Radeon HD 6950 shader unlock instructions

[bystander]

Mine also worked, it was a twin frozr II OC edition. It worked out great.

But you do have to accept that there is risk involved.

 

[bystander]

Ok - thanks for the quick replies. I'll report my results tonight.

emperor0013, another question.

So I clocked it to stock 6970 specs: 880/1375. I also bumped up the power 10%.

By power, do you mean you increased voltage by 10%? What is your voltage in millivolts after the increase (I'm assuming it now matches stock 6970)? Was this necessary to get stable clocks?

There is a new Powertune feature within the CCC with the 6900 cards. What it does it allow you to go beyond the PCIe power specs by as much as 20%. This only comes into play if you are running something especially demanding that starts to draw more power than normal (I don't recall the PCIe spec). It rarely happens, but I did find the Metro 2033 benchmark tool would push it so hard, the clocks would drop to keep the power load down unless you up the PowerTune.

 

[Zed03]

bios flashes but shaders didn't unlock

Original:

r6590pex.bin

 

[Zed03]

And here is W1zzard's on original bios:

I'm pretty sure shaders are cut.

 

[bystander]

Ya, there is a lot of mixed results. Does CCC unlock your OC limits (if you used the tf III PE bios)?

 

[Zed03]

yup

 

[bystander]

yup

ya, sounds like they are disabled physically, or just not functional.

 

[Zed03]

emperor, could you upload your exported (cpuz or atiwinflash) bios?

 

[Guest]

Is it necessary to OC after unlocking the shaders?? Can i just leave it at that?

 

[bystander]

There is no requirement to OC, it was just a suggestion as a way to get 6970 performance.

 

[xiga]

Guys I'm thinking of getting a 6950 and i just have a few simple question for all you experts:

1. In terms of actual real-life performance gains, which is most important, unlocking the shaders or OC'ing? I've read that it only gives you about an extra 3-5%.
2. It seems that at this late stage it's a bit of a lottery as to whether or not you get a card that can unlock it's shaders, but can basically all 6950's be OC'd enough to get them close to 6970 performance? Which cards are to be avoided if OC'ing is my main aim.
3. Even without unlocking the shaders, could I still unlock the OC and power control limits to enable a high OC?

Cheers guys!

 

[itguyz]

For those who want to overclock their cards beyond the factor limits, I have some instructions on how to do so through MSI Afterburner.

Go to the MSI Afterburner program folder, and open the MSIAfterburner.cfg file. Look for these 2 lines:
UnofficialOverclockingEULA =
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 0

Edit them to:
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1

Now just reopen MSI Afterburner, and the factory limits will be gone. Please be responsible and don't try to overclock to high settings without first attempting small incremental increases.

Bystander,
Thanks for all of your efforts here. I would like to know if using the special MSI TF3 BIOS (in your second post) on the TF2 has the same result as following your first post plus using the method quoted above, or does one method do something that the other does not.

 

[fausto412]

I have an engineering sample, curious to how your modded cards are working today...any updates?

 

[bystander]

Bystander,
Thanks for all of your efforts here. I would like to know if using the special MSI TF3 BIOS (in your second post) on the TF2 has the same result as following your first post plus using the method quoted above, or does one method do something that the other does not.

They have similar results, but the TF3 bios they have unlocks all factory OC restrictions, making overclocking easier and it did work for my TF2

 

[ryanhirsch]

This is mostly toward bystander, seeing he seems to know most about this process. But anyone that can help, please do! I'd be really glad and appreciative as I'm in a bit of a, err, predicament?
-Attempted the flash with this card-- http/bit.ly/yae7BN
-After downloading the Mod_Bios_HD_6950.zip folder, I hadn't realized one of the files was mod.php, not modded.bin. I figured it was just a typo on the OP's behalf, and continued the process. (Dumb of me, I know D: )
-Now I've got what seems to be a bricked card, and no 2nd GPU so that I might solve this problem..
So my question is, can I get my poor GPU back to normal without a second GPU? Or should I buy a cheap one to solve my problem??
(currently using the onboard video btw)
Thanks in advance to anyone who makes an attempt to lend a hand!

*EDIT* Apologies but a friend from school just offered to lend me his for the day, but if no one minds/ is willing to answer anyway to get the info out there and as a backup in case this doesn't work, that'd be awesome as well

 

[bystander]

This is mostly toward bystander, seeing he seems to know most about this process. But anyone that can help, please do! I'd be really glad and appreciative as I'm in a bit of a, err, predicament?
-Attempted the flash with this card-- http/bit.ly/yae7BN
-After downloading the Mod_Bios_HD_6950.zip folder, I hadn't realized one of the files was mod.php, not modded.bin. I figured it was just a typo on the OP's behalf, and continued the process. (Dumb of me, I know D: )
-Now I've got what seems to be a bricked card, and no 2nd GPU so that I might solve this problem..
So my question is, can I get my poor GPU back to normal without a second GPU? Or should I buy a cheap one to solve my problem??
(currently using the onboard video btw)
Thanks in advance to anyone who makes an attempt to lend a hand!

*EDIT* Apologies but a friend from school just offered to lend me his for the day, but if no one minds/ is willing to answer anyway to get the info out there and as a backup in case this doesn't work, that'd be awesome as well

If you read back, there was another person who bricked his card, but managed to recover it by making a boot disk and following the 2nd post I made directions, only instead of using the supplied bios, he used the original bios. However, for this to work, you still have to be able to post and be able to boot to the boot drive.

In most cases you can, but not all, in which case a cheap 2ndary card (or friends card) would be needed.

 

[ryanhirsch]

I understand but I'm not able to see anything upon boot with the 'bricked' card, nor can I set the onboard gfx as default. I'll try my hand at the bootable USB, but as you can tell from my situation, I'm not all too tech-savvy just yet, although I do love computers.
Btw, thanks for such a quick reply bystander, you're great! Props to you for being such a big help on this forum.

 

[ryanhirsch]

I understand what I did wrong now...I used mod.php as opposed to the modded original.bin file. I ran the batch file, but did not 'press any key to continue'. Woops..! Will try again tomorrow after getting my grimy, foolish paws on a second video card. I'll post my results here, as I purchased the video card in late November 2011, as opposed to those who had purchased in late August 2011, early September.

Hopefully this will work and I won't be "forced" to invest in a 7970!

Sorry for the stupidity of my posts/situation, this is my first build. Just a wee lad trying to play with the big dogs...

 

[bystander]

I do wish you luck on your recovery. We all make mistakes, it's how we learn.

 

[ryanhirsch]

Got a hold of that second video card today, and I just tried to flash back to the original bios using your directions, followed very carefully this time around, only to no avail. I also tried uninstalling the Radeon 6900 display adapter then flashing back to the original, but that was a fail as well. It just flashes the ATIwinflash loading bar across the screen for less than a second, both times; when executing "C:\winflash -unlock rom 1" and "C:\winflash -f -p 1 original.bin". Any guesses as to why this is happening? I was confident that this would work, but it's turning out to be quite the process, as the other troubled poster stated before. Again, any help/guess is appreciated!
Thanks again guys