How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[kalawera]

good luck with that; its even stranger to see its not working when on the contrary some ppl claim that the unlocking shader bios was issued by msi itself granting that ability :-(

it was indeed posted on the MSI UK site, but it was taken down since then
here it a thread from overclockers.co.uk started from the MSI Rep there. he *** Removed pending updated information *** 2 days after posting

 

[reddie007]

it was indeed posted on the MSI UK site, but it was taken down since then
here it a thread from overclockers.co.uk started from the MSI Rep there. he *** Removed pending updated information *** 2 days after posting

With great interrest I read all the thread. So, you were able to unlock with artefacts ony, you re back at the stock bios now. I just dont know if I was in your position, and wanted to OC the card more than up to 900Mhz - I guess you would still need to load the unlocking bios, but .. is there any bios which is only unlocking the OC potential (to be able to raise the GPU core frequency more than 900), and doesn't unlock the shaders ??

 

[ehmdjii]

hello, i would like to flash my sapphire 6950 to a 9670 using the BIOS as many have done already.

the only thing is that i have a 1GB version and on this page only BIOSes for 2GB cards can be found:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...ufacturer=&model=HD+6970&interface=&memSize=0

is it safe to also use this BIOS for the 1GB model?

thanks!

 

[kalawera]

With great interrest I read all the thread. So, you were able to unlock with artefacts ony, you re back at the stock bios now. I just dont know if I was in your position, and wanted to OC the card more than up to 900Mhz - I guess you would still need to load the unlocking bios, but .. is there any bios which is only unlocking the OC potential (to be able to raise the GPU core frequency more than 900), and doesn't unlock the shaders ??

OK, today I moved to SB and here you the results: artifacts are gone, MSI Kombustor 2.0.2 extreme benchmark preset results/stock clocks: 1536 sh: 1941/1937p; 1408 sh: 1931/1932p (tests done twice, GPU-z 0.5.3 reports shaders)
So for me it is official- unlocking shaders gives you (almost)nothing and I am done fiddling with it. Essentially 6950 and 6970 are the same chips and the bigger difference is stock clocks, binning and higher OC potential. More shaders might give something here and there, but IMO OC can give you much more.
On the other question- unlocking the OC limits use this small program called RacerX from RacerX/TechIMO forum to edit registry and enable OC as high as you want.

 

[reddie007]

I've both the BIOS you linked and the one from TPU database with unlocked shader, they both unlocked my TFIII (no matter the size) but both rendering artifacts even on desktop w/out any OC (at first it was all OK, but once I started DAII the artefacting started) so now I am just OC with the stock BIOS: 950/1400@1.24 Witcher2 stable, can not get to 1GHz stable
tried also Lightning BIOS- it did not work at all

question (just got the card now): the OC you are mentioning, did you do anything with the memory/aux voltage in afterburner? I tried 940/1325@1.25 and it fails in the FinalFantasy14 benchmark, so not very stable. going to try to unlock the shaders right now

 

[reddie007]

question (just got the card now): the OC you are mentioning, did you do anything with the memory/aux voltage in afterburner? I tried 940/1325@1.25 and it fails in the FinalFantasy14 benchmark, so not very stable. going to try to unlock the shaders right now

ok, unable to unlock the shaders (tried both the custom bioses and RBE mod too)

worse thing: I cant overclock the card at all. Will get a "display driver failed and recovered" error every time i move the slider on the core clock in Afterburner (2.2 beta4) and run the FF14 benchmark (was stable with the sapphire flex card)

everything is perfectly stable at the stock clocks (

 

[kalawera]

ok, unable to unlock the shaders (tried both the custom bioses and RBE mod too)

worse thing: I cant overclock the card at all. Will get a "display driver failed and recovered" error every time i move the slider on the core clock in Afterburner (2.2 beta4) and run the FF14 benchmark (was stable with the sapphire flex card)

everything is perfectly stable at the stock clocks (

make sure that you are actually increasing the voltage- at first I was unable even when moving the slider. in AB settings change graphics processor type to 1150mv, also make sure clock settings in CCC are the same, +20% power, put some more AUX voltage (I personally did not see any difference with it) and increase vcore a bit more
try the OC in games, I am using witcher 2 to test as it is very picky and that's how I found what is stable for me

 

[reddie007]

make sure that you are actually increasing the voltage- at first I was unable even when moving the slider. in AB settings change graphics processor type to 1150mv, also make sure clock settings in CCC are the same, +20% power, put some more AUX voltage (I personally did not see any difference with it) and increase vcore a bit more
try the OC in games, I am using witcher 2 to test as it is very picky and that's how I found what is stable for me

thanks - should I combine the power tune in CCC (set to 20%) with increasing the voltage in Afterburner? When I did try 880/1325 only in CCC i did put powertune to +20% and it was stable. I was thinking I shall use either powertune or the voltage adjustments but not both.. with sapphire flex I was only using Trixx and didnt do anything whatsoever with CCC

 

[reddie007]

hello, i would like to flash my sapphire 6950 to a 9670 using the BIOS as many have done already.

the only thing is that i have a 1GB version and on this page only BIOSes for 2GB cards can be found:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...ufacturer=&model=HD+6970&interface=&memSize=0

is it safe to also use this BIOS for the 1GB model?

thanks!

I read through this whole thread and some other on another forums, but I encountered only 1 person who was able to unlock 1GB version [so the answer is very unlikely, 99% no]

 

[kalawera]

thanks - should I combine the power tune in CCC (set to 20%) with increasing the voltage in Afterburner? When I did try 880/1325 only in CCC i did put powertune to +20% and it was stable. I was thinking I shall use either powertune or the voltage adjustments but not both.. with sapphire flex I was only using Trixx and didnt do anything whatsoever with CCC

I personally first increase powertune and then start to OC/voltage tweak with AB, but now with a Z68 board in i-gpu mode(monitor plugged to mobo) CCC does not even work and since games work fine I keep it stock

 

[ehmdjii]

I read through this whole thread and some other on another forums, but I encountered only 1 person who was able to unlock 1GB version [so the answer is very unlikely, 99% no]

thanks for the info. you dont happen to have a link to this other forum?

also let's say i try it with RBE. extract the bios, unlock the shaders and reflash. and then it fails, will my card be broken or will it just not work?

this is the card btw:

 

[reddie007]

I personally first increase powertune and then start to OC/voltage tweak with AB, but now with a Z68 board in i-gpu mode(monitor plugged to mobo) CCC does not even work and since games work fine I keep it stock

results from OC - not very exciting - I am now at 920/1325 but with the voltage of 1.23 - thats too much for that frequency I'd say. I did read few articles where they were able to reach 1Ghz with 1.3v so so far it doesnt look like I am going there. 940@1.23 doesnt work too.
Was able to reach 880/1325 w/o any voltage increase, I guess thats what I will be using for gaming unless I play Metro 2033 (not my favorite game anyway so.. )

I checked the powertune, every time when I raised the core frequency by 20Mhz and must say I didnt see any difference - didnt help /didnt harm the stability when puting it to +20% / reverting back to normal.

The cooling is better than with the Sapphire Flex, but given the needed voltage, I guess thats not much of an advantage here - at 920 with Flex, I was at 1.15v, which, compared to the twin frozr3, was giving less heat, so - now I am with better cooling producing more heat.. not much of an improvement.

The noise from the fans needs to be reduced in my opinion. What is the advantage of having the hairdryer inside of the PC with 65 Celsius temperature, when the chip is designed to work under 100 Celsius? Under 45% of the fan speed is almost inaudible and with 45%, its still ~72 under full load (default clocks).

Its really cool that frozr3 have triple voltage to control, but its completely useless as I didn't gain any extra stability by increasing the memory to +20mv and if i try increase the Aux in MSI AB 2.2 beta4, it reverts back when I click on apply... omg

Have you noticed any performance improvement when increasing memory speed? When I compared 1250 to 1325 on the Flex, It didnt give me any performance increase whatsoever.

And yes, I think that thats what most of us will be doing - checking the overclocking possibilities and then reverting back to the normal - this card is quite powerful for today's games w/o much an of extra tweaking

 

[reddie007]

thanks for the info. you dont happen to have a link to this other forum?

also let's say i try it with RBE. extract the bios, unlock the shaders and reflash. and then it fails, will my card be broken or will it just not work?

Honestly - I am cured out of the unlocking shaders business. People are gaining 2% more performance at maximum at games, at the cost of risking bricking the card or spending hours and hours flashing and reflashing again and again, never sure when this break something... Even more if your card doesn't have dual bios...

No sorry, I dont have the link - that was just really a one note at that forum, don't remember it anything.

Overclock your card, enjoy it, don't mess with the shaders

Noone can guarantee what will happen if you try this with RBE. Anyway, If you want to go that way, here's couple of links:

Script from w1zzard which modifies file with bios and updates it for enabling the shaders:
(just an another alternative of unlocking)
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137136&page=16)

Techpowerup Vga bios db (i guess you know this already ):
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...cturer=&model=HD+6950&interface=&memSize=1024

btw this bios could possibly be for you (shaders unlocked):
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/95237/Sapphire.HD6950.1024.101224_2.html

testing locked/unlocked shaders:
http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/909086-6950-shaders-unlocked-vs-full-unlocked.html
http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/946615-stock-vs-unlocked-hd-6950-a.html

on non-reference cards with one bios, I would personally never use the -f switch when flashing, due to these bioses are mostly extra modified. So use only:

atiwinflash -p 0 bios.bin

Also if you get ID mismatch message during flashing, cancel it and use another bios. I did force the bios flash on my previous Sapphire Flex card even with the ID mismatch message, and almost bricked it. Sooo happy for the second Bios switch If you read somewhere else to not bother with ID mismatch messages, thats probably only for the reference cards design only.

 

[ehmdjii]

reddie007: thanks a lot for the detailed information. i will try the flash later and then report here if it was successfull.
i will probably use RBE and create a modified BIOS myself.

 

[Atelophobia]

I have a Powercolor 6950 2048MB. Pretty new one I guess because I bought it yesterday.
I tried the 6970 unlock method with the complete pack in the guide (bat-files).
After that, gpu didnt work anymore after reboot.
I flashed my original bios with the help of a bootusbstick back on my GPU and Bios 1 works again. Then I tried to modify the bios myself with RBE... I selected to unlock the shaders and used that rom but nothing did change. I also used the rom Phrozin proposed a page earlier -> GPU bios 1 blackout again. So Im back to my original bios again and Im still looking for a method to get the shaders. Is there sth I can try?

 

[reddie007]

I have a Powercolor 6950 2048MB. Pretty new one I guess because I bought it yesterday.
I tried the 6970 unlock method with the complete pack in the guide (bat-files).
After that, gpu didnt work anymore after reboot.
I flashed my original bios with the help of a bootusbstick back on my GPU and Bios 1 works again. Then I tried to modify the bios myself with RBE... I selected to unlock the shaders and used that rom but nothing did change. I also used the rom Phrozin proposed a page earlier -> GPU bios 1 blackout again. So Im back to my original bios again and Im still looking for a method to get the shaders. Is there sth I can try?

JUST two posts earlier

Script from w1zzard which modifies file with bios and updates it for enabling the shaders:
(just an another alternative of unlocking)
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137136&page=16

 

[Atelophobia]

JUST two posts earlier

Script from w1zzard which modifies file with bios and updates it for enabling the shaders:
(just an another alternative of unlocking)
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137136&page=16

Thanks for the hint!

I used the script and "edited" the bios. I flashed my bios 1 with atiflash, bootusbstick and the new modded bin but nothing did change. I still have 1408 shaders in GPU-Z 0.5.3
Did I do sth wrong?

 

[ginsoked boy hd]

i am from india i bought an sapphire hd 6950 card but it is tottaly diffrant from reffrance desins and does not have an dual bios switch and the card is also the bad naked looking ilike the packed one reffrance desine i maintioned to my dealer about which type of 6950 i want i told them i want card with amd stock cooler and pcb but the dont give me that instid of that they give me a i think vapour x edition which has the modded sapphire 6950 pcb without dual bios


so guys can u help me on that issu
is compony will return me the reffrance card instid of this vapour x ?
is there the dual bios card are bann?
are not in stock in any country?
are the vapourx models of 6950 can be flashed?
problems facing the users of flashed 6050 to 6970?
is it safe ?(really this card is expensive)


so plese help me
thaks in advance

 

[ginsoked boy hd]

http://images.izideal.com/img/produ...ogy-radeon-hd-6950-1-g-gddr5-pci-express.jpeg


this is my card

 

[liquidtension]

Shader unlock failed on 1GB PowerColor 6950

I think i may have somehow overwritten the stock bios in position 1. I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks! - Dom

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148051

 

[reddie007]

I think i may have somehow overwritten the stock bios in position 1. I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks! - Dom

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148051

"3. Tried blind flashing the bios from a bootable usb but 'atiflash -i' couldn't find any compatible display adapters"

how do you know it couldn't find display adapters on a blind flash attempt?

take original bios, use atiflash with -f (force switch), load it to the position 1

I'd also make sure first you use latest mobo bios and do a clear cmos on the mobo before trying to flash the card (only disable the mobo integrated GPU before trying to flash the corrupted card)

this is something to study before you go on:

http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/342894-how-blind-flash-gpu.html

 

[reddie007]

is compony will return me the reffrance card instid of this vapour x ?
is there the dual bios card are bann?
are not in stock in any country?
are the vapourx models of 6950 can be flashed?
problems facing the users of flashed 6050 to 6970?
is it safe ?(really this card is expensive)

simply don't do it... one bios, non reference card - thats the worst scenario I'd say. Many cards now on the market are unlockable. I never heard about any non reference Sapphire being unlocked.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2322114&postcount=2650

 

[ginsoked boy hd]

can i return it to my dealer and get the reffrance card

 

[reddie007]

can i return it to my dealer and get the reffrance card

how can anyone know? simply ask your dealer

 

[reddie007]

Thanks for the hint!

I used the script and "edited" the bios. I flashed my bios 1 with atiflash, bootusbstick and the new modded bin but nothing did change. I still have 1408 shaders in GPU-Z 0.5.3
Did I do sth wrong?

no... looks like the card won't unlock then.. not a reference one I think ..?