Shader unlock on non-reference XFX 6950

[wolf]

apologies in advance for the off topic post, but erocker, did you get rid of your GTX580? if so why? just curious man I gather two 6950's will be quite a bit faster overall just want to know

[fullinfusion]

use ATIFLASH 3.86 or 3.84 try them both in dos.They are the only one's that work, and make sure to type the commands proper or the flash wont work. atiflash -f -p 0 whateveryounamed.bin (hit enter and wait)


ATIFLASH 3.86

[tylercarbone]

Originally Posted by fullinfusion

use ATIFLASH 3.86 or 3.84 try them both in dos.They are the only one's that work, and make sure to type the commands proper or the flash wont work. atiflash -f -p 0 whateveryounamed.bin (hit enter and wait)


ATIFLASH 3.86

3.86 is what I tried... worth also trying 3.84?

[stinzza]

try atiflash 3.79.. the 3.84 and 3.86 is NOT the only one that works!!

[tylercarbone]

Originally Posted by stinzza

try atiflash 3.79.. the 3.84 and 3.86 is NOT the only one that works!!

Alas...

3.79: won't recognize the card
3.84: same error

So... I think this basically means that non-reference XFX cards cannot be unlocked (or that this card in particular can't be).

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by tylercarbone

Alas...

3.79: won't recognize the card
3.84: same error

So... I think this basically means that non-reference XFX cards cannot be unlocked (or that this card in particular can't be).

I seem to be forced to agree with this. I guess I've posted in several threads on this topic, as omaybe I've left bits of the same conversation in different places, but on my Sapphire card, reference design with dual bios, both bioses came "locked". One "unlocked", while the other will not.

Maybe newer cards are al lgetting the "locked" treatment. Perhaps there is some sort of issue, or something, involved with flashing, or they are finding many cards RAM'd due to flashing, so have taken steps to prevent undue costs associated with the problem.

In the past, when situations like this turn up(the unlocking ability of cards), they are most usually of limited supply anyway, so it's not all that surprising, either. The last card that I cna think of that would unlock, and your chance was random on function, was the X800Pro. Every other card since then has been limited in numbers. And that's fine by me...AMD and thier partner's gave the early adopters a bonus.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by arroyo

Actually it is about 5-10% of improvement.

Really?

[azuki]

Gah. Reading this...imma just stick with what I bought. The 2 msi 6950 2gb ref..they should arrive tomorrow. Can't beat price of 225 after rebate. Dang it.. I hate the red stripes on the sides too. : / I totally wanted black scheme.

[azuki]

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Really?

I would like to see a benchmark test with 2 xfire 6950s with unlocked shader at 6970 cpu/mem vs 2 xfire stock 6950s

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by azuki

I would like to see a benchmark test with 2 xfire 6950s with unlocked shader at 6970 cpu/mem vs 2 xfire stock 6950s

Why? Any 6950 should hit 6970 speeds maybe a little less on the memory but thats about it.

[tylercarbone]

Originally Posted by azuki

Gah. Reading this...imma just stick with what I bought. The 2 msi 6950 2gb ref..they should arrive tomorrow. Can't beat price of 225 after rebate. Dang it.. I hate the red stripes on the sides too. : / I totally wanted black scheme.

Where'd you find that?

[azuki]

Originally Posted by tylercarbone

Where'd you find that?

Microcenter deal

[Iceni]

You can always cover the red stripes with a little Black electric insulation tape and just cut it in so you can't tell it's there with a scalpel...

[tylercarbone]

It looks like the pins for the BIOS switch exist on this card (1 and 2 are written on the board, and there are mounting holes -- the switch just isn't there). I haven't opened the card up yet, but it looks like it might be possible to manually make whatever connection switches the bios. Or I suppose borrow a bios switch from another card.

Not having seen a 6950 with a bios switch, though, I'm not sure whether the switch is removable or what the wiring looks like, so that might be impossible.

Given the risk of f'ing something up, though, I'm not sure I'm going to mess with it.

EDIT: Opened the card; it definitely looks like attaching a switch would work. There are 3 connectors in the right area, and I'm sure a switch would slide between them. So, for anyone that owns a board with a switch, it might be worth looking into. Since I don't have one, I'm not going to try anything without a reference.

[cadaveca]

You are assuming the second bios is on the board as well? If the switch is not there, surely the second bios could be excluded as well?

[stinzza]

what.. are you flashing from dos or what man.. use a 98 windows dos disk.. then flash.. whatever.. just try.. then just blind flash back or another videocard pci or pci-e.. and remember find what vcard.. by entering atiflash \something

[tylercarbone]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

You are assuming the second bios is on the board as well? If the switch is not there, surely the second bios could be excluded as well?

That's very true. Either way, I'm not going to mess with it -- but it's a possibility.

[tylercarbone]

Hm. So, looking at the release notes for the latest version of Winflash, there's a line that says:

"Added caymandualrom = true/false line option when using pak command to package specific builds of winflash."

I've tried to find information on the -pak command, or information on this caymandualrom flag. Anyone know anything about that? It may be that we just need to set this to false?

[browbr00]

i have a xfx 6950 cdfc
exactly the same problem and i noticed there is the spot available for the switch just not one mounted.
everything fails for me and there dos loading bar goes to about 60% as well.

[r2edu]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I have this card, flashed just fine, as did erocker's two cards.

Use ATIWinFlash to suck the bios off the card.

Use script to mod it.

Flash bios using ATIWinFlash with no driver installed. DO NOT flash outside of windows, as the flasher for DOS does not support these cards, so it's behavior is suspect..

Profit.

If that doesn't work, let us know what error msg you get.

There isn't anything XFX can do, really, to prevent the flash, so we' got to assume that either the programs used are at fault, or you really have a GPU that cannot be flashed. Error msgs should tell us which one of those two it is.

Sorry for the bump, but... I recently bought on eof those XFX HD-695X-CNFC 2GB, and no dual-bios switch in it, neither two phisical bios chip, only one inside the car so I take the cooler out and bridge the pins 8 & 3 (as I read in other forum or in other thread here)...

Now the car flash ok (before the bridge I get the "Could not erase rom" error) but now ATIWinflash via CMD finish the work and ask me to reboot but nothing change... 1408 Shaders

Could you tell me please what version number is yours? Mine is A.1, so I think it might be flashable cause I got another XFX HD-695X-ZNFC 1GB vA.1 with dual-bios switch and unlock ok...

I am really stuck here, tryied everything, RBE, script mod, with drivers, without drivers, with different flags in Atiwinflash, etc, etc....

By the way, could you upload the bios modded of your card just to see if that work in mine?

Thank you and sorry for my english (I´m from Argentina)

[rheostat]

Hey, I've got a CDFC XFX 2 gb card too. I'm able to flash the bios in DOS using Atiflash, but when I boot into Windows the shader number hasn't changed. I know the bios is different because if I flash an RBE-modified bios, I'm able to see the change in RBE. Does anyone know if the shaders on these cards can be unlocked? Here's a screenshot of my card in GPU-Z:

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by rheostat

Does anyone know if the shaders on these cards can be unlocked?

No, not all cards will unlock.


Also, with the modded BIOS on, you may want to try re0insatlling drivers to see if that affects the number of shaders shown. It can be an issue sometimes.

[rheostat]

I'll try that right now and let you know if it changes anything. Thanks for the response! I wondered if I would get a reply after raising this thread from the grave.

EDIT: No change. Even with a complete uninstall/reinstall of the graphics drivers and removing the card via Device manager. I wish there was some way to get this to work, as it's why I bought a 6950 in the first place.

[The Stilt]

Test this and see what it spits out.
Run the TSMC-PDE_V1.2.exe and post the contents of ASIC_Data.txt file.

[StabbyJoe89]

Originally Posted by rheostat

Hey, I've got a CDFC XFX 2 gb card too. I'm able to flash the bios in DOS using Atiflash, but when I boot into Windows the shader number hasn't changed. I know the bios is different because if I flash an RBE-modified bios, I'm able to see the change in RBE. Does anyone know if the shaders on these cards can be unlocked? Here's a screenshot of my card in GPU-Z:
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/12/05/05/80n.png

Sorry to drudge up a month old thread. But i have the exact same card with the exact same GPU-Z. Any luck on getting it flashed?