How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[Wijkert]

where do I get driver ver. 8.801 ? I'm using Catalyst 10.12a from AMD's site but it is driver ver. 8.790.
I've seen couple of screenshots where the guys using 8.801 with HD6900 series, and original Cat10.12 is not compatible with 6900 series.

10.12 (8.801) is in fact compatible with the 6900 series and the reason why the 10.12a hotfix is 8.790 is because it is a moddified verion of 10.11. You will be fine with either driver though.

 

[jonathan1107]

Hi, I read the article, and I've sucessfully unlcocked my 6950 with atiwinflash with the 6970 bios.

I got the shaders and the CCC overdrive utility working. Everything was going great until today. Things are still working fine, but the gpu voltage and the gpu load jumps up every 20 seconds.

Even if I tweak the +20% or -20% in the ATI overdrive section of CCC I still get jumps (smaller ones or bigger depending on what I changed)

I'm not sure what is causing this... I have flashed my card back to 6950 but I'm still getting those voltage jumps... Obviously, every jump increases the GPUs temp a little which is not so bad with correct fan speed... I'm just hoping I didn't mess my card up. Those voltage jumps are weird.

I Would appreciate all the help I can get... especially considering the fact I'm not an expert with cmd.exe or graphics cards. Please help :O(

Do you guys think I could fix this with the ASUS bios using "SmartDoctor" to regulate voltages... I've seen most of yall run your unlocked car at 1.175v with crazy fan speeds... which is probably fine. I'm just thinking the 6950 could get damaged or become unstable with this particular voltage.

 

[Eluder]

I'm noticing something odd, the core and memory clocks will jump up to the overclocked state (880/1375) while I'm just browsing or in the Windows desktop every couple of mins. It'll then drop down to the underclocked state of 250/150. I'm running the XFX 6950 with unlocked shaders and using Sapphire's Trixx to overclock the card. Anyone else experience this as I find it strange that the clocks would increase when I'm simply in the Windows desktop.

 

[jonathan1107]

I'm noticing something odd, the core and memory clocks will jump up to the overclocked state (880/1375) while I'm just browsing or in the Windows desktop every couple of mins. It'll then drop down to the underclocked state of 250/150. I'm running the XFX 6950 with unlocked shaders and using Sapphire's Trixx to overclock the card. Anyone else experience this as I find it strange that the clocks would increase when I'm simply in the Windows desktop.

Yeah I've just been told this is because of GPU-Z... It causes jumps, try looking at your ATI ccc Overdrive section instead for Speeds and Temps...

 

[Eluder]

The prob is, when you have Sapphire's Trixx running, it hides any options from the CCC other than powertune and manual fan control.
The temps do display in CCC and seem to remain constant though when I shut down GPU-Z.

Good to know it's not just my experience I guess.

 

[MaxMax]

The prob is, when you have Sapphire's Trixx running, it hides any options from the CCC other than powertune and manual fan control.
The temps do display in CCC and seem to remain constant though when I shut down GPU-Z.

Good to know it's not just my experience I guess.

yeah, same experience with my sapphire hd6950@6970 here, sometimes fan spins up while in windows 2D idleing, and when trixx is running, CCC only shows PT and fan only.
i think that drivers and tools have to mature, than all this minor problems will have gone...the card is only ~2weeks available now...

 

[Yidaki]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/rumour-amd-preparing-revision-for-hd-6950-6970-/10569.html

 

[VinDog]

Hi all

New to the forum, compelled to join after just reading up on this 6950 mod to make it a fully fledged 6970...
Well, yesterday I ordered a 6970 without having this information available at the time, if I'd have known I would 110% ordered a 6950, possibly two!
But what concerns me here is UK consumer law, basically AMD are screwing us over by charging us upto £50-75 more for precisely the same product. Forget its a BIOS upgrade thats needed to unlock cores etc to make it a 6970 - it is the same product off the production line. I have an issue with this.
Firstly I am going to see if I can cancel my 6970 order. Hell I could have put that extra £60 directly to a X6 1100T instead of the X4 970 CPU I bought.
Secondly I am going to investigate the legalities of what AMD further and deeper and look to get an answer directly from them as to how they can have the audacity to operate this way, when laws protect the consumer (certainly here in the UK) from precisely this kind of thing.
Watch my space on this one...
Great for all you guys who paid £200-220 for a 6950 and now have a 6970, not so great for those who are throwing money away!

 

[Andrei23]

Good luck with bringing AMD down, I personally love them. I think I would have been pissed off too if I would have went for the 6970 just to find out I wasted money, glad I didn't though.

 

[erocker]

New to the forum, compelled to join after just reading up on this 6950 mod to make it a fully fledged 6970...
Well, yesterday I ordered a 6970 without having this information available at the time, if I'd have known I would 110% ordered a 6950, possibly two!
But what concerns me here is UK consumer law, basically AMD are screwing us over by charging us upto £50-75 more for precisely the same product. Forget its a BIOS upgrade thats needed to unlock cores etc to make it a 6970 - it is the same product off the production line. I have an issue with this.
Firstly I am going to see if I can cancel my 6970 order. Hell I could have put that extra £60 directly to a X6 1100T instead of the X4 970 CPU I bought.
Secondly I am going to investigate the legalities of what AMD further and deeper and look to get an answer directly from them as to how they can have the audacity to operate this way, when laws protect the consumer (certainly here in the UK) from precisely this kind of thing.
Watch my space on this one...
Great for all you guys who paid £200-220 for a 6950 and now have a 6970, not so great for those who are throwing money away!

Legality? Lol. I suppose one should do a little research before making a purchase. Does this extra 50 to 60 bucks come from VAT?

 

[VinDog]

Good luck with bringing AMD down, I personally love them. I think I would have been pissed off too if I would have went for the 6970 just to find out I wasted money, glad I didn't though.

Not looking to bring AMD down or anyone, but as I've written consumer laws in the UK that protect the consumer from being ripped off like that.

I can send my 6970 back if its too late to stop it being dispatched, BUT they will charge a restocking fee, then delivery again etc etc.

Overclockers are doing the 6950 for £214, cheapest 6970 was the one I bought from eBuyer at £277, £63 wasted it would seem.

 

[VinDog]

Legality? Lol. I suppose one should do a little research before making a purchase. Does this extra 50 to 60 bucks come from VAT?

A little research, lol, i've been researching these cards for months and held off on building a rig with a 5870, then the 6870 in order to build with a 6970, then xFire later on. I can only assume your statement is tongue in cheek.

I also went for AMD (again) as their products seemed to better suit my needs and budget, so yeach you could say its a little annoying

No the 50-60 is nothing to do with VAT it is to do with the pricing differences between the cards, see my last response...

 

[Anvirol]

Not looking to bring AMD down or anyone, but as I've written consumer laws in the UK that protect the consumer from being ripped off like that.

I can send my 6970 back if its too late to stop it being dispatched, BUT they will charge a restocking fee, then delivery again etc etc.

Overclockers are doing the 6950 for £214, cheapest 6970 was the one I bought from eBuyer at £277, £63 wasted it would seem.

In Finland you can return goods for free within 14 days and get a full refund..

Btw. here's my HIS 6950@70 CFX Benchmarks incase some people are interested

 

[bystander]

I'm noticing something odd, the core and memory clocks will jump up to the overclocked state (880/1375) while I'm just browsing or in the Windows desktop every couple of mins. It'll then drop down to the underclocked state of 250/150. I'm running the XFX 6950 with unlocked shaders and using Sapphire's Trixx to overclock the card. Anyone else experience this as I find it strange that the clocks would increase when I'm simply in the Windows desktop.

I thought it was doing this even when I had the 6950 bios. I assumed it was something new with the 10.12 drivers. I could be wrong.

 

[Fonill]

sad sad day.

Just got my sapphire 6950 in today from newegg.... winflash is unable to erase the bios. Any ideas?

 

[kalviper]

Just got my sapphire 6950 in today from newegg.... winflash is unable to erase the bios. Any ideas?

read from pg 1 and u will know why and how to solve it
anyway u need to do it the dos method

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Is this a thread for whining or for results, tweaks, advice and what not?

 

[bebyy]

For the people who need to unlockrom and fail at command line:

- Unpack the Winflash download onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
- Save the 6970 BIOS in your Winflash folder and name it unlock.bin
- Click Start Button
- 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".

try that

 

[PopcornMachine]

Just got my sapphire 6950 in today from newegg.... winflash is unable to erase the bios. Any ideas?

What was the error message?

You may have to use the command line method instead of the GUI.


EDIT: ^^^ what he said!

 

[bystander]

Is this a thread for whining or for results, tweaks, advice and what not?

The latter. Most people are happy, some have needed help, and someone offered a solution to the few who had artifact issues. It's a happy thread.

 

[Mike0409]

Anyone having issues with the driver freaking out? Causes the screen to flicker and go into the driver recovery.

Re-installed the driver and its just running the base 6970 clocks.

 

[Kuch24]

Hey everyone.

I just got through flashing my Gigabyte 6950 and running a few benchmarks and was wondering is the scores are close to what everyone has been seeing. They seem a bit low compared to some of the scores I've read on this forum. I've attached my findings in an excel doc. I upgraded from a nVidia GeForce GTX 285. If any additional info is required just let me know.

 

[ale86cuba]

hey guys....so i went from a 9800gtx oc to an asus 8400gs(because i sent my gtx to a friend overseas) waited for boxing week here in canada and bought a 6870 only to find out about this on the thread i made....anyhow i quickly got an RMA for the 6870 and went to buy a saphire 6950....did the flash the cmd way because it gave me the error "could not erase rom" and it seems to be flashed now according the gpuz....now this is my very first time with an ATI, ive always been an nvidia guy....how do i test for stability to make sure its running well? i downloaded furmark but do i need to select any specific settings before i hit go? thank you so much!!!

edit: ran furmark for 20 mins no artifacts....+0% power and temp averaged around 90C on auto fan control....also ran heaven with no probs....3dmark gave higher results with +10% power than with +20%, dunno why....thanks again!! this is sweet........

 

[abirdie4me]

I don't see my voltage in either GPU-Z or Afterburner, anyone else have this issue? I don't remember if it was there before I flashed to the 6970 bios.

 

[itsdanny]

It's fine.