How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[OOZMAN]

So i need to make a custom BIOS with RBE and FLASH with ATI Winflash.
IF something goes wrong when unlocking switch the switch over to the other BIOS then once in windows switch the switch back to the faulty BIOS and flash with backedup original BIOS ?

I read somewhere that its not safe to move the switch while in windows but the guide says its fine ?

You don't make the bios, you download the one provided. You can flash with ati winflash, or through the command prompt way.

Hi, I just buy 2 6950 from newegg from the black friday sale and I receive 2 reference design.

I flash both card to 6970 bios and everithing run fine but the temperature are way too high under load around 98 celcius.

the fan are not running fast they always running at around 20-40% even if the card is at 98 celcius .

anyone else have the same issues ?

Just turn the fan speed up manually with Catalyst Control, something like 65% for the duration of your game, then turn it back down when your finished.

 

[jonathan1107]

Hey guys, I know pretty much all the basics about overclocking the 6950 2gb ref models...

I have 2 in crossfire... I unlocked the SHADERS only (like 7 months ago I believe...) and it's been working fine...

But lately, I've been wanting to try and get a 50FPS solid minimum in Skyrim, and because the game ain't optimized properly it relies a lot on CPU speed and GPU speed helps too (I've tested on a single card using MSI AB)

I've tried the latest drivers and all... but it's not giving me the desired results... So: I'm thinking about flashing the 6970 bios onto both my cards, but I'd like you guys to update me as to if it's safe or not...

7 months ago, there was some talk about how it was "safer to just do the shaders unlock..." and I went that way... Did some reading today and noticed almost no one has had problems in a whole year of OCing those cards with the 6970 bios flashed onto the 6950 card...

So I just wanna get a confirmation from you guys, to see if yall are gettin problems with the 6970 bios or not?

Cause I think I'm gonna go ahead and disable ULPS and do the "unofficial OCing manoeuver" in the MSI text doc and flash the 6970 bios, because I believe I'm gonna get the little boost I need there...

Let me know what you think
Let me know what are you actual clocks with your 6950s flashed with 6970 bios
Let me know what you have experienced with your clock SPEEDs, I'd like to know what you've found to be "stable" and what was "unstable" pls.

Thx in advance for your input ;O)

 

[AZONIC[rus]]

Hey! Does anybody know about me? I can't flash my non-reference ASUS 6950...

 

[hindle8907]

You don't make the bios, you download the one provided. You can flash with ati winflash, or through the command prompt way.

I have the 1GB card, not the 2 GB.
The guide says:
** Above method is only for 2 GB HD 6950 reference design cards. If you have a custom design or 1 GB card, then use RBE to modify your existing BIOS. Save the BIOS from your card, load it into RBE, enable the shader unlock option on the last tab, then flash that modified BIOS to the card instead of the one downloaded from this page**

that sounds to me like i use my bios to create a new bios with RBE ?

 

[Gunnett]

DIAMOND 6950PE52G Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Cro

I bought the DIAMOND 6950PE52G Radeon HD 6950 2GB Card on sale on Black Friday at newegg for $229.99. It appears to be the single fan reference design with bios switch rather than the two fan configuration showed on the list page. I followed the instructions provided on techpowerup. ATI Winflash reported the flash of the 6970 BIOS as successful but GPU-Z is not showing a change in the shaders but the clock and memory speeds are boosted to 880 MHz & 1375 MHz respectively. I guess I got one of the cards that has the shaders locked at the die?

 

[OOZMAN]

Hey guys, I know pretty much all the basics about overclocking the 6950 2gb ref models...

I have 2 in crossfire... I unlocked the SHADERS only (like 7 months ago I believe...) and it's been working fine...

But lately, I've been wanting to try and get a 50FPS solid minimum in Skyrim, and because the game ain't optimized properly it relies a lot on CPU speed and GPU speed helps too (I've tested on a single card using MSI AB)

I've tried the latest drivers and all... but it's not giving me the desired results... So: I'm thinking about flashing the 6970 bios onto both my cards, but I'd like you guys to update me as to if it's safe or not...

7 months ago, there was some talk about how it was "safer to just do the shaders unlock..." and I went that way... Did some reading today and noticed almost no one has had problems in a whole year of OCing those cards with the 6970 bios flashed onto the 6950 card...

So I just wanna get a confirmation from you guys, to see if yall are gettin problems with the 6970 bios or not?

Cause I think I'm gonna go ahead and disable ULPS and do the "unofficial OCing manoeuver" in the MSI text doc and flash the 6970 bios, because I believe I'm gonna get the little boost I need there...

Let me know what you think
Let me know what are you actual clocks with your 6950s flashed with 6970 bios
Let me know what you have experienced with your clock SPEEDs, I'd like to know what you've found to be "stable" and what was "unstable" pls.

Thx in advance for your input ;O)

So wait wait wait wait.... you've got 2 6970s in CFX, plus an i7 something or other @ 4ghz (system specs) and you cant run skyrim at 50fps? When I can run it at 50fps with a 2500k 4ghz + SINGLE 6950. That cant be right man...

I have the 1GB card, not the 2 GB.
The guide says:
** Above method is only for 2 GB HD 6950 reference design cards. If you have a custom design or 1 GB card, then use RBE to modify your existing BIOS. Save the BIOS from your card, load it into RBE, enable the shader unlock option on the last tab, then flash that modified BIOS to the card instead of the one downloaded from this page**

that sounds to me like i use my bios to create a new bios with RBE ?

Sorry, wasnt aware of that. If it has the dual bios switch, just try the 2gb bios, and re-flash it if it doesnt work (which will probably be the case). But heck, wont hurt to try, you might come lucky.

I bought the DIAMOND 6950PE52G Radeon HD 6950 2GB Card on sale on Black Friday at newegg for $229.99. It appears to be the single fan reference design with bios switch rather than the two fan configuration showed on the list page. I followed the instructions provided on techpowerup. ATI Winflash reported the flash of the 6970 BIOS as successful but GPU-Z is not showing a change in the shaders but the clock and memory speeds are boosted to 880 MHz & 1375 MHz respectively. I guess I got one of the cards that has the shaders locked at the die?

Update gpu-z

 

[jonathan1107]

So wait wait wait wait.... you've got 2 6970s in CFX, plus an i7 something or other @ 4ghz (system specs) and you cant run skyrim at 50fps? When I can run it at 50fps with a 2500k 4ghz + SINGLE 6950. That cant be right man...



Sorry, wasnt aware of that. If it has the dual bios switch, just try the 2gb bios, and re-flash it if it doesnt work (which will probably be the case). But heck, wont hurt to try, you might come lucky.



Update gpu-z

I've got 2x 6950... both are ref models... I was wondering if you consider it SAFE to flash them with the 6970 bios... I ask this because it's been quite a few months since I last checked... And when I did last check, there was some talk about how the 2 cards are physically different, how they don't have the same type of memory timings and speed... how they have different power pins (6 vs 8) and how it is possible to damage the VRAM which the procedure of flashing the 6970 bios onto a 6950...

Now, what I am inquiring about is this: How many of you have flashed the 6970 bios onto the 6950 and have had NO PROBLEMS for a while?

And about the FPS in skyrim, you have a superior CPU than mine... and the game is VERY cpu bound, much more than GPU... and the crossfire is broken... even with the new drivers, it's very unstable...

Also, I have a hard time believing you have 50 FPS ALL THE TIME... Don't you have drops in towns... This game is known to be a port (in many aspects)... and there are towns where you look in one direction and you get 60FPS, look in the other way and there goes your FPS down to ~30FPS...

Also, all my .ini are tweaked for MAX settings and I've got a few mods and more importantly, I've got my "ugridstoload" @ 7... how about you? That thing eats your computer alive, especially if you put it @ 11...

 

[Gunnett]

So wait wait wait wait.... you've got 2 6970s in CFX, plus an i7 something or other @ 4ghz (system specs) and you cant run skyrim at 50fps? When I can run it at 50fps with a 2500k 4ghz + SINGLE 6950. That cant be right man...



Sorry, wasnt aware of that. If it has the dual bios switch, just try the 2gb bios, and re-flash it if it doesnt work (which will probably be the case). But heck, wont hurt to try, you might come lucky.



Update gpu-z

I have latest verison of GPU-Z 0.5.6

 

[OOZMAN]

I've got 2x 6950... both are ref models... I was wondering if you consider it SAFE to flash them with the 6970 bios... I ask this because it's been quite a few months since I last checked... And when I did last check, there was some talk about how the 2 cards are physically different, how they don't have the same type of memory timings and speed... how they have different power pins (6 vs 8) and how it is possible to damage the VRAM which the procedure of flashing the 6970 bios onto a 6950...

Now, what I am inquiring about is this: How many of you have flashed the 6970 bios onto the 6950 and have had NO PROBLEMS for a while?

And about the FPS in skyrim, you have a superior CPU than mine... and the game is VERY cpu bound, much more than GPU... and the crossfire is broken... even with the new drivers, it's very unstable...

Also, I have a hard time believing you have 50 FPS ALL THE TIME... Don't you have drops in towns... This game is known to be a port (in many aspects)... and there are towns where you look in one direction and you get 60FPS, look in the other way and there goes your FPS down to ~30FPS...

Also, all my .ini are tweaked for MAX settings and I've got a few mods and more importantly, I've got my "ugridstoload" @ 7... how about you? That thing eats your computer alive, especially if you put it @ 11...

I haven't modded any files, and the drop in towns is a cpu thing, coz of all the objects, and yeah, it usually stays around 45-50, I've got quite consistent fps. I had a crappy AMD A8 APU running it before this setup (still with the 6950), and I was getting 20fps in some towns :/.

But anyway, I haven't flashed my 6950 because I can't, but if if I had one that was able to, and especially if I had 2, I'd flash them in a heartbeat. Earlier in the thread it was mentioned that the extra 2 pins were only ground pins.

If your not sure, just try and read more of the thread.

 

[Darkleoco]

I don't think I need to unlock the shaders but why not since I have been overclocking everything recently, going to unlock and run full 6970 clocks as soon as I get the time

Edit: Oops lol seems i have already significantly exceeded 6970 clocks on my cards lol well I will see what I can do to go farther I guess.

 

[Darkleoco]

Hey guys, I know pretty much all the basics about overclocking the 6950 2gb ref models...

I have 2 in crossfire... I unlocked the SHADERS only (like 7 months ago I believe...) and it's been working fine...

But lately, I've been wanting to try and get a 50FPS solid minimum in Skyrim, and because the game ain't optimized properly it relies a lot on CPU speed and GPU speed helps too (I've tested on a single card using MSI AB)

I've tried the latest drivers and all... but it's not giving me the desired results... So: I'm thinking about flashing the 6970 bios onto both my cards, but I'd like you guys to update me as to if it's safe or not...

7 months ago, there was some talk about how it was "safer to just do the shaders unlock..." and I went that way... Did some reading today and noticed almost no one has had problems in a whole year of OCing those cards with the 6970 bios flashed onto the 6950 card...

So I just wanna get a confirmation from you guys, to see if yall are gettin problems with the 6970 bios or not?

Cause I think I'm gonna go ahead and disable ULPS and do the "unofficial OCing manoeuver" in the MSI text doc and flash the 6970 bios, because I believe I'm gonna get the little boost I need there...

Let me know what you think
Let me know what are you actual clocks with your 6950s flashed with 6970 bios
Let me know what you have experienced with your clock SPEEDs, I'd like to know what you've found to be "stable" and what was "unstable" pls.

Thx in advance for your input ;O)

Just out of curiosity why not simply Overclock instead of flashing the 6970 Bios? I am running 945/1440 clocks on both of my 6950's with the normal Bios and if you have the shaders unlocked I really see no point in not simply manually setting 6970 clocks.

P.S. I would bring up my FPS but I don't feel it would be constructive with my 2600K running at 4.4 Ghz and not having my shaders currently unlocked.

 

[OOZMAN]

Just out of curiosity why not simply Overclock instead of flashing the 6970 Bios? I am running 945/1440 clocks on both of my 6950's with the normal Bios and if you have the shaders unlocked I really see no point in not simply manually setting 6970 clocks.

P.S. I would bring up my FPS but I don't feel it would be constructive with my 2600K running at 4.4 Ghz and not having my shaders currently unlocked.

If you have 940/1440 clocks with stock 6950 shaders, it still won't be as fast as a 6970. Shader count is much more relevent to performance than mem/core clocks. I was running my 6950 at 940/1440 but it barely gave a 1fps advantage in furmark than when it was at 890/1400, but it got heaps hotter.

Are you using benchmarking software like furmark/3Dmark?

 

[Darkleoco]

If you have 940/1440 clocks with stock 6950 shaders, it still won't be as fast as a 6970. Shader count is much more relevent to performance than mem/core clocks. I was running my 6950 at 940/1440 but it barely gave a 1fps advantage in furmark than when it was at 890/1400, but it got heaps hotter.

Are you using benchmarking software like furmark/3Dmark?

No I am doing it for a performance increase in my heavily modded Skyrim and without a shader unlock I see a minimum fps increase of around 10-12 going from stock clocks of 810/1250 to my current clocks. Though I am about to test the shader unlock I do think.

Edit: Holding off until after I deal with all my work so I don't spend a long time sidetracked if something goes wrong >.>

 

[netvir]

Hello guys,

I'm having an issue with my Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB (100312-3L) that I recently purchased from neweggbusiness on the $215 deal.

I can't get Windows to recognize the new shaders but when flip the switch and I looked at my BIOS in RBE and it said it had the 6970 shaders already unlocked.

What can I do to get Windows 7 to recognize the new shaders.. I've tried everything from uninstalling drivers... re-installing.. flipping the switch back uninstall drivers.. switching it back and then installing and still no luck.

Please help, thanks in advance!

 

[Razerian]

I'm having exactly the same issue as you. I have been looking around and thus far unable to find a solution. Maybe it has something to do with this card specifically If anyone more experienced with this has any suggestions that would be appreciated.

 

[OOZMAN]

Hello guys,

I'm having an issue with my Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB (100312-3L) that I recently purchased from neweggbusiness on the $215 deal.

I can't get Windows to recognize the new shaders but when flip the switch and I looked at my BIOS in RBE and it said it had the 6970 shaders already unlocked.

What can I do to get Windows 7 to recognize the new shaders.. I've tried everything from uninstalling drivers... re-installing.. flipping the switch back uninstall drivers.. switching it back and then installing and still no luck.

Please help, thanks in advance!

Why do you need windows to recognise the shaders? are you unsure if it worked properly? Just do a benchmark test like furmark with switch at 1, then compare with switch at 2.

 

[vychytraly]

6950

Hi hou

please sorry my english in advance

nowhere I found answer for all of my questions, thats why I ask you, the "inventors" of 6950 flashing

So here is the problem:

I have Sapphire HD6950 2GB with no BIOS switch (yes I know, Sapphire fu_ked with me so hard)

(yes this one)
It has got blue chip

Question is

is the card unlockable? I just want to unlock shaders, not to flash it with 6970 bios
does this card have the shaders? (it is only 24,5cm long)
is the unlocking of this card safe?
is it able to repair it if something screws up? (if yes how?)
is it true that this card has hardware lock of shaders and I should do something like this: ?

thank you very very much in advance

Vychytraly from Slovakia

 

[scylk]

I followed this tutorial.

But bios1 position on the picture was my bios2 position... I fucked one bios, and when i tried to recover it by switching bios while my computer was running, i fucked the other one.

I tried atiflash with dos command but i got the error "adapter not found"

Is there a way to fix my card or is it down forever ?

 

[Carbide]

Unlock and overclock

Hi guys

I've got a Club 3d 6950 2gb.
The card is flashed with a 6970 bios and works fine at:

• CPU 800mhz
• MEM: 1350mhz
• Temperature IDLE: 40 C
• Temperature load: 82 C

I'm trying to push the card to the stock 6970 CPU clock (880Mhz) via CCC but when I push it over 820Mhz I've got stability problems (not due to high temperatures I suppose).
Also improving the CPU voltage (+20% via CCC), I always get a BSOD after few minutes of Crysis 2 (card protection?).
My PSU is a OCZ 700W so I exclude power-related issue.

Any idea about possible causes of instability?
Thanks in advance

 

[reggaemaster]

Hi, I need help, you can unlock the shader 6970, in my his iceqxturbo 6950,
know that there is a dual bios, but have read that some users have successfully
is possible or not? anyone know?
purchase card is this http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-611.shtml

 

[Ray_Rogers2109]

I'm about to purchase the Sapphire Radeon 6950 2GB 100312-3L from Amazon.com in a few days. Can I toggle the switch to position 2 to unlock the shaders before I power on the computer with it installed or should I have it in the 1/6950 position first? Read online and it said the 2 switch has the 6970 shaders pre-loaded, from eteknix.com.
Can anyone verify this please? Would I also need to install DirectX 11 drivers even though I have the latest version of Catalyst already on my system? Stupid integrated 4290...

So, flip switch without turning on computer with card installed to get to 6970 shaders WITHOUT using card whatsoever in 6950 mode. Recommended?

 

[OOZMAN]

Hi, I need help, you can unlock the shader 6970, in my his iceqxturbo 6950,
know that there is a dual bios, but have read that some users have successfully
is possible or not? anyone know?
purchase card is this http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-611.shtml

Thats the one I have, mine does not have the dual bios switch.

 

[PMad]

So I have two of the XFX Radeon HD 6950 2GB XXX editions, they are pre-overclocked a little bit, just like the older Black Edition GPU's...

Only problem, there's no BIOS switch on these cards! I searched this thread and found a few people asking this with no replies to them, so im trying myself!

Is there any known way to flash a new BIOS to these cards without the Dual Bios switch? Has anyone done it successfully?

 

[OOZMAN]

So I have two of the XFX Radeon HD 6950 2GB XXX editions, they are pre-overclocked a little bit, just like the older Black Edition GPU's...

Only problem, there's no BIOS switch on these cards! I searched this thread and found a few people asking this with no replies to them, so im trying myself!

Is there any known way to flash a new BIOS to these cards without the Dual Bios switch? Has anyone done it successfully?

Yes! Im in the same situation. Someone please respond!

 

[ChristTheGreat]

Hi all

Just found that my HD6950 1gb Powercolor has the bios switch. So if I was already on position 1, and flashed a my stock bios with the HD6970 shader count, and it didn't show more shaders, could I have any luck by flashing directly a HD6970 bios?

Thanks