Sapphire HD 6950 2gb Dirt3 edition...

[TheRapture]

What good does a dual bios do, if the damn AMD driver won't let it boot after a custom bios is loaded, due to driver and bios version matching....there has got to be a way around this, without having to load a fresh copy of windows every time you want to flash a new bios....

I don't want to flash a 6970 bios, I don't even really care if I couldn't flash an overclocked bios, I just want to be able to load a custom bios that has different fan profiles....

Seriously, anyone with a NEW Sapphire 6950 that can flash a custom bios and NOT have it BSOD with a "ATIKMDAG.sys" error as soon as windows tried to load?

 

[spacing guild]

Just reflash to your original BIOS and use Trixx for your fan profiles. I just tried a few flashes and i'm not sure that dual BIOS switch works. I messed up a flash thinking "okay ill just 'use the other bios by flipping the switch' and everything would be reset". Unless I did something wrong, flipping the switch did nothing.

The chances for an unlock with this card are slim, so..I wouldn't even mess with the BIOS anymore.

 

[Spudsdude]

Ok, just did an unlock on another Dirt3 edition card, both worked the same way.

Boot the pc with the bios in postion 1 (towards the crossfire connector)
using gpu-z0.5.5 make a backup of the bios
save the bios as Cayman_Dirt3_stock

load up RBE, unlock the shaders under the advanced tab and save it as
Cayman_Dirt3_stock_speed_unlocked_shaders

with the pc running, switch the bios position to number 2
start up ati_winflash_2.0.1.14
load the Cayman_Dirt3_stock_speed_unlocked_shaders
press program

wait for it to tell you it's done, don't worry if the screen freaks out and windows looks like it's "almost" locked up, it will tell you when it's done, after it's done, you might be able to gracefully reboot windows, in both cases when i've done them i've had to reboot via the power switch.

2 for 2 with the Dirt3 editions of the card, both are from Newegg from the last week

Things I've noticed between the Dirt3 and the Toxic
- Toxic has an 8+6 pin power config, allowing more power use
- Toxic has 2 crossfire connectors, only 1 on the Dirt3 card
- Toxic card will boot with the bios in position 2, the Dirt3 cards would not display anything until after I had flashed the bios in position 2

 

[TheRapture]

I have tried flashing that exact way....just a different save name....no go.

I don't want to unlock the shaders at all. I just like having a custom fan profile and having to run less software. The flash method works as I can indeed flash a completely stock bios back to it, but if I change ANYTHING in the saved bios using RBE....it blue screens on bootup with MKDIAG.exe failure. Easy to fix as I flip to the fixed bios, reboot, reflash, then both positions work again.

It has to do with the bios changing it's "signature" with ANY kind of modification, and then the registry entry does not recognize the new bios which results in a BSOD.

I have a very new card that has the newer bios that identifies as an HD 6990...AMD has really fucked us on this one...makes the dual bios useless.

Right now I have my card at 860/1350 and a custom fan profile in Trixx. Yes, it works well...but I want to be able to use the dual bios the way it was advertised/intended. *oh well*

 

[TheRapture]

Also, in RBE I don't even have the option to unlock shaders, it is grayed out. this newer revision is simply...not able to flash a custom bios, of anything.