Optimizing ATI performance, 6950 in particular

[film2240]

technically you can flash in windows, but dont, there's just way more chance of it not working or you locking up / bricking your card. its happened regularly to someone i know. but the dos way is trouble free

repeat, if you arent willing to do it in dos dont do it
technically it prob will void your warranty, but whether it eventually stops you getting a replacement or money back is in the hands of the gods

did you work out if its a non-reference board or not ?

Looking around the DOS solution doesn't seem as difficult as it seems.I managed to make a copy of my stock BIOS in addition to a modified copy with just the shaders unlocked (but not mod it into HD6970 as I don't wanna risk my card.unlocking shaders is a low risk job)

can someone with experience on this please tell me in a clear step to step guide guide on what utilities to get,what settings to use,how to prepare USB stick for DOS flashing?As this would help me a lot as I'm struggling to get more than 310MHash/s with just OC'ing to the official max (840MHZ core clock,mem clock 1255MHZ-as this works better on my system).

How much of a boost can unlocking hte shaders give me with the current OC'ing level?

cus I've read that I can get up to 430MHash/s on that card.If I was to move back to mining solo (as my current pool doesn't seem to work the way I expect it to do nymore),how long would my card do if it was unlocked to get my 1st 50BTC (as I really need to payoff my upgrades within a few months)?

Thank you

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[nebiki]

How much of a boost can unlocking hte shaders give me with the current OC'ing level?

about 10%, so 30Mhash/s

cus I've read that I can get up to 430MHash/s on that card.

that's when you oc to more than 1GHz and enable power boost. i did only get about 420Mhash/s, but it eats about 1/4 more electricity for an increase of 10% (getting 390Mhash/s at 900MHz)

If I was to move back to mining solo (as my current pool doesn't seem to work the way I expect it to do nymore),how long would my card do if it was unlocked to get my 1st 50BTC (as I really need to payoff my upgrades within a few months)?

it would take too much time, it all depends on your luck, though. if you desperately need to payoff your upgrades asap, you're screwed.

[film2240]

Just installed my HIS 6950.

Using latest poclbm w/ gui front end

passing nothing - 230 Mhash
passing -v - 270 Mhash
No difference between w64 or w128

using -v -w128 -f2 = 281Mhash (only feasible when away at work)
using -v -w128 -f30 = 273 Mhash

Haven't messed with unlocking shaders just yet - maybe tomorrow 

I'd like 2 say thanx 4 the mining parameters as they have boosted my GPU mining quite a bit from 308MHash/s to ~330MHash/s (peak it hit 381MHash/s but that's just lucky I think) on just the same OC settings;
core clock 840MHZ (max catalyst will safely go)
mem clock 1260MHZ
Power control is +20%
fan is 55% (should be 62% for my GPU as temps get high)

Thank you JWU42

[nebiki]

unlocked shaders. can't get my memory clock below 625MHz with msi afterburner. if i try trixx, memory clock won't change at all. power is +20%.

[onis_uk]

i've just got two sapphire hd6950's the (dirt 3 editions) and to my surprise they have the bios switch ! so i was getting "cannot erase the bio" to flicked the switch and bam i can flash it .............BUT
no matter that bio i flash it doesnt unlock the shaders or the card simply wont boot 

ive used atiwinflash in CMD with admin right and in the windows prog..... i have also saved my current bios and used the shader bios mod on it and flashed it back.......still not unlocked !

i dont know what else to try ??

any ideas ?!

cheers onis

[film2240]

i've just got two sapphire hd6950's the (dirt 3 editions) and to my surprise they have the bios switch ! so i was getting "cannot erase the bio" to flicked the switch and bam i can flash it .............BUT
no matter that bio i flash it doesnt unlock the shaders or the card simply wont boot 

ive used atiwinflash in CMD with admin right and in the windows prog..... i have also saved my current bios and used the shader bios mod on it and flashed it back.......still not unlocked !

i dont know what else to try ??

any ideas ?!

cheers onis

It sounds like your card may not be unlockable via BIOS updates or modified BIOS files.AMD have been trying to stop people unlocking the HD 6950 cards so that they'd have to shell out on a HD6950 card.I know it sux. Or maybe there's another method of unlocking that doesn't involve BIOS flashes.even then I think that if a card doesn't unlock via the BIOS method then it's quite unlikely that it's unlockable (there are exceptions to this of course but I don't know this for sure)

My card also has Dual BIOS switch.It's there so that if u brick ur card,u can go into like a safe mode where you can still boot to reflash the stock BIOS again.

If your cards not a reference board type,then it probably won't work anyway.The way to tell if it's reference is to look for the AMD logo near the PCI-E connector (gold edge that goes into  the motherboard)

Mine is a Sapphire (and yes it does have that black shroud with a picture over it's heat sink),the fan is positioned to hte back of the board (another way to tell that's its a reference board from what I'm hearing around the net) .

I hope this anwers your question.

P.S.Is it a reference board? (you can check by using the tips in my post)

[onis_uk]

no my cards arent reference design ! not sure why you'd have a bios switch if the bios wasnt flashable ! well i am able to flash it if i save the bios and then flash it to the card it works fine ....
i just cant find an unlocke don that will work !? ive tried all the sapphire bio's over at tech power up !

also with afterburner the voltage is locked and so is the memory timings ! even if i edit the afterburner config file ...still no control ?!?! whats going on ?!?! lol

[haydent]

no my cards arent reference design ! not sure why you'd have a bios switch if the bios wasnt flashable ! well i am able to flash it if i save the bios and then flash it to the card it works fine ....
i just cant find an unlocke don that will work !? ive tried all the sapphire bio's over at tech power up !

also with afterburner the voltage is locked and so is the memory timings ! even if i edit the afterburner config file ...still no control ?!?! whats going on ?!?! lol

DO NOT USE ATIWINFLASH IT WILL LOCK UP YOUR CARD USE ATIFLASH IN DOS !!!

[haydent]

unlocked shaders. can't get my memory clock below 625MHz with msi afterburner. if i try trixx, memory clock won't change at all. power is +20%.

theres no point underclocking your mem that much or more

[haydent]

can someone with experience on this please tell me in a clear step to step guide guide on what utilities to get,what settings to use,how to prepare USB stick for DOS flashing?

for starters you wont get over near 400mhs unless you are pushing 1000mhz with voltage increases as well...

you should be able to oc (depending temps) to 900mhz with no voltage changes, you just have to use something like msi afterburner to allow you to oc further

as for dos usb http://www.mediafire.com/?tjekkdcawqe7yd6 download that. you install HP prog, run it point it towards the win98 folder as the source of dos files (its an option during boot creation) this will make usb bootable and put dos files on it. then copy in windows your atiflash.exe and bios rom file onto the usb also. boot up on it and run

atiflash.exe -p 0 romfile.rom  (assuming you are trying to flash card 0 ie its the only one installed)

reboot and check gpuz that your count has gone up

[haydent]

Just installed my HIS 6950.

Using latest poclbm w/ gui front end

passing nothing - 230 Mhash
passing -v - 270 Mhash
No difference between w64 or w128

using -v -w128 -f2 = 281Mhash (only feasible when away at work)
using -v -w128 -f30 = 273 Mhash

Haven't messed with unlocking shaders just yet - maybe tomorrow 

I'd like 2 say thanx 4 the mining parameters as they have boosted my GPU mining quite a bit from 308MHash/s to ~330MHash/s (peak it hit 381MHash/s but that's just lucky I think) on just the same OC settings;
core clock 840MHZ (max catalyst will safely go)
mem clock 1260MHZ
Power control is +20%
fan is 55% (should be 62% for my GPU as temps get high)

Thank you JWU42

yes, i just changed added -v its got me an extra 12mhs ! nice. -f2 just holds me stronger but make everything laggy, so i run -f60 so it drops back when i need it coz i work and mine at same time

[haydent]

i just want to add that  i just updated to that latest guiminer and i use opencl and i got anothe 20mhs so i can now get 399.8Mhs

[hunter]

some cards (inc mine) have the voltage locked and you cant get much more than 900, so that why !

What cards do you have?

[shivansps]

right now im getting 374mhash out of my 6950s, in Linux, 845 core / 350 mem, cat 11.6.

I i oc over 845 i get negative performance increase, i dont known to workaround that, its because of the power setting, SDK 2.5 should give another 10 mhash extra.

[haydent]

some cards (inc mine) have the voltage locked and you cant get much more than 900, so that why !

What cards do you have?

gigabyte 1gb oc

[Bitcoin Swami]

I ordered a bunch of 6950's not long ago from tiger direct hoping to get this fellow.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7101568

But got some other versions that didn't have the bios switch and are a little worse at cooling. 

The only ones that I got that were pictured came from Buy.com and they stay cool and work great. (i have a new love for buy.com)

Anyways I get about 332 mhs on linux with -v -f0 -w 128.

I unlocked the shaders on the ones with the bios switch and get about 354 mh/s on them.. if I powertune to +20 I get about 360 mh/s.  Not sure if the wattage being taken up is worth the other mhs cause I dont have the thing to measure wattage quite yet so I keep the powertune down for now.

Just sharing my experience.

[haydent]

yeah, i just tried msi afterburner to go higher than my ccc limit of 900mhz, but then i dont get power control, and that gives me an extra 40mhs. so im trying sapphire trixx now as apparently that has it.

[haydent]

ok, im getting 408.9Mhs with 920mhz set with trixx as it can work with ccc and leaves power +20% on

[haydent]

ok, im getting 408.9Mhs with 920mhz set with trixx as it can work with ccc and leaves power +20% on

i spoke too soon, and they dont seem to work that well after reboot. ccc would just be blank screen and gpu would be acting as if power control had been disabled again... maybe rbe bios mod might be only way left but it sounds risk particularly if you dont have bios switch or backup video output

[nebiki]

ok, im getting 408.9Mhs with 920mhz set with trixx as it can work with ccc and leaves power +20% on

the new afterburner beta allows keeping power at +20%, too.

i spoke too soon, and they dont seem to work that well after reboot. ccc would just be blank screen and gpu would be acting as if power control had been disabled again... maybe rbe bios mod might be only way left but it sounds risk particularly if you dont have bios switch or backup video output

920 without voltage increase sounds a bit too much. i don't quite understand why you get 410Mhash/s, though, because i got just a little bit more at 1000 @1.2V (which is not efficient)

theres no point underclocking your mem that much or more

it saved me quite some Watts, though.