XFX 6950 1GB Flash testing

[ChuckyD]

gazorp - the BIOS did not work for me - appears that the shaders may be hard-locked on the chip. Not sure that this is the case, so still looking for a way to approach this one......

TheSpacePope - If it is the ZNFC model then YES - you will have to remove the heatsink to get at the chip. Though, my understanding is that, for North American users, removing the heatsink DOES NOT void the XFX warranty.

As for the circuitwriter pen, I simply drew a trace from one pin to the other over the top of the chip. If you mess up in the process, then nail polish remover and a q-tip cleans it up pretty well.

 

[ThaSpacePope]

Chucky,

TY SIR! I wouldn't of even thought about writing on top of the chip!

As for removing the HSF, it may not remove the warranty, but i'm sure flashing the bios will.

 

[ChuckyD]

This thread suggests that warranty remains intact even beyond that:

http://forum.ncixus.com/forums/index.php?mode=showthread&msg_id=2283107&threadid=2283107&forum=101&product_id=57629&msgcount=16&overclockid=0

 

[cadaveca]

This thread suggests that warranty remains intact even beyond that:

http://forum.ncixus.com/forums/index.php?mode=showthread&msg_id=2283107&threadid=2283107&forum=101&product_id=57629&msgcount=16&overclockid=0

Yeah, what XFX says is just let them know you are replacing the cooler, and that's it.

Only North America gets the warranty where flashing BIOS, changing cooler, etc, is perfectly fine, but thier cards get distributed world-wide, so it actually saves them time/money to just put the stickers there for all regions, rather than for just the regions that need it. Makes for one assembly process for all cards, rather than seperate assembly for separate regions.

 

[ThaSpacePope]

With so many poor reviews of that card on newegg, you'd think xfx was a bad company. I don't think i've ever owned an xfx product, these will be my first

 

[cadaveca]

They don't really make the cards, they may chose what parts go on the PCB, and choose a custom PCB, but that's it.

Support can be good, or bad. Warranty is pretty spicy though...I gotta say I got my money's worth outta my warranty, for sure. went through like 8 different 5870's, then they sent me a 6950 2GB. Took months to deal with, but whatever.

Seems to be trending towards rev A.1 cards being the ones to have, here's hoping that's whut you get.

 

[20mmrain]

It appears some of the earlier 1gb versions have the switches. Also from the research I can gather which also includes me being the original owner of Erockers cards..... Some 1gb XFX cards can flash and some can't. But I was never able to narrow it down as too witch ones. That is why I never flashed the cards while I owned them.

 

[ThaSpacePope]

BTW, I just noticed that these xfx cards now come with STALKER: Call of pyriat in ADDITION to Dirt3. I just complained to newegg via their chat feature and got them to mail me the 2 free steam download coupons as I ordered these cards roughly 5 hours before this new deal went live. Worth a shot for anyone who ordered yesterday

 

[gazorp]

gazorp - the BIOS did not work for me - appears that the shaders may be hard-locked on the chip. Not sure that this is the case, so still looking for a way to approach this one......

TheSpacePope - If it is the ZNFC model then YES - you will have to remove the heatsink to get at the chip. Though, my understanding is that, for North American users, removing the heatsink DOES NOT void the XFX warranty.

As for the circuitwriter pen, I simply drew a trace from one pin to the other over the top of the chip. If you mess up in the process, then nail polish remover and a q-tip cleans it up pretty well.

I am confused how you can both have revision a.3 model ZNFC but one is unlockable and the other is not. Mine will be here on Wednesday and i will post my results.

 

[ChuckyD]

doesn't make sense to me either, but I can't seem to get the shaders to unlock - tried the RBE method, the W1zzard batch file method, other pre-modded BIOSs, but nothing worked.........so far...

Thoughts anyone?

 

[SlaveOnDope]

doesn't make sense to me either, but I can't seem to get the shaders to unlock - tried the RBE method, the W1zzard batch file method, other pre-modded BIOSs, but nothing worked.........so far...

Thoughts anyone?

You using atiflash -unlockrom then atiflash -f -p 0 unlock.rom?

 

[slippyrocks]

Hello all I would like to thank ChuckyD and SlaveOnDope for all the info.

I have two of the Rev. A3 ZNFC card and did the flash but no shaders would unlock.

I tried both W1zzard's unlock and the RBE mod methods.

The flash definitely took so I am not sure what is going on.

 

[SlaveOnDope]

Thats a shame slippyrock. While on the topic of these XFX's has anyone got a edited bios with CCC limits moved up/removed successfully? Mainly need to retain usage of 20% powertune and I know about the regedit but it conflicts with 2x5850's I have on the same system. Help would be much appreciated.

 

[gazorp]

It worked perfect for me! I did the mod, dumped original bios in gpuz, unlocked shaders and flashed in RBE. Do not make any other change in RBE.

I am now rocking with 1536 shaders!

WooHoo!

 

[ThaSpacePope]

It worked perfect for me! I did the mod, dumped original bios in gpuz, unlocked shaders and flashed in RBE. Do not make any other change in RBE.

I am now rocking with 1536 shaders!

WooHoo!

So you used the bios linked earlier in this thread after doing the hardware trace links of the pins? Mine come in tomorrow and i'll attempt to do what you've done if thats what you've done!

 

[gazorp]

I used a very small wire soldered from vcc to WE.

Then I did what w1zzard advised and got my bios from gpu-z, then i edited it in RBE to only enable shaders, nothing else. Finally, I flashed from from RBE.

 

[padrino]

Score so far:

XFX A.3 6950s

Hardware unlock successful and flashing all cards is no problem.

None have yielded more shaders yet, two more to try.

By the way, thanks for the excellent help in this thread!

 

[Telsin]

I literally tried unlocking and flashing every 6950 1024MB bios available on techpowerup.com's 'vga bios database'. I bricked it a few times but my trusty S3 Trio32 pci VGA card was always handy. Still hope some video card bios hacking guru needs a challenge and picks up this ones trail
Edit: sorry for double post

How did you get it unbricked, Snipes? My R3 failed to write the new bios last night, after erasing the old one, of course... Now win7 blue screens on a ATI driver trying to boot up wiht the card installed.

 

[Iam74Gibson]

How did you get it unbricked, Snipes? My R3 failed to write the new bios last night, after erasing the old one, of course... Now win7 blue screens on a ATI driver trying to boot up wiht the card installed.

Telsin, I had the same problem.... I ended up deleting the amdkmdag.sys drivers on the pc, also any references in the registry. ( I am senior tech support for a major company so I would not recommend this unless you know what you are doing)

This allowed me to get into windows... device manager showed the card, but RB/ATIwinflash said it could not find an ATI adapter.... so, I downloaded a DOS bootcd... I put ATIflash (dos based) and my original bios on a USB stick. I booted to DOS changed the drive to the USB and ran ATIflash -p 0 -f (biosname.rom)... if you just run ATIflash it will give you a list of options... the one above is -p = program -f = force 0=adapter number.. of course Biosname.rom is whatever you named the bios.

if you use ATIFlash -i.... it give you your cards current information. If it cannot find your card, then you have bigger issues.... hope this helps....

 

[Iam74Gibson]

A question for anyone else.... I have been following this thread... my card is an XFX 2gb model...
no switch, but I jumpered pins 3 and 8 on the SMT component. So it is writeable now.

This is my first attempt at unlocking a graphics card.. so sorry if this is a dumb question.... can I flash with a 1gb bios and change the setting somehow to 2gb? the reason I ask, is every 2gb bios I have tried has not worked... Before I realized it was a 1gb bios, I actually flashed the unlock.zip that Slave on Dope posted... it actually worked, sort of, the video was a little choppy. So I am thinking it needed to have the right memory size. Thanks everyone

 

[erocker]

A question for anyone else.... I have been following this thread... my card is an XFX 2gb model...
no switch, but I jumpered pins 3 and 8 on the SMT component. So it is writeable now.

This is my first attempt at unlocking a graphics card.. so sorry if this is a dumb question.... can I flash with a 1gb bios and change the setting somehow to 2gb? the reason I ask, is every 2gb bios I have tried has not worked... Before I realized it was a 1gb bios, I actually flashed the unlock.zip that Slave on Dope posted... it actually worked, sort of, the video was a little choppy. So I am thinking it needed to have the right memory size. Thanks everyone

Have you tried using your own bios with the unlock shader option in RBE? You didn't mention it. I'm pretty sure the 1gb cards use different timings for the VRAM and that would explain the choppines.

I ended up deleting the amdkmdag.sys drivers on the pc, also any references in the registry.

The latest Driver Sweeper will take care of that and any pertinent references in the registry with the exception of profile folders. The profile folders shouldn't make any difference. I've tested it several times with no ill effects and/or unecessary deletions. I find it good practice to uninstall video drivers before executing a bios flash.

 

[snipes420]

How did you get it unbricked, Snipes? My R3 failed to write the new bios last night, after erasing the old one, of course... Now win7 blue screens on a ATI driver trying to boot up wiht the card installed.

I followed a post on unbricking. It was basically this:
1: remove the bricked card from the slot.
2: boot with a working PCI card or with onboard video.
3: enter the bios and change video card order to use PCI card before PCIE
4: shut down and put PCIE card back in the slot.
5: boot up with monitor hooked to pci card as primary.
6: flash the bricked card with original bios.

I can find the actual post if you need it. just let me know.

I still havent been able to unlock my extra shaders anyway

Edit: This look like the one I used for reference: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/593427-how-unbrick-your-bricked-graphics-card.html

 

[Telsin]

Thanks for the ideas and links Iam74Gibson, Snipes420.

I made a dos boot disk and tried flashing from there, still no luck. Good thing I've still got a PCI vid card around At least it sees the card, but I'm getting a Write Error flashing the bios with nothing written, even from the original file I dumped with GPU-Z. I'm suspecting I didn't do a very good job jumpering the bios write protect with my circuitpen. I'll have to try cleaning it off and using a wire, see if it works any better for me.

 

[ThaSpacePope]

EDIT

So, after being unable to erase my rom, I found the following:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2134576&postcount=19

I went through all those steps, rebooted and found my card bricked. After reading this thread I rebooted with my other xfx6950 with bad card removed, uninstalled ALL AMD software, rebooted with both XFX6950s and no bluescreen.

After I got to this point I could successfully flash the bad card with the original.rom and I rebooted, installed CCC 11.6 and breathed a sigh of relief.

Not satisfied I loaded up RBE and loaded my original.rom I had initially saved. I went to the final tab and only changed "unlock shaders 6950 --> 6970". I saved it as edited.rom. Loaded up winflash and flashed the edited, rebooted and held my breath.

Upon reboot im showing 1536 shaders on the flashed card! I'm now 20 mins into furmark and seems stable!

 

[gazorp]

EDIT

So, after being unable to erase my rom, I found the following:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2134576&postcount=19

I went through all those steps, rebooted and found my card bricked. After reading this thread I rebooted with my other xfx6950 with bad card removed, uninstalled ALL AMD software, rebooted with both XFX6950s and no bluescreen.

After I got to this point I could successfully flash the bad card with the original.rom and I rebooted, installed CCC 11.6 and breathed a sigh of relief.

Not satisfied I loaded up RBE and loaded my original.rom I had initially saved. I went to the final tab and only changed "unlock shaders 6950 --> 6970". I saved it as edited.rom. Loaded up winflash and flashed the edited, rebooted and held my breath.

Upon reboot im showing 1536 shaders on the flashed card! I'm now 20 mins into furmark and seems stable!

Congrats! It sounds like you followed the steps i posted earlier exactly and they worked for you too. I believe most having problems are changing more than just the shader unlock in RBE. Lots of newbs think they are experts at everythi9ng and go tweaking everything possible and are surprised when something messes up...