Gigabyte 6950 1 gb - unlock shaders. Possible?

[Alinus]

Hi.
Is it possible to unlock shaders for a 6950 gigabyte?

This version does not have the bios switch.

So far as i googled i did not found good information if it's possible or not.

 

[3DVagabond]

Hi.
Is it possible to unlock shaders for a 6950 gigabyte?

This version does not have the bios switch.

So far as i googled i did not found good information if it's possible or not.

You might, or might not, be able to unlock the shaders on any 6950. Having the bios switch does not enable shader unlocking. It just makes it possible to switch back to the original bios if trying to flash the card fails and bricks it. Without it you risk turning your card into a paperweight with no easy way to fix it. Personally, I wouldn't try it without the safety factor of the bios switch.

 

[happy medium]

no, I never heard of one unlocking

 

[(sic)Klown12]

If it doesn't have the dual-BIOS switch then it's not a reference design and there is almost no chance it will unlock.

 

[Skurge]

If it doesn't have the dual-BIOS switch then it's not a reference design and there is almost no chance it will unlock.

The chance of unlocking depends entirely on the chip. The bios switch only gives you safety net, it has no affect on the the chips ability to unlock.

The only thing is if the your unlock is unsuccesful, you wont have the bios switch to flick and return it, you will have to flash again, with the stock bios that you hopefully backed up. If you don't brick the card.

 

[yacoub]

The only ones that I've seen zero percent unlock success so far are the non-reference Sapphire cards, the ones that look like this, in both 1GB and 2GB flavors:
http://images.izideal.com/img/produ...ogy-radeon-hd-6950-1-g-gddr5-pci-express.jpeg

References:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2275573#post2275573
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2268371&postcount=2470

 

[Spikesoldier]

hello and welcome to the forums!

any 6950 should be able to flash to unlock the shaders, with your specific card's stock image.

in the past, ive used to use a program (rabit?) to save a copy of the VGABIOS rom file to my computer. the next step would be to open the rom file and modify the value of the shader count.

then simply boot to dos and use atiflash to flash the new image. if unsuccessful, simply insert a spare vga card or use onboard graphics, and reflash to your old bios that was saved initially.

for those with CF setups, do ONE CARD AT A TIME.

 

[happy medium]

from what i see, apparently there are alot of problems when flashing a 1gb 6950 to a 6970 due to memory timings and voltages.

 

[Skurge]

from what i see, apparently there are alot of problems when flashing a 1gb 6950 to a 6970 due to memory timings and voltages.

You modify the bios, you don't use 6970s bios.

 

[tweakboy]

Probably, some gurus here know this. I didn't know you can unlock shaders,, anyhow us know whats going on.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

if anyone is brave enough to do it, they should post their results. They should do it but dumping the 1gb card's bios and unlocking the shaders and flashing back, using a 6970 2gb bios is definitely not a good plan. 1gb 6950s, with 6970 shader count would be perfect. I don't need the extra vram for my gpgpu applications

 

[happy medium]

Is it possible to unlock shaders for a 6950 gigabyte?

Possible? yes, advisable? no

 

[Alinus]

Possible? yes, advisable? no

hm. i've got your point i will stick with the fabric bios. it's already OC'ed to 870 mhz/sec and i can upper it to 900 via afterburner.

too bad though. i was hinting to more than 900 mhz/sec

 

[(sic)Klown12]

The chance of unlocking depends entirely on the chip. The bios switch only gives you safety net, it has no affect on the the chips ability to unlock.

The only thing is if the your unlock is unsuccesful, you wont have the bios switch to flick and return it, you will have to flash again, with the stock bios that you hopefully backed up. If you don't brick the card.

I know that Dual-BIOS itself has nothing to do with unlocking. In my limited research(I don't have or pan to have a 6950 so it's not something I really looked into) I though that only boards that were based on AMD's reference design were unlockable. The lack of a Dual-BIOS switch means the board is not reference. I assumed that IHVs would take measures to not allow unlocking on custom designs so they could try and get more people to buy their 6970s.

 

[Spikesoldier]

I know that Dual-BIOS itself has nothing to do with unlocking. In my limited research(I don't have or pan to have a 6950 so it's not something I really looked into) I though that only boards that were based on AMD's reference design were unlockable. The lack of a Dual-BIOS switch means the board is not reference. I assumed that IHVs would take measures to not allow unlocking on custom designs so they could try and get more people to buy their 6970s.

the point of seeking a reference design 6950 was because it was built on the same pcb as the reference 6970.

by downloading and flashing a copy of the reference 6970 BIOS on the reference 2gb 6950, what allows this to work is that the 6950 is the same design as the 6970 down to the PCB level.

so, by flashing to 6970 BIOS, we modify the 6950's shader count to 6970 levels, and modify the voltage going to the video memory (framebuffer). this voltage increase is why people are having problems with their flashed 6950's.

when we consider non-reference designs, if you flash a reference BIOS i bet you will get a big, fat, no-POST. with all the different reference designs, it becomes difficult if not impossible to find a 6970 BIOS that will work.

but we can also accomplish the goal of the 6970 flash by just unlocking the shaders, by copying and modifying our stock (non-reference) BIOS, and then flashing the new, modified BIOS to the card.

a beneficial side effect of modifying your own bios is that the video memory voltage does not get increased. as a matter of fact, the only value you should be modifying, is the shader count.

so, yes, it is possible to unlock shaders on a non-reference 6950 1gb model or 2gb model, bios switch or not.

if i had a 6950 i would definitely try to mod it. i think the risks are minimal for the enthusiast, as they know how to simply recover from an unsuccessful attempt. i originally did the 9500 to 9700pro mod, and the love the idea of free shaders and better performance.

ive read (other) forums out there where you can upload your card's BIOS image, and the helpful people there will modify it for you. or perhaps it has already been requested and posted for your card.

 

[Alinus]

@spikesoldier.

thanks for your information.
i will try to make me some time this weekend and search for the needed tools to read the bios and also to see wich forum has his best members for such modding.

 

[erebusnz]

I just tried this, loading BIOS from Gigabyte 1GB 6950, modifying to unlock the shaders in RBE and loading the BIOS back onto the card (which worked fine BTW, BIOS is not locked.

Unfortunately GPU-Z is still showing 1408 shaders. I am not sure if this is due to the fact that ATI might be disabling the shaders with 'lasers' :\ ??

 

[mike204]

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

Cards tested 48
unlocks and works fine 48

I believe THIS IS FOR 2gb cards though. Dont know if this will help but i thought i post it.

 

[peonyu]

All you can do is try it. Just have a PCI card in hand incase you mess it up...

Myself I have a Diamond 6950 1gb and it has a Dual Bios switch on it, but guess what ? Yep. This card doesn't unlock.

And as far as flashing went I never once had to hit the reset switch on the bios, all that happened was I had 1408 shaders, and with the "unlocked" shader Bios I still had 1408 according to GPUz..

So there is very little risk that you will brick your card imo, unless you mess something up yourself [ie- you dont use your own bios and mod it but d/l a 2gb bios etc].


If you decide to try flashing do this though-
1. back up your bios with GPuz, RBE is known to corrupt your bios when backing it up [it might be fixed now, but to be safe back it up with GPuz].
2. Mod your bios that you backed up with Gpuz, with RBE to unlock shaders.
3. Get ati win flash, boot to DOS [its safer] and flash from there.
4. With luck you have more shaders, if not your card is 3% slower than a equally clocked 6970 [not a big deal overall].

 

[happinessism]

is the ability to unlock any better with the 2gb versions?

 

[Ramis]

I just tried this, loading BIOS from Gigabyte 1GB 6950, modifying to unlock the shaders in RBE and loading the BIOS back onto the card (which worked fine BTW, BIOS is not locked.

Unfortunately GPU-Z is still showing 1408 shaders. I am not sure if this is due to the fact that ATI might be disabling the shaders with 'lasers' :\ ??

I have a question. Did you use ati flash on dos or winatiflash on windows ?
I've read somewhere that the winatiflash procedure can't succed. You should try on dos with atiflash.