How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[dulemk]

Tried searching all the pages in here and didn't find any information about artifacts. But, I seem to be getting some, however only noticeable in WoW (ran 3DMark 11, Bad Company 2, and WoW). Turning of Vsync in world of warcraft helped a lot, but when I came across a fire zone I saw artifacts again. Previously it was on a lot of objects including the sky and windows, but vsync off fixed all that. See attached image and link to video so you can see my temps, speeds, voltage, and in the video the artifacts i'm talking about. Yes flashing back to 6950 fixes it, dropping clocks does not fix it on the Sapphire 6970 bios (the one im using), tried bumping voltages up by .05 from 1.15 up to 2.15 then stopped as i didn't want to go too high. Any ideas? Where is this 6950 modded bios everyone is talking about?

MSI AB Image: http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/2282/artifact695070.jpg
Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFcI34Q4ryc

The video isn't good quality, but just watch and you will see the flickering, it's very noticeable, especially the large fullscreen flicker near the end.

edit: also PT is at +20% fyi
edit2: should note it only artifacts in this zone using large amounts of fire, no where else that I have noticed yet. But, again, flashing back to 6950 original bios solves it. Hmm, bad card?

Wow man, you want to instant kill your card and maybe your pc.
You should not go above 1.4v, at above 2v your gpu could explode.

And if you are using rbe try to change vid3 or vid4, one of them is your 3d voltage.
Mine was vid3.

 

[manofthem]

You still running stock cooling Manofthem?

56c/58% while in a game seems very low..

my gpus @ 65c/55%fan idle without an OC... only shaders unlocked..

Yes I'm on stock cooler. The 56*C/58%fan was while the new CoD game, but while running Crysis temps and fans go up some more. But my case has has lots of fans, which helps keep it cool. Your gpu seems like it's high in idle though. Are you running 2 in CF?

 

[CXX]

Hi to everybody, and thanks to wizard, dave and all who contributed to this great forum. Ten days ago, I have got a Sapphire HD6950 2GB, and discovered this forum last week. Then first succesfully converted to 6970. I witnessed no problems though next day I was scared after reading some bad experiences here and just unlocked 6950 shaders. Still no problems.
MSI Afterburner core voltage setting doesn't work on my card, it simply is ineffective. This may be due to the fact that my core voltage register seem to be VID3, and MSI may be using VID4. It is probable that this may be rectified by using an MSI 6950 BIOS. That also may be an immutable harware setting. I don't know. I may try the MSI 6950 BIOS, but I don't have it. If any of you have one, may you please post it here?

 

[GSG-9]

So let me throw down a little something:
Playing Black Ops campaign just now, right about an hour when my pc locks up, had to reset. So I check my GPU-Z log, and it was at 56*C/58% fan when it locked up. 950/1435@1.25v modded bios. I've passed 3DMark11 and Furmark tests.

Any ideas why it happened? Not over heating... Maybe just too much OC?

Games tax your computer differently than benchmarks, I would say it is just a little to much of an oc at that voltage. I was running mine at 940 for a while but it is not stable over time, 900 runs great though, I would say lower your clock slowly until it is stable.

Sorry guys,may be I missing something ,but, I used a W1zzard tutorial For unlocking shaders and clocks.So my Q is- Why Voltage is not working in MSI AB,no matter if I increase V or put it down, Furmark shows the Same 1.175 V.Any idea???? may be I need just flash it to 6970 bios, to take effect? Cos at stock everything works fine, modded I lost Voltage control and can't pass CCC limit even if I enable unofficial overclocking .930/1400 this is highest I 've got stable,without Voltage increase for CF.Need advise please, GURU HELP PLEASE.

I have not been able to change the voltage in AfterBurner either and I am on the 6970 bios, I just decided I don't need it.

One offtopic question gentlemans:

Do you know, if it's possible to remove the vapor chamber from HD6950 cooler without removing the metal base of the cooler? I want to apply Accelero S1 on my GPU and I want to have stock cooled VRM and memory. At the backside of the cooler it looks like vapor chamber is attached separately.

I can't answer but I want to apply new past to mine as well so if you find out or do it and document you should post your findings!

 

[manofthem]

Games tax your computer differently than benchmarks, I would say it is just a little to much of an oc at that voltage. I was running mine at 940 for a while but it is not stable over time, 900 runs great though, I would say lower your clock slowly until it is stable:

think you're right. 900 was definitely stable for me. What voltage are you at for 900?

Is there any difference 'stability wise' between raising Voltage to the same point using RBE or MSIAB?

 

[dom99]

I hit 920MHz on 1.175V, recon I could go loads higher though

 

[Mark22]

I hit 920MHz on 1.175V, recon I could go loads higher though

This is about my limit so far with 1.175, I lowered to 910/1475 and no probs so far. TBH this runs games pretty damn great but still want to push a bit further fo benches etc.

 

[GSG-9]

think you're right. 900 was definitely stable for me. What voltage are you at for 900?
Is there any difference 'stability wise' between raising Voltage to the same point using RBE or MSIAB?

I hit 920MHz on 1.175V, recon I could go loads higher though

This is about my limit so far with 1.175, I lowered to 910/1475 and no probs so far. TBH this runs games pretty damn great but still want to push a bit further fo benches etc.

Stock 1.175V, It would run at 950mhz for a short time (5min?) in games, then crash hard (My xfi would go to 100% volume with white noise on all speakers.).
930mhz it would crash sometimes, mostly a driver stopped responding, my games did not even crash though, just pause and recover over like 5-10sec.
So I dropped it to 900mhz and I have had 0 issues since.

 

[manofthem]

Stock 1.175V, It would run at 950mhz for a short time (5min?) in games, then crash hard (My xfi would go to 100% volume with white noise on all speakers.).
930mhz it would crash sometimes, mostly a driver stopped responding, my games did not even crash though, just pause and recover over like 5-10sec.
So I dropped it to 900mhz and I have had 0 issues since.

Since you're stock voltage is 1.175v, I take it you're running the 6970 bios? Any problems at all this far?

 

[manofthem]

I have not been able to change the voltage in AfterBurner either and I am on the 6970 bios, I just decided I don't need it.

I remember when AB beta 6 came out, there was a note saying that voltage adjustability would not work on 6950 with 6970 bios. It had to be stock of modded 6950 bios to be able to adjust voltage. Dont know if beta 7 changed it or not, likely not.

 

[GSG-9]

Since you're stock voltage is 1.175v, I take it you're running the 6970 bios? Any problems at all this far?

None thus far.

I remember when AB beta 6 came out, there was a note saying that voltage adjustability would not work on 6950 with 6970 bios. It had to be stock of modded 6950 bios to be able to adjust voltage. Dont know if beta 7 changed it or not, likely not.

They could be a reason to go back to the 6950 bios, and if I can up the voltage for the core it should be similar performance.

 

[icedragn43]

Wow man, you want to instant kill your card and maybe your pc.
You should not go above 1.4v, at above 2v your gpu could explode.

And if you are using rbe try to change vid3 or vid4, one of them is your 3d voltage.
Mine was vid3.

Well seeing as none of the voltage changes helped (for vCore) I don't think I will raise them at all, was jut a suggestion and yeah I guess I probably did go really high.

I used to have similar problem in F1 2010 with 6970 BIOS, it is gone when reverted back to 6950 unlocked shader bios.
I think this is some kind of mem voltage in 6970 bios.

Can I change the voltages for vMem in RBE?


edit: looks like RBE v1.27 doesn't support this Bios? Boot and High Performance voltages dont even show, they show as "--" and performance mode 3 is "unknown" in the list box, def not touching anything in here and I don't see vMem voltages.

edit2:
P4437 - 6950 +20%
P4572 - 6950 +20% @ 840/1325
P4686 - 6950 Modded Bios @ 840/1325 +20%
P4914 - 6970 shaders/clocks (880/1375) +20%

My results with the various bios/clocks.

Modding the 6950 bios seems to have stopped the artifacting, but the performance drop is steep. is the 40mhz/50mhz core/mem really make the difference? or is it the SIMD units not being unlocked or w.e someone else in this threat was speculating about when not using a true 6970 bios? Please let me know if anyone knows how to mod a 6970 bios to use 6950 vmem.

 

[DJManiac]

Can I change the voltages for vMem in RBE?
edit: looks like RBE v1.27 doesn't support this Bios? Boot and High Performance voltages dont even show, they show as "--" and performance mode 3 is "unknown" in the list box, def not touching anything in here and I don't see vMem voltages.

Vmem - NO!

Vgpu - YES - As this thread said it very (very) often: Klick on GPU Register.
If you use a 6970 BIOS it mostly VID4 (1175mV) which is to change for more Vgpu....

 

[manofthem]

Stock 1.175V, It would run at 950mhz for a short time (5min?) in games, then crash hard (My xfi would go to 100% volume with white noise on all speakers.).
930mhz it would crash sometimes, mostly a driver stopped responding, my games did not even crash though, just pause and recover over like 5-10sec.
So I dropped it to 900mhz and I have had 0 issues since.

Well, I dropped in the 6970 bios and OC'd to 900/1425 on the 1.175v. Ran fine and did some benchmarks. So for kicks, I loaded the modded 6950 bios at 1.175v (RBE) with the same clocks and got pretty much the same results.

Looks like I'll be keeping the modded 6950 bios, even though very few actually have problems with the 6970 bios. And I've decided to keep a relatively mild OC because I'm getting tired of trying to get it higher. (i think a "good for you" comment is in order from someone, ha)

 

[itsdanny]

They could be a reason to go back to the 6950 bios, and if I can up the voltage for the core it should be similar performance.

You can add the chip entry bytes to the configuration file and that would work fine if the chip is supported (haven't seen one fail with this yet).

 

[Myrthain]

You need to download and use the script I posted a link to in step 3 to flash your bios instead of using Winflash directly. Download that script, rename your modded bios to "unlock.bin", copy it into the "winflash" folder (which is inside the folder you extract this script to), then run "flash_to_6970.bat"

Hey, thank you for your convenient summary. It helped me successfully unlocking my shaders on my Asus card. But it would be nice if you can add the part about renaming and swapping the bios file to your description. I was afraid enough about the whole part that i carefully read the script file at first, but others might not be and end up with a result they did not plan. Thank you.

 

[nycsnakeeyes]

hey all ! i tried running ATI Winflash first it says i need to be in admin mode which gives me no option to choose, then it says its missing a critical file. ive redownloaded this 3x. with the 9 radeon cards not working with this update on ur stats im nervous man. LOL. help me !! thanx

 

[Wijkert]

Looks like I'll be keeping the modded 6950 bios, even though very few actually have problems with the 6970 bios. And I've decided to keep a relatively mild OC because I'm getting tired of trying to get it higher. (i think a "good for you" comment is in order from someone, ha)

Good for you!

I have been looping test 4 of 3dmark11 for stability tests. It seems that on 1.175v at 920 it crashes(drivers stopped working) after about half an hour, but on 915 it doesn't. The games that I have tested are also stable at 915. On 1.250v 950 crashes after 15min but at 940 it doesn't.

I have noted three aditional things:
- If you keep you temps under 82 degrees you can OC your core about 10-15 mhz higher. I don't think that the noise level is worth it though. Maybe the fact that your card might live longer is worth considdering.
- Overlocking you mem is't realy worth it. An OC of +125mhz will give you about 35 points more in 3dmark11. At 1250 the mem is already fast anough compared to a core clock of lets say 940.
- Turning powerplay to +12 or +20% does't seem worth it either. Only in the furmark bench does it give you a significant higher score. It doesnt in 3dmark11/Vantage or in games. It will make your card a little bit hotter, so I don't think it is worth the trouble. Maybe for realy high OC's it is usefull to get it stable(not even shure about this though) but you would need good cooling for that.

 

[GSG-9]

Good for you!
- Turning powerplay to +12 or +20% does't seem worth it either. Only in the furmark bench does it give you a significant higher score. It doesnt in 3dmark11/Vantage or in games. It will make your card a little bit hotter, so I don't think it is worth the trouble. Maybe for realy high OC's it is usefull to get it stable(not even shure about this though) but you would need good cooling for that.

Thanks for that, I did not realize I was not getting a performance increase in games from the Power increase.

 

[Erik9519]

Hi guys,
I have just unlocked my ASUS 6950 to a 6970 with the ASUS OC bios and is working very well but now SmartDoctor say an error and it won't start and another problem is that I cannot set voltage.Is there any fix for these error?
I have tried this script too and it work but in Ungine Heaven I have tried to do a benchmark with 6970 clock and it get about 30FPS but with the 6970 bios it get 32-33.

 

[manofthem]

Good for you!

I have been looping test 4 of 3dmark11 for stability tests. It seems that on 1.175v at 920 it crashes(drivers stopped working) after about half an hour, but on 915 it doesn't. The games that I have tested are also stable at 915. On 1.250v 950 crashes after 15min but at 940 it doesn't.

I have noted three aditional things:
- If you keep you temps under 82 degrees you can OC your core about 10-15 mhz higher. I don't think that the noise level is worth it though. Maybe the fact that your card might live longer is worth considdering.
- Overlocking you mem is't realy worth it. An OC of +125mhz will give you about 35 points more in 3dmark11. At 1250 the mem is already fast anough compared to a core clock of lets say 940.
- Turning powerplay to +12 or +20% does't seem worth it either. Only in the furmark bench does it give you a significant higher score. It doesnt in 3dmark11/Vantage or in games. It will make your card a little bit hotter, so I don't think it is worth the trouble. Maybe for realy high OC's it is usefull to get it stable(not even shure about this though) but you would need good cooling for that.

I think your points are all valid and true! Well said and many should listen to this.

Ive decided a card that will be alive longer is more important in the long run, especially since I want to xfire. i'll probably turn down the memory a little to be closer to 1375-1400.

And with the +12-20%, its like you said, the only difference I see is in Furmark. When I try to use it in 3DMark11, seems that after the test it's set back to 0, no matter what program for OCing (trixx or msiab). Thanks for the tips

 

[vargus]

Hey all, just got a new Gigabyte HD6950 and have been attempting to unlock the shaders and up the default clock rates to 6970 standards. However, I've run into some problems accomplishing this. The card seems to be really touchy about higher voltages; I can't even get it stable on 1.175 with default 6970 clocks (880/1375, I think). If I set the voltage to that via the pre-existing 6970 BIOS or modding a 6950 BIOS in RBE, the card freezes up even when I'm playing Flash videos in a browser. At this point it kind of seems like I'm hosed for getting this unlocked to 6970 speeds. I can try lowering the voltage, but with the higher clocks, wouldn't that make it even more unstable? If it makes a difference, I'm using a Thermaltake 750W modular PSU that's supposedly got 85-90% efficiency, surely that would be enough?

Any insight would be appreciated, as I am, admittedly, a bit of an overclocking and tweaking noob.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I put the power use to +20% in CC, would that be making enough of a difference to cause it to crash consistently?

 

[manofthem]

Hey all, just got a new Gigabyte HD6950 and have been attempting to unlock the shaders and up the default clock rates to 6970 standards. However, I've run into some problems accomplishing this. The card seems to be really touchy about higher voltages; I can't even get it stable on 1.175 with default 6970 clocks (880/1375, I think). If I set the voltage to that via the pre-existing 6970 BIOS or modding a 6950 BIOS in RBE, the card freezes up even when I'm playing Flash videos in a browser. At this point it kind of seems like I'm hosed for getting this unlocked to 6970 speeds. I can try lowering the voltage, but with the higher clocks, wouldn't that make it even more unstable? If it makes a difference, I'm using a Thermaltake 750W modular PSU that's supposedly got 85-90% efficiency, surely that would be enough?

Any insight would be appreciated, as I am, admittedly, a bit of an overclocking and tweaking noob.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I put the power use to +20% in CC, would that be making enough of a difference to cause it to crash consistently?

If you're editing voltages in RBE, are you changing the correct VID? When I esoterica wrong VID, everything kept crashing on me like what you are describing. Shouldn't need +20% to make it run smoothly. Try flashing the 6970 bios and see if it runs. Then go back to the 6950 modest bios. Change voltage in MSIAB to 1.175 and put clocks to 880/1375, or even try a lower memory clock. What clocks can you reach without increasing voltage?

 

[vargus]

Thanks for the reply, I'll answer the first question first and try some of the other stuff when I get a chance. In RBE, I'm changing VID4 for the voltage as I had read that that was the correct one for the Gigabyte cards. Also, I haven't tried just flashing the HD6970 BIOS without changing the power to +20%, so I can see if that fixes anything. I'll update this when I try some more things. Thanks.

 

[w00tie]

Hey Peepz around,

I got a very strange problem. I got 2 Sapphire HD6950 2Gb with unlocked shaders with the bios found i this thread (ATI(1002)).
Now yesterday, i was playing around with afterburner w/o problem and today after reading forward in this forum I installed Sapphire Trixx (beta for 69xx) and now each time i use afterburner &/or Trixx i get BSODs. I uninstalled Trixx and still afterburner doing my rig crashing.
Even when i hit the "reset" button in afterburner i get a BSOD... yesterday i was able to push the mem to 840/1300 w/o problems.

Does anyone know what's going on?

Also what is the stock voltage for a 6950 ?

Thanks for the feedback..

Cheerz,

w00tie