How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[arroyo]

kronowolf, if you flashed to HD6970 bios, your card will be dead in a couple of days. Trust me

Flash it to the unlocked HD6950 bios as soon ass possible and pray if the HD6970 bios didn't damaged your memory chips.

 

[davetheshrew]

^^ thats wrong, 0.1mv will not damage ram, jeez

ive been running mine since 26th dec with many 6970 bioses and havent had even a hint of trouble, its just some cards arent cut out for unlocking shaders and high reference clocks. I know a bunch that have unlocked and couldnt run at those oc's so they clock down a little, problem solved but the card is crap compared to a decent unlocked one, I can bench all day long at 1.325mv 1000/1475 and all is well, some others cant.

 

[kronowolf]

I've had my 6950 since January 2 with nary a problem. BC2, Just Cause 2, Crysis, Warhead, Metro 2033, Pripyat -- you name it, this card runs it without breaking a sweat.

I installed Sapphire TriXX and enabled a more aggressive fan curve such that temps never go above 65-70C, even during Extreme Burning Mode in FurMark. I've done everything possible to safeguard the card, and in turn haven't had any major issues -- except for this damn stuttering.

Would it help if I loaded Fraps/Xfire and made a video of the stuttering I'm seeing?

 

[davetheshrew]

the stuttering might be down to your fan profiles refreshing, try setting your fan speed in ccc only and give it a run, im 99% sure your stutter will dissapear infact try turning everything off exept ccc and give it a go but try the fan profiles first

 

[arroyo]

Ok, let's call it like that. For the first week of January there were no problems with selling HD6950. We sold them more than any other card since TPU article about overclocking. Since 3 days we got about 30% of this cards returned with artifacting problem. Not all users said that they were modifying their cards with HD6970 bios but some of them confested to that.

Now we are applying our shop warranty sticker on BIOS switch with switch at position 2.

I have about 17 dead because of artifacting HD6950 cards on storeroom (all of them are artifacting with default bios).

 

[kronowolf]

the stuttering might be down to your fan profiles refreshing, try setting your fan speed in ccc only and give it a run, im 99% sure your stutter will dissapear infact try turning everything off exept ccc and give it a go but try the fan profiles first

I disabled TriXX and set CCC to 880/1375/+20%/manual 40% fan speed. ZDoom still stutters.

I'll report back with the results from my testing.

@arroyo: I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct. I know some people have had good luck with their cards, but I imagine many others haven't. For my part, all I can say is that while I've had good luck so far, something has felt off about this hack since day one -- the card has never felt 100% stable or smooth, so *something* is amiss.

 

[davetheshrew]

that may all be well and true but I bet at least a third are totally fine, people return cards for all sorts of reasons and just say 'artifacting', I bet a few more are ok because they last minute decided to get a gtx570 etc etc etc, the ones that are dead dead more than likely doomed sub-par cards before the flash, 17 cards, how many did you sell?

 

[Nuppi]

Somwhere in this thread, someone posted the tool for modification of oryginal HD6950 bios. And i'm 100% there was a modded Asus HD6950 bios.

I've send a email to W1zzard about his article that it needs to be rewrited, because this can made more harm than good.

Ok.
Thanks for the heads up mate!
Will study some more before flashing my asus.
Maybe ill just get some shaders unlocked and nothing else. If thats safe? and gives some performance boost?

Too bad if just over 100mhz increase in memory speed will brick the card :/

 

[Mark22]

@Nuppi

I flashed my asus to the unlocked shaders version of the asus 6950 bios. Look through this thread and it's somewhere back there. I then use smart doctor to enable overclocking. I use ccc to run the card at 880 ad 1300mem. This causes no problems and gets a 3Dmark11 score of 5058, 6 less than if the memory is at 1375. I use afterburner to set a fan curve to keep temps low as well.

 

[kronowolf]

I disabled TriXX and set CCC to 880/1375/+20%/manual 40% fan speed. ZDoom still stutters.

I tested again with Bad Company 2 on Cold War (campaign level 2) and was not able to reproduce the stuttering. The stutter also appears to be gone in ZDoom and Minecraft.

I'm pretty positive TriXX was completely shut down last time I tested. Otherwise, all that's changed is giving it about an hour or so to sit at 880/1375/+20%. I can't really figure how letting the card sit a spell would magically make the stutter go away.

I'll report back if it resurfaces. Still not feeling 100% settled about all of this.

 

[GSG-9]

@Nuppi

...Look through this thread and it's somewhere back there....

Until someone stickys it:

Here is the quote

It's probably safest to use the scrip posted earlier in this thread to modify your exact bios. That just leaves out any room for other problems such as different cards and/or manufacturers using different ram chips with slightly different specs. Just an idea.
You can download the script here: http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip
Put your original bios in the folder and call it original.bin then run the script to modify your stock bios. After that, use the other scrips in the first post on this thread to flash your card with the modded bios.

 

[Nuppi]

Thanks guys

 

[manofthem]

A little off topic, what is a good score for a 6950 with default bios in 3DMark 11? I'm wondering to compare mine to.

 

[Wijkert]

A little off topic, what is a good score for a 6950 with default bios in 3DMark 11? I'm wondering to compare mine to.

Between 4000 and 5000. It depends on the rest of your system though.

 

[kronowolf]

A little off topic, what is a good score for a 6950 with default bios in 3DMark 11? I'm wondering to compare mine to.

Lots of little factors make it impossible to give a definitive number. The 3DMark score is worthless here because it factors in the Physics Score, and that depends primarily on CPU speed.

For what it's worth, though, I ran 3DMark 11 Performance (P) on my stock 6950 and got the following results:
Graphics Score - 4294
GraphicsTest1 - 18.99 fps
GraphicsTest2 - 21.82 FPS
GraphicsTest3 - 26.94 FPS
GraphicsTest4 - 12.72 FPS

 

[tecnoworld]

I fired one question on the RBE thread, but didn't get a specific reply. I started thinking that GPU voltage and memory voltage are somehow connected. This is why I started thinking about this:

card GPU memory
6950 1.1 ---- 1.5
6970 1.175 -- 1.6

same proportion (both about 6,7% more for 6970)

if this is the case, also overvolting the GPU from RBE or any other tool (such as SD) would also increase memory voltage thus potentially harming it.

Any hint about this?

 

[manofthem]

Between 4000 and 5000. It depends on the rest of your system though.

Thanks. Im right in line then. I had like P4718, but that was when I had the 6970 bios with +10%. I need to run it again when I get home on default 6950 and then with the modded 6950 w/ shaders.

 

[Shrike]

Hey guys,

another question:
I modded my 6950 to full 6970 but it started crashing, so i switched to the modded 6950(free shaders) and its currently running @840, 1325 nicely.
So my vram couldnt stand the 6970 specs, as there are 1.175v and other timings(?)

When a new Afterburnerversion comes out with which i can rise the core clock and core voltages ect. and i change the voltage to 1.175 is my vram in dangern once again or does this voltagechange only affect the gpu?
Should i stay at lets say 1.125 and see how far i can rise the core clock?
Or can i go the full 1.175 or even more if the cooling is good enough without damaging my vram?

Thanks

Shrike

PS: i got Graphics score 4590 with standard and 4747 witch unlocked shaders and 840, 1325 MHz, but my q6700@3.33 GHz might have slowed down the process....

 

[gungstar]

crossflashed two sapphire 6950, only one stable after

 

[AstroBounce]

Should I unlock?

I'm going to assemble my PC this weekend and got this card in 2 weeks ago. Would you guys recommend that I unlock my card? It is of Sapphire Brand. I'm worried about the various problems I'm reading in this thread; like artifact problems. I'm not as tech savvy as some people and may have a a hard time fixing problems should a problem occur in the first place.

 

[manofthem]

Definitely consider flashing with a modded 6950 bios that unlocks the shaders. Check out post #1111 where it shows how to do it and has a link. But too many reports of a 6970 flash with negative side affects.

 

[Super XP]

Hey guys I Google searched for the new ATI/AMD Cat drivers and got this. What do you think, could this be the new CAT Drivers (cat_11.**) because they do look ferocious or should I say it looks ferocious. If this style of CAT drivers has anything to do with the CAT 11.**, then ATI/AMD may have a vicious winner on its hands.

ATI's New CAT 11.**'s

The CAT 10.0 to 10.12 look like they are resting after a long hard but successful year, preparing for the new CAT 11's. If you count the braw's we are looking at CAT 11.0 to 11.8

 

[AstroBounce]

@manofthem
Same process as modding w/ 6970 Bios?

 

[manofthem]

@manofthem
Same process as modding w/ 6970 Bios?

Same process as flashing, but I was referring to link which showed how to take a copy of your original bios and modd it.

 

[AstroBounce]

Same process as flashing, but I was referring to link which showed how to take a copy of your original bios and modd it.

Ok so I should make a copy (atiwinflash) of my original Bios. Save it into that folder of downloadable link. Run it to mod the bios. Then use the flashing process described in the first post for the 6970? Sorry I'm just a little confused at the moment.