How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[manofthem]

I think its heat.

LOL!/Uhg.

I turned on fans to 50% constant and no more freezing at the same exact point. That combined with turning off ULPS, makes the 880/1375/1175mV OC stable @ 3x AVP bench, which I have *never* been able to achieve before, before always freezing at the

Thanks for the help manofthem. I'll keep working on it. Bought these two 6950's explicity to run them at stock 6970 speeds and be done with it. Seems I'm getting much closer. Glad I don't have to buy a 1250Watter. I'll keep testing. Looks like its time for a bigger Crossfire bridge/more case fans/new fan profile/alloftheabove.

What motherboard are you running? What is the space like between the cards? That could make a heat problem

If you run GPU-Z and log your info, you can see what your temps are like when you freeze/crash/reboot..

 

[mingsoup]

Running a Asus P7P55D Deluxe......and the cards are essentially right on each other. Short bridge.

I'll give the GPU-Z log a try. What would you recommend first? Different fan profile or longer Xfire bridge? After that.....case modification on top of what I've already done.

 

[manofthem]

Running a Asus P7P55D Deluxe......and the cards are essentially right on each other. Short bridge.

I'll give the GPU-Z log a try. What would you recommend first? Different fan profile or longer Xfire bridge? After that.....case modification on top of what I've already done.

ASUS P7P55D-E Pro LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s US...
Is that your board? It depends on how many PCI-E slots you have? More distance is better as long as the slots are right.

Definitely set up a nice custom fan curve, the auto in CCC is terrible

 

[mingsoup]

ASUS P7P55D Deluxe LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Mo...

That's my board.

Any tips on setting up a custom fan curve. I've never done it. MSI AB correct?

 

[xanture]

Your XFX should be able to flash and unlock shaders. I have an XFX and I've read about other XFX cards being unlockable.

What happens when you try to flash your card?

When I run the batch file it says that it was successful and saved. When I restart I still have only 1408 shaders. When I try in the command prompt, after it is finished I get no message (Failure or Successful). When I reboot, still only 1408 shaders. When I try and run the atiwinflash by its self I get an error that was covered on the first page.

 

[manofthem]

ASUS P7P55D Deluxe LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Mo...

That's my board.

Any tips on setting up a custom fan curve. I've never done it. MSI AB correct?

The distance on board is the same on mine, so that's good. Heat may be an issue, so the fan curve is a good idea. Open MSIAB Click on settings and the second tab is "Fan" which is what you want; make your own line for fan. Then when you are setting up a profile on the main page, click on auto for Fan Speed.

When I run the batch file it says that it was successful and saved. When I restart I still have only 1408 shaders. When I try in the command prompt, after it is finished I get no message (Failure or Successful). When I reboot, still only 1408 shaders. When I try and run the atiwinflash by its self I get an error that was covered on the first page.

Make sure your bios switch is in the right position. It's usually the 1 position that can be written, push the switch closer to the fan. But there are some reports that the 2 position, closer to the back of the pc, that can be written. Sounds like your switch is in the wrong position.

 

[xanture]

The distance on board is the same on mine, so that's good. Heat may be an issue, so the fan curve is a good idea. Open MSIAB Click on settings and the second tab is "Fan" which is what you want; make your own line for fan. Then when you are setting up a profile on the main page, click on auto for Fan Speed.


Make sure your bios switch is in the right position. It's usually the 1 position that can be written, push the switch closer to the fan. But there are some reports that the 2 position, closer to the back of the pc, that can be written. Sounds like your switch is in the wrong position.

Okay I just spend a while looking for the switch, I then took some pictures with my phone and here they are. Can't find the switch... do I need to take off the plastic housing to get to it?

http://img571.imageshack.us/i/imag00851.jpg/
http://img825.imageshack.us/i/imag0085o.jpg/
http://img854.imageshack.us/i/imag0087d.jpg/
http://img191.imageshack.us/i/imag0088a.jpg/

 

[manofthem]

Okay I just spend a while looking for the switch, I then took some pictures with my phone and here they are. Can't find the switch... do I need to take off the plastic housing to get to it?

http://img571.imageshack.us/i/imag00851.jpg/
http://img825.imageshack.us/i/imag0085o.jpg/
http://img854.imageshack.us/i/imag0087d.jpg/
http://img191.imageshack.us/i/imag0088a.jpg/

Perhaps yours doesn't have the bios switch...

That's where it is on the reference card, right behind the crossfire connectors, but yours isn't reference so you may not have the switch.

Since it's likely not the bios switch, did you follow these instructions:
- Type "cmd"
- Right click the entry and select "Run as Administrator"
- Black command prompt windows opens
- Type "cd %USERPROFILE%\desktop\winflash"
- Type "atiwinflash -unlockrom 0" <-- the 0 means first adapter, if you have multiple cards, physically uninstall all but the one you want to flash
- Type "atiwinflash -f -p 0 unlock.bin"
- It should complete the flashing process with a message saying something with "verified".

 

[cadaveca]

Okay I just spend a while looking for the switch, I then took some pictures with my phone and here they are. Can't find the switch... do I need to take off the plastic housing to get to it?

http://img571.imageshack.us/i/imag00851.jpg/
http://img825.imageshack.us/i/imag0085o.jpg/
http://img854.imageshack.us/i/imag0087d.jpg/
http://img191.imageshack.us/i/imag0088a.jpg/

No switch on that card. My works fine with shader-mod bios, erocker's as well.

 

[xanture]

Yeah I did all that. So the version on the box says A.1, i'm guessing these are unflashable cards.

 

[cadaveca]

Yeah I did all that. So the version on the box says A.1, i'm guessing these are unflashable card.

I'm sorry, but what part of "my cards work with shader-mod bios" did you not understand?

Yes, I have the same card, as well as reference.

ANY card is "flashable". Whether the gou works with a differnt bios is the question, and the only way to find out is to do it.

 

[xanture]

Must have missed that, how does it work?

 

[cadaveca]

It works fine. 1536 shaders, no artifacting, clocks to 865mhz with shaders unlocked on 1.1v.

fan does get a fair bit noisier though...these coolers are quite interesting to me...I got better temps removing the shroud, and putting a 120mm fan blowing across the card.

NO memory cooling on these cards either..the heatsink sits over hte memory, but does not contact it.

 

[manofthem]

When I run the batch file it says that it was successful and saved. When I restart I still have only 1408 shaders. When I try in the command prompt, after it is finished I get no message (Failure or Successful). When I reboot, still only 1408 shaders. When I try and run the atiwinflash by its self I get an error that was covered on the first page.

Download and use the mod script. Take your bios, name it "original.bin" and put it in the folder. then run "run.bat"
That will mod your bios and name it "modded.bin"
take that then flash it with the CMD prompt

Did you do that?

 

[NameonPrime]

sooo.....

Let me get this straight ,

Even if my Sapphire 2gb hd 6950 is not reference design, has no BIOS switch and
has a reworked and shorter PCB (i think - than a reference hd 6950), i can still try to unlock those shaders?

and if i brick my card, i can find a way to reflash it with its origional BIOS
since i have a backup hd 5830.... How? could you outline those steps for me please?

and you have had success with this particular card as well?

i would appreciate if manofthem and cadaveca would reply

 

[cadaveca]

OK, so, when you flash modded bios, usually the card still works. You might have artifacting, but the card works and is recognized by windows. So, the software tools used to flash the modded bios will still work on the card, installed as secondary.


I even accidentally flashed reference bios on my non-reference...the card wouldn't owrk once drivers loaded, so I uninstalled drivers, rebotted, and before drivers isntalled, I flashed the card back to stock bios.

I then put the right modded bios on, and have been using it like that since.

 

[manofthem]

sooo.....

Let me get this straight ,

Even if my Sapphire 2gb hd 6950 is not reference design, has no BIOS switch and
has a reworked and shorter PCB (i think - than a reference hd 6950), i can still try to unlock those shaders?
http://images.izideal.com/img/produ...ogy-radeon-hd-6950-1-g-gddr5-pci-express.jpeg

and if i brick my card, i can find a way to reflash it with its origional BIOS
since i have a backup hd 5830.... How? could you outline those steps for me please?

and you have had success with this particular card as well?

i would appreciate if manofthem and cadaveca would reply

Do you need steps to flash and unlock shaders, or do you need the steps to save it if it goes south?

 

[NameonPrime]

both in as much detail as possible would be nice

 

[xanture]

Update on where i'm at, I downloaded the Mod Bios HD 6, saved my bios as Original.bin, ran Run.bat, used admin CMD atiwinflash to flash modded.bin. atiwinflash didn't give a confirmation that it worked and it didn't say it failed, I restarted my computer. No luck on shaders. Did I miss a step?

 

[manofthem]

both in as much detail as possible would be nice

Here
http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip

Take your default bios and put it in that folder.
Name it "original.bin"
Then run "run.bat" That should take your bios, run some cmd lines, and enable all 1536 shaders.
Modded bios should be saved as "modded.bin"
Then flash "modded.bin" using atiwinflash
After flashing, double check in GPUz that shaders are changed.

That's how to unlock shaders. Try it...

and Cadaveca just said how to save it in post 2341

 

[manofthem]

Update on where i'm at, I downloaded the Mod Bios HD 6, saved my bios as Original.bin, ran Run.bat, used admin CMD atiwinflash to flash modded.bin. atiwinflash didn't give a confirmation that it worked and it didn't say it failed, I restarted my computer. No luck on shaders. Did I miss a step?

Do you do these steps?

I put my winflash folder directly on the C: for easier access. and I name the bios that i flash to unlock.bin just because that's what Wiz's first instructions said, don't think it matters though

 

[xanture]

Are we flashing unlock.bin or modded.bin? I did -unlockrom 0 before i attempted modded.bin

Sorry didn't read last line, So yes i did all those steps

 

[manofthem]

Are we flashing unlock.bin or modded.bin? I did -unlockrom 0 before i attempted modded.bin

Sorry didn't read last line, So yes i did all those steps

Other than making sure your gpu is in the first pci-e slot closest to the cpu, I'm not sure what else..

I'm out for the night; hope it all works out. I'll check back tomorrow.

 

[xanture]

Thanks for you help so far tonight

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

I'm sorry, but what part of "my cards work with shader-mod bios" did you not understand?

Yes, I have the same card, as well as reference.

ANY card is "flashable". Whether the gou works with a differnt bios is the question, and the only way to find out is to do it.

I just felt that this needs to be repeated.