Need help flashing Radeon 6950

[AndrewK]

Ok, this story is kinda convoluted... But I bought a 6950 with fan issues recently in hope of repairing it. This card has given me nothing but trouble...

I could go through all the things I have tried but I'll just say that this is the only solution left.

Anyway, the card is a non-reference HIS Radeon 6950 2gb. It does not have a bios switch but it does have a spot where one would go. From what I can tell, HIS used the reference PCB design for this card... But didn't include a bios switch.

***before anyone says it can't be flashed***
I have read several threads of people flashing it... it working... and wanting to go back to the original bios. But their methods have not worked for my card.
***anyways***

The fan will not spin up. I believe that the fan controller is out on the card. It will however run at the minimum default speed set in bios. Hence: If I can change the min value I can set it to like 50 or 60% and the card will be usable.

I also wouldn't mind unlocking the additional shaders if possible (it is an option in RBE and is not grayed out).


What I have tried:

I have tried flashing the rom in RBE... I get the error that the rom can't be erased.

I have tried flashing the rom via command prompt as administrator with the commands (it is the second card in the comp):

atiflash -unlockrom 1

atiflash -f -p 1 original.bios

I get the error:

ROM not erased


Is there anything else I can try? I have read that you can short the bios chip via the 1st and 8th pin to get it flashed... I cannot however figure out which chip is the bios chip... There are several voltage regulators on this card that look similar... If it helps I can take a picture or two though.


Any help you can give would be much appreciated.


Thanks guys,
Andrew

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[AndrewK]

Come on guys... any suggestions will do(within reason).

[salfter]

If the only problem is that the fan isn't running (or is running too slow), couldn't you fix that by unplugging the fan from its connector on the card and connecting it directly to a 12V supply somewhere?  If that would be too much, throw a fan-speed controller in the middle of the connection.

If there are other issues with your board that reflashing the BIOS would fix, never mind.

[AndrewK]

You are right, the fan speed issue is the main problem and can be solved with a fan (got an 80mm zip tied to it right now). The card is still unstable... trouble loading drivers... etc. and I have had luck with flashing drivers in the past.

Half the time previous owners have flashed different bios (like 5870 to a 5850) and returning to original bios/slightly modified original bios can revive a card.


Anyway, thanks for your suggestion. Should given a little more information.

If anyone has some ideas on flashing it please let me know.

[underminer]

Hey +1 for salfter's suggestion I have several older cards which just don't cool when they are clocked up so I have retrofitted  quiet fans to just run at 100%, it works better than the original fans by far....

[goxed]

Ok, this story is kinda convoluted... But I bought a 6950 with fan issues recently in hope of repairing it. This card has given me nothing but trouble...

I could go through all the things I have tried but I'll just say that this is the only solution left.

Anyway, the card is a non-reference HIS Radeon 6950 2gb. It does not have a bios switch but it does have a spot where one would go. From what I can tell, HIS used the reference PCB design for this card... But didn't include a bios switch.

***before anyone says it can't be flashed***
I have read several threads of people flashing it... it working... and wanting to go back to the original bios. But their methods have not worked for my card.
***anyways***

The fan will not spin up. I believe that the fan controller is out on the card. It will however run at the minimum default speed set in bios. Hence: If I can change the min value I can set it to like 50 or 60% and the card will be usable.

I also wouldn't mind unlocking the additional shaders if possible (it is an option in RBE and is not grayed out).


What I have tried:

I have tried flashing the rom in RBE... I get the error that the rom can't be erased.


I have tried flashing the rom via command prompt as administrator with the commands (it is the second card in the comp):

atiflash -unlockrom 1

atiflash -f -p 1 original.bios

I get the error:

ROM not erased


Is there anything else I can try? I have read that you can short the bios chip via the 1st and 8th pin to get it flashed... I cannot however figure out which chip is the bios chip... There are several voltage regulators on this card that look similar... If it helps I can take a picture or two though.


Any help you can give would be much appreciated.


Thanks guys,
Andrew

You have to either solder or use conductive pen to disable  the wr protect pin of the eeprom chip i.e. connect the wr protect pin to vcc.

BIOS chip is beneath the heatsink, on the GPU side. IT's a 8pin EEPROM.

[legolouman]

You have to either solder or use conductive pen to disable  the wr protect pin of the eeprom chip i.e. connect the wr protect pin to vcc.

BIOS chip is beneath the heatsink, on the GPU side. IT's a 8pin EEPROM.

Most likely this, as I've seen this work in many cases.

However, if the card is giving you other driver issues or worse than there could be some other outlying hardware error. Possibly even the EEPROM is bad.

[creativex]

I'd first suggest you try flashing from a bootable optical or USB and use the -fs -fp options. I just returned a 6950 that resisted every attempt to flash from windows spitting out a plethora of errors, but flashed just fine with a win98 prompt bootable USB.