How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[teude]

Had to register for this.

Thanks for great article, too bad it didn't work for me as well as I hoped. I managed to flash my card, needed to do 'extra work' and everything looked good. Resolution went weird, so I installed drivers again and thats when problems started. Computer started to freeze on Windows or if it didn't freeze, BF3 or 3DMark 11 didn't work. I tried everything, installing drivers, full sweep with Driver Sweeper, installing DirectX and so on, but nothing. Lastly had to put 6950 BIOS inside and now everything works perfectly.

Card: Asus 6950 DirectCU II 2GB

Thanks anyway!

E: I used Asus 6970 BIOS, not that Sapphire what that article says. Don't know does it matter?

 

[itech]

Hi,
I stumbled accross your article and thought GREAT, I followed it to a T, and downloaded the latest 6970 bios but just didnt work. The system wouldnt restart, nothing came up on screen after shutting down. I switched it back to "2" and got it working again. When it first came back up, the bios (main computer bios), said something along the lines of "your computer did not start because of a voltage mismatch" or similar to that - something about the voltage anyway.

My system:
Intel i7 860
Gigabyte P55-UD6-11
8Gb DDR3 1600
Win 7 64bit
Sapphire 6950 2Gb
HighPower 650W PSU

Interesting exercise, just didnt work. Tried running it using Ati Winflash tool and Subsystems ID mismatch error so used your batch file method - the process worked, but as stated, resulted in the system not restarting, just black screen. Not sure what else to try. Defaults are below.
Cheers
Ian

 

[shwazemoto]

I was able to unlock the shaders but CCC wont let me OC past the 840mhz?
any ideas how to get past this or what to use, does rivatuner work?

 

[SgtxVortex]

hi guys i have small problem's with unlocking the card

Frist this BIO maybe not working i don't have switch in my video card (HD RADEON 6950 2GB GDDR's XFX) i look it to my card i bought yesterday for BF 3 anyhelp overhere please

Erorr:http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/641/problemga.png/

 

[Mpress]

Has anyone seen a bios for 6970 flex yet?

If your thinking of flashing your 6950 flex edition card. Dont do it if your planning on using eyefinity. The card already has the shaders unlocked in bios 1. And if you flash using any of the standard 6970 bios, you will get all the advantages of the 6970. But, you will also disable your second DVI port that makes it a flex edition. So, if you dont care about a 3 monitor eyefinity set-up, flash away. OK, back to my point of this post.) If the 6970 Flex BF3 bios gets posted can I get some feedback if its working on the 6950's of not. Thanks in advance.

 

[ChristTheGreat]

Hi! I have a question for you guys.

I tried unlocking my shader on my Powercolor HD6950 1gb with RBE and it didn't worked. I saw there was a PHP pfile that someone people tried and work instead of RBE.

There is just on t hing I worry about. people said that you should use your original BIOS, that you didn't touch with RBE in case for corruption.

I don't remember if I modified the bios to get higher frequencies on the original bios, or I took the one I modified first with RBE and I just uncheck the HD6970 shader and flash back.

Do you think it would be risky to try with the actual bios? Anyway, in the case the card show black screen, with an nVidia card I could boot in dos and reflash?

Thanks for any help, just trying to get the max from my card

 

[manofthem]

I was able to unlock the shaders but CCC wont let me OC past the 840mhz?
any ideas how to get past this or what to use, does rivatuner work?

MSI AB works well for overclocking. To OC past ccc defaults, enable unofficial overclocking by editing the cfg file in program directory. It's simple, google what to add in.

 

[twixtel]

Hi, guys.
Big problem here.
I tried to flash my PowerColor 6950 to 6970 but it didn't work so i decided to flash the bios back to the original but I forgot to set the BIOS button to the 1 position.
So now my card won't boot neither on 1 nor on 2.
Is there any hope?

 

[leo766]

ok I bought a Gigabyte 695OC 1GB non-referance card on october 2nd 2011 at microcenter in va

just unlocked the shaders, so much for all the BS about laser cuttings, first you must def find the bios chip on the back of the card, and take a circuit pen and connect pins 3 and 8 to over-ride the hardware flash protections(otherwise itll look like u succeeded but u wont, and will think like an idiot that u have a laser cut chip)

the exact steps i took can be found in these two guides:
1) how to unlock the bios hardware lock: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148806
2) this guide is for unlocking a saphire card, but basically i used these steps: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151456

to sum it up, after the circuiut pen trick, go Start->search:uac... then when the screen pops up put the slider all the way down, and restart

then open CMD prompt as admin, and type the usual atiwinflash unlockrom 0 and -f -p biosname.rom

after the flash restart the pc and reinstall catalyst drivers to make sure ur not displaying the wrong number of shaders in GPU-z(if i had a nichle for every time this step got skipped and tards thought their card was locked, i would be bill gates)

finally put UAC back to normal

the only thing i left out is i Used GPU-z to get my normal bios and then modded it with RBE 1.28, i used the older version for atiwinflash that came in the packet from the main article out on techpowerup on unlocking

oh in case u dont believe me heres the proof... i honestly thought 95% sure i would fail, but i guess all the failures with this non-referance card, must come from idiots flashing 2gb bioses on it

hope this helps
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/images/attach/gif.gif

 

[broon]

I've got a Sapphire 2gb Dirt3 edition. RBE doesn't allow the Unlock 6950 > 6970 option to be selected as it is greyed out. Used GPU-Z to dump the BIOS and the unlock script. Seems to flash ok using atiwinflash, says verified and prompts to reboot. Does this indicate that the BIOS isn't hardware locked?

Anyway, after flash the shader count stays fixed at 1408 in GPU-Z. I have tried using DriverSweeper to clear out the Catalyst drivers after unlock and have reinstalled Catalyst, but no difference in GPU-Z. The GPU on my card is also reported as Antilles in GPU-Z, not sure if that makes a difference. Any suggestions?

 

[leo766]

hey guys if sandra says i have 1408 and gpu-z says i have 1536... which is correct? both are most current versions...

also messing with the gigabyte 6950 1gb oc version, it doesn't seem to support power tune, its factory set to 1.175 and sandra says the card min/max is .9-1.175 and 140W ... is there nothing i can do? i mean if im voltage locked, what about amps?or does powertune simply throttle the voltage regulator? any help on how i can enable this would be greatly appretiated, since i cant seen to do anything in terms of Powertune adjustments at all

broon have you cheaked that you switched the bios switch on your dual bios to the second position(i believe only one of them is actually flashable)

you made to turn off UAC also right? and what version of atiwinflash did you use?

 

[broon]

BIOS switch is in position furthest away from crossfire connector. Fairly sure it flashed successfully as winflash verified the flash and asked to reboot.

Edit: After a little more digging it appears this is a problem on cards which identify as Antilles GPU. Any further information on why this is the case?

 

[leo766]

that cant be right... antilles is the dual GPU 6990 codename... if thats what you have either A)download the newer version of GPUz asap, or B) you don't know that you somehow have a 6990 and are trying to unlock it?

 

[broon]

GPUz 0.5.5 reports it as AMD Radeon HD6900 Series with GPU Antilles. Device Manager reports the Hardware ID as VEN_1002 & DEV_671D, which I believe is the hardware ID for a 6990. I'm pretty sure the card only has a single GPU on it though.

Other people with the Dirt3 edition 6950 seem to have the same issue. GPUz detects the card as Antilles, and upon what appears to be a successful flash, the shaders remain at 1408.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33982483

http://www.overclock.net/t/1152156/amd-6950-unlock#post_15469431

 

[daelric90]

Hey guys, I think I'm in need of some help.

1st off let me say, frak'n awesome find on this simple mod and this is the reason why I bought my two Asus 6950's.

2nd, my sort of problem... like I said, I bought two Asus 6950's and did the mod to each one separately (one at a time) and it works great with either one but when I install both of my mod'd 6950's (with or without the Cross Fire connector) Windows 7 just sits at the loading screen.

I tried looking through the several pages but decided to go here and beg for help... so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks ahead of time!!

 

[GuyM50]

Hi all, been an avid follower of this thread and modded a Sapphire 2GB 6950 with 6970 bios without problems a few months back.
Last week I bought another Sapphire 2GB 6950 Twin fan version, it has the switch, sku number is: 11188-05-41G. I have tried everything suggested here, started with trying to load the 6970 bios (would not boot, had to reflash origibal bios) to using RBE to unlock shaders only: no good... stuck on 1408. I can't see that anyone has posted anything about a successful mod of this SKU
Would be grateful of any suggestions.
Thanks in advance

 

[sprogis]

Hey guys, I think I'm in need of some help.

1st off let me say, frak'n awesome find on this simple mod and this is the reason why I bought my two Asus 6950's.

2nd, my sort of problem... like I said, I bought two Asus 6950's and did the mod to each one separately (one at a time) and it works great with either one but when I install both of my mod'd 6950's (with or without the Cross Fire connector) Windows 7 just sits at the loading screen.

I tried looking through the several pages but decided to go here and beg for help... so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks ahead of time!!

Well, I dunno if you un-installed the frivers before you flashed each one? If not, boot into safe mode un-install the drivers and then un-install the App profiles.. Reboot into safe mode and then un-install the video card(s) from device manager. Use a reg cleaner like CCleaner on next boot and clean the registery. Shut down the computer and cut the power to the system, clear the c-moss by removing the battery for 2 min. Then reconnect battery/power and re-install the latest driver an App profiles. I am hoping that this will correct your issues.

 

[sprogis]

I have found this guide to be very useful in unlocking the HD6950 cards. They do credit TechPowerUp for it.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1608/5/

I have two Cards in CrossFireX and my validation is here 2rra4. The Part number to my cards are "Sapphire HD6950 P/N 102-C21601-00-AT" If you want to see screen shots of the GPU-Z are here.

http://forums.canadacomputers.com/showthread.php?tid=1480

 

[vurubshnut]

I recently tried flashing a XFX 6950 2G with the latest sapphire 6970 bios after saving the original bios, and although atiflash reported the bios programmed successfully, i only get a black screen now when booting.

The card does not have the bios switch on it. Is there anyway to recover from this?

 

[OOZMAN]

I have a HIS HD6950, i tried every method listed here, to no avail. I bought it only a few months ago, it DOES NOT have the dual bios switch. Does all the HIS 6950 not have the switch, or just the recent ones? Can I still (in theory) flash it? Or would the bios be read only? Even if its not read only, is it recommended i just leave it as a 6950 in case i brick it?

Also, W1ZZARD, there are quite a few people that this has not worked for, yet on the page it list only a few fails.

Thanks in advance folks!

 

[AZONIC[rus]]

nothing...

Hi!
I am new here and my English not very good sorry in advance
I have Asus EAH6950 DirectCuII 2 GB. Bought it 1 month ago. It is non-reference card.
I tried to unlock it. First of all I need to say that this card has 2 BIOS. The switch is not only for DVI port but also for bios change. I know it because unlocking wasn't succesful unfortunately

What I've done:
1) saved my bios
2) patched it with W1zzard mod
3a) flashed modded bios with winflash = GPU-z doesn't showed more shaders
3b) flashed modded bios with atiflash through DOS = nothing
3c) re-installed driver -nothing
4) tried to flash it with this
After (4) and after restart videocards doesn't start. PC is loading but no image on screen. Really scary for me...
Then I turned off PC and switched the switch to 1 position... and it works
After that I flashed original bios back. Just switched the switch to 2 position and flashed!

P.S. I tried to use RBE but when I push on "analyze" it says that no ATI card found...

As a result: I want to unlock my card. What should I try?

 

[hindle8907]

Hey Guys my name is Ant, I just got a VTX HD 6950 1GB *Dirt3* With dual BIOS Switch.
Thought I would ask here which is the best way to unlock the shaders or if someone could point me to the correct guide.
Also Can you tell me how to flash the bios of this card back to stock please if one of the two BIOS are not displaying.

 

[OOZMAN]

Hey Guys my name is Ant, I just got a VTX HD 6950 1GB *Dirt3* With dual BIOS Switch.
Thought I would ask here which is the best way to unlock the shaders or if someone could point me to the correct guide.
Also Can you tell me how to flash the bios of this card back to stock please if one of the two BIOS are not displaying.

Go to page one and follow the link

 

[hindle8907]

Go to page one and follow the link

So i need to make a custom BIOS with RBE and FLASH with ATI Winflash.
IF something goes wrong when unlocking switch the switch over to the other BIOS then once in windows switch the switch back to the faulty BIOS and flash with backedup original BIOS ?

I read somewhere that its not safe to move the switch while in windows but the guide says its fine ?

 

[hotshot25120]

Hi, I just buy 2 6950 from newegg from the black friday sale and I receive 2 reference design.

I flash both card to 6970 bios and everithing run fine but the temperature are way too high under load around 98 celcius.

the fan are not running fast they always running at around 20-40% even if the card is at 98 celcius .

anyone else have the same issues ?