MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III flashing

[NCoastTweaker]

Originally Posted by Den Sorte Los

Hi,

I didn't change the bios switch at all, since I figured the "silent" setting must be the backup BIOS. So I basically plugged in the card without changing anything after pulling it out from the box and ran the script to flash after changing the BIOS to the one provided by MSI.

Here is a link to a zip file containing all the things I used. After unzipping just run the "flash_to_6970.bat" as administrator and reboot. Check with GPU-Z.exe which is supplied in the zip-file as well if you have gained some more sharders. I have 1536.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5584259/HD_6...D_6970_mod.zip

Kind regards,
Den Sorte Los.

Do you have the MSI TWIN FROZR III? The above article is for reference cards.. The twin frozr III is NON - REFERENCE.. I need to be absolutely clear that this worked on an MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III OC PE vid card.

thx

[Den Sorte Los]

Hi,

Yes, I know its for the reference card, this is the reason I used the MSI BIOS together with it. I had no issues whatsoever.

Kind regards,
Den Sorte Los.

[NCoastTweaker]

Originally Posted by Den Sorte Los

Hi,

Yes, I know its for the reference card, this is the reason I used the MSI BIOS together with it. I had no issues whatsoever.

Kind regards,
Den Sorte Los.

Ok, I'm just a bit paranoid about using a REF 6970 bios with a NON REF MSI twin frozr III.
But if you got it to work that way then I guess I'll try it..

(to me, knowing that the bios is for a Reference 6970 card would make me feel reluctant to risk flashing it to a non ref twin frozr iii, but your statement makes it sound like that was your reason TO DO it.. )

But hey, if you got it working on your MSI Twin Frozr III card, then I will be willing to try it too.

You do own the MSI R6950 twin frozr III right? (I'm asking cause you never gave me a direct answer to that question in your response) I just want to avoid screwing it up.
Thanks for your reply
NKOST

[cadaveca]

I thin khe was saying he used the same method, but used MSI BIOS as the base for the mod, instead of the offered one.

Might be worthwhile ot verify BIOS version with those htat have unlocked, too.

Also, you need to uninstall driver sometimes to get shaders to "appear". I dunno if that's teh case here, but it has been an issue in the past. I just recommend flashing teh card with no driver installed.

DO NOT USE REFERENCE BIOS ON NON-REFERENCE CARDS!!!!

[Den Sorte Los]

Sorry for the confusion from my posts. Yes, I do have the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III card and yes I did replace the bios supplied with the one from MSI before flashing. Everything is ready and in the zip-file. You can compare the BIOS yourself if you like.

Kind regards,
Den Sorte Los.

[NCoastTweaker]

Thanks you guys.. I WAS totally confused..

I tried making a backup of my existing bios and using bystanders modding pgm to alter the
shaders access... used atiwinflash from his instruction.. no dice.. still got 1408 shaders..

Then tried using the r6950pex.bin that was supplied by MSI. Same deal.. used winflash
and it completed ok.. and I rebooted again.. but still no additional shaders..

I did notice the CCC shows higher settings for GPU clock and mem clock settings now so I think the flash took hold, but I just can't see the additional shaders in gpu-z. see attachments. BIOS version is 013.011.000.007.000000

Now Cadaveca's comment about flashing without drivers has me curious.. doing that will be a pain in the A$$.. but its worth a try I guess..

I'm reasonably sure I did the flash correctly. My cards were manufactured in May 2011..
sigh.. gotta work 12 hours tomorrow.. probably gonna save the next try for this Sunday..

Thanks for the suggestions dudes! Will post back with the results.

[crazyeyesreaper]

it means shaders didnt unlock you card is most likely laser locked

that said the other bios has better options for clocking in CCC

it is what it is.

[Agility]

Flashing mine didn't work too. Mine was made on the February 2011. Tough luck. Though i did get more overclocking headroom.

[NCoastTweaker]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

it means shaders didnt unlock you card is most likely laser locked

that said the other bios has better options for clocking in CCC

it is what it is.

yeah, probably so. I guess I can live without that extra 3-5%. I bought two of these R6950 TFIII cards. the S/N on the 2nd card is almost identical to the 1st.
(1st one ends with 41, 2nd one ends with 43) both manufactured in May of 2011.

So I'm gonna try flashing the 2nd one with the R6950pex.bin and see what it does..
(its probably laser cut too.. but what that hell... its worth a try)

[Power22]

Originally Posted by NCoastTweaker

I tried flashing it too.. GPUZ (ver 0.5.6) did not show any shader count increase..

Tried bystanders method of modding the exising bios, and also tried the MSI r6950pex.bin bios. I did notice that CCC default gpu and mem settings are higher now.

I have a question for you TFIII owners...

Bystanders instructions say to flip the bios switch to the 1 position.. (towards the back of
the card) I hate to sound stupid, but can someone please clarify the correct position of the
BIOS / fan profile switch.

- I am holding the card vertically with crossfire fingers and power connectors facing up and the fans and shroud facing towards me. The VGA/HDMI/DVI-D connectors are to my left and the DIP switch is approx 1.25 inches to the left of the power connectors.. The BIOS dip switch has "performance" labeled to the left side on the pcb, and silence on the right side of the dip switch.

The BIOS switch is currently set to Performance (toward the VGA connector side of the card. Bystanders instructions say to set the switch towards the 'BACK' of the card..
But on my card that would be the 'silence' setting.

When I performed the flash, I left the switch on the 'performance' setting. (I thought the silence setting only to be used to recover the card if the flash renders it inoperable.)

I left the switch in the Performance setting.. see pic
Can someone who has successfully done this to an MSI TFIII please confirm that I have the
switch set correctly for the flash?

Hi I'm trying to unlock my card also!

I have the same question. According to your pic, is the performance mode position 1 or is the silent mode position one. I try'd almost every thing and my card is from April 14th 2011.


Could you tell me if you have your card succesfully unlocked and what you did? Thanks


Sorry for my poor English.

[NCoastTweaker]

Originally Posted by Power22

Hi I'm trying to unlock my card also!

I have the same question. According to your pic, is the performance mode position 1 or is the silent mode position one. I try'd almost every thing and my card is from April 14th 2011.


Could you tell me if you have your card succesfully unlocked and what you did? Thanks


Sorry for my poor English.

Since the R6950 TFIII cards do not have a "1" or "2" labeled anywhere on the card or the housing, it may be less confusing to just refer to the positions as "Performance" vs "Silence".
Bystander used the procedure on REFERENCE cards so the bios switch settings may be opposite of the TFIII's... but I really don't know for sure cause I don't own any reference 6950's. Den Sorte Los told me he left the switch on his TFIII in the performance mode too.. and his DID unlock..

"RANT" - I'm really disappointed that AMD would go to all that trouble to lock out the extra shaders.. As a show of my appreciation, my all future builds (averaging $2500 and up) will all be INTEL / NVIDIA based.. Hope that extra $90 dollars they wanted was worth it.. cause now I'm gonna spend my thousands of future dollars on NON-AMD products... AMD really blew it with my future business.. laser cutting the GPU's was a BAD MARKETING MOVE.. SO LONG AMD ... (ahh.. that felt good to say!) "END OF RANT"

I left my switches in "Performance" mode when I tried to flash them. Since I DID see a change in CCC Graphic Overdrive I'm assuming that the flash did take, but both cards still show 1408 shaders. So I most likely have laser cut GPU's... (thanks AMD! ) I did flash them both with the r6950pex.bin supplied by MSI. (thanks MSI! ) Bystanders instructions say to flip the switch towards the back of the card... (but which side does he consider to be the back?) Thats why I provided the PIC of the card on my prior post showing the Performance and Silence positions.. On the TFIII's, performance mode is flipped towards the side where you connect up the VGA cables. Silence mode is towards the power connectors side....so if you are holding the card with the Fans facing toward you, the power connectors will be to the right of the bios switch, and the Front of the card is to the left of the switch.

I used Bystanders instructions, and tried using the bios modding tool, but the shaders did not change, so I tried it a 2nd time and substituted the r6950pex.bin instead. Note: On the 2nd try, I skipped the modding part since the r6950pex.bin was already modded by MSI. On instruction #4 below he states that Position 1 is towards the back of the card... well on the TFIII card that would be "Silence" mode.. (which by my understanding is the backup / nonflashable setting) So I left the switch towards the Front of the card (Flipped towards where the VGA/HDMI/DP connections are at.. just like my pic from the prior post shows) I downloaded ATIWINFLASH v2.01.13 and then used steps 10-13 of bystanders procedure and substituted the r6950pex.bin bios supplied by MSI.

Here is bystanders procedure:
"Step 1) Download ATI Winflash: version 2.01.13
(The newest version 2.01.14 has been reported to not work).
2) Install winflash in the root directory (i.e. C:\winflash)
3) Download the script to modify the bios and extract it: www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip
4) If you have a BIOS switch, set it to the 1 position (switched towards the back of the card)
5) Run ATI Winflash, click "Save" to save your BIOS, be sure to make a copy of this and save it some where safe in case some thing goes wrong.
6) Make a copy of the saved BIOS and rename the copy to "original.bin"
6.a) If you cannot see the file extensions, you need to open the Folder Options in the control panel and uncheck the option "Hide extensions for known file types"
7) Copy the "original.bin" file to the script folder "Mod_BIOS_HD_6950"
8) Execute the "run.bat" batch file
9) Look in the folder "Mod_BIOS_HD_6950" and copy the file "modded.bin" to the folder you installed ATI Winflash in (C:\winflash)
10) Open up the command prompt (Start->All Programs->Accessories) you may have to right click and run as adminstrator
11) Change to the ATI Winflash directory with the command "cd C:\winflash" or what ever directory you saved it in
12) Type "atiwinflash -unlockrom 0" (the "0" stands for the first PCIe card installed, "1" will work for the 2nd card)
13) Type "atiwinflash -f -p 0 modded.bin" (the "0" stands for the first PCIe card installed, "1" will work for the 2nd card)
replace modded.bin with r6950.bin if your using the MSI supplied BIOS.

WARNING: do not turn off your computer until step 13 is completely finished.
You should have successfully installed the modified BIOS. You will see a window pop up to say it was verified and ask you to
reboot if everything went as planned.
14) To verify that you succeeded in unlocking the shaders, use GPU-Z and look to see that you have 1536 Unified shaders.

If your system becomes unstable after you reboot, you'll have to reflash the original saved BIOS back onto the card following steps
10-13 and using the "original.bin" BIOS in place of "modded.bin".

If you cannot boot from this card and have the dual BIOS switch, switch it to the number 2 position, and boot up and right before you flash the original BIOS back, flip the switch to the number 1 position."

During the flash, a box popped up with a status bar...sorry no pic of that, then another box (see pic below) popped up.. As soon as I clicked ok, another message popped up indicating to restart the computer.

[Power22]

Hey NCost!

I got the clock speeds unlocked and got it clocked as a 6970. It did not unlock the shaders and I think I did everything right. I also tryed the method without any drivers installed like cadaveca said but that neither work.

Here is a picture of my card.


Anyway, now I read this about the 12.1 drivers. http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=160076

I haven't try'd with the 11.9 drivers they are saying there. Maybe that is the problem? I will try and let you know.

-----------------------------EDIT

Well, I tryed flashing with the 11.9 drivers. It didn't work, neither flashing without any VGA drivers.

Hmm, if you can find a way that works, could you report that to me. I try'd almost everything.

Thanks for your time and yeah, my next build would be NVIDIA.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by NCoastTweaker

2) Install winflash in the root directory (i.e. C:\winflash)

Despite going through dozens of high performance builds, and dealing with a ongoing overclocking addiction , I have never, ever tried to flash a video card. I have the MSI TFIII, and I think I'm gonna give it a try. I think I understand the procedure, but I'm not sure what the above statement means. What do I need to do to install Winflash in the root directory? When I download Winflash, there is no installation option, as it just runs as an exe. Anyone wanna explain this to me? I swear, this must be the most newbish question I've asked in years.

[Den Sorte Los]

Hi Paulieg,

If you have the card, and the BIOS switch is set to 'performance', you can just download the zip-file from my previous post and run the file flash_to_6970.bat from Windows. I have replaced the bios in the zip-file with the one provided from MSI and it worked like a charm for me. After a reboot, you can verify if it worked or not using GPU-Z (which is also provided)

Kind regards,
Den Sorte Los.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Paulieg

What do I need to do to install Winflash in the root directory? When I download Winflash, there is no installation option, as it just runs as an exe. Anyone wanna explain this to me? I swear, this must be the most newbish question I've asked in years.

I thought I'd just add that moving the WInflash folder to the "root" means simply moving it so that it's just in "C", and not in any other folder. This is simply done for ease of use, as navigation to the root of a drive is very easy. You'll note the directions are using "commandline", so it's much simpler to navigate to C:\Winflash, then it is C:\%userprofiles%\blah\blah\blah\Winflash.

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I thought I'd just add that moving the WInflash folder to the "root" means simply moving it so that it's just in "C", and not in any other folder. This is simply done for ease of use, as navigation to the root of a drive is very easy. You'll note the directions are using "commandline", so it's much simpler to navigate to C:\Winflash, then it is C:\%userprofiles%\blah\blah\blah\Winflash.

That's the clarification I needed. I thought it had to be something more than that. I read too much into things.

[NCoastTweaker]

Originally Posted by Paulieg

That's there clarification I needed. I thought it had to be something more that. I read too much into things.

I'm guilty of that too... So flash that card and fire up those benchies!

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by NCoastTweaker

I'm guilty of that too... So flash that card and fire up those benchies!

I'll flash it over the next couple of days. I've got a 2600k that's going on water tonight, and a new router etc. that needs to be set up. So much hardware related stuff to do, so little time.

[jokapo]

im a having 2 sapphire hd6950's in my system. 1 that is unlocked. the other one i have tried several things but gpu-z keeps saying 1408 shaders. does anyone know how i can unlock.

i allready did follow the howto unlock here on tech

[Power22]

Originally Posted by jokapo

im a having 2 sapphire hd6950's in my system. 1 that is unlocked. the other one i have tried several things but gpu-z keeps saying 1408 shaders. does anyone know how i can unlock.

i allready did follow the howto unlock here on tech

There is a possibilty that 1 of the cards is laser cutted and you can not unlock. So is mine

You could try by pulling the card out which has 1536 shaders. So you are not running crossfire. If you get what I mean.

Sorry for my poor English.

[Dolph]

I just ordered the xfx Radeon HD 6950 2gb card 2 days ago (feb 6th), i should be getting it either tonight or tomorrow i will post pictures of the model and attempt this unlock, seeing as it seems to be luck of the draw whether or not your able to flash to the 6970. Very excited!! Trying not to get my hopes up...

[jokapo]

Originally Posted by Power22

There is a possibilty that 1 of the cards is laser cutted and you can not unlock. So is mine

You could try by pulling the card out which has 1536 shaders. So you are not running crossfire. If you get what I mean.

Sorry for my poor English.

allready did that but without effect :-(

[Paulieg]

Originally Posted by Den Sorte Los

Hi,

I didn't change the bios switch at all, since I figured the "silent" setting must be the backup BIOS. So I basically plugged in the card without changing anything after pulling it out from the box and ran the script to flash after changing the BIOS to the one provided by MSI.

Here is a link to a zip file containing all the things I used. After unzipping just run the "flash_to_6970.bat" as administrator and reboot. Check with GPU-Z.exe which is supplied in the zip-file as well if you have gained some more sharders. I have 1536.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5584259/HD_6...D_6970_mod.zip

Kind regards,
Den Sorte Los.

I used this method. My card would not unlock, nor was I able to overclock beyond the 900 core limit.

[Paulieg]

OK. I ran the script again, which unlocked clocks. However, when I open up Afterburner to overclock, it does not show voltages, nor can I change voltages. How do I fix this? Also, if I wanted to return the card to stock, how do I reverse the script? do I need to flash it?

[Astrogoth]

Well, here's my story: I tried to flash the new MSI BIOS. It bricked the card. Nada. Black screen. So I switched to the backup BIOS and found this site. Tried the simple update from here. Box poped up saying I had successfully updated the card to the same firmware it already had on it. Rebooted. Nothing. Still a brick. Tried to reflash the stock firm. Nope. Brick.

I don't get it. The flasher says it was a good flash. It is the correct card. Correct firmware.
The card seems dead but only with the switch in position #1. Works fine in #2, just not as fast as I'd like it.


Ideas? Please!




Win 7/64bit
4.2Ghz
8GB 1866 SDRAM



Thanks folks.