Gigabyte 6950 OC 1GB - unlock bios

[codehavok]

hmm.. really thought i was onto something there...

 

[buradd]

maybe versions of gpu-z being used can be questioned

also versions of rbe and winatiflash

i used gpuz 0.5.6, rbe128, and atiwinflash .13

windows 7 pro 64bit

UAC turned all the way off (did this turn on a lightbulb above anyones head?)

 

[Anusha]

maybe versions of gpu-z being used can be questioned

also versions of rbe and winatiflash

i used gpuz 0.5.6, rbe128, and atiwinflash .13

windows 7 pro 64bit

UAC turned all the way off (did this turn on a lightbulb above anyones head?)

I'm using the native administrator account. (the Administrator administrator) UAC doesn't affect it.

 

[buradd]

UAC still affects your actions even under native admin acct as far as i know

 

[codehavok]

I thought under win7 you can't access admin account unless in safe mode...You can give your account admin privs but not the same...

 

[Anusha]

UAC still affects your actions even under native admin acct as far as i know

not sure what you mean by "affect", but it doesn't require elevation.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511445.aspx
"The Built-in Administrator account doesn't require elevation."

I thought under win7 you can't access admin account unless in safe mode...You can give your account admin privs but not the same...

off topic, but couldn't resist.

 

[Anusha]

OK i went ahead and flashed one of the cards to see if things go well.
VICTORY! (but not sure if it gives more performance or is stable. gonna run some tests before flashing the second card. and yes, i removed the second card first)

All i did was,
1. saved the bios file from gpu-z (5.6)
2. opened up RBE 1.28. got the error about overdrive thingy, ignored. (wth!)
3. changed shader count to 6970 (didn't touch anything else)
4. saved bios and opened through winflash 2.01.13 (the one before latest as per today)
5. flashed, rebooted, checked GPU-Z

pin connect mod wasn't needed. also, i had 11.11 driver installed without caps (i reinstalled fresh just in case). i disabled iGPU on my CPU from bios, removed virtu software, brought CPU to stock clocks, removed every darn thing running in the background. disabling UAC wasn't needed because, as i said, i am using the native admin account.

Edit:
LOL seriously! my 3DMark11 score for single card only went up by 125 points. (@900/1325) >_<
perhaps it is not a risk worth taking. not to say that there aren't any title that wouldn't see the benefits.

Edit:
Second card also successfully unlocked. No issues yet. Just getting the 1-2% boost every review is talking about. (cannot clock the RAM to 6970 speeds, thanks to overdrive limitation - shame!)

Anyways, thanks to everybody who helped. m(_)m

 

[Ramis]

The clocks speeds adjust when the card isnt being used...Would be an awefull waste of kilowatts if it were.

Its normal.

Ok it's normal but when the gpu works on 100% the frequency should be stable to 870 MHz
Look at the screenshot

 

[spoki]

I've bought mine few days ago (Windforce 3x GV-R6950C-1GB) even though I've read everywhere that it's not unlockable. It's factory OCed and has a very nice cooler (quite efficient and silent) and the gain would not be that big anyway - I've thought.

Well, but I've tried anyway. I'm quite surprised, because I had no problems unlocking it at all. I just dumped the bios with gpu-z, changed the count in RBE, flashed with ati winflash. Windows has hung, so I had to do a hard reset. Gpu-z shows 1536. I just had to up the power slider by 13%, because it was falling back to lower clocks (TBH, even before unlocking it was falling back to lower clocks when I was using furmark to stress it a little ).

It says it's december 15, 2010, bios 013.010.000.009.000000

Too bad that even after clocking it at 900/1325, the speedup in most games is quite minor (5-7%). Not really worth the additional power usage (my power meter says it went up by over 50 watts!) and higher temps (though my poor cpu might be the case - I'm going to replace it soon).

Just wanted to let you know. Just in case anyone is searching for the info.

 

[codehavok]

Well congrats Anusha!

 

[codehavok]

Ok it's normal but when the gpu works on 100% the frequency should be stable to 870 MHz
Look at the screenshot

Your still not using the full potential of the card. This again is a power saving feature of all newer cards.

 

[buradd]

anusha; are you saying you were trying to do this with both cards connected in crossfire?

if that was teh case, i think more than one of us explained to do them one card at a time, completely separate

im glad you got it working

and yes.. the difference is hardly noticeable.. it is what it is, if you want the faster results then you need to get the 2GB reference version and then flash a complete 6970 bios onto the card..

 

[codehavok]

Ill take any performance increase that i don't have to pay for....lol

 

[Anusha]

anusha; are you saying you were trying to do this with both cards connected in crossfire?

if that was teh case, i think more than one of us explained to do them one card at a time, completely separate

im glad you got it working

and yes.. the difference is hardly noticeable.. it is what it is, if you want the faster results then you need to get the 2GB reference version and then flash a complete 6970 bios onto the card..

I flashed one card at a time while the other one was removed. Issue is, I still don't have the power slider thingy. Perhaps I'm not getting the full power of this card. (although after burner was telling me that the clocks were at 900/1325 the entire time I was playing BF3.)

Now I am certain this is a bios issue. That overdrive error had nothing to do with Crossfire. Maybe with this new bios, the power limiter is already elevated? Or has no "limiting" effect (if that is possible). It's reasonable to think so because this card is running almost at 6970 core clocks by default.

 

[Anusha]

anusha; are you saying you were trying to do this with both cards connected in crossfire?

if that was teh case, i think more than one of us explained to do them one card at a time, completely separate

im glad you got it working

and yes.. the difference is hardly noticeable.. it is what it is, if you want the faster results then you need to get the 2GB reference version and then flash a complete 6970 bios onto the card..

* Sorry for multiple posting. I'm on the phone and quoting is hard work.

What exactly is the difference between the 6970 and shader unlocked 6950 if clocks are same? Stock 6970 still seems to pull ahead. Memory timings?

 

[buradd]

* Sorry for multiple posting. I'm on the phone and quoting is hard work.

What exactly is the difference between the 6970 and shader unlocked 6950 if clocks are same? Stock 6970 still seems to pull ahead. Memory timings?

no worries,

i saw somewhere the other night a big post with lots of graphs on comparing the results of:

6950 stock
6950 with unlocked shaders
6950 with unlocked shaders at 6970 clocks
6950 with 6970 bios completely


the results were 6950 stock slowest,
6950 with unlocked shaders slightly better,
6950 with unlocked shaders at 6970 clocks even more slightly better,
and the 6950 with a legitimate 6970 bios flash being the fastest of all results, closest to that of the 6970 reference card itself (of course that would require having a 2gb 6950, so naturally results get better when you factor in that aspect)


i cant find the page that had these results, only a similar page that had one small comparison for call of duty 4.. i wish i could show you this other page though it had alot of information that youre asking, the only issue is we really really dont get a huge increase in performance when doing this mod on our card.. because we can not flash the entire 6970 REAL bios to our card, because we only have 1gb mem.. BUT like someone mentioned above, any increase AT ALL that can be acquired at no cost is good, but there is just a small risk involved in the reward (bricking the card by not knowing what youre doing)

 

[Anusha]

This one? (guess not. It isn't long nor has the 6970)
http://www.overclock.net/t/946615/stock-vs-unlocked-hd-6950

Only game that I have seen the 2GB model steaming past the 1GB model is Metro2033 @ 2560x1600. In every other title, 1GB card was Asa's fast as the 2GB if not faster. (it's as if 6950 was never supposed to have 2GB)

Still not getting what the difference is with shader unlocking vs 6970 bios.

 

[buradd]

This one? (guess not. It isn't long not has the 6970)
http://www.overclock.net/t/946615/stock-vs-unlocked-hd-6950

Only game that I have seen the 2GB model steaming past the 1GB model is Metro2033 @ 2560x1600. In every other title, 1GB card was Asa's fast as the 2GB if not faster. (it's as if 6950 was never supposed to have 2GB)

Still not getting what the difference is with shader unlocking vs 6970 bios.

no that one wasnt it, the page i was talking about gave a reason why the 6970 bios was faster than the 6950 unlocked shaders bios

it had something to do with memory timings probably, the 6970 bios is just that much more optimized probably

 

[codehavok]

Quoted from RacerX over at TechIMO.com

"With all the buzz about buying the cheaper 6950 and “unlocking” it to a 6970, I thought I share some info on that, as some of the info floating around is misleading.

First, I want to thank the guys at TPU, and other sites for the work and info they’ve done.
At the same time, a lot of people aren’t getting the full info, without doing a lot of digging and reading, so I thought I’d condense a few things for everyone, so that someone doesn't kill their card, or feel like they didn't quite get what they thought they would.


Now, doing the 6970 BIOS on a 6950 card will NOT make it a 6970. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t get the 6950 to run as fast as or faster than a 6970 and outperform it, because you probably can. I’ve got 2 that I can run and bench at 950, while stock is 800 and 880 respectively.


There are several physical differences between the 2 cards:

They have different power connectors.

6950: 2x 6 pin

6970: 1x 6 pin and 1x 8 pin
The 6970 has a beefed up power connector for additional ground.

The 6970 has higher rated memory chips.
6950: Memory rated to 5000 MHz
6970: Memory rated to 6000 MHz

There are a few other physical differences as well, but these are the main ones.


Here’s where the problem comes into play:
With about 99% certainty, the consensus is that the 6970 BIOS has different memory timings, which can cause many problems on a 6950 card.

Besides that, the main thing the flash does that people want are :
Unlocked shaders (from 1408 to 1536), increased clock speeds, and a voltage boost.
Since AMD seems to be spending more time trying to find ways to lock people out of the BIOS then they do on drivers, this has caused some problems.

The single largest problem that a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that even if they flash a 6970 BIOS on a 6950 and they have no problems and are 100% stable, the drivers still see it as a 6950, NOT a 6970.
This is the difference in the Hardware ID’s:
6950: 6719
6970: 6718"

 

[ThomasuDesu]

Hey all,

I've been trying to unlock my Gigabyte OC 6950 for...well, since about June. I've got my stock bios and several edited using RBE 128. Originally when I tried to flash, ATIWinflash (earlier than .03 at the time if I remember corerctly) threw me an unable to erase error. Nothing flashed including cmd. Ended up having to boot from floppy/USB and flash with ATIWinflash in DOS. No shader unlock in GPU-Z, though when I acquired my BIOS again through RBE or ATIWinflash or even GPU-Z, it said it was edited in RBE, and also that 6970 shaders were unlocked. GPU-Z still reported 1408.

Now I've done the 3-8 bridge for the write-protect, and I can flash in windows without errors, it just works, though still no shader unlock results. Haven't tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, but I'll give that a shot in a bit. I'm thinking that maybe they moved the unlock and the RBE creators haven't updated for this. :/ I'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated. Here's my GPU-Z and RBE screenies.

^Edited, 6970 unlocked bios, no results, bridged 3-8.

 

[buradd]

shutoff your pc and flip your power supply off for 30 sec

then if that doesnt work, try reinstalling latest driver..


12.1 preview is out but i recommend 11.11

 

[buradd]

and im serious.. turn the power supply off for 30 sec..

this is a real step people forget

 

[Anusha]

and im serious.. turn the power supply off for 30 sec..

this is a real step people forget

a simple reboot did it for me, but not to say it cannot make the difference.

he has the old bios. is it possible that only the cards with the old bios needs the 3-8 bridge? perhaps the two bios files are not compatible. perhaps these are two revisions? i'm just happy everything went so smoothly in my case.

 

[ThomasuDesu]

I left my PC off for a good few minutes when I did it, and I left it off and unplugged from when I posted my post to right now, about 5 minutes. Still no unlock, but the bios seems to have flashed successfully. Anyone got any ideas why it might not have worked? :/

 

[buradd]

hate to say it, but did you reinstall drivers