How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[itsdanny]

Well, my card on my other rig so far looks good ... 2 weeks, 840/1325 on 20% powertune. No problems at all, 65c max on games on 45% fan.

This rig with the card, is at 920/1400 on 20% powertune as well, it's been a week. No problems yet, 70c max on 50% fan.



Only "problem" I'm getting is I'm assuming it's the DRIVERS, when I drag a folder/window, it gets trails behind / ghosting (like when you are in safe mode, and no drivers are loaded, etc, that laggy feel), does anyone get this or have any idea on how to get it fixed? I'm on the 10.12 drivers (XP)... Didn't have this problem with nVIDIA drivers... Any clue?

 

[HI.]

Hi to all this community. Im just here to give a hint of my knowledge over this thing. Im a student ending up my formation in electronic engineering. The Modded Bios: If truely just UNLOCK THE SHADER and do not touch voltage or timings, Will not have any effect on your card. Since 6970 bios does really upper the voltage the temp goes exponantial higher for each step of voltage... So as you guys speak of seeing 85 celcius dont get suprised. im using the stock card and i never been over 67 celcius, NEVER even with long testing. I got an Antec 900 first version and this tower isnt the best cooling i know of, how the hell you guys manage to reach 88-90?? dont ask, the modded bios...

 

[itsdanny]

Hi to all this community. Im just here to give a hint of my knowledge over this thing. Im a student ending up my formation in electronic engineering. The Modded Bios: If truely just UNLOCK THE SHADER and do not touch voltage or timings, Will not have any effect on your card. Since 6970 bios does really upper the voltage the temp goes exponantial higher for each step of voltage... So as you guys speak of seeing 85 celcius dont get suprised. im using the stock card and i never been over 67 celcius, NEVER even with long testing. I got an Antec 900 first version and this tower isnt the best cooling i know of, how the hell you guys manage to reach 88-90?? dont ask, the modded bios...

Well, what are your fan settings? Was it on auto, or did you have it fixed, or was it on a profile curve? I know a few people with the modded BIOS at full GPU load and auto fan that reach 80-85c.

 

[baud]

Well, my card on my other rig so far looks good ... 2 weeks, 840/1325 on 20% powertune. No problems at all, 65c max on games on 45% fan.

This rig with the card, is at 920/1400 on 20% powertune as well, it's been a week. No problems yet, 70c max on 50% fan.



Only "problem" I'm getting is I'm assuming it's the DRIVERS, when I drag a folder/window, it gets trails behind / ghosting (like when you are in safe mode, and no drivers are loaded, etc, that laggy feel), does anyone get this or have any idea on how to get it fixed? I'm on the 10.12 drivers (XP)... Didn't have this problem with nVIDIA drivers... Any clue?

I had a ghosting problem too, but only after i uninstalled Smart Doctor. Once I reinstalled it and left it running at startup, the weirdness went away. No other problems since then.

 

[HI.]

i've seen throught the thread some people posting about over 80+ temps. maybe in crossfire.. but how. how in a single gpu unit would u reach this. im now using a fan curve setup. But when i got this card out of the box, it was on its own. With CCC. Im using Trixxx with the stock Bios..

edit: (840/1300) with 67 celcius. Btw any1 knows the MAXIMUM temperature should the card handle ?

 

[manofthem]

edit: (840/1300) with 67 celcius. Btw any1 knows the MAXIMUM temperature should the card handle ?

I just read about the card getting up to 92C on Furmark. I'm not sure personally though.

 

[f0d]

f0d: Have you tried running Battlefield Vietnam without MSI Afterburner running in the background?.

I think I noticed the same problem but next time I ran the game (with afterburner closed) I didn't notice it any more. Are the problems people having only with BFBC2/Vietnam? seems like it.

just tried it then

and yes even as a 6950 and afterburner closed it still artifacts

i've seen throught the thread some people posting about over 80+ temps. maybe in crossfire.. but how. how in a single gpu unit would u reach this. im now using a fan curve setup. But when i got this card out of the box, it was on its own. With CCC. Im using Trixxx with the stock Bios..

edit: (840/1300) with 67 celcius. Btw any1 knows the MAXIMUM temperature should the card handle ?

i read somewhere just before (cant find it now) that its something like 100degrees
heres a chart from anandtech showing temps in crysis (is that ok? i couldnt find a techpowerup reference)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/24

upto 89 degrees in crossfire and 75 degrees for the 6950
furmark was 90's for crossfire and 80's for single card
i have a fan curve that keeps it at about 74 or below - after 74 it gets crazy, i made it ramp to 100%@85 degrees. i really dont care about noise - thats what headphones are for

 

[manofthem]

edit: (840/1300) with 67 celcius. Btw any1 knows the MAXIMUM temperature should the card handle ?

I just ran the Furmark 1.8.2, and the max I hit was 91C. I ran it for like 15 minutes. That's with a default bios, auto fan settings, and +10% power in CCC.

 

[HI.]

i have a fan curve that keeps it at about 74 or below - after 74 it gets crazy, i made it ramp to 100%@85 degrees. i really dont care about noise - thats what headphones are for

Hmm what case are u using. do you got Alot of cables in the way in your computer case? Do you live in africa where temps are higher? what bios are you running? my curve reach's 100% fan at 82 celcius. but fan never gone over 40-55 %. there must be something..

 

[HI.]

and +10% power in CCC.

power is voltage. again same as my preview post.

 

[manofthem]

power is voltage. again same as my preview post.

I have the Xclio Blackhawk Advanced case.

Most of the cables are at the bottom and not too intrusive I believe... Any suggestions.
Do you think my temps are too high in Furmark?

 

[HI.]

I have the Xclio Blackhawk Advanced case.
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc208/manofthem/IMG_0572.jpg
Most of the cables are at the bottom and not too intrusive I believe... Any suggestions.
Do you think my temps are too high in Furmark?

Last but not least. Are you overclocked to be at +10%,
if not why are you +10
overclocking as we all know uppers the temps quickly aswell.

 

[manofthem]

Last but not least. Are you overclocked to be at +10%,
if not why are you +10
overclocking as we all know uppers the temps quickly aswell.

I had the +10 when I had the other bios loaded. I just switched back a little bit ago, never changed anything in CCC yet. I went back to the default bios since other were saying they ran into problems. I am planning to loaded the modded bios which unlocks the shaders (which I have ready, just haven't loaded it yet) and OC the GPU clock some but keep the memory at the default speed for now.

 

[f0d]

Hmm what case are u using. do you got Alot of cables in the way in your computer case? Do you live in africa where temps are higher? what bios are you running? my curve reach's 100% fan at 82 celcius. but fan never gone over 40-55 %. there must be something..

my fan usually sits around 60% because im in australia and its about 30degrees air temp inside now - the gpu never gets past 75 because of the fan curve i set
fan curve

my case is a thermaltake kandalf LCS - its freakin huge (11 drive bays in the front) and no cables in the way its all cable managed - 8 fans (5 intake 3 exhaust)

i was running the 6970 bios but now im back to the standard 6950 bios that came with it (i backed it up) and all at stock speeds

 

[HI.]

Just stay tuned im currently running a Fur 1.8.2 1920-1080 4x msaa for a 15 minute to show you... what i meant for the temperature..

 

[Whilhelm]

In case your card does not boot at all you can use AMD's new backup BIOS feature:
Set the BIOS switch (pictured above) in the 2 position to enable the recovery BIOS and restart the computer. This will let you boot the card without problems.
Boot into Windows/DOS prompt and get ready to flash the card - do not start the flashing process just yet.
Set the BIOS switch in the 1 position with the system running and ready to flash.
Flash your saved BIOS to the card.
Reboot, done.

My system blue screened when I was attempting to flash an unlocked shader bios onto the card. Now I get no display from bios #1. I was using ATI WIN flash at the time and have done it several times without issue. Something went wrong this time and I don't know how to get bios 1 working again.

I understand that I can use the backup bios to recover the card. But I do not understand what I am supposed to do at the above steps colored in red. Do I use ATI flash to do this? Can anyone give me an idea as to how to do this? Thanks.

 

[ALBPM]

I flashed my 2 Sapphire cards with the unlocked 6950 Sapphire bios back on Dec. 29 and have been running both at 840/1300 with no problems.
My Top card has only hit 74 degrees and bottom maxes out around 65 degrees using the 10.12a driver and fans on Auto..

My only problem so far is trying to get Trixx to work. I get a BSOD even setting it to the default 800/1250...???

I did a search and found the thread on setting "enableulps" to 0 in the registry and got Trixx working finally....
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=133783&highlight=trixx&page=2

Now running at 880/1325. Top card got to 67 degrees max, bottom card got up to 74 degrees max after an hour of gaming with fans on the default auto setting.
So, I'm finally getting more usage out of the bottom card with "enableulps" disabled.

 

[HI.]

there we go. Hope it can enlight you guys.

 

[itsdanny]

My system blue screened when I was attempting to flash an unlocked shader bios onto the card. Now I get no display from bios #1. I was using ATI WIN flash at the time and have done it several times without issue. Something went wrong this time and I don't know how to get bios 1 working again.

I understand that I can use the backup bios to recover the card. But I do not understand what I am supposed to do at the above steps colored in red. Do I use ATI flash to do this? Can anyone give me an idea as to how to do this? Thanks.

It's funny, because I also had the same misunderstanding or not being able to understand that as well a week ago or so. And W1zzard was all like, everything is there and is clear, when I just needed a further explanation.

But yes, you do. You can use any app to flash your old (backup) BIOS with. Basically, if you are unable to get into Windows or POST, you flip the switch to "2", which is the read-only BIOS and you should be able to get in now as that is the default BIOS. After, you would prepare all the flashing tools and what not to flash back to your old (backup) BIOS, but you don't initiate the actual flashing process yet TILL you flip the switch back to "1"; which is the BIOS that "went wrong". After it is on the "1" switch, initiate and flash away!

Hope that helps! :O

 

[Crew883]

can somoene help please?

I hate to double post this, but I think it got lost in the last page...

I have a few quick questions that hopefully you guys can help me wrap my head around.

I modded my XFX 6950 bios from the tool used earlier in the thread, and I am only running my clocks at the max allowed by CCC 840 and 1270 on the memory because I am worried about what I have heard about the memory failing . Card runs max 60c in BC2 and other games over the course of a gaming night.

So: 1. How dangerous are my settings for the card? 2. Do I need to have extra power going (via power tune) to the card from CCC if I am just running the modded 6950 extra shaders with 840 clocks??

Thanks to the people who put this together too, everything was easy to do and setup.

 

[itsdanny]

@Crew883, I did indirectly answer your question, don't worry about it too much. If you're worrying too much, don't attempt it...

 

[Whilhelm]

Ok thanks so much for the info. I saved the backup bios using ATI WInflash and booted it with the switch in the 2 position. When at the command prompt I switched it to 1 position and typed atiflash -p 0 bios.rom and I am just getting Adapter not Found Error 0FL01

I followed the steps exactly and now I am stuck.

 

[itsdanny]

Ok thanks so much for the info. I saved the backup bios using ATI WInflash and booted it with the switch in the 2 position. When at the command prompt I switched it to 1 position and typed atiflash -p 0 bios.rom and I am just getting Adapter not Found Error 0FL01

I followed the steps exactly and now I am stuck.

Which one are you trying to apply? The 6950 -> 6970 flash (with unlocked shaders)? Or flashing to the modified 6950 (with unlocked shaders)?

If the 6950 -> 6970 flash, use the batch script that does it ALL for you! And it makes a backup as well! http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1920/HD_6950_to_HD_6970_Flashing_Tools.html

Otherwise, if flashing to the modified 6950, use this:
http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip

It should be fairly straight forward (read the batch file), otherwise post back again!

 

[Crew883]

@Crew883, I did indirectly answer your question, don't worry about it too much. If you're worrying too much, don't attempt it...

ok I see now thanks will the ccc power tune yield anything though? is it under powered for those clocks as i am right now?

 

[itsdanny]

ok I see now thanks will the ccc power tune yield anything though? is it under powered for those clocks as i am right now?

Nope, it should be fine. But if you want maximum performance, put the slider at 20%. Some users have left feedback that 20% power gives a worse benchmark score, than on 10%. See whatever works best for you. Basically, increasing the power, will prevent throttling and remain stable.