How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[jayc]

Originally Posted by Kitt

Shoot, I was afraid of this. There is an 8 pin cable that has to stretch from the very very bottom of my case, to the tippy top and is literally too short to reach if I move the card up a PCI-E slot. It looks like I may need to un-attach the PSU from the case and let it hang loose just long enough to move the card up a slot and flash. After flashing, the card should then work in whatever PCI-E slot, correct?

Why don't you run that 8pin power cable under the vid card.
So run the cable along the mobo up to the connector then slide the card over the cable into the PCI-e slot.

Yes, after a successful flash, you can move the card to any other PCI-e slot you choose.

[shwazemoto]

Ive been reading this and all I can say is no wonder these cards are failing..
Every one is talking about OC, OC and more OC pushing it further is sure to brick the card.
I have a XFX 6950 Flashed to a 6970, 880 core and mem downclocked to 1250 been running stable now for almost 3 months never played with voltage other than the +20%, I am curious tho if I should use RBE to play with voltage.

[aydahm]

Originally Posted by hobojo06

Ok, well i've been using the modified bios for the sapphire 2gb 6950 over a month now and i'd like to share my results. I have shaders unlock to 1536 and my clocks set to 880/1375. For the first week my screens started to flicker randomly when on the net and I recieved messages on my traybar saying that my gpu isn't responding and needs to refresh. Now, my system tends to reboot after playing vigorous games like BC2 after like maybe 30 mins. I have increased my fan speeds to almost 100%, that didn't work and now i've reverted back to my old bios and that didn't help either. If i had to guess, it seems that my card is dying after prolong use with modified bios. Not sure exactly what's causing it but now i've left my clocks at 880/1250 with unlocked shaders... Let's see how that might work.

due to a fear of the card somehow failing, I'm only using 1536 shaders and nothing else. Does using the shaders at this level pose any threat or risk do you think?

[shwazemoto]

thats how mines been for almost 3 months ok so far but I never tried to push it further, I would rather have a stable card so I will leave it at 880/1250 mem on 6970 bios

[jayc]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

Ive been reading this and all I can say is no wonder these cards are failing..
Every one is talking about OC, OC and more OC pushing it further is sure to brick the card.
I have a XFX 6950 Flashed to a 6970, 880 core and mem downclocked to 1250 been running stable now for almost 3 months never played with voltage other than the +20%, I am curious tho if I should use RBE to play with voltage.

If you don't plan on overclocking any higher, then you have no need to increase voltages using RBE.

However a true overclocker doesn't stop there. Once you have achieved the faster speeds you were looking for using x amount of voltage, you can start looking in the other direction.
When the card is in idle, running 2D speeds of 250core/150mem using 0.9volts.

Does your card really need 0.9volts to run such a low speed? - the answer is no.

I have my 6950 running 2d speeds using only 0.77volts.
This is good for a 5 degC reduction in temps.
Any lower than 0.76v will result in either artifacts or black screen when loading the windows drivers at boot up.

My usage of the PC is 75% in 2d mode - reading forum posts, emails, online shopping, banking, Ms word, excel, etc. Only 25% is used in 3d mode.

Use RBE to reduce voltages in 2D. The 2D voltage will be listed as 900mv. And reflash using the bios generated by RBE.

[shwazemoto]

I just downloaded the 6950 updated bios with shader unlocks but it downloaded intoa vlc file? what do I need to change it to? or is ther a .bat file for this? I want to try this to see if its better

[jayc]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

I just downloaded the 6950 updated bios with shader unlocks but it downloaded intoa vlc file? what do I need to change it to? or is ther a .bat file for this? I want to try this to see if its better

Are you sure it's got a vlc extension to the filename?
It should be a .bin.
Make sure you have View extensions enabled in Windows.
If the firmware file is not a .bin, i would not trust it.

[Kitt]

Originally Posted by jayc

Why don't you run that 8pin power cable under the vid card.
So run the cable along the mobo up to the connector then slide the card over the cable into the PCI-e slot.

Yes, after a successful flash, you can move the card to any other PCI-e slot you choose.

If you can believe it, I was already doing this just to make it reach from the lower slot. Once I move it up a slot, thanks to some unfortunate geometry, the angle it makes reduces the distance by a few centimeters. Since I was already stretched to the limit in the lower slot, those few centimeters were enough to make it not reach. That said, just today I ran up to my local computer store, and purchased an extender cable for the specific connection I need. Worked like a charm! Not sure why I didn't think of that sooner... Oh well.

A Question: When OCing this card and attempting to bench mark it, I almost always end up causing the system to completely shut off. No errors, no complaints, just completely shuts off as if I'd held the power button down. I have a nagging suspicion that it's my PSU not providing enough power, and nothing to do with the actual OC (since my attempts have been pretty modest compared to what others are reporting as stable); however, I've never had to worry about such things until this card, so I'm not sure how the system would actually react to unmet power demands. Does anyone have any insight into the matter?

[shwazemoto]

Originally Posted by Whoops!

How do I find out if my XFX card (version 1.0) has T2C or R0C?

anyone know this????

[fullinfusion]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

I just downloaded the 6950 updated bios with shader unlocks but it downloaded intoa vlc file? what do I need to change it to? or is ther a .bat file for this? I want to try this to see if its better

remove VLC player or uncheck the .bin in the vlc options..

[shwazemoto]

Originally Posted by fullinfusion

remove VLC player or uncheck the .bin in the vlc options..

I did and the files are blank windows wants me to choose a program to open it with

[fullinfusion]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

I did and the files are blank windows wants me to choose a program to open it with

Thats ok, just slip the .bin file into the winflash folder and flash away. You dont need to open the .bin file winflash will do what it needs to.

[shwazemoto]

Originally Posted by fullinfusion

Thats ok, just slip the .bin file into the winflash folder and flash away. You dont need to open the .bin file winflash will do what it needs to.

win flashed never worked for me I had to use the easy way the .bat file

[fullinfusion]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

win flashed never worked for me I had to use the easy way the .bat file

Did you follow THIS

[shwazemoto]

Originally Posted by fullinfusion

Did you follow THIS

no the Windows Batch File (.bat) is much easyer, isnt there one for just modded 6950 bios?

[fullinfusion]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

no the Windows Batch File (.bat) is much easyer, isnt there one for just modded 6950 bios?

Yeah, what's your flavor? just unlocked or full 6970 bios?
I use the Sapphire ones, also I just use the bios switch on the side of the gpu to run stock for daily stuff and slide it when I want to bench and such.

[dom99]

you just rename the file to a .bat file and it works

[shwazemoto]

Originally Posted by fullinfusion

Yeah, what's your flavor? just unlocked or full 6970 bios?
I use the Sapphire ones, also I just use the bios switch on the side of the gpu to run stock for daily stuff and slide it when I want to bench and such.

so far I was only able to use the 6970 bios and it worked fine for me I just wanted to try the shaders only to see how it was

[jayc]

Originally Posted by Kitt

A Question: When OCing this card and attempting to bench mark it, I almost always end up causing the system to completely shut off. No errors, no complaints, just completely shuts off as if I'd held the power button down. I have a nagging suspicion that it's my PSU not providing enough power, and nothing to do with the actual OC (since my attempts have been pretty modest compared to what others are reporting as stable); however, I've never had to worry about such things until this card, so I'm not sure how the system would actually react to unmet power demands. Does anyone have any insight into the matter?

No one is going to be able to advise you without knowing what your equipment is.
So the answer for the moment is ... Probably.

[jayc]

Originally Posted by dom99

you just rename the file to a .bat file and it works

Uh what?
No it doesn't.

[-ION-]

Yesterday I received my HIS HD6950, unlocked it right away and tested it with stable results.
Note i had to use the manual way though

[shwazemoto]

yeah thats what I used too, mine has been stable for a while but a lot of ppl on here are saying that their cards are now failling. I am going to flash mine back for now until there is a manual way to only unlock shaders.

[Bengie]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

yeah thats what I used too, mine has been stable for a while but a lot of ppl on here are saying that their cards are now failling. I am going to flash mine back for now until there is a manual way to only unlock shaders.

There is a manual way to "only" unlock the shaders without touching timings or voltages. It's even in this long long post somewhere. It's called the 6950 mod instead of 6970 flash.

[Mark22]

Originally Posted by shwazemoto

yeah thats what I used too, mine has been stable for a while but a lot of ppl on here are saying that their cards are now failling. I am going to flash mine back for now until there is a manual way to only unlock shaders.

Most people in this thread are only using unlocked shaders and overclocking from there.

[shwazemoto]

I sent in a ticket to XFX this see if it is safe to flash the crads

3/16/2011 3:13:45 AM] I have been reading on techpowerup website about a possible bios flash for the 6950 is this safe on the card??

[BRIAN 3/16/2011 5:06:40 PM] Hi, there was a BIOS going around when the card first came out. However, on the newer revisions of the card, it will actually brick the card. If you aren`t having any issues with the card, then flashing the BIOS is not necessary. Video cards are not like motherboards and the BIOS that is on them will typically be the only BIOS for that card in its lifespan. Thanks, Brian.

he did not say it was unsafe? just that newer cards will brick..