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Sapphire HD6950 Shader unlock problems

ySoCereal

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Hello,

Just wondering if anyone can shed some light on my issue.

I followed some old posts on unlocking my hd6950 shaders, I have flashed it with winflash using modified bios obtained here: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...ufacturer=&model=HD+6970&interface=&memSize=0

I have also used my original bios modified in RBE.

Both times flash successfully and after a restart GPU-Z is still showing 1408 Shaders..

Can anyone shed some light? Is there a newer version of the modified bios available or something I am missing?

Thanks
 

dorsetknob

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Dorset where else eh? >>> Thats ENGLAND<<<
Not all cards have the ability of unlocking Shaders
If you successfully flashed your bios "AND " nothing Changed then in all probability you cannot unlock the disabled shaders
 
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I remember unlocking a Powercolour 6950 a few years ago by just unlocking the shaders from the original bios, then flashing it back. There was the option to unlock shaders only or flash it to a 6970. Shaders only was the safest way of doing it. The first batch of cards the shaders were just disabled, but later revisions they were cut off so it mite not be possible. My mate has the 6950 and it is still going strong :)
 

manofthem

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Try completely uninstalling your video driver, reboot, flash your card, reboot, reinstall video driver, reboot, then check GPUz again. If nothing, then your card sounds locked :ohwell:
 

CAPSLOCKSTUCK

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The majority of the successful shader unlocks were from reference design 6950's.
 

Tatty_Two

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Most of the later manufactured 6950's were hardware locked/laser cut as opposed to software disabled in the earlier versions, I think that maybe AMD didn't like the fact that they were not selling that many 6970's :)
 

ySoCereal

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Sounds like mine is not unlockable then.

CAPSLOCKSTUCK - mine is a Sapphire, it has a dual bios switch. It must be a good 4 years old now.

**Which brings me to my newest problem. I was doing some further tinkering a short while ago and reflashed it again after initially putting it back to default and now I get no video signal when I try turning the PC on. I had the bios switch on the 2nd position for flashing it, it will work fine when I flip it back to default.

**Edit - This time btw the only thing I did different was I uninstalled the drivers first before flashing it.

How do I repair what I assume is a corrupt flash so I can try again?

Thanks
 
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You should reflash it with a working bios. You could copy the working bios in windows to a file, which in turn you can flash to the corrupt bios setting.
Having the same bios twice is ofcourse not needed, but you can always try another flash after that.

I had the sapphire toxic 6950 which came with a bios switch that unlocked the shaders. Although not guaranteed by sapphire, it did work for me.
I payed a little more for that card because as said, they were hardlocking the extra shaders so many 6950's refused to unlock.

So now about what you are missing out, not much actually. The extra shaders helped just a little bit, introducing more heat, which in turn made it harder to set clocks much higher.
So don't worry about those shaders, just go for higher clocks.

ps. you need two videocards so you will have an image on your screen, or you can use the intel graphics from your cpu (if you have one ofcourse) again to get an image.
The guide for atiwinflash also contains what command to use with two videocards, or else you can find a guide about it. It's pretty common knowledge.

Goodluck.

ps2 Not recommended, but there are some brave ones that do it with a black screen. You would have to know exactly what you're typing and need to do it in the correct order, without having visuals to confirm.
 
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I blow up my GPU when i done that, it's not work for me.
 
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