AMD Radeon HD 6950 to HD 6970 Mod

R-Type said:
Hydra Grid sounds like exactly what I've been looking for since grouping my displays. Is this included in CCC?
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Yep. There are actually some very cool desktop management features of CCC, including Hydra Grid and multi-desktop. In the older CCC (that installs with the Catalyst 10.12a hotfix), you can find the Hydra Grid options tabs on the upper right side of the window, IIRC. You enable it, apply it, and you can build exactly the grid you want. I just built a grid that has 4 vertical dividers - one at each bezel so I can eliminate the space between bezels. Just putting two lines in made the edges of all of my windows reside in the bezel space.
 
Neon01 said:
Yep. There are actually some very cool desktop management features of CCC, including Hydra Grid and multi-desktop. In the older CCC (that installs with the Catalyst 10.12a hotfix), you can find the Hydra Grid options tabs on the upper right side of the window, IIRC. You enable it, apply it, and you can build exactly the grid you want. I just built a grid that has 4 vertical dividers - one at each bezel so I can eliminate the space between bezels. Just putting two lines in made the edges of all of my windows reside in the bezel space.
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Awesome, this should eliminate my only complaint with eyefinity thus far.
 
i recommend powerdesk from the matrox line for the matrox triplehead setup.
you can use it to manage the eyefinity display.
it does a better job of splitting the eyefinity into seemingly seperate monitors automatically with out having to ctrl click or shift click all kinds of wierd things.
hydragrid for instance wont maximize to only one monitor if you double click the tittle bar. powerdesk will.
 
FranDaMan said:
rUmX, thanks for the reply. I've been following several forums the past few weeks trying to keep my cards just short of danger and it continues to elude me on the ram timings. Some mention volts as the problem and others the frequency. I assume it is actually a bit of both in that the 6950 ram isn't "rated" above 5gig (yet it is running at 5g so is that the "real" high end of the spec?) and the 6970 ram is "rated at 6g but is running @ 5.5. So the headroom is built in there but not on the 6950 knowing full well we all push these cards at least a little. Throw in the dual bios switch (which is friggin awesome in its own right) and it is either an outright invite to have our way with it or a come hither look and a whisper to our own ruination. I have no industry knowledge or anything but I'd hazard a guess that there is a built in error of around 10% in the same manner that if my car engine will absolutely explode at 10,000rpm and the red line is set at 8500 rpm then to me anyway they're telling me what is optimal and safe and showing me where the absolute limit is. Approach or exceed that number at your own risk. I was clocking the 6950 with shaders at 860/1370. Then I started hearing horror stories (including yours) about ram just frizzing out. I'm waiting patiently for AB to get updated so I can slowly up voltages and such but I'm afraid to get to heavy on the ram timing slider.

On a side note...my cards are idling at 32C which is about 12C below my 5770's even after I upgraded the tim on them. With the fan curve in AB keeping them cooled down I don't notice too much noise either.
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Here are my 2 6950s the day I got them:

r_1.png
r_2.png



Here's the defective 6950 :(

r_3.png


Basically I tried to unlock one of the 6950 using a 6970 bios the day I heard about the ability. It seemed OK for about a day then I started having issues like artifacts, and little dots. That was at 840/1350. I then dropped the core to 820 or so and the artifacts went away. Reading around about the memory going out of spec and stuff I decided to put it back to stock bios.

Later when the shader-only unlock was released I decided to try that. I dumped the bios, ran the php script, then flashed it to the card. It seemed fine for a bit. I left it at 820 since 840 would artifact. I left the memory at 1250mhz.

It wasn't until a few days later I would start to have real stability issues with the card. Tons of random BSODs, and they occured very frequently. I wouldn't go 20 minutes with the system on without a BSOD. I would also get hard locks as well. I even went back to the stock bios with everything @ stock and no dice. Still BSOD'ing. I even dropped the core/mem clocks to as low as CCC would allow and lowest Powertune % and still contant issues. I swapped cards and put the other never-been-flashed card and all has been well now. No issues and this other card can even do full 840/1325 max in Overdrive no problems. Oh let me add that the other card was able to do these speeds pre-flash.
 
I do wonder about potential degradation issues with this mod. Personally assuming I can afford to get two full-on 6970s, it's what I'm going to do.
 
samuelmorris said:
I do wonder about potential degradation issues with this mod. Personally assuming I can afford to get two full-on 6970s, it's what I'm going to do.
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Its the higher ram voltage on the 6970 bios that is killing ram, the new unlocked 6950 bios patches are much safer. I do agree though that $70 isn't a huge amount of money to get a guaranteed 6970 with a likely higher oc potential (or until powertune is hacked). Still, that $70 goes most of the way to paying for a waterblock on the card, and if you have heard the fan on these....watercooling is a good route to take.
 
After a marathon Oblivion session I've found my new clocks to be unstable. Crashed to GSOD after a good 8 hours (granted, 2-3 hrs of that was me casting restoration spells with a weight on the C key :p). Back to 900/1400.

Its the higher ram voltage on the 6970 bios that is killing ram, the new unlocked 6950 bios patches are much safer. I do agree though that $70 isn't a huge amount of money to get a guaranteed 6970 with a likely higher oc potential (or until powertune is hacked). Still, that $70 goes most of the way to paying for a waterblock on the card, and if you have heard the fan on these....watercooling is a good route to take.
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Which makes me wonder, if the Vcore and Vmem are set in BIOS... Why we haven't started modifying these voltages directly.
 
I tried unlocking the MSI Afterburner overclocking feature using the .cfg file, but when I do, Afterburner doesn't seem to work properly any more when I load it. It shows my core clocks at 800, and they should really be 840, which is what they were set at previously and what CCC shows. It also never unlocked the voltage selection, even after going into settings and checking the box to allow this.

Further, I noticed something else strange after playing a game recently - my primary card showed 840 MHz the entire time it was being taxed, but my secondary card (crossfire) only showed a core clock max of 800 MHz. Is this normal? I thought they were both supposed to be the same.

Did I go wrong somewhere here? I've reset the unlock mode to "0" in the .cfg file, but still Afterburner seems broken now when I load it up.
 
Arcygenical said:
Which makes me wonder, if the Vcore and Vmem are set in BIOS... Why we haven't started modifying these voltages directly.
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I am curious on this as well but while I'm familiar with modding Nvidia bios files with nhibitor, I'm not really sure what its analogue on the AMD side is. If we knew what voltage the ram in both cards was being run at, we could potentially find a middle ground voltage that would let the 6950 ram reach its full potential without danger. At the very least, I would like to mod the unlocked asus 6950 bios I am running to do 1.17V so I don't have to run their God-awful smart doctor software.
 
R-Type said:
I am curious on this as well but while I'm familiar with modding Nvidia bios files with nhibitor, I'm not really sure what its analogue on the AMD side is. If we knew what voltage the ram in both cards was being run at, we could potentially find a middle ground voltage that would let the 6950 ram reach its full potential without danger. At the very least, I would like to mod the unlocked asus 6950 bios I am running to do 1.17V so I don't have to run their God-awful smart doctor software.
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I have no real idea either, but I keep hearing that there needs to be a new release of something called "RBE" before people can do BIOS editing for voltage increase.

Honestly I don't think any of it matters much. I looked at Anandtech's numbers for Crysis at 2500x1600 4xAA, and the delta between 6950 and 6970 was...2 FPS. Who really cares? I can wait around for proper BIOS editing rather than risk my cards with a 6970 flash.
 
RBE = Radeon Bios Editor. And yes, it appears a new version is needed to work on the 69xx bios.
 
I continue to not have issues with a full 6970 bios on both cards (knock on wood). Like many of you, the system BSODs on a stock 6950 bios with any clocking above CCC max, though. I think the 6970 voltages are necessary.
 
My card is still doing fine with a 6970 bios, however after hearing about everyone's problems, I've clocked the ram down from 1450 to 1375.
 
is it sad that I can easily afford the extra for a 6970 but the tinkerer in me beat out the wanton modding anxiety and could not get past the word "unlocked" ? Something is wrong with me.

my asus card will be here monday evening
 
The Red said:
is it sad that I can easily afford the extra for a 6970 but the tinkerer in me beat out the wanton modding anxiety and could not get past the word "unlocked" ? Something is wrong with me.

my asus card will be here monday evening
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Same here. It's driving me crazy that my 6950 has been sitting in a UPS warehouse 20 minutes away all weekend and I can't go pick it up!
 
Well after playing with D3D overrider for a couple hours and researching around, it seems there is an issue with eyefinity that doesn't allow vsync to be forced on. This creates vertical tearing on my portrait monitors and is driving me up the wall. At this point I may end up going back to the Nvidia camp and getting a second 470. Its a shame because the card is great, unlocked with modded 6950 bios and hits 6970 speeds at 6950 volts. If anyone is looking for one, shoot me a PM.
 
My 6950 @ 6970 clocks and SP started crashing games last night. Switched back to the old bios and it works fine now. Just FYI.
 
xBanzai89 said:
My 6950 @ 6970 clocks and SP started crashing games last night. Switched back to the old bios and it works fine now. Just FYI.
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Bummer.

You been running it pretty hard? I've been pretty heavy into New Vegas and Bad Company 2 with no issues yet. Hoping it's going to hold up.
 
ManCannon said:
Bummer.

You been running it pretty hard? I've been pretty heavy into New Vegas and Bad Company 2 with no issues yet. Hoping it's going to hold up.
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PlanetSide, TF2, and some EQ2. Not graphically intense, but I've been doing 3-4 hour gaming sessions since I started doing this.
 
my 2 cards are working just fine.. 6970 bios and 6970 clocks... worked great for about 5 days now with 5+ hour a day gaming on it
 
Just flased my powercolor 6950 with a powercolor 6970 bios and 6970 clocks. So far so good.
 
XFX 6950 purchased this week from newegg modded to XFX 6970 bios with 6970 clocks. Confirmed in GPU-z. Also, OCCT stable.

Time to overclock or am I pushing my luck?
 
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ashmelev75 said:
Flashed my XFX 6950 with ASUS 6970 image provided in the original techpowerup article. Using the default 6970 speeds (880/1375) and 10% power bump the card works just fine in WoW. Temperatures are around 70-75C.
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So I've noticed that even with 20% power bump with on 6970 speeds the card throttles down (from 100+ fps to ~30) and the games feel sluggish. I had to lower the core to 840MHz to prevent it. Anyone else experiences the same issue?
 
Successful unlock of ASUS 6950 using Asus 6970 Bios but cannot use SmartDoctor, it says "Can not find graphics card information."
 
Hey guys, I'm having a tiny issue that maybe you can help me with. The Asus 6950 that I flashed to Asus 6970 from their list is awesome. Running at 920 / 1400, but if I push to max it will simply freeze because of power constraints. I need the Asus SmartDoctor to raise voltage, but after installing it, it always fails to start and throws up an error that says "Can not find graphics card information."

Anyone know whats up?
 
Be careful overclocking it Red I went through the same thing with my old asus 6950 and a day later it started artifacting/crashing even when I took it back to 6970 stock clocks. I did the shader unlock instead and gave the card to my brother and its been fine.
 
The Red said:
Hey guys, I'm having a tiny issue that maybe you can help me with. The Asus 6950 that I flashed to Asus 6970 from their list is awesome. Running at 920 / 1400, but if I push to max it will simply freeze because of power constraints. I need the Asus SmartDoctor to raise voltage, but after installing it, it always fails to start and throws up an error that says "Can not find graphics card information."

Anyone know whats up?
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Make sure you have the latest Smart Doctor version. I had this same issue. And do a reboot after installing it.

I think I got it from here:

http://www.userdrivers.com/Video-Graphic-Adapter/Asus-Smart-Doctor-5-74-for-Windows-XP-Vista-7/
 
the new afterburner 2.1.0 beta 6 has voltage control for shader unlocked 6950's.... I dont see why anyone would use that asus junkass program.

Just dont use the overdrive at all and it works fine.

With my shader unlocked 6950 I can run 900/1400 on stock 6950 volts and 950/1425 with 1.25v in afterburner.

1.175 volts which is stock 6970 volts gets me 930/1400 no problems.
 
Now that we can use the new AB for volts and clocks does anyone know what the "safe" limit on voltage is? Reason I ask is that we don't seem to be totally sure on the issues apparently caused by the 6970 bios on the 6950's. If it is the 1.17v that is to blame then obviously I don't want to go that far. But if it is actually a regulation thing in the 6970 bios or on the pcb itself in conjunction with the higher voltage then perhaps that would be fine?

So many questions, so little time.
 
FranDaMan said:
Now that we can use the new AB for volts and clocks does anyone know what the "safe" limit on voltage is? Reason I ask is that we don't seem to be totally sure on the issues apparently caused by the 6970 bios on the 6950's. If it is the 1.17v that is to blame then obviously I don't want to go that far. But if it is actually a regulation thing in the 6970 bios or on the pcb itself in conjunction with the higher voltage then perhaps that would be fine?

So many questions, so little time.
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the voltages to worry about are most likely memory voltages. I dunno if afterburner allows you modify those.
 
It only allows for the core voltage adjust so I'm going to assume that everything else is regulated via firmware or hardware and will (hopefully) do the usual stuff to show it isn't happy, back off a bit and rock happily for a year or three!
 
I've installed the newest beta of MSI (2.1.0 Beta6) and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I went into the config file, enabled the "unlock mode", checked the box for voltage control in the settings menu, but now I'm getting some strange behavior. When I set the core clock to anything over 840 (the highest setting available in the CCC overdrive), it still shows a core clock speed of 840. Further, this never "downclocks" to the standard 450 MHz like it used to (the second would go to 250 MHz, and this one also stays at 840).

Also, it really doesn't play well with Overdrive, as when I set something in there, it resets when I go back into MSI Afterburner and vice versa.

What did I do wrong? How can I get it to reliably clock to >840 MHz and still down clock when the GPU isn't being used?

Thanks
 
I am getting random freezing. I think it may be my power supply. I have a 640watt corsair power supply and a q9650 @ 3.8ghz , 8 gigs of ram, a 1tb wd caviar black , 60 gig vertex , 120 gig vertext 2 , a bluray burner and a dvd burner. I dunno if its enough power
 
Corsair makes good power supply's and 640watt is a good amount. How many video cards do you have? If its just a single GPU card you should have more than enough power.

Is your card stock or is this after you unlocked it. Any video card overclocking and if so what settings?
 
Neon01 said:
I've installed the newest beta of MSI (2.1.0 Beta6) and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I went into the config file, enabled the "unlock mode", checked the box for voltage control in the settings menu, but now I'm getting some strange behavior. When I set the core clock to anything over 840 (the highest setting available in the CCC overdrive), it still shows a core clock speed of 840. Further, this never "downclocks" to the standard 450 MHz like it used to (the second would go to 250 MHz, and this one also stays at 840).

Also, it really doesn't play well with Overdrive, as when I set something in there, it resets when I go back into MSI Afterburner and vice versa.

What did I do wrong? How can I get it to reliably clock to >840 MHz and still down clock when the GPU isn't being used?

Thanks
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Which "unlock mode" did you enable? Voltage control or unofficial overclocking? Also, are you using a flashed 6970? If so, Unwinder said it's not compatible but I believe someone on OCN found a solution. I can't find it for the life of me but it should be on one of the first 3 pages of their ATI forum. Something about adding some lines to the end of the afterburner .cfg file.
 
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