How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[manofthem]

hey guyz, help me plz. i unlocked my sapphire 6950 to 6970 , and when i restarted the system its doenst starts, what can i do about it ? How can to original bios if i cant start the win ?
Thx

What 6950 card do you have, what method did you use, and did you use the full 6970 bios?

If you have a bios switch up by the crossfire connector, flip the switch to boot up normally
After you're booted, put the switch bak to the position with the bad bios (while the pc is running), and then flash again but with a good bios.


It you don't have the switch, then you'll need to use a different video card and flash the bad gpu in a secondary pcie slot.

 

[contaboa]

What 6950 card do you have, what method did you use, and did you use the full 6970 bios?

If you have a bios switch up by the crossfire connector, flip the switch to boot up normally
After you're booted, put the switch bak to the position with the bad bios (while the pc is running), and then flash again but with a good bios.


It you don't have the switch, then you'll need to use a different video card and flash the bad gpu in a secondary pcie slot.

i use a sapphire 6950 dual fan oc, i used this method http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
and i flashed it now to the original bios, when i load any 6970bios my pc dont start up , what can i do about it ? cant i unlock my card ?
Thx for ur help

 

[contaboa]

any1 ?

 

[manofthem]

i use a sapphire 6950 dual fan oc, i used this method http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
and i flashed it now to the original bios, when i load any 6970bios my pc dont start up , what can i do about it ? cant i unlock my card ?
Thx for ur help

Rather than use a 6970 bios, mod your existing 6950 bios to unlock all shaders. After that you can overclock to the 6970 clock speeds, 880/1375. You can unlock the shaders using RBE, available here at TPU for download. Load your bios into RBE and choose the 6970 shader option. For more details, you can google it as I can't recall off the top of my head.

 

[contaboa]

Rather than use a 6970 bios, mod your existing 6950 bios to unlock all shaders. After that you can overclock to the 6970 clock speeds, 880/1375. You can unlock the shaders using RBE, available here at TPU for download. Load your bios into RBE and choose the 6970 shader option. For more details, you can google it as I can't recall off the top of my head.

I tried that but the shaders still locked =( have you guyz any ideas about what's happening ?

 

[manofthem]

I tried that but the shaders still locked =( have you guyz any ideas about what's happening ?

One idea: if you've tried both a 6970 bios and a 6950 bios modded for shader unlock and still nothing, then I'd say the shaders aren't going to unlock, must be locked down good and tight. Last hope, some suggest unlocking while the AMD video drivers are not installed. So as a last effort, uninstall your drivers, then try unlocking after a reboot (no guarantees...but worth a shot), obviously followed up by reinstalling drivers.

I hope it works, but it may not

 

[contaboa]

One idea: if you've tried both a 6970 bios and a 6950 bios modded for shader unlock and still nothing, then I'd say the shaders aren't going to unlock, must be locked down good and tight. Last hope, some suggest unlocking while the AMD video drivers are not installed. So as a last effort, uninstall your drivers, then try unlocking after a reboot (no guarantees...but worth a shot), obviously followed up by reinstalling drivers.

I hope it works, but it may not

Thx for ur help, i ll try that

 

[bphr34k]

unlocked - or is it?

I tried that but the shaders still locked =( have you guyz any ideas about what's happening ?

So I've got the same problem, any luck with this one?
I completed the command prompt update as well as the wizard based update at first - both kille d my card, so I had to recover with Bios2, restore Bios1 and try again. When neither of those worked, I tried the RBE - I retrieved by BIOS, saved it, modded it to the increased shader, saved new modded file, flashed, still stuck at 1408 shaders - reloaded RBA retrieved bios and confirmed - its got the mod, but only 1408 shaders...any ideas?

 

[TRWOV]

Mine didn't unlock either. It's just bad luck

 

[Durvelle27]

can some one plz help me unlock my HD 6950

 

[fame]

contaboa which version of the sapphire do u have? i have the sapphire 6950 dual fan, dual display port "overclocking edition" .. i tried flashing my bios for it not even realizing that it came with its own option to overclock built into the ati software but the only problem is that it doesnt unlock the shaders... do u have this edition or is it a different one? i overlooked it.. others might have aswell... but if anyone knows of a way to unlock the shaders for this please let me know.. thanks

 

[Bow]

I have 2 Sapphire HD 6950's I want to flash to 6970, do I have to do one card at a time in the #1 pcie slot or can I flash them both in crossfire?

 

[cadaveca]

I have 2 Sapphire HD 6950's I want to flash to 6970, do I have to do one card at a time in the #1 pcie slot or can I flash them both in crossfire?

one at a time, one in the system only, please.

 

[Bow]

one at a time, one in the system only, please.

" One ping please"

 

[CalvinD]

Hey guys, tried unlocking my 6950 today.

It is a Club3D 6950 2GB BF3 edition. First off I chose the Sapphire BIOS to flash the 6950 with.
Sapphire HD6970

The ATIwinflash program wouldn't work so I did it through the command prompt which did it for me. Unfortunately when I rebooted my PC it wouldn't give a signal to my monitor. I then had to set the BIOS switch to "2". PC booted again and I flashed "1" back to my old BIOS save.

Didn't really wanna give up, so I downloaded an other BIOS to try; the Club3D 6970 (since I have a Club3D thought it'd be worth the try). Club3D HD6970

Unfortunately, same issue. After that I have flashed "1" back to my old BIOS again and I'm now hoping for a solution.

I have an ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 mobo with an i5-3570K (so I've had to flash my BIOS to be able to run the ivy bridge technology before). Might be some valuable information to my matter.

Hope you can help me

 

[brandonwh64]

Hey guys, tried unlocking my 6950 today.

It is a Club3D 6950 2GB BF3 edition. First off I chose the Sapphire BIOS to flash the 6950 with.
Sapphire HD6970

The ATIwinflash program wouldn't work so I did it through the command prompt which did it for me. Unfortunately when I rebooted my PC it wouldn't give a signal to my monitor. I then had to set the BIOS switch to "2". PC booted again and I flashed "1" back to my old BIOS save.

Didn't really wanna give up, so I downloaded an other BIOS to try; the Club3D 6970 (since I have a Club3D thought it'd be worth the try). Club3D HD6970

Unfortunately, same issue. After that I have flashed "1" back to my old BIOS again and I'm now hoping for a solution.

I have an ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 mobo with an i5-3570K (so I've had to flash my BIOS to be able to run the ivy bridge technology before). Might be some valuable information to my matter.

Hope you can help me

Why not just use the original bios and the unlock the shaders with RBE?

 

[CalvinD]

I don't know too much about GPUs...

RBE?

 

[CalvinD]

I don't know too much about GPUs...

RBE?

Okay well I've gotten into using RBE in the past few hours. Although with no luck so far. The exact steps that I've done are:

Open GPU-Z and save BIOS file to desktop (green arrow thingy behind "BIOS version")
I have opened that .rom file in BRE and went to "additional features"
Under the title "unlock 6950 -> 6970" I chose the option "6970 shader count".
I then clicked "save BIOS" and saved it to my desktop (the name it creates is cayman.rom).
Since ATIwinflash won't work for me, I have to do it through the command prompt.
I clicked on "start" -> typed cmd -> run as administrator.

Typed in

cd %USERPROFILE%/desktop/winflash
atiwinflash -unlockrom 0
atiwinflash -f -p 0 cayman.rom

It said verified and told me to reboot.
I rebooted my PC and started up GPU-Z. No effect. Still 1408.
But when I open this BIOS file in BRE it does say that the option to unlock 6970 shader count is enabled.

I've also tried loading someone elses 6950 with unlocked shader but that gave me no signal again, had to flash the original back.

Does this mean my 6950 is gay and only likes 6950s and no 6970s?

 

[rbo]

Recent Troubles

I have MSI 6950 2GB card running on Asrock Extreme6 P67 MB. About 18 months ago I came upon this article and flashed to 6970 with no problems. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Recently, I flashed MB to P2.10 Bios and now I get black screen after booting. I also tried card in new Gigabyte 1155 Z77 MB with same result. Does anyone know of a problem with flashed card and latest Intel North Bridge? Does anyone know of a solution?

 

[Mastroz]

I have MSI 6950 2GB card running on Asrock Extreme6 P67 MB. About 18 months ago I came upon this article and flashed to 6970 with no problems. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Recently, I flashed MB to P2.10 Bios and now I get black screen after booting. I also tried card in new Gigabyte 1155 Z77 MB with same result. Does anyone know of a problem with flashed card and latest Intel North Bridge? Does anyone know of a solution?

Why not just turn the switch back to regular bios on the card and see if it boots? it has the original bios when you flip the switch. I don't know if yours has one. But mine does. I have an early 6950x2 crossfire. But I don't have flashed enabled right now. just running the stock one.

 

[CalvinD]

I have MSI 6950 2GB card running on Asrock Extreme6 P67 MB. About 18 months ago I came upon this article and flashed to 6970 with no problems. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Recently, I flashed MB to P2.10 Bios and now I get black screen after booting. I also tried card in new Gigabyte 1155 Z77 MB with same result. Does anyone know of a problem with flashed card and latest Intel North Bridge? Does anyone know of a solution?

There seems to a problem with the newer Z77 chipset motherboards.

My Z68 has been flashed to P2.10 BIOS too and it won't work. Nor even let me unlock (which is just bad luck I guess).

If you switch your BIOS on the card to "2" then it will boot. If you then flash "1" to a HD6950 with unlocked shaders you'll have the same (working result). I'm quite sure it'll work since your card has unlocked before.

 

[MTDEW332]

I have MSI 6950 2GB card running on Asrock Extreme6 P67 MB. About 18 months ago I came upon this article and flashed to 6970 with no problems. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Recently, I flashed MB to P2.10 Bios and now I get black screen after booting. I also tried card in new Gigabyte 1155 Z77 MB with same result. Does anyone know of a problem with flashed card and latest Intel North Bridge? Does anyone know of a solution?

There seems to a problem with the newer Z77 chipset motherboards.

My Z68 has been flashed to P2.10 BIOS too and it won't work. Nor even let me unlock (which is just bad luck I guess).

If you switch your BIOS on the card to "2" then it will boot. If you then flash "1" to a HD6950 with unlocked shaders you'll have the same (working result). I'm quite sure it'll work since your card has unlocked before.

If you want to use a 6970 bios, you have to edit the 6970 bios you're using to have the 6950 ID now, otherwise, blackscreen.
Your only other choice as mentioned is to use your original 6950 bios, unlock the shaders and overclock with a utility.
Read Below.....

Hello everybody, this is my first post, and sorry for my English. I had the same problem - black screen after flashing Sapphire 6950 to 6970 on Asus P8Z77-V. A lot of Asus (and probably other brands) motherboard users witch Z77/Z68 chipset have the same problem. My flashed card worked excellent on my previous mobo - Asus P5QL-E. Asus probably blocks flashed cards (6950 with 6970 bios) from using. On this forum is few solutions with unlocking shaders and changing clocks – to do it we have to edit 6950 bios - sometimes it works, but this is only modified 6950 Bios. My solution is simply. Take your target 6970 bios, edit with RBE, change "video card ID" from 6970 to 6950, save, flash. Now motherboard recognize it as standard 6950, but we have full functional 6970 witch 1536 shaders, 880/1375 clocks, new clocks limits, proper voltages and fan profile. It works for me, and I hope it will for others.

Quoted from Here

 

[hrcmiha]

Hello, i think i have kind of an unique issue as i can tell. So 2 months ago i flashed my card successfully trough cmd because of atiwinflash cannot erase ROM message. So today i updated my MBO BIOS and "switch 1" wouldn't load. PC started and gave 3 strange bips one after the other and nothing happened, PC worked normally besides nothing on the screen. So i switched to "2" and it worked normally. The problem is that i can flash it to my original bios but cannot flash it to any HD6970 BIOS. Every time i try that 3 bips like before happen. I tried trough atiwinflash,batch file provided by WiZZard and cmd. Does anyone know what the problem could be because I'm out of ideas and honestly really frustrated by all this. GPU is Gigabyte reference card and MBO is P8P67LE with 3680 bios now. EZ Flash 2 won't let me downgrade to my previous BIOS cuzz its "Out of date". Please help! Anything is much appriciated

 

[SetsunaFZero]

Hello, i think i have kind of an unique issue as i can tell. So 2 months ago i flashed my card successfully trough cmd because of atiwinflash cannot erase ROM message. So today i updated my MBO BIOS and "switch 1" wouldn't load. PC started and gave 3 strange bips one after the other and nothing happened, PC worked normally besides nothing on the screen. So i switched to "2" and it worked normally. The problem is that i can flash it to my original bios but cannot flash it to any HD6970 BIOS. Every time i try that 3 bips like before happen. I tried trough atiwinflash,batch file provided by WiZZard and cmd. Does anyone know what the problem could be because I'm out of ideas and honestly really frustrated by all this. GPU is Gigabyte reference card and MBO is P8P67LE with 3680 bios now. EZ Flash 2 won't let me downgrade to my previous BIOS cuzz its "Out of date". Please help! Anything is much appriciated

did u tried to flash from Dos?

Hiran'sBootCD is quite useful for recovery stuff

 

[vellaaa]

still unable to unlock

Hi, i have followed the 'extra steps' to the command prompt method and have still had no luck... i enter in exactly what you have in your comment and i still recieve the message 'ROM not erased'.. the only thing i can put it down to is that i may have named the bios file wrongly... is it meant to be a bin file or just called unlock.bin but as a ROM file type.....

any help would be much appreciated - i have a sapphire 6950 2gb dirt3 edition card

thank you