanke you very mutch!

No worries at all! Make sure your OC is stable. Post back with some results as to what clock speeds you hit!

 

[mephistopoa]

My XFX 6950 2GB reference card using bios for unlock shaders only worked perfectly.

I'm running at 6970 clocks using software overclock on afterburner with a higher fan speed and on ccc power settings on +20%

all good, but the card on default 1.1v doesn't go beyond 880 mhz stable. Not bad for a card that costs a lot less than a 6970 =)

a lot better than my old 4870!

 

[sink]

Hi I flashed my 6950 to the 6970 bios before reading this thread. I only had it for a day and the display driver would crash on start up and as a precaution I used the hardware switch to set it back to the default bios. Everything is working fine now at stock, but my question is can I flash the 6970 bios modded back to stock without having to switch to it (i.e can I load flash the primary bios while using the secondary)?

 

[fullinfusion]

Hi I flashed my 6950 to the 6970 bios before reading this thread. I only had it for a day and the display driver would crash on start up and as a precaution I used the hardware switch to set it back to the default bios. Everything is working fine now at stock, but my question is can I flash the 6970 bios modded back to stock without having to switch to it (i.e can I load flash the primary bios while using the secondary)?

Im not sure what your asking, but in any event. If you flash to a 6970 bios.... Leave it and jus use the gpu's switch to switch between both bios's... you should be good.

I been testing both bios with out a problem, just make sure the power play is set to a min of +12%

 

[manofthem]

I been testing both bios with out a problem, just make sure the power play is set to a min of +12%

Are you talking about the 6970 bios? If so, what do you see in your tests with the +12%?

I've tried different powertune settings (0, +12%, and +20%) on my modded bios w/ shaders. So far, from default clocks to 6970 clocks to 910/1425, I haven't noticed any real difference, give or take a few points in benches.

Let me know what i should try to determine the best settings. Thanks

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I haven't really noticed a difference after 925/1400 with +15%....I'm thinking it's the memory max for my card

 

[fullinfusion]

Are you talking about the 6970 bios? If so, what do you see in your tests with the +12%?

I've tried different powertune settings (0, +12%, and +20%) on my modded bios w/ shaders. So far, from default clocks to 6970 clocks to 910/1425, I haven't noticed any real difference, give or take a few points in benches.

Let me know what i should try to determine the best settings. Thanks

I run + 12 power play and set pci-e in bios to 105mhz.... anything higher gives a bsod.

Clock your cpu to the max and you'll see the score raise higher...12+ 20 IS ABOUT THE SAME IN MY TESTING BRO.

 

[manofthem]

I run + 12 power play and set pci-e in bios to 105mhz.... anything higher gives a bsod.

Clock your cpu to the max and you'll see the score raise higher...12+ 20 IS ABOUT THE SAME IN MY TESTING BRO.

I have my CPU at 4Ghz (1090t), anything higher is too high with my cooling.

I haven't touched pci-e in the bios though; ill give that a shot. Muchas gracias

 

[fullinfusion]

I have my CPU at 4Ghz (1090t), anything higher is too high with my cooling.

I haven't touched pci-e in the bios though; ill give that a shot. Muchas gracias

106-106 mhz is about the max.

 

[cadaveca]

12+ 20 IS ABOUT THE SAME IN MY TESTING BRO.

OK, let's explain powerplay here.

What it does, is manages power consumption, and if power consumption is too high, the card will downclock.

Moving the powerplay slider increases the limit before that power consumption threshold is reached. You only need to raise it if you see clocks dropping while under load. Raising it will prevent the throttle.


So, of course, +20 isn't going to change anything if your card isn't throttling due to power consumption. Even +1 isn't going to change anything, if you are not really pushing the VRM too much.

 

[fullinfusion]

OK, let's explain powerplay here.

What it does, is manages power consumption, and if power consumption is too high, the card will downclock.

Moving the powerplay slider increases the limit before that power consumption threshold is reached. You only need to raise it if you see clocks dropping while under load. Raising it will prevent the throttle.


So, of course, +20 isn't going to change anything if your card isn't throttling due to power consumption. Even +1 isn't going to change anything, if you are not really pushing the VRM too much.

Cool cad, Im talking about Pci-e mhz.... 100-106mhz... not power play

 

[hv43082]

Anyone else here having trouble with MSI Afterburner and Catalyst 11.4 Preview? I am getting random lock up and bsod regardless of the speed/voltage set with Afterburner. Once Afterburner is removed, no more problem.