Sapphire 6950 2gb Dirt 3 version, not unlockable

C

cyrusfox

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 8, 2010
Messages
173
I bought this card from a member here for $215,

14-102-945-TS


good price for the 2gb model and the previous owner claimed he hadn't tried unlocking it so I thought maybe there was a chance as I read on a dutch review site that someone had success unlocking this version.

I had pulled the bios off and modified it with RBE to unlock the shaders. Got my dos boot usb stick ready and learned the ins and outs of atiflash. Only problem is I kept getting "error 00FL01" when I tried to flash the new bios to card, it said rom not erased, I tried -unlockrom command, googled it too. Puzzled, I wondered if the bios switch on this card was on the lock position. So I switched positions on the card and started up in dos again. Before I went to write, I saved the alternate bios file for review later. This time it wrote the bios to the card with no error. Restarted back in to windows 7, I opened up GPU-z though, no shader unlock, sapphire trixx confirmed, oh well. I decided I should peek at the file that was written there before. This is when I got a little upset, the bios file was modified with RBE to try and unlock the shaders, the previous owner had tried to unlock and it didn't work and lied straight to my face(well through PMing).

I used the copy of DiRT 3 that came with it though, but it comes with everything else. Also, I have not tried to unlock it, but it does have the dual BIOS switch.
Click to expand...
I wasted my time trying to unlock a card which can't be unlocked from a seller who misled me.
I would have bought the card anyways but why the dishonesty, I'll probably still give positive heat as the card works and got here relatively quick(payed on sunday, came today saturday, 6 days). Anyone think I am being too sensitive or jumping to conclusions? I should probably just forget it...

I just wanted to post officially somewhere that this card does not unlock. Also the locked/safe bios is when the switch is closest to the CF terminal. The unlocked modifiable bios is when the switch is further away from the CF terminal. Sapphire doesn't have this documented anywhere I could find and the switch is quite hidden behind the fan shroud. I find with a Voltage of 1.8 I get an OC of 950/1350, the memory on my card does not OC well at all, at stock volt I get 900/1250(seriously the ram does not like faster speeds). This card stock is just 800/1250. I haven't done anything but stress test it so far. I might as well write a custom bios now that I went to all the trouble of figuring out how to flash it. Any recommendations on settings for custom Bios?
 
Don't worry about it. Unlocking only gains you 2-3% in games. You wont even feel it. Overclocking with voltage bump is far more worthwile.
 
Well the second method didn't work either(post #2), but I feel fairly confident about flashing bios on Graphic cards now, might as well make a custom one and flash it over. Still at 1408 Shaders, but its still a fast card(I am stepping up from a Sapphire 6850). With how quiet and cool the dual cooler is on this, I may just stick with it rather than going through the hassle of installing a universal GPU waterblock. Sure wish my memory had a little more room to be over clocked. I get artifacts and sometimes total lock up if I try to take it any higher.

I was a little heated when I posted this as I found the card had already been attempted to be unlocked, when I thought I was venturing into unknown territory. The non reference cooler on this card is amazing though. I am going to reboot and load the custom bios I made so its running at top speeds without voltage adjustment
 
I think you're being a tad bit too heated, seller did not say it was going to even unlock, or even capable. (although, i can't see the entire advertisement he posted)
actually, many people did not know this version could not unlock when buying it.
this late into the 6950 2gb game, and they release a dual bios non reference card, sapphire really confused a lot of buyers

nonetheless,
I would say you came out a winner if this card bodes well over time.
Great card! unlockable or not for $215 :)
 
Suprfire said:
I think you're being a tad bit too heated, seller did not say it was going to even unlock, or even capable. (although, i can't see the entire advertisement he posted)
actually, many people did not know this version could not unlock when buying it.
this late into the 6950 2gb game, and they release a dual bios non reference card, sapphire really confused a lot of buyers

nonetheless,
I would say you came out a winner if this card bodes well over time.
Great card! unlockable or not for $215 :)
Click to expand...

agree in some respects ... more then likely most of the 6950s that people resell have been tried to be unlocked (just makes sense) - but ya I get the dishonesty part ...

you got a good deal on your card thou ... why fret. Actually thinking about buying the same one and they charge a fortune for it here in the UK 225pounds roughly 360 dollars (wish I was back in the states for at least buying things).

Card does sound nice IMO - cool/quite/nice look ...
 
Suprfire said:
I think you're being a tad bit too heated, seller did not say it was going to even unlock, or even capable. (although, i can't see the entire advertisement he posted)
actually, many people did not know this version could not unlock when buying it.
this late into the 6950 2gb game, and they release a dual bios non reference card, sapphire really confused a lot of buyers

nonetheless,
I would say you came out a winner if this card bodes well over time.
Great card! unlockable or not for $215 :)
Click to expand...

Your totally right, I just needed a place to vent and get it out of my system(Like Abraham lincoln and a hot letter), I am over it. It was a great price for a quiet and cool 2gb 6950.

Now I just need to upgrade my CPU and mobo to keep up with the GPU.( I have a Phenom ii x4 965 BE OC to 3.8 and a GB 790XTA-UD4) Both just a little over a year old.
 
the 965 @ 3.8Ghz is keeping up with the gpu just fine. anything over 3.6Ghz the gpu becomes the bottleneck once again unless you are running at an insanely low resolution(lower than 1920x1080).
 
cyrusfox said:
I find with a Voltage of 1.8 I get an OC of 950/1350, the memory on my card does not OC well at all, at stock volt I get 900/1250(seriously the ram does not like faster speeds). This card stock is just 800/1250.
Click to expand...

I have this card also. I am running stock voltages and was able to juice the RAM to 1350 but ran into the errors you described at anything above that. I have my core at 910 running stable, but have been unable to adjust any of the voltages through Sapphire TRIXX. Are you writing a custom BIOS to adjust voltage or what are you doing?

Other than the inability to unlock shaders, I LOVE this card. It runs cool, stable, and tears through the few games I play (mostly BC2).
 
Hey everyone. I figured I should pass on some knowledge that you all might want. On Guru3D.com a thread was started called ATI HD 6950 2GB 'Dirt 3' unlock - http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=350307. This thread shows you how to flash this cards BIOS in a simple to use guide that gets results when done properly. Another site also pointed out a very nifty feature that seems to be getting a high success rate is to simply switch the BIOS to the position that is farthest from the crossfire link connector (BIOS 2) and you will get unlocked shader of 1536. It's that easy. Just tried it and now I have unlocked shaders on both 6950 Dirt 3 edition cards. Unfortunately I cannot give credit where credit is due as I forgot the name of the site where this thread was started. But I know this helped me a bunch after searching for hours for a fix for this card. You've got nothing to lose by swithching to the second BIOS and seeing if it unlockes the shaders for you. Would recommend just unlocking the shaders and keeping the 6950 BIOS though as the 6970 BIOS is known to burn out the cards as the VRM's run hotter. - Drdeath. Overall this is a truly great card, and if you got one, you've gotten a serious deal. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Alex
 
If you are only going to unlock you only get +2-3 % in games running at 6950 reference speeds for gpu and ram with 1536 shaders over a standard 6950 (not unlocked). However once unlocked and overclocked the benefit is much better. You basically are overclocking all 1536 shaders so the difference is much more the higher up you overclock.

There is not a 2-3 % difference in games comparing a 950mhz 6950 at 1408 shaders vs a 950mhz 6950 at 1536 shaders. The overclocking is exponential to the amount of shaders being overclocked. At that point your talking something like 15% which is a whole upgrade.

Lorien Created a thread with a interesting hardmod simply using bubble gum instead of fixing wires and stuff. It's located here, and worth a shot if the post just above mine doesn't work.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1621938
 
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No, the OP has a good point.

The seller claimed he "never tried" unlocking the card which was a lie. He mislead the buying by dangling the possibility of unlocking the card in front of him.

The OP found that the bios had been previously modified and thusly an unlock had been attempted.
 
I have noticed and read several threads debating whether or not you can still get the Sapphire Toxic 6950 2gb unlocked on a new purchase. After hovering over the egg waiting for this graphics card to come back into stock, I finally bought one on Tuesday. It was delivered two days later. I was anxious to see and test this card.
The first and only thing I did was move the switch into the other position (the farthest position away from the dvi and hdmi connections on the back of the card) and installed and booted up my computer. With a quick check with GPU-Z, I have unlocked shaders and overclocked settings. No bios flashing, etc, this came stock with just a flip of the switch. This card also came with the DIRT3 and Dues Ex software.
 
Reitus said:
I have noticed and read several threads debating whether or not you can still get the Sapphire Toxic 6950 2gb unlocked on a new purchase. After hovering over the egg waiting for this graphics card to come back into stock, I finally bought one on Tuesday. It was delivered two days later. I was anxious to see and test this card.
The first and only thing I did was move the switch into the other position (the farthest position away from the dvi and hdmi connections on the back of the card) and installed and booted up my computer. With a quick check with GPU-Z, I have unlocked shaders and overclocked settings. No bios flashing, etc, this came stock with just a flip of the switch. This card also came with the DIRT3 and Dues Ex software.
Click to expand...

^^^ Forgot to say in my last post but I agree with this,

OP, I would stress test the card very thoroughly before giving positive heat on the transaction. Try and see how the card overclocks. The seller probably got a card that can't unlock and overclocks worth a shit and decided to hose you on it. If there is any instability at all you should ask him to take it back and refund your money and shipping. If he isn't willing to do that, tell him that knowing what you know now you would have paid $50 less for the card in it's current condition. If he can refund you $50 you'll keep it, if he isn't willing to work with you at all, then blast him on heatware and be sure to post a link to this thread and a detailed description of the problem.
 
I have two of these cards. I knew before buying them they wouldn't unlock. Overclocked, I score P32,000 Vantage and P9450 3dmark 2011. With a single card, i've scored almost P24,000. I won't be missing the extra shaders. I bought them because they were $250 a piece; I got two free games (2 copies of Dirt3 and Deus Ex: Human Rev.) and high-quality cooling solutions.
 
spacing guild said:
I have two of these cards. I knew before buying them they wouldn't unlock. Overclocked, I score P32,000 Vantage and P9450 3dmark 2011. With a single card, i've scored almost P24,000. I won't be missing the extra shaders. I bought them because they were $250 a piece; I got two free games (2 copies of Dirt3 and Deus Ex: Human Rev.) and high-quality cooling solutions.
Click to expand...

Have you tried to unlock them anyway? Some people have had luck with this model.
 
spacing guild said:
Nope. Not worth the risk. I bricked a 7950 once and it cost me $200 bucks.

Um, where is the proof of it? Perhaps i'm feeling adventurous. ;)
Click to expand...

Honestly there is very little risk in bricking your cards. The card has 2 different bios settings. One is writable and the other is a fail safe. If you were flashing the bios you would only be using the writable bios and IF something does indeed go wrong you can always shut down, flip the switch to the fail safe bios and boot up windows, while in windows flip the switch back to the writable bios and re-flash the bios with the backup copy you made of the bios that worked originally and came from the factory with the card.

With dual bioses I would feel a million % more comfortable

As far as proof there are many success stories, here is one I found simply by google searching for less than 5 minutes http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=350307

To be clear you want to;

1. Boot up with the card in the writable bios
2. back up the bios on the card using RBE and name it something like backupbios.bin
3. Load that bios into RBE
4. While that bios is loaded into RBE you go to the last tab in the upper right and add a check the box for 6970 shaders
5. You then save that new bios and name it something like superbackupbios.bin
6 After that's done you load superbackupbios.bin into RBE, click the acquire/flash button at the bottom
7. Click search and your card/s should come up
8. Click force flash checkbox and then say yes that your sure
9. Click flash and say no to restart
10. Flash each of your cards and when done with the last one say yes to restart
11. Open GPU-Z and check each card in the dropdown to see if 1536 shaders is showing or 1408

If the flash was sucessful you can see either 1408 or 1536. The unlocking depends on luck of the draw as some Cayman Pro GPU's are being laser locked at the factory and others are not.
 
lol...you've got to be kidding me

Ok...so I go to do this ROM flash using a guide on

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151456


So I have two cards...

The first card...I saved the original BIOS as instructed. When I went to edit it with RBE, I noticed that under 'additional features' that the 6950-> 6970 unlock box wasn't greyed out and was already selected as "6970 shader count". Not knowing any better I figured "cool it intuitively knew that I wanted to flash to 6970". I then did the force flash, rebooted and noticed the shader count didn't change. I figure maybe I did the edit wrong so I go over the original ROM file again and I notice that the box "BIOS had been
pre-modified using RBE" had been checked off.

Son of a gun....Ewiz/superbiiz sold me a used video card! Some bloke must have tried to flash it, saw that it didn't work, repackaged it all nice and sent it back to eWiz and they sold to me as new.

Unless i'm completely misinterpreting what I saw and did while trying to flash the card...
Ewiz are sons of bitches.:mad:

I backed up the original bios to the second card and read it with RBE...the box was greyed-out and the bios was unmodified. No shader unlock there.

I'll complain...but the truth is, it's not worth it to send it back to eWiz and i'm sure they aren't the first to repackage items as new. Ahh well...
 
houe said:
RBE has the unlock options totally greyed out on my Sapphire card. I have this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945
I'm guessing this means I don't have a chance at unlocking.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't be grayed out. That's a real head scratcher.

Well let me ask you... Have you saved the bios on the card using acquire/flash option at the bottom? Save the bios to your system and name it something like backupbios.bin. Then you load that bios into RBE and then and ONLY THEN will you be able to add a check to 6970 shaders.

At that point you want to save that backupbios.bin as something else say superbackupbios.bin This bios now has the shaders unlocked

You now want to flash that bios onto the writable bios of the card.

If your doing this and it's still grayed out I have to say this is a first and I'm very confused.
 
For whatever reason. My Sapphire 6950 is recognized as a 6990 in all the programs. Looks like RBE sees this and disables the ability to change the bios. Anyone else having theirs reported as a 6990? I see a couple recent reviews on newegg are having this same 6990 issue.
 
houe said:
For whatever reason. My Sapphire 6950 is recognized as a 6990 in all the programs. Looks like RBE sees this and disables the ability to change the bios. Anyone else having theirs reported as a 6990? I see a couple recent reviews on newegg are having this same 6990 issue.
Click to expand...

I see, what I'd try then is to;

Load RBE
Save the bios on the card as backupbios.bin
load backupbios.bin into rbe
under the home page in rbe under Sub Vendor Id/Video Card ID choose the drop down and choose 6950.
Save that bios as 6950backupbios.bin
Load that bios into RBE
Unlock the shaders on the bios and save it as super6950backupbios.bin
Load super6950bios.bin into RBE and force flash it onto your card.

Remember if you brick the 2nd bios, simply shut down, go to the fail safe bios, boot up, flip back to the writable bios in windows, flash backupbios.bin back onto the writable bios and your good to go and back where you started a little wiser and having learned what your card is capable of.

EDIT: BTW I just loaded up RBE, opened a 6950 bios I have and changed it to 6990 and I have confirmed that after saving that bios as 6990 that the unlock option is greyed out. It should absolutely work the reverse way. Good luck, I'm excited for you now :D
 
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Thanks for the information. Will try it out later tonight. Right now I'm running some tests to determine max gpu/memory clocks. A little off topic, but does upping the GPU voltage help with memory overclocks or is it strictly limited to helping the GPU?
 
houe said:
Thanks for the information. Will try it out later tonight. Right now I'm running some tests to determine max gpu/memory clocks. A little off topic, but does upping the GPU voltage help with memory overclocks or is it strictly limited to helping the GPU?
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure if it's supposed to or not, from my experience on both of my cards it didn't help memory at all. Seems to only be for the GPU.
 
houe said:
card didn't unlock or RBE didn't let you alter the bios file?
Click to expand...

didn't unlock... changing from 6990 to 6950 unlocked the greyed-out 6950 -> 6970 shader unlock box.

I saved a new BIOS with the unlock to 6970 selected, force flashed, rebooted no extra shaders.
 
spacing guild said:
didn't unlock... changing from 6990 to 6950 unlocked the greyed-out 6950 -> 6970 shader unlock box.

I saved a new BIOS with the unlock to 6970 selected, force flashed, rebooted no extra shaders.
Click to expand...

Your shaders are laser blocked on your gpu. If your gpu had the shaders available it would have worked with that trick.

They are getting pretty cunning, switching to 6990 so most people don't flash or get stuck there. Do me a favor somebody and if you post at guru3d, please post the fix i just came up with to switch the bios to 6950 in RBE from 6990.
 
I tried but no luck. However I'm not 100% the flash worked as GPU-Z still identified the GPU as a Antilles. I figured this would have changed to cayman. I'll pull the newly flashed bios and compare it to the original and super and see which one matches. Gotta find a good file compare utility...
 
I pulled the bios and compared it to the original and the "super" and it did match the super. So it appears to have flashed just fine. My card cannot be unlocked. I flashed it back to the original and verified and will leave it be at that. Thanks you for giving me a shot at it.
 
No problem. It's luck of the draw really. Not to worry I'm sure your card will make you very happy. Not all gpu's unlock as you know and it's still a great card. Enjoy it. :)
 
spacing guild said:
lol...you've got to be kidding me

Ok...so I go to do this ROM flash using a guide on

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151456


So I have two cards...

The first card...I saved the original BIOS as instructed. When I went to edit it with RBE, I noticed that under 'additional features' that the 6950-> 6970 unlock box wasn't greyed out and was already selected as "6970 shader count". Not knowing any better I figured "cool it intuitively knew that I wanted to flash to 6970". I then did the force flash, rebooted and noticed the shader count didn't change. I figure maybe I did the edit wrong so I go over the original ROM file again and I notice that the box "BIOS had been
pre-modified using RBE" had been checked off.

Son of a gun....Ewiz/superbiiz sold me a used video card! Some bloke must have tried to flash it, saw that it didn't work, repackaged it all nice and sent it back to eWiz and they sold to me as new.

Unless i'm completely misinterpreting what I saw and did while trying to flash the card...
Ewiz are sons of bitches.:mad:

I backed up the original bios to the second card and read it with RBE...the box was greyed-out and the bios was unmodified. No shader unlock there.

I'll complain...but the truth is, it's not worth it to send it back to eWiz and i'm sure they aren't the first to repackage items as new. Ahh well...
Click to expand...

Wow, I have no idea how I missed this post. I don't think your cards were repackaged. I think that the cards are being flashed with a custom bios by sapphire set as a 6990 so that they can outsmart you and make you think that you can't unlock the shaders.

However if one follows the steps I outlined a few posts ago u should have 1536 shaders permitting your card isn't laser blocked.
 
Using RBE 1.28 on my new Sapphire 2gb Dirt3 edition causes a BSOD when loading windows 7 x64 with an atimdiag.sys...even if I ONLY modify the fan profile and leave clocks alone...then save the bios and flash, it BSOD's. I can flash back to the stock bios and everything is peachy keen. Basically, ANY modification of the stock bios using RBE causes BSOD.

I saw several others having the same issue, including lord exodia...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2280228#post2280228

And another...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144426 and a quote:

"You can't change clocks in the BIOS at this time without causing a driver failure on the 6950/6970.
6990 is probably the same.

Reason being the driver looks for a matching signature from the BIOS, which if altered will cause a BSOD or even a BlackSOD.

This is why a OS re-install will "seem to work", as the updated driver isn't loaded yet.

ATIKMDAG.sys seems to be the culprit.

Until AMD drops the stupid id check, unless someone can modify the driver file to ignore the id check, you won't be able to modify clocks and fan profiles via the BIOS. (Or if someone can find out a way to change clocks and not let it change the signature)"
 
TheRapture said:
Using RBE 1.28 on my new Sapphire 2gb Dirt3 edition causes a BSOD when loading windows 7 x64 with an atimdiag.sys...even if I ONLY modify the fan profile and leave clocks alone...then save the bios and flash, it BSOD's. I can flash back to the stock bios and everything is peachy keen. Basically, ANY modification of the stock bios using RBE causes BSOD.

I saw several others having the same issue, including lord exodia...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2280228#post2280228

And another...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144426 and a quote:

"You can't change clocks in the BIOS at this time without causing a driver failure on the 6950/6970.
6990 is probably the same.

Reason being the driver looks for a matching signature from the BIOS, which if altered will cause a BSOD or even a BlackSOD.

This is why a OS re-install will "seem to work", as the updated driver isn't loaded yet.

ATIKMDAG.sys seems to be the culprit.

Until AMD drops the stupid id check, unless someone can modify the driver file to ignore the id check, you won't be able to modify clocks and fan profiles via the BIOS. (Or if someone can find out a way to change clocks and not let it change the signature)"
Click to expand...

Strange, I'm not sure why your getting a BSOD using RBE. My cards are not the sapphire Toxic 6950s I have a HiS and a MSI and both cards are reference cards. I was getting BSOD crashes because I wanted to make a custom bios with a overclock on the core/shader/voltage and I wanted to add my fan profile to the bios.

Unfortunately RBE will create the bios with the overclock and everything but it'll cause a bsod. I have a custom bios on my cards now that I created with a custom voltage of 1.295, as well as unlocked shaders and that works like a charm.

Seems like your doing everything right but you still get a bsod. Question, have you tried removing your drivers and then flashing your card and after rebooting, reinstalling the drivers for the card. I would do the following;

1. Download and install driver sweeper 3.2.0 HERE
2. Remove the amd drivers from the control panel
3. Reboot the system and go into safe mode
4. Run driver sweeper in safe mode and remove all traces of AMD
5. Reboot the system and then flash the bios.
6. Reboot the system and install the drivers with antivirus and all other software based detection tools etc.. disabled.
7. Reboot again after the driver install.
 
Like the thread says, it appears to be an AMD ID issue. For all that trouble, I am just sticking with using Trixx to customize fan profile and a mild overclock of only 825/1275, Overdrive forced to +20%.

I am not a major tweaker...I get it close and call it good. If I can find a way to edit the bios and flash properly I will...but I am not about to get into all that mess you listed :D

edit: the card will indeed flash properly. With no drivers installed, the card WILL boot...gpu-z sees the new settings!!!!! But you have no 3d!!! ...put the drivers back, reboot...BAM, bsod. So it does indeed appear that the operating system and amd sets an entry at first install that "sees" the card bios....once you change the bios it does not match anymore and the bsod occurs as soon as atimdiag.sys tries to load. I can reload the stock bios back to it and windows is fine on either position. If I change ANYTHING and flash it, that modded bios will then result in a bsod again. Based on that it looks like I could have a custom bios flashed THEN load a fresh install of windows....fuck that, too much work. Right now I have the custom bios loaded on the writable switch, using the locked bios now. Maybe someone will find a way to fix it so that we can change bios without having to reinstall windows every time...
 
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Lord_Exodia said:
It shouldn't be grayed out. That's a real head scratcher.



If your doing this and it's still grayed out I have to say this is a first and I'm very confused.
Click to expand...


No confusion, there is a new revision out there that cannot be unlocked, nor a modified 6950 bios flashed to it, regardless of the fact that it has a dual bios. I have one of the new ones, NOTHING works, either from DOS or from Windows. If you take the stock bios, save it, modify it, and flash it...you get a BSOD when it loads Windows. Dual bios switch, useless.
 
This is confusing. Several reviews recently on the Egg (starting around the 15th of October) state that the users have been able to unlock to all 1536 shaders simply by flipping the BIOS switch between the Xfire connectors. I can't imagine them randomly lying about such a thing..
 
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