[CLOSED] 1 BTC reward for Gigabyte 6950 unlocking guide

[amazingrando]

I have two Gigabyte 6950's (GV-R695OC-1GD).  They are non-reference design and 1GB.

The stock bios does not allow the memory to be clocked lower than 1250.  I would like to be unlocked so I can slow it down around 600.  Also, the max Mhz is 900, but I would like to overclock a bit more since I can do 900 with <60 degrees.

I do not want to upgrade to 6970, just unlock the clocks and possibly the extra shaders.

1 BTC on successful run through of guide.  

[1714804999]

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[1714804999]

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[1714804999]

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[1714804999]

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[1714804999]

1714804999

[tman540]

Have you tried using Sapphire TIXX? My cards are at 950/325 ATM pumping out 300 M/hash each (5830).

[tman540]

For your shader upgrade, use this site

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

awesome walk through.

HAPPY MINING. PM me if you need some help  

[amazingrando]

Thanks tman540!  It is a good walkthrough, but it's not working for me

The Gigabyte 6950 is not a reference design, so there is no switch, hence the need to enable bios write by shorting two pins.  There's an example here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1037502497

This did work for me and I was able to write the bios, but there was no change.  The number of shaders stayed the same and the clock speeds are still locked.

Thus, still need a guide from someone who has done it successfully with this card. 

1 BTC still up for grabs!

[tman540]

Thanks tman540!  It is a good walkthrough, but it's not working for me

The Gigabyte 6950 is not a reference design, so there is no switch, hence the need to enable bios write by shorting two pins.  There's an example here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1037502497

This did work for me and I was able to write the bios, but there was no change.  The number of shaders stayed the same and the clock speeds are still locked.

Thus, still need a guide from someone who has done it successfully with this card. 

1 BTC still up for grabs!

IIRC, some of the newer cards wont allow you to do this anymore. This may be the case.

[haydent]

that guide is not correct. dont flash a 6970 bios. especially on these cards, i have 2. they are non-ref and no bios switches, easier to brcik as no backup bios...

firstly let me say however this does not work in all cases, i have an older batch GB OC 6950 that unlocked but a newer batch one i bought since then did not (it flashed but shaders didnt change)


so what you need to do is this:

1- get gpuz and use it to make backup of bios.

2- then open it up in RBE (radeon bios editor) and go to 'additional features' tab change option 6950 -> 6970 for increase shader count. then save as new named bios rom file.

3- make a dos bootable usb (or whatever media) with atiflash.exe on it and the new modded bios file from step 2, assuming there is only one card execute following command: atiflash.exe -p 0 newromfile.rom
(this guide may help with this step : http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57750)

4- assuming step 3 worked and it says it flashed then you have chance of having extra shaders available on next boot. reboot and open gpuz to see count - 1536 is unlocked , 1408 is stock locked


5- to get lower mem clock you need to use ati tray tool, with that im able to run whatever i like. no other program can do this. at moment i can run 2 cards at 920/450 (1 card can run higher (upto 950)but i have two)

please ask if you have any more questions

these are great cards, and very quite, VERY! the best bit for me. hopefully you can unlock your shaders too.

this is my guide i just wrote for you now, not copied.

this is my btc address 1HS5Brzcsh7XkJn566XYbvfpa2JuBRBdss

[tman540]

Also have you tried using the TRIXX software. Most recent upgrade allows you to lower the mem clocks.

[1984]

You can only underclock the memory on these 125Mhz lower than the clock speed, you can however overclock them passed the locked clocks using 11.6 drivers on linux and aticonfig/atitweak. I have one of these cards running 24/7 at 940Mhz and temps are 59-64 degrees with 60% fan, if I had a decent power supply I'm sure it would clock much higher.

[haydent]

Also have you tried using the TRIXX software. Most recent upgrade allows you to lower the mem clocks.

i have tried latest with no effect, it does not work SAPPHIRE_TriXX_Installer_v4.0_634459803839748647.2.exe

You can only underclock the memory on these 125Mhz lower than the clock speed, you can however overclock them passed the locked clocks using 11.6 drivers on linux and aticonfig/atitweak. I have one of these cards running 24/7 at 940Mhz and temps are 59-64 degrees with 60% fan, if I had a decent power supply I'm sure it would clock much higher.

this is not correct, as i mentioned you can use ati tray tools to set the clocks to whatever you want in windows.

[amazingrando]

@haydent

Thank you for the guide.  Let me give it a try and report back my findings!

[haydent]

@haydent

Thank you for the guide.  Let me give it a try and report back my findings!

good luck

[1984]

I'll have to give that a go haydent, I have very infrequent physical access to the box this card is in so it will be a few days. With the card you were able to unlock does it let you flash again, my card is weird in that I was able to up the clock limits with the first flash I tired but subsequent flashes have had no effect.

[haydent]

I'll have to give that a go haydent, I have very infrequent physical access to the box this card is in so it will be a few days. With the card you were able to unlock does it let you flash again, my card is weird in that I was able to up the clock limits with the first flash I tired but subsequent flashes have had no effect.

well ive never tried flashing again the one that unlocked as im too scared anything will happen to it so i dont touch it.

however after flashing my newer one and not getting the extra shaders i tried several other times to go back to backup but i could never flash again getting error 0FL01. ive read of this happening to others, and it seems they can become locked... but possible that bubblegum mod mentioned about above would get around this.

i did however after reading about it try with the gigabyte gpu flashing tool off their site for this card and it did say it worked , but i was essentially flashing the same rom, and it wont let me flash the backup as it says i have that already so i havnt really tested 100% it but it could work.

id love to unlock the shaders on my newer card but im pretty sure it has a different method of disabling them used (that rbe cant get around)  and others on the net have reported similiar problems where the flash works as normal but with no actual effect. and if i make a backup of the newely flashed bios with gpuz and open it in rbe it shows the mod enabled so it seems the flash worked.

[haydent]

OP, how did you go ?

[hermitagetool]

Enable unofficial overclocking in MSI Afterburner. Sapphire Trixx never worked worth a crap, even with my SAPPHIRE non-ref cards.

Follow this guide, and you'll be good to go. I can drop my mem clock down to 625, and core clock is practically unlimited.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=338906

[amazingrando]

OP, how did you go ?

Still haven't had time to test it, but plan to tonight.  Eager to see if it works.  I have six 6950's now.  Even a 20 Mh/s boost on each card would really add up.

[haydent]

Enable unofficial overclocking in MSI Afterburner. Sapphire Trixx never worked worth a crap, even with my SAPPHIRE non-ref cards.

Follow this guide, and you'll be good to go. I can drop my mem clock down to 625, and core clock is practically unlimited.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=338906

sorry but this will not work with these cards

[drlatino999]

Thanks tman540!  It is a good walkthrough, but it's not working for me

The Gigabyte 6950 is not a reference design, so there is no switch, hence the need to enable bios write by shorting two pins.  There's an example here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1037502497

This did work for me and I was able to write the bios, but there was no change.  The number of shaders stayed the same and the clock speeds are still locked.

Thus, still need a guide from someone who has done it successfully with this card.  

1 BTC still up for grabs!

When did you buy your card? I have the 6950 2GB Gigabyte card and just unlocked shaders on Monday, my card production time was December of last year and it came with the dual bios.

I saved my modded bios plus the tools I used to upload it, so if you want me to send it to you its not a problem.

that guide is not correct. dont flash a 6970 bios. especially on these cards, i have 2. they are non-ref and no bios switches, easier to brcik as no backup bios...

firstly let me say however this does not work in all cases, i have an older batch GB OC 6950 that unlocked but a newer batch one i bought since then did not (it flashed but shaders didnt change)


so what you need to do is this:

1- get gpuz and use it to make backup of bios.

2- then open it up in RBE (radeon bios editor) and go to 'additional features' tab change option 6950 -> 6970 for increase shader count. then save as new named bios rom file.

3- make a dos bootable usb (or whatever media) with atiflash.exe on it and the new modded bios file from step 2, assuming there is only one card execute following command: atiflash.exe -p 0 newromfile.rom
(this guide may help with this step : http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57750)

4- assuming step 3 worked and it says it flashed then you have chance of having extra shaders available on next boot. reboot and open gpuz to see count - 1536 is unlocked , 1408 is stock locked


5- to get lower mem clock you need to use ati tray tool, with that im able to run whatever i like. no other program can do this. at moment i can run 2 cards at 920/450 (1 card can run higher (upto 950)but i have two)

please ask if you have any more questions

these are great cards, and very quite, VERY! the best bit for me. hopefully you can unlock your shaders too.

this is my guide i just wrote for you now, not copied.

this is my btc address 1HS5Brzcsh7XkJn566XYbvfpa2JuBRBdss

Roughly the guide I used, straight from Tech PowerUp.

[amazingrando]

Ok, so I spent many hours last night trying to do the unlock.  Here is what I did

1) First I did the chewing gum mod (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1037522585) but adapted to the Gigabyte 6950 (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148806).
2) The gum mod worked and allowed me to write to the bios
3) Used GPU-z to save stock bios image
4) Used RBE to edit the bios and unlock extra cores
5) Flashed bios back to the card
6) Rebooted
7) Result= no change in number of shaders

Tried again with Wizzard's script for modding the bios image, also no success

After reading in some other forums it appears that ATI/AMD have gotten annoyed that users can reflash and unlock more shaders.  Thus, they have started to laser cut connections to the extra shaders on the die, making it impossible to unlock.  This appears to apply to all recent dies.   

Thanks for your help guys, but it seems like my recently bought non-reference 6950's are unlockable.

[haydent]

yes i agree, but the guide is good, and labelling the thread failed is misleading, as it works on some but not others (newer)