Failed Unlocking 6950 Shaders?

[Ryydar]

Ive have an XFX 6950 2gb for about 3 months and it wont flash the bios no matter what I try.

Ive followed many different guides on how this is done and every single one of them has failed. My guess is this was something only older 6950's were able to do and now they have locked the bios on all of them or something is that right?

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Dead on, older editions had the ability and the dual bios variants were ideal for flashing the 6970 bios onto but later models have even had the 'extra' shaders lasered so you can't even access them
Moto

 

[amuffin]

Also depends on PCB revision

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Was replying on the phone so short answer, forgot reference/non ref design, cheers Muffin sorry Op

Moto

 

[Ryydar]

forgot reference/non ref design

Moto

Forgive my noobyness but what are you guys talking about?

 

[amuffin]

The size of the card, the actual board the parts of the card is on are modified/completely different. Instead of the ones that AMD intended.

 

[Ryydar]

Oh okay thanks!

I guess a better question would be whats the best way to safley overclock this card then? Ive already modded the heatsink/fan by lapping all contact areas, removed all thermal pads and replaced with some Antec Formla 7. Since I modded the cooling, Im avaraging 10c lower durring 3dmark testing... Now I just need to OC... but how...

 

[Ryydar]

Let me put it this way instead....

I cannot overlcock past 840 / 1325... How does one do this? Im using MSI Afterburner btw.

 

[amuffin]

Get the beta version of Msi afterburner and raise the voltage

 

[Ryydar]

Get the beta version of Msi afterburner and raise the voltage

Thanks, I was able to unlock afterburner.

In case anyone is looking, and since Its nearly impossible to find any basic straight forward answers on 6950 Clock speeds. My stock XFX 6950 I was able to push to 1ghz core and 1450 mem at 1.2 volt. During a full on max stress test I was keeping it low 90's c

For saftey Ive got my "high" setting running 920 core and 1420 Mem at 1.174 volts, and stays in 80's c under full stress... Anyway just thought Id share my referance numbers since I couldnt find any...

 

[amuffin]

You should actually be at stock 6970 performance now

 

[Ryydar]

You should actually be at stock 6970 performance now

Not sure what the 6970 puts up in comparison...

I Havent tested it out gaming yet but Ive seen about 4-5 fps increase on average in 3D mark vantage and 3D Mark 11. Not a huge bunch but Im happy, hey its free FPS


One more thing to add in case anyone else is using the 1 fan XFX card. The stock XFX cooling was garbage, I first needed to remove heatsink/fan and lap the heatsink. I actually took it down about 2mm because the heatsink mounts to the GPU only. Mem chips had some crappy thermal tape but it didnt even contact the heatsink. Thats why I took the whole heatsink down about 2mm tossed the thermal tape and replaced all contact points with some antec formula 7. Doing this immediately lowered my max temp 10c during 3D vantage runs at baseline. Once I had the cooler under control I then overclocked, no way stock cooler would have handled it without this first

 

[amuffin]

You can always go custom watercooling with a full cover 6950 waterblock Then, you could overclock to the 1.2ghz range

 

[Ryydar]

Best answer selected by Ryydar.