Race to dump the 4870 ROM, Who's first?

[The Rominator]

Oddly enough, after flashing an 8800gt from my first gen mac pro to work in my '09 I experienced similar behavior in that it works great under OS X but I can no longer use it through boot camp.

Dude. this is fixable...it has to do with Device id of card and ROM and the way Nvidia uses Softstraps to load final digit of this device id.

When windows sees multiple device id's for same card it halts.

Don't suppose you are in LA?

[jeanlain]

Hi there,

Last Year FEB08 ,at the same Time i was pretty Active to Help the People Out with the 8800GT when it Came out, Everybody tried to BUY the RIGHT CARD with the RIGHT PCB color and ROM SIZE ( 128K ) i did buy 4 different 8800GT´s to figure out which CARD is the BEST one to FLASH , so i made FOTOS with the HEATSINK Mounted OFF and POSTED them here, it really Helped a lot !

------------------
!!!! to all the USERS that did FLASH an HD4870 512/ 1024 MB (for MAC PRO 2006 2008 etc..... just make some Fotos of the PCB BOARD of the CARD to we all can buy the right CARD for doing it RIGHT !

sorry for my English

CHECK MY OLDER POST in my PROFILE !( you will see what i mean LET´s turn this Thread into a HELPING ONE )
Woa, you did buy four 8800GT to figure out which cards will work? :)
If I had the money, I'd probably by a 4870 just to test, but I cannot afford a mistake if I cannot return the card.
The one on the photos.... did you flash it? Which manufacturer, model...? THAT would help a lot if we knew. ;)

EDIT: Oh you probably don't have that card... nevermind.

[smgfreak]

Woa, you did buy four 8800GT to figure out which cards will work? :)
If I had the money, I'd probably by a 4870 just to test, but I cannot afford a mistake if I cannot return the card.
The one on the photos.... did you flash it? Which manufacturer, model...? THAT would help a lot if we knew. ;)

EDIT: Oh you probably don't have that card... nevermind.

yes i did buy 4 8800gt in FEB2008 ! Buy ONE , Flash it , if OK keep it, if not Send it back , order a NEW ONE ! and so on .........until one Card did work.

[tobyg]

Oddly enough, after flashing an 8800gt from my first gen mac pro to work in my '09 I experienced similar behavior in that it works great under OS X but I can no longer use it through boot camp.

I just reflashed my EVGA 8800GT that was running the EFI32 bit ROM and in my MP 2x2.66 Quad (MacPro1,1) to the EFI64 bit ROM and put it in my new 2x2.8ghz Octo (MacPro3,1) and it works fine in OSX and Bootcamp with XP.

Curious, maybe the 8800GT won't work in the '09 Mac Pro. I don't know of anyone else who has tried the 8800GT in the '09 Mac Pro.


I'm done with the 4870 flashing. I'll get the official Apple 4870 when it's available.
Tried 2 cards and both failed, so I'm done.

[jeanlain]

thats sad, this trick worked with 9800 card and 8800gt rom. :(
Hey, maybe it will work with a 2nd gen 4870 and the Mac 4870 rom.
Could we expect better success with this method? Why did you use it with the 9800 card, because it only has a 64KB rom?

I'd be nice to know WHY the recent Sapphire 4870 could not be flashed. Apparently, it is not specific to the EFI part since the cards are made unusable even in PCs. Wrong device ID or something? I know squat about BIOS...

EDIT: tobyg, what was the other card you flashed? Just so we know which card to avoid.

[tobyg]

EDIT: tobyg, what was the other card you flashed? Just so we know which card to avoid.

The other card was a Diamond. Read my previous posts in this thread.
That one probably would have failed too, as it had the same RV770XT product name and P/N 11X- instead of 113- but that one I was never able to test. It physically wouldn't go into the lower slot on the Mac Pro because of the screws in the back being too long. I didn't try it in any other slot, although I should have before returning it.

[cured.not.dried]

i have the visiontek card that came out first release and the above procedures worked for me, i just wanted to add that for this card since there are two dvi ports and one s-video port that flashing it borks the s-video port but not the dvi ports... also it does not work with apple's DVI to S-video adapter.

in bootcamp i had a bit of trouble. i had to erase my bootcamp drive to make a bridge drive (FAT32 - 23 gigs, just to have for various game disk images since i don't download in windoze ->unsafe) and reinstall vista, so i was using my x1900xt to take care of the installation. so after windoze was set up i put the newly flashed card in and... NO VIDEO! after a bit of fen-angling i realized that i would need to disable the x1900xt in the device tree before the 4870 would be recognized. after i disabled it, i pressed my power button, shut down, took out the x1900xt, put in the 4870, booted, and lo and behold, windoze splash screen at startup!!

since i really only use it to play games, i didn't find it necessary to edit the clocks in RBE. when in windoze the catalyst drivers will overclock it for me, and when on the mac side i don't need to worry about the extra speed since games usually won't go that much faster, least not till iPhone developers start making macintosh games... at any rate, i'd honestly just rather have quieter fans cause i'm usually jammin tunes.

oh and i wanted to remind all the haterz that the last time ati came out with a new generation of radeons we still hadn't seen a mac version of the late one. at least this time we've got the jump by a few months... progress is always better for the consumer than market stagnation.

[goin3d]

Dude. this is fixable...it has to do with Device id of card and ROM and the way Nvidia uses Softstraps to load final digit of this device id.

When windows sees multiple device id's for same card it halts.

Don't suppose you are in LA?

Nah...i'm on the east coast :) That makes sense though! In OS X everything works great, under xp/vista it's shutting the device down due to "errors" which i am guessing now are due to the device ids. the gt 120 still works giving me 1 monitor. While I'd like to figure this one out, flashing the 06 8800gt to work in the 09 was just a carry over until a 4870 replaces it.

I still have a 1g sapphire 4870 coming to me monday or tuesday. With what's been learned over the course of this thread does anything change with regards to flashing it? IE i'm still going to try with the 4870 rom that netkas had out there and see what happens.

Rominator, now that i at least have 1 monitor under vista I should be able to dump the 120 rom using GPU-Z?

[KPTChristopher]

I have a Sapphire 4850 card and thought I'd try and get it to work in OS X. It and the stock 2600 are fine in Vista under bootcamp. I have two monitors, a Samsung 22" connected via DVI and an Apple Studio monitor connected via an ADC converter box.
I downloaded and installed the 4800 drivers from the web and rebooted, but after the grey Apple appeared both screens went a light blue and I couldn't see OS X. Vista worked fine on both monitors. Swapped monitors between the two video cards but couldn't see anything. Ended up having to boot off the install DVD and do a clean install.
Maybe I should have flashed the 4850 card first then installed the drivers?
Wondering if maybe 10.5.7 will sort this out?

[The Rominator]

Did you remove the Natit.kext per the instructions?

[jeanlain]

I have a Sapphire 4850 card and thought I'd try and get it to work in OS X. It and the stock 2600 are fine in Vista under bootcamp. I have two monitors, a Samsung 22" connected via DVI and an Apple Studio monitor connected via an ADC converter box.
I downloaded and installed the 4800 drivers from the web and rebooted, but after the grey Apple appeared both screens went a light blue and I couldn't see OS X. Vista worked fine on both monitors. Swapped monitors between the two video cards but couldn't see anything. Ended up having to boot off the install DVD and do a clean install.
Maybe I should have flashed the 4850 card first then installed the drivers?
Wondering if maybe 10.5.7 will sort this out?

You mean you got the grey apple logo and some video (albeit blue) without even flashing the card?
Is this on a Mac Pro?

[The Rominator]

I'm pretty sure he means that he had the 2600 in and during boot it locked up.

I imagine this is because he didn't remove Natit.kext which causes a halted boot.

I am 99% certain the blue screen, etc came from 2600.

In OTHER NEWS...I have a 4850 coming via a local Craigslister.

If it has a 64K chip on it I will replace it with a 128K...and we will have another answer soon.

Thanks to Netkas for putting a ROM together...answer soon.

And if Netkas DOES see this...any ideas on the 9800GT 1 Gig question I posted in the 8800GT EFI 64 thread?

[KPTChristopher]

Did you remove the Natit.kext per the instructions?

No. I thought I'd be able to do that after a reboot, but then I couldn't see anything. I thought the 2600 would work whether the 4850 did or not.

[tobyg]

You don't have to remove it manually. You can just choose not to install it during install. Hit "Customize" when installing the package and you can unselect it.

[Konni]

Has someone a info with which card it would work ?

[Ronchande]

Has someone a info with which card it would work ?

This is too early to say.

[The Rominator]

Has someone a info with which card it would work ?

You are ON the cutting edge, Konni.

I got a Diamond to work...but Tobyglen said his Diamond didn't.

What you can gather from this thread is ALL that we know.

I am certain an Engineer from Apple or ATI could clarify things......but they seem to NOt be helping. You can play a valuable role by trying a card out...buy from somewhere that has a return policy you can live with. Newegg lets you get $$$ back but they will take a "restocking fee"...a reasonable price for the overall boost in knowledge.

[Konni]

You are ON the cutting edge, Konni.

I got a Diamond to work...but Tobyglen said his Diamond didn't.

What you can gather from this thread is ALL that we know.

I am certain an Engineer from Apple or ATI could clarify things......but they seem to NOt be helping. You can play a valuable role by trying a card out...buy from somewhere that has a return policy you can live with. Newegg lets you get $$$ back but they will take a "restocking fee"...a reasonable price for the overall boost in knowledge.


In Germany it's a little bit more complicated, but, I will try it with a XpertVision 4870 (I think smaller Hardwareproducers didn't create own designs, so I hope it is the Referencedesign from ATI).

I will report, when I get the card (I thin 2 oder 3 days).

[Setmose]

yes i did buy 4 8800gt in FEB2008 ! Buy ONE , Flash it , if OK keep it, if not Send it back , order a NEW ONE ! and so on .........until one Card did work.

Let me get this right. You knowingly damaged several cards and then represented to the manufacturers that the fault was theirs, that they sent you defective cards, and you claimed monies from them after you damaged the cards? And then you are bragging about it here?

Even if you restored the cards to working order, you are pushing the ethics in making them restock or push the returned merchandise to refurbished. They would have to re-test the cards after return, etc.

Not nice. :apple:

[netkas]

Hey, maybe it will work with a 2nd gen 4870 and the Mac 4870 rom.
Could we expect better success with this method? Why did you use it with the 9800 card, because it only has a 64KB rom?

I'd be nice to know WHY the recent Sapphire 4870 could not be flashed. Apparently, it is not specific to the EFI part since the cards are made unusable even in PCs. Wrong device ID or something? I know squat about BIOS...

EDIT: tobyg, what was the other card you flashed? Just so we know which card to avoid.

the guy used this trick to make 9800gx2 working without reflashing.

imho, it's a good way to check if card will work with the firmware, without flashing.

[grue]

Let me get this right. You knowingly damaged several cards and then represented to the manufacturers that the fault was theirs, that they sent you defective cards, and you claimed monies from them after you damaged the cards? And then you are bragging about it here?

Even if you restored the cards to working order, you are pushing the ethics in making them restock or push the returned merchandise to refurbished. They would have to re-test the cards after return, etc.

Not nice. :apple:

If he pays a restock fee, I don't see the problem. It's a firmware flash and reflash, not desoldering something and replacing with a dead cat's tongue.

[pipomolo42]

I'd be nice to know WHY the recent Sapphire 4870 could not be flashed. Apparently, it is not specific to the EFI part since the cards are made unusable even in PCs. Wrong device ID or something? I know squat about BIOS...

Well, it's a different PCB design, and they probably need some differences in the bios as well.

Anyway, I really need to have VGA output working again, and I'll try to see if I can mix the pc bios and the mac EFI part. If this works, it might mean that 2nd rev cards and 1GB card could be working as well, using this trick ...

I can't promise anything yet, but I think that by the end of this week, i'll be able to tell you if I managed to get something, or if I simply gave up.

[Ronchande]

In Germany it's a little bit more complicated, but, I will try it with a XpertVision 4870 (I think smaller Hardwareproducers didn't create own designs, so I hope it is the Referencedesign from ATI).

I will report, when I get the card (I thin 2 oder 3 days).

HI. I am also from Germany. I was thinking to buy a Club3D. At least it "looks" pretty similar to the Mac ATI version so maybe worth a try. Can you drop me a PM if you have a positive result with your card?

Thanks,

Ron

[nateDEEZY]

Let me get this right. You knowingly damaged several cards and then represented to the manufacturers that the fault was theirs, that they sent you defective cards, and you claimed monies from them after you damaged the cards? And then you are bragging about it here?

Even if you restored the cards to working order, you are pushing the ethics in making them restock or push the returned merchandise to refurbished. They would have to re-test the cards after return, etc.

Not nice. :apple:

It's called return policies, learn to love them. One of the reasons why I still shop at Fry's Electronics.

Don't be a fanboi.

[smgfreak]

Let me get this right. You knowingly damaged several cards and then represented to the manufacturers that the fault was theirs, that they sent you defective cards, and you claimed monies from them after you damaged the cards? And then you are bragging about it here?

Even if you restored the cards to working order, you are pushing the ethics in making them restock or push the returned merchandise to refurbished. They would have to re-test the cards after return, etc.

Not nice. :apple:

I dont Give a Shi...... about the Stores , if they Take it back that´s fine with me , ad i did not damage anything so !
this threat is about Finding the Right ATI HD4870 and i will do the Same thing again until i find the Right CARD to Flash .

[jeanlain]

Well, it's a different PCB design, and they probably need some differences in the bios as well.

Anyway, I really need to have VGA output working again, and I'll try to see if I can mix the pc bios and the mac EFI part. If this works, it might mean that 2nd rev cards and 1GB card could be working as well, using this trick ...

I can't promise anything yet, but I think that by the end of this week, i'll be able to tell you if I managed to get something, or if I simply gave up.
Netkas says that putting the original PC BIOS in the Mac ROM will deactivate the upper port under OSX, because it's what happens in hackintoshes. The lower port may have VGA, though... Just need to make a hybrid BIOS, so we could have DVI-VGA on both ports. ;)

To Rominator: the Diadmond card you flashed, was it an older card following ATi's original design? Was the board name something like "wekiva RV770" or "RV770XT"?

[mackmack]

Netkas says that putting the original PC BIOS in the Mac ROM will deactivate the upper port under OSX, because it's what happens in hackintoshes. The lower port may have VGA, though... Just need to make a hybrid BIOS, so we could have DVI-VGA on both ports. ;)
So the new mac 4870's only have EFI code and they work under both OSX and bootcamp windows?

What's the point of putting the BIOS code in then?

[jeanlain]

So the new mac 4870's only have EFI code and they work under both OSX and bootcamp windows?

What's the point of putting the BIOS code in then?
No, the Mac ROM has a BIOS + EFI. The BIOS is necessary for bootcamp, but also in OSX, according to Netkas.
We were talking about replacing the BIOS part in the Mac ROM by the original BIOS from the PC card that is to be flashed.

[mackmack]

No, the Mac ROM has a BIOS + EFI. The BIOS is necessary for bootcamp, but also in OSX, according to Netkas.
We were talking about replacing the BIOS part in the Mac ROM by the original BIOS from the PC card that is to be flashed.
Oh, got it now. Thanks. ;)

Does this have something to do with the ports not working correctly?

[Phydoux]

Well I got brave yesterday and tried to flash my Sapphire HD 4870 card (purchased a couple of weeks ago.) I got the same results as tobyg - the Mac Pro chimes over and over.

I put the card into my PC to flash back to original BIOS, only to discover that my PC refuses to post with this video card plugged in.

Took it to a friend's house, plugged it in there, and his PC won't post with it installed either.

At this point... I am wondering whether I'll ever get my card back. Is there some trick to getting a PC to post with this card now?

:edit:

Here's the details on this card:
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-XXXXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R

[tobyg]

You need a PC with a standard PCI video card. You might be able to get a PC with an integrated video card working, but I didn't have luck with that and didn't try much to make it work.

You need to go into the bios and make sure you pick the order of the video cards being initialized. I changed mine to PCI/PEG (PCI first, then PCI Express Graphics). After I did that, I was able to boot off of my USB flash drive and reflash the dead card with no problem.

Yeah that is the problem I had too. It won't even post, so the 'trick' The Rominator mentioned (I believe it was him) with memorizing keystrokes won't work, as the PC never posts. You need another video source, and the trick is to make sure the BIOS initializes that other video source first.

[Phydoux]

You need a PC with a standard PCI video card. You might be able to get a PC with an integrated video card working, but I didn't have luck with that and didn't try much to make it work.

You need to go into the bios and make sure you pick the order of the video cards being initialized. I changed mine to PCI/PEG (PCI first, then PCI Express Graphics). After I did that, I was able to boot off of my USB flash drive and reflash the dead card with no problem.

Yeah that is the problem I had too. It won't even post, so the 'trick' The Rominator mentioned (I believe it was him) with memorizing keystrokes won't work, as the PC never posts. You need another video source, and the trick is to make sure the BIOS initializes that other video source first.

Thanks a million tobyg, I was sitting here wondering how I was going to get over the idea that I had killed my video card and couldn't get it back. I'll go to the used PC place this afternoon and see if I can find an old second-hand PCI video card to use for this.

[tobyg]

Thanks a million tobyg, I was sitting here wondering how I was going to get over the idea that I had killed my video card and couldn't get it back. I'll go to the used PC place this afternoon and see if I can find an old second-hand PCI video card to use for this.

Nah, you didn't kill it. I've had to recover 2 cards already and they both recovered fine.

This may also help. But don't download the rom they link to, as that likely won't work. Use the rom you backed up (I hope you backed up your rom).
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/152

[netkas]

you also can use motherboard with 2 pci-e x16 ports, which allows to choose what pcie port to use as primary display (gigabyte mobos support it), then u need any pcie card.

If anyone does a tests with 4850 card - rememeber to plug dvi monitor to dvi port closest to mobo, and dvi2vga adapter (only adapter) to another ports, this is how 4850 works in osx in hacks.

[jaberwocky]

Well I got brave yesterday and tried to flash my Sapphire HD 4870 card (purchased a couple of weeks ago.) I got the same results as tobyg - the Mac Pro chimes over and over.



Here's the details on this card:
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-XXXXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R

Hi there,
as Sapphire wrote on there Site, only Cards beginning with PN 102- are "Built by ATI", also called "ATI reference design", which seems to be ok for our purpose.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ge/support/faqs_viewlist.php?faq_cat_id=14&faq_subcat_id=37

I think there SKU beginns with 21133, SKU 11133 seems to be the newer design.

But even today you can find them new - at least here in Germany. Will get my hands on the card in the next few days, orderd them yesterday.

Best regards, Jaberwocky

[bumble-bee]

Hi there,
as Sapphire wrote on there Site, only Cards beginning with PN 102- are "Built by ATI", also called "ATI reference design", which seems to be ok for our purpose.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ge/support/faqs_viewlist.php?faq_cat_id=14&faq_subcat_id=37

I think there SKU beginns with 21133, SKU 11133 seems to be the newer design.

But even today you can find them new - at least here in Germany. Will get my hands on the card in the next few days, orderd them yesterday.

Best regards, Jaberwocky

Hi,
where did u buy it and how much do u pay for it?

Much cheaper than original Apple?

[tobyg]

Do we think all ATI cards are still made with the ATI reference design? I know that sounds dumb, but maybe ATI came up with a new design also.

I'm asking because a local store has the ATI 4870 card for $259.

[pipomolo42]

For your information, I have managed to mix the PC BIOS of my card and the EFI part of the MAC ROM.

What I get is the same as a Hackintosh :
- Dual screen not working in Mac OS X : single headed display only (using the DVI port closest to the Logic Board, the other one does not work)
- VGA output & dual screen working in BootCamp (of course, the original firmware is used ...)

Now, if someone with a unsuccessful flash could pm me a link to their original bios, maybe I can make something out of it.

Same thing if one of you has a 4870x2, or a 1GB 4870, and flashing with the dumped MAC firmware didn't work : send me a link to your original rom, and we'll see.


@netkas: Do you think this single display only issue can be fixed using Natit ?

[tobyg]

For your information, I have managed to mix the PC BIOS of my card and the EFI part of the MAC ROM.

What I get is the same as a Hackintosh :
- Dual screen not working in Mac OS X : single headed display only (using the DVI port closest to the Logic Board, the other one does not work)
- VGA output & dual screen working in BootCamp (of course, the original firmware is used ...)

Now, if someone with a unsuccessful flash could pm me a link to their original bios, maybe I can make something out of it.

Same thing if one of you has a 4870x2, or a 1GB 4870, and flashing with the dumped MAC firmware didn't work : send me a link to your original rom, and we'll see.


@netkas: Do you think this single display only issue can be fixed using Natit ?

Do you know what Bios P/N and Product Name was?

Mine looks like this with the stock flash:

Adapter 0 (BN=01, DN=00, PCIID=94401002, SSID=0502174B)
ASIC Family : RV770/M98
Flash Type : PM25LV010 (128 KB)
Product Name : RV770XT 512M GDDR5 2DVI TVO
Bios Config File : 1E8501SA.002
Bios P/N : 11X-1E8501SA-001
Bios Version : 011.010.000.002.029896
Bios Date : 09/08/08 06:32

[jeanlain]

Hi there,
as Sapphire wrote on there Site, only Cards beginning with PN 102- are "Built by ATI", also called "ATI reference design", which seems to be ok for our purpose.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ge/support/faqs_viewlist.php?faq_cat_id=14&faq_subcat_id=37

I think there SKU beginns with 21133, SKU 11133 seems to be the newer design.

But even today you can find them new - at least here in Germany. Will get my hands on the card in the next few days, orderd them yesterday.

Best regards, Jaberwocky

Nice catch, but I don't read german. ;) Are you sure about the 21133 vs. 11133 thing? Some vendors indicate the SKU, so that could be useful. 21133 cards still seem quite common.
There are two clearly different designs, but they do not seem related to SKU numbers.
Tobig, is the SKU indicated on the box of your Sapphire somewhere?

EDIT: indeed, part numbers 102-B... do seem to correspond to SKU beginning with 21133.

[netkas]

For your information, I have managed to mix the PC BIOS of my card and the EFI part of the MAC ROM.

What I get is the same as a Hackintosh :
- Dual screen not working in Mac OS X : single headed display only (using the DVI port closest to the Logic Board, the other one does not work)
- VGA output & dual screen working in BootCamp (of course, the original firmware is used ...)

Now, if someone with a unsuccessful flash could pm me a link to their original bios, maybe I can make something out of it.

Same thing if one of you has a 4870x2, or a 1GB 4870, and flashing with the dumped MAC firmware didn't work : send me a link to your original rom, and we'll see.


@netkas: Do you think this single display only issue can be fixed using Natit ?

4870x2 will not work without changing device-id to 9440.

Natit makes same what efi rom does for osx - provides info about card. it cant fix bugs in driver (Motmot), I have some ideas...but, I will check them first.

Can u test resolution change in osx with 4870 ?

[The Rominator]

Resolution change works fine on my Diamond 4870.

I started a new thread on 4850....have had some minor results.

Will try the DVI adapter trick later on.

I posted a weird kernel message tat popped up when I booted. (seen via 4870)

[netkas]

pipomolo42

there is some trick for hackntoshs to enable dual dvi on 4870, lets try it in your case.

Install this natit and test. (Natit will replace ATY,bin_image key(content - pc part of rom, aka atombios) in ioregistry with macpro's , so, in osx your card will act like it has original 4870 mac rom, and in windows card will have own native rom.)

http://rapidshare.de/files/46144490/Natit.kext.tar.bz2.html

[Phydoux]

Nice catch, but I don't read german. ;) Are you sure about the 21133 vs. 11133 thing? Some vendors indicate the SKU, so that could be useful. 21133 cards still seem quite common.
There are two clearly different designs, but they do not seem related to SKU numbers.
Tobig, is the SKU indicated on the box of your Sapphire somewhere?

EDIT: indeed, part numbers 102-B... do seem to correspond to SKU beginning with 21133.

The card that I have matches your first image (the image on the left,) which is the one with the black cover over the heatsinks with the fan in the middle. This card did not work after using the ROM posted to this thread.

[jaberwocky]

Hi,
where did u buy it and how much do u pay for it?
Much cheaper than original Apple?

169 € incl. 19% TAX in Germay, Link: http://www.arlt.com/oxid.php/sid/854544d59119fb0383f910e9d3f27812/cl/details/anid/1021536/listtype/search

Bye, jaberwocky

[pipomolo42]

This card did not work after using the ROM posted to this thread.

Well, I'm quite sure it is possible to make one that works, by combining your bios and the Mac EFI bios.

[jaberwocky]

The card that I have matches your first image (the image on the left,) which is the one with the black cover over the heatsinks with the fan in the middle. This card did not work after using the ROM posted to this thread.

I think the Sapphire cards with blue PCB are the "new" ones, designed by the ATI-OEM. The left one also didn't use the ATI reference design (fan), isn't it the Toxid one ?

Maybe on wednesday i will have my card, i will write if SKU & S/N fits.

Bye & good night

[jeanlain]

Well, I'm quite sure it is possible to make one that works, by combining your bios and the Mac EFI bios.
If the BIOS of the Mac ROM is incompatible with the card, could the EFI work as is?

[The Rominator]

It is my understanding and experience that past Mac cards, especially the Nvidia ones, only used the EFI to START setup of card.

The card is actually "run" by the PC BIOS.

I can PROVE that changing PC clock speeds in BIOS changes performance in OSX on 88GT.

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.

[goin3d]

It is my understanding and experience that past Mac cards, especially the Nvidia ones, only used the EFI to START setup of card.

The card is actually "run" by the PC BIOS.

I can PROVE that changing PC clock speeds in BIOS changes performance in OSX on 88GT.

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.


Let me ask this then: Is it possible to have a mac pro with 2 pci express cards in it....a "primary card" that OS X recognizes during startup and a second that OS X doesn't recognize on it's own, but becomes available once the boot sequence is completed? Thus far I've noticed different behavior in my ability to boot OS X/bootcamp depending on which card i have in which slot. My best result in booting OSX/bootcamp comes when slot 1 contains a stock gt120 and slot 2 contains a flashed 8800gt. Does the full EFI check happen on all cards in a system?

[jeanlain]

It is my understanding and experience that past Mac cards, especially the Nvidia ones, only used the EFI to START setup of card.

The card is actually "run" by the PC BIOS.

I can PROVE that changing PC clock speeds in BIOS changes performance in OSX on 88GT.

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.
The X1900XT only has EFI in its ROM, but its BIOS is in the firmware of the Mac Pro 1.1. I suppose the BIOS was added by the firmware update that actually offered bootcamp. The card still works on a 2008 Mac Pro, which, as far as I know, does not have the X1900XT BIOS in its firmware (and indeed the card will not work under bootcamp).

[pipomolo42]

If the BIOS of the Mac ROM is incompatible with the card, could the EFI work as is?

Well, the EFI part works on 4850 cards ...

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.

Just because nobody has done it, doesn't mean it's impossible. Just look at how NVIDIA is incapable of building a EFI ByteCode firmware ... Of course, there are other reasons too, like backwards compatibility, and reducing the binary size, by not duplicating data.

[tobyg]

Ok, well I went to Tiger to return the board I bought and was told I couldn't return it. They've changed their policies and all I can do is exchange it for a different card or get store credit.

I exchanged it, for this card:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3949855&CatId=3670

Opened the card when I got in my car and ... aw crap, blue board. Looks reference of course, but its blue and its not the same as the pictures on the website. Close, but blue.

Anyway, I got home and tried to flash it. Flash took.
Rebooted and expected the PC to hang again. This time it didn't hang, but instead it beeped. No video though, but possibly because I was using analog on that system.

Put it in the Mac Pro and... success! (I had already installed the drivers)

Same issues as everyone else. Bottom port is dual link, top is not. Both work with DVI, neither work with analog.

Either way, I'm happy.

Going to test bootcamp and check out speeds in native Windows.

[The Rominator]

Great news, Tobyg !!!

Glad they wouldn't give you your money back !!! ;)

[vicentk]

Ok, well I went to Tiger to return the board I bought and was told I couldn't return it. They've changed their policies and all I can do is exchange it for a different card or get store credit.

I exchanged it, for this card:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3949855&CatId=3670

Opened the card when I got in my car and ... aw crap, blue board. Looks reference of course, but its blue and its not the same as the pictures on the website. Close, but blue.

Anyway, I got home and tried to flash it. Flash took.
Rebooted and expected the PC to hang again. This time it didn't hang, but instead it beeped. No video though, but possibly because I was using analog on that system.

Put it in the Mac Pro and... success! (I had already installed the drivers)

Same issues as everyone else. Bottom port is dual link, top is not. Both work with DVI, neither work with analog.

Either way, I'm happy.

Going to test bootcamp and check out speeds in native Windows.
That is a good news, but could you tell me your card SN ? Because I can find HIS in Hong Kong too.

[Phydoux]

Hi all,

pipomolo42 was kind enough to send me a modified hybrid ROM. I sent him the original ROM from my Sapphire HD 4870 card (the one that I previously reported did not work with the ROM image from this thread.)

This time, it worked! I popped it into my 2006 Mac Pro and was greeted with the familiar light gray screen. I held down the option key and was able to select OS X/Windows.

I booted into OS X first. Like tobyg I had already installed the 4870 drivers from nekas (thanks nekas!) No hiccups at all and the card is recognized as a 4870. I used a DVI cable plugged into the lower port and a DVI-VGA adapter plugged into the upper port (without anything else plugged in.)

I then rebooted into Vista, and it's all working great on this side as well.

So... assuming that pipomolo42 is willing to allow others to use this BIOS, there is at least one more known good flash now.

:edit:

So that it is easy to find, here's the card info:
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-XXXXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R
Purchased from Newegg about two weeks ago. Here's the link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102810).

[tobyg]

That is a good news, but could you tell me your card SN ? Because I can find HIS in Hong Kong too.

Here is the info on this card - This card worked fine with the stock 4870 Apple ROM:

HIS S/N: H081230050
Part # seems to be H487F512P, same as the Tiger Direct link I pasted above.
UPC is 4895139000740

I don't guarantee any card you buy would work though. It seems they sometimes change cards without any way to really tell.

But if it helps anyone, that's the info from the box for my card.

[tobyg]

Hi all,

pipomolo42 was kind enough to send me a modified hybrid ROM. I sent him the original ROM from my Sapphire HD 4870 card (the one that I previously reported did not work with the ROM image from this thread.)

This time, it worked! I popped it into my 2006 Mac Pro and was greeted with the familiar light gray screen. I held down the option key and was able to select OS X/Windows.

I booted into OS X first. Like tobyg I had already installed the 4870 drivers from nekas (thanks nekas!) No hiccups at all and the card is recognized as a 4870. I used a DVI cable plugged into the lower port and a DVI-VGA adapter plugged into the upper port (without anything else plugged in.)

I then rebooted into Vista, and it's all working great on this side as well.

So... assuming that pipomolo42 is willing to allow others to use this BIOS, there is at least one more known good flash now.

:edit:

So that it is easy to find, here's the card info:
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-XXXXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R
Purchased from Newegg about two weeks ago. Here's the link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102810).

Now I'm wondering, if I had kept that Sapphire card and waited a day, if this ROM you had would work.

Have you tested analog? I'm very curious if Analog works on yours.

I wonder if some sort of modding can be done for each of these cards, to get the DVI ports to work properly, having both be dual link DVI as they physically are and also work with analog signals.

[pipomolo42]

Now I'm wondering, if I had kept that Sapphire card and waited a day, if this ROM you had would work.

Well, I didn't do any black magic : I just took his PC bios, and appended the EFI firmware, then the GDDR5 table from his PC bios. The same can probably be done with any 4870, maybe even 1GB and X2 variants, or at least we won't know until someone tries.

For this GDDR5 table, I relocated it at 0x1b800, which is the offset it has in the Mac 4870 rom. On most PC bioses, it sits at 0x1c000, and at around 0xba00 in the PC bios is this address (a few bytes before the string "MCuC", which is the signature of the table), which I modified also to 0x1b800.

Probably relocating the GDDR5 table isn't necessary, but I thought that if its address is in the EFI firmware as well, it might not work if it can't find it. An as the EFI firmware is compressed, it's a bit more complex to edit.

Then I fixed the last rom indicator of this PC bios, and finally fixed its checksum.

Have you tested analog? I'm very curious if Analog works on yours.

both Analog Output and Dual Screen work only in BootCamp, just like any 4870 in a Hackintosh.

I wonder if some sort of modding can be done for each of these cards, to get the DVI ports to work properly, having both be dual link DVI as they physically are and also work with analog signals.

Well, ATI bioses use ATOMbios, which is, if I understood correctly, a set of scripts which acts as a glue between the hardware and the drivers. And they have released a parser for it, so if we are lucky enough, the differences between the apple card and pc cards will appear quite easily. Then, we'll have to see if it's possible to build one that has no restriction ...

[jeanlain]

Excellent!

So if pipomolo42's method works, we may have great success with old and new 4870 cards! Just need to post a tutorial for modifying the ROM. ;)

Didn't netkas come with a trick to make both ports work on hachintoshes?

[netkas]

Well, I didn't do any black magic : I just took his PC bios, and appended the EFI firmware, then the GDDR5 table from his PC bios. The same can probably be done with any 4870, maybe even 1GB and X2 variants, or at least we won't know until someone tries.

For this GDDR5 table, I relocated it at 0x1b800, which is the offset it has in the Mac 4870 rom. On most PC bioses, it sits at 0x1c000, and at around 0xba00 in the PC bios is this address (a few bytes before the string "MCuC", which is the signature of the table), which I modified also to 0x1b800.

Probably relocating the GDDR5 table isn't necessary, but I thought that if its address is in the EFI firmware as well, it might not work if it can't find it. An as the EFI firmware is compressed, it's a bit more complex to edit.

Then I fixed the last rom indicator of this PC bios, and finally fixed its checksum.



both Analog Output and Dual Screen work only in BootCamp, just like any 4870 in a Hackintosh.



Well, ATI bioses use ATOMbios, which is, if I understood correctly, a set of scripts which acts as a glue between the hardware and the drivers. And they have released a parser for it, so if we are lucky enough, the differences between the apple card and pc cards will appear quite easily. Then, we'll have to see if it's possible to build one that has no restriction ...

Hey, did u try Natit i posted for u on 12th page ?

it's to test dual screen in macosx.

BTW, i think gddr5 table doesnt need to be relocated, the offset to it is set in bios, and efi rom seems to parse atombios for any info it needs.

[v0n]

pipomolo42 - could you email me that modded Sapphire bios for RV770XT (I just restored my card to normal with help of PCI card this morning)? v0nreagan at gmail.com (there is zero in v0n, rather than capital O)

[jaberwocky]

pipomolo42 - could you email me that modded Sapphire bios for RV770XT (I just restored my card to normal with help of PCI card this morning)? v0nreagan at gmail.com (there is zero in v0n, rather than capital O)

Same for me, got my Sapphire card today, but it was not he orderd one build by ATI, it's the new design (like the one on the pictures, left).

Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-10EXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R

@pipomolo42: Coul you please PM or share the special bios ?

Thank you, jaberwocky

P.S. Still waiting for the internal power cables, two of them costs 60 € her in germany from Apple Dealer (as spare part)

[pipomolo42]

Hey, did u try Natit i posted for u on 12th page ?

it's to test dual screen in macosx.

Sorry, I don't have multiple digital screens close to my Mac Pro, the only other one I have it my TV.

BTW, i think gddr5 table doesnt need to be relocated, the offset to it is set in bios, and efi rom seems to parse atombios for any info it needs.

Yes, I've figured this after seeing that the 4850 rom you made uses the same EFI rom, which still seems to work, even though the 4850 doesn't use gddr5 at all.

pipomolo42 - could you email me that modded Sapphire bios for RV770XT (I just restored my card to normal with help of PCI card this morning)? v0nreagan at gmail.com (there is zero in v0n, rather than capital O)

Here it is : http://dl.free.fr/rIzbfl2JF

If it doesn't work for you, just wait a few hours, I'll write a quick howto to make one based on your card's bios this evening.

Also, it would be nice if Phydoux or you could try the Natit kext that netkas posted.

[pipomolo42]

P.S. Still waiting for the internal power cables, two of them costs 60 € her in germany from Apple Dealer (as spare part)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7271637#post7271637

[jaberwocky]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7271637#post7271637

I know, but there are sold out :mad: and i don't want to wait. I expect the cables on thursday, many thanks for the BIOS.

Bye, jaberwocky

[johnjobs]

I know, but there are sold out :mad: and i don't want to wait. I expect the cables on thursday, many thanks for the BIOS.

Bye, jaberwocky

Hello jaberwocky,

I voted for all of us found a solution :). After a long search, I am on
the cable from Enermax Liberty pushed. The cable is EMC004 and costs
€ 4 :). I have bought 2. Yesterday I offered to Arlt
Card purchase, I expect on Wednesday . I am very curious whether they are flashing can. I am very interested in your results.

Many thanks for the BIOS too

bye jj

[jaberwocky]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7271637#post7271637

Hello jaberwocky,

I voted for all of us found a solution :). After a long search, I am on
the cable from Enermax Liberty pushed. The cable is EMC004 and costs
€ 4 :).

bye jj

Hi, did you have a link or Arlt-Number for the cable ? Can't find it there, think it's to old.
Also, if both sides of the cable has the same connector, it's wrong. Mac pro needs Molex micro fit, grahic card is Molex mini fit.

Tanks

[v0n]

Hello jaberwocky,

I voted for all of us found a solution :). After a long search, I am on
the cable from Enermax Liberty pushed. The cable is EMC004 and costs
€ 4 :). I have bought 2. Yesterday I offered to Arlt
Card purchase, I expect on Wednesday . I am very curious whether they are flashing can. I am very interested in your results.

Many thanks for the BIOS too

bye jj

Are you sure about this? Looks like a wrong cable, from what I garther it's just regular PCI-e 6 pin to 6-Pin for modular PSUs, whereas what we need is Molex Micro-fit 3.0 male (motherboard side) to PCI-E 1.0 6 Pin.

[johnjobs]

Hi, did you have a link or Arlt-Number for the cable ? Can't find it there, think it's to old.
Also, if both sides of the cable has the same connector, it's wrong. Mac pro needs Molex micro fit, grahic card is Molex mini fit.

Tanks

I purchased here: www.bee.de

Oh no:mad:I thought it would be the same 6-pin connectors

[johnjobs]

I purchased here: www.bee.de

Oh no:mad:I thought it would be the same 6-pin connectors

Sorry, you're right

[v0n]

Oh no:mad:I thought it would be the same 6-pin connectors

Unfortunately no, motherboard connector is much smaller, in the pic below, the left is mac motherboard plug, to the right, PCIe 1.0 6 pin. :

http://ocuk.filmsuk.com/pcie.jpg

It was one of those situations - team at Apple working on standards, let's get some regular motherboards from Foxcon, chips from Intel, cards from ATI, and then some old time bozo woke up at the back of the meeting - you know the kind - the ex-SGI/ex-Sun/old Apple Manager For Proprietary Development, some dude who twiddled his thumbs for the past few years, pushed out of main lab into mop closet in basement. And he probably said "and let's make connectors on motherboard in this fantastic tiny format I saw at Taiwanese Space Agency last year, as used in their spy camera kite craft".
I found connectors, but can't find matching 3mm pitch pins in small quantity retail anywhere. I don't want to buy few thousands of them, just want to roll two cables. :)
I'm actually peed off with cables situation to the point I'm trying to find how much it would cost to get some cable manufacturer to make few hundred of those. Surely with such short supply of original cards and lack of european stock of cables for third party solution the situation is going to get out of hand in few weeks.

[vicentk]

Unfortunately no, motherboard connector is much smaller, in the pic below, the left is mac motherboard plug, to the right, PCIe 1.0 6 pin. :

http://ocuk.filmsuk.com/pcie.jpg

It was one of those situations - team at Apple working on standards, let's get some regular motherboards from Foxcon, chips from Intel, cards from ATI, and then some old time bozo woke up at the back of the meeting - you know the kind - the ex-SGI/ex-Sun/old Apple Manager For Proprietary Development, some dude who twiddled his thumbs for the past few years, pushed out of main lab into mop closet in basement. And he probably said "and let's make connectors on motherboard in this fantastic tiny format I saw at Taiwanese Space Agency last year, as used in their spy camera kite craft".
I found connectors, but can't find matching 3mm pitch pins in small quantity retail anywhere. I don't want to buy few thousands of them, just want to roll two cables. :)
I'm actually peed off with cables situation to the point I'm trying to find how much it would cost to get some cable manufacturer to make few hundred of those. Surely with such short supply of original cards and lack of european stock of cables for third party solution the situation is going to get out of hand in few weeks.
It seem after solve the rom, one more question is here - the cable.

[The Rominator]

Mouser sells them here....they are inexpensive...and you can buy them in a variety of finishes, etc.

They sell internationally, I believe...they actually have all the pieces you need.

Here is the pin number:

538-43030-0001

The Micro Socket is:

43025-0600

I can find the other pieces too if you want.

But I think that should work for you.

[jaberwocky]

Or if you live in Europe, look at http://de.rs-online.com/web/, you will find them.

Bye

[smgfreak]

DIY PCIe Powercable for all MAC PROs

you need 12-15 $ US Total for ONE Cable
JUST Google for a Dealer !

here are the PART Numbers for the Original MOLEX connector Parts ( that apple uses )

Molex Mini-Fit Junior with 4,3mm (P/N #39-01-2060 or #39-01-2065 )
6 PIN Female for the CARD http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/0021/0900766b8002166a.pdf
-----
Molex Micro-Fit 3.0 with 3mm (P/N #43025-0600 )
6 PIN Female for the MacPro Logicboard http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/00c8/0900766b800c8543.pdf
-----
Molex PITCH MICRO-FIT 3.0mm ( P/N 43030-0007 )
Female http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/0027/0900766b80027344.pdf

[The Rominator]

The company, Mouser, sells all over Europe too.

As example, here is one version of microsocket pins on their German site:

http://de.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=538-43030-0001

Just hit "International" and a variety of countries pop up.

Looks like the same part is quite a bit cheaper here though....

[v0n]

39-01-2060 100% doesn't fit. I'm holding pack of 10 in my hand and middle upper pin won't fit PCIe socket on cards. Socket on card is rounded in bottom part, plastic around pin in plug is square. 39-01-2065 looks identical in catalogues.

I think correct one is PCIe specific Molex 0455590002 (http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0455590002_CRIMP_HOUSINGS.xml&channel=Products&Lang=en-US) - Mouse part number 538-45559-0002

[pipomolo42]

FYI, there are some info here : http://www.tenthousandpercent.com/index.php?article=96&section=other

[tobyg]

We went through this with the 8800 GT flashing too...

You can get the cable from ATI.

http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778

I know it says for G5 and such, but this is the exact cable I ordered and it worked fine.

[v0n]

I can certainly see why the guy from ten thousand percent (http://www.tenthousandpercent.com/?article=96&section=other) settled for 39-01-2060 and carving the middle pin. I can't find proper PCIe Molex 45559-0002 in Europe with lead on shorter than 65 days. Mouser have them, but they Fedex parts from US, so it costs £12 in delivery charges alone to get your two PCIe plugs and 12 tiny pins shipped to Europe. Farnell has pins, but they don't have PCIe plugs, they can ship them from US for additional £15.95. I'm literally scratching my head as to why is it so difficult to get simple proper PCIe connectors. It's not like they were invented yesterday.

[v0n]

You can get the cable from ATI.

http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778


ATI won't ship outside US and Canada.

[The Rominator]

The PCIE end can be "recycled" from any Molex to 6 pin adapter.

You need something that is round and just fits in the connector end to push the pins back out the wire end.

Most new cards ship with these so you will have what you need.

Mouser number is 45559-0002, as VON said.

[tobyg]

ATI won't ship outside US and Canada.

Those bastards.

Sorry, well at least US and Canada people can order from there.

Sorry.

[goin3d]

bahh i'm in the same boat. The sapphire 1g card finally arrived today and i only have 1 of those power cables. (forgot i needed 2!!). I was hoping to get it flashed tonight so i'll have to see if i can put something together.

In the mean time....do you think the sapphire 512 rom that was posted is the best bet to try?

[jeanlain]

bahh i'm in the same boat. The sapphire 1g card finally arrived today and i only have 1 of those power cables. (forgot i needed 2!!). I was hoping to get it flashed tonight so i'll have to see if i can put something together.

In the mean time....do you think the sapphire 512 rom that was posted is the best bet to try?
I think it depends of whether your card is "built by ATi". It that case, I think Atiflash will indicate as board name "Wekiva RV770" and you'd better try the apple ROM. But it's a 1Gig card, so flashing is risky with either rom. In my view, you should make a custom ROM (original BIOS+Mac EFI) as pipomolo42 did. The PC functionalities will not be affected, and you should have better success if the ROM is edited properly.

[goin3d]

I think it depends of whether your card is "built by ATi". It that case, I think Atiflash will indicate as board name "Wekiva RV770" and you'd better try the apple ROM. But it's a 1Gig card, so flashing is risky with either rom. In my view, you should make a custom ROM (original BIOS+Mac EFI) as pipomolo42 did. The PC functionalities will not be affected, and you should have better success if the ROM is edited properly.

I see what you mean. Well...since it looks like i need to order 1 more power cable maybe pipomolo42 will have some sort of tutorial available by the time it arrives :) Either way i'm really looking forward to trying to get the 1g card to work!

[The Rominator]

You will need to use Hexedit to change device id in the ROM...pretty easy...do a search for "02104094" and replace it with correct string for your card.

(This is Endian flopped 1002 (ATI) 9440 (Dev id of 4870 512)

I am assuming that 1 Gig cards have different dev id.

For second power cable you could use the Molex to 6 pin for one of the temporarily.

[goin3d]

You will need to use Hexedit to change device id in the ROM...pretty easy...do a search for "02104094" and replace it with correct string for your card.

(This is Endian flopped 1002 (ATI) 9440 (Dev id of 4870 512)

I am assuming that 1 Gig cards have different dev id.

For second power cable you could use the Molex to 6 pin for one of the temporarily.

hmm...do you know where in a 2009 you'd plug the molex into? The super drive cables only have sata on them?

[Arkillion]

hmm...do you know where in a 2009 you'd plug the molex into? The super drive cables only have sata on them?

I've never seen a sata to pcie conversion, but there are sata to molex:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812123137

You could do sata to molex to pcie. I don't know if it would actually work though.

[v0n]

I've never seen a sata to pcie conversion, but there are sata to molex:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812123137

You could do sata to molex to pcie. I don't know if it would actually work though.

It wouldn't work, he would need oddity - like sata socket/male to molex plug (RB-413):
http://www.solentcables.co.uk/acatalog/RB-413.jpg
Then PCI-E molex Y splitter. And thread it through the back. I think second motherboard->6 pin PCIe will be just easier.

[thehimay]

You will need to use Hexedit to change device id in the ROM...pretty easy...do a search for "02104094" and replace it with correct string for your card.

(This is Endian flopped 1002 (ATI) 9440 (Dev id of 4870 512)

I am assuming that 1 Gig cards have different dev id.

For second power cable you could use the Molex to 6 pin for one of the temporarily.

It would appear the 512/1024MB cards bear the same device ID (http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=85883, also saw it mentioned on a couple other forums), so I would hope that makes it easier to flash the 1GB cards.

I'm running with a early '08 octo-2.8 and looking to attempt to upgrade my 8800 by flashing one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801

Been watching this thread since it's inception...so I have some hope this will ultimately work. I would just assume it's an issue of properly accounting for the larger memory table.

[pipomolo42]

So, here is how I do it:

- get the Mac 4870 rom available in this thread (named 4870.ROM)
- get the 128k vgabios of your PC card (named pc4870.rom)
- get tyhe fixrom.py script that I attached here

run the following commands in a shell (either MacOS X or Linux)
dd if=4870.ROM of=efi.part bs=1 skip=63488 count=49152
blocknum=`printf %d "'\`dd if=pc4870.rom bs=1 skip=2 count=1 2>/dev/null\`"`
size=$(($blocknum * 512))
dd if=efi.part of=pc4870.rom bs=$size seek=1 conv=notrunc
python fixrom.py pc4870.rom pc4870.rom

first one extracts the efi part of the Mac rom
then get the number of 512 bytes blocks of the bios part of your pc rom
then converts it to a size in bytes
then injects the efi part right after the bios part
then the script fixes last rom indicators and checksums

You can then flash the pc4870.rom to your card, using FreeDOS for instance

If you want to do manual modifications to either part of the rom, don't forget to run the fixrom.py script after.

This should work with most (if not all) of the 4870 cards. If it doesn't work for you, just pm me a link to your pc vgabios.

EDIT : MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EXTRACTED THE FULL 128K OF YOUR CARD'S ROM BEFORE TRYING ANYTHING, OR ELSE IT WON'T WORK!
ALSO, MAKE SURE YOUR PC 4870 ROM FILE IS ACTUALLY NAMED "pc4870.rom" IF YOU GET AN ERROR MESSAGE LIKE "dd: bs must be between 1 and 2147483647"

[AGDenton]

Hi,

Not sure if you already know about it, but Intel's EFI Developer Toolkit (EDK) contains an utility called EfiRom, which can be used to join BIOS/EFI images
together. It can also be used to dump hybrid ROMs, like the 4870.ROM in this thread. Do you know how it relates to the procedure outlined above ?

Here's this utility's output on 4870.rom, for instance :


>efirom -d 4870.rom
Image 1 -- Offset 0x0
ROM header contents
Signature 0xAA55
PCIR offset 0x0260
Signature PCIR
Vendor ID 0x1002
Device ID 0x9440
Length 0x0018
Revision 0x0000
DeviceListOffset 0x00
Class Code 0x030000
Image size 0xF800
Code revision: 0x0B11
MaxRuntimeImageLength 0x00
ConfigUtilityCodeHeaderOffset 0x5441
DMTFCLPEntryPointOffset 0x2049
Indicator 0x00
Code type 0x00
Image 2 -- Offset 0xF800
ROM header contents
Signature 0xAA55
PCIR offset 0x001C
Signature PCIR
Vendor ID 0x1002
Device ID 0x9440
Length 0x0018
Revision 0x0000
DeviceListOffset 0x00
Class Code 0x030000
Image size 0xC000
Code revision: 0x0000
MaxRuntimeImageLength 0x00
ConfigUtilityCodeHeaderOffset 0x00
DMTFCLPEntryPointOffset 0x00
Indicator 0x80 (last image)
Code type 0x03 (EFI image)
EFI ROM header contents
EFI Signature 0x0EF1
Compression Type 0x0001 (compressed)
Machine type 0x0EBC (EBC)
Subsystem 0x000B (EFI boot service driver)
EFI image offset 0x0160 (@0xF960)

Its help gives out :

Usage: EfiRom [options] [file name<s>]

Copyright (c) 2007, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Options:
-o FileName, --output FileName
File will be created to store the ouput content.
-e EfiFileName
EFI PE32 image files.
-ec EfiFileName
EFI PE32 image files and will be compressed.
-b BinFileName
Legacy binary files.
-l ClassCode
Hex ClassCode in the PCI data structure header.
-r Rev
hex Revision in the PCI data structure header.
-n
not to automatically set the LAST bit in the last file.
-f VendorId
Hex PCI Vendor ID for the device OpROM.
-i DeviceId
Hex PCI Device ID for the device OpROM.
-p, --pci23
Default layout meets PCI 3.0 specifications, specifying this flag will for a PCI 2.3 layout.
-d, --dump
Dump the headers of an existing option ROM image.
-v, --verbose
Turn on verbose output with informational messages.
--version
Show program's version number and exit.
-h, --help
Show this help message and exit.
-q, --quiet
Disable all messages except FATAL ERRORS.
--debug [#,0-9]
Enable debug messages at level #.



I'm attaching a build of efirom to this post.

Best regards,


AG

[pipomolo42]

Not sure if you already know about it, but Intel's EFI Developer Toolkit (EDK) contains an utility called EfiRom, which can be used to join BIOS/EFI images
together. It can also be used to dump hybrid ROMs, like the 4870.ROM in this thread.

efirom's purpose is, as you pointed out, to pack a vgabios and a EFI PE32 into one single rom image.

It would be useful for us if we had to edit the content of the EBC binary, which we don't, luckily.

And efirom can only display headers info of an existing rom image, it cannot dump a rom image from a card, or extract binaries from a rom image. But the latter is quite easy to do using dd, actually.

[netkas]

pipomolo, it's not easy because pe image is compressed.

althought it's easy to dump anything from efi memory, using efi shell :)

here is what i believe to be radeon efi pe driver, use to create new firmwares - http://rapidshare.de/files/46178699/radeon_rv770.efi.html

I'm using it this way

./efirom -o 4850_only_name_change.rom -b ./macpro/4850rom/RV770.bin -ec ./radeon_rv770_4850.efi -l 30000 -f 1002 -i 9442

it ignores classcode for efi part for whatever reason :(

and, since u have to cary about MCuC part, u need only to create efi part and integrate it using ur manual.

./efirom -o ohai_efi.rom -ec ./radeon_rv770.efi -l 30000 -f 1002 -i 9440

why it can be usefull ? well, if there will be a fixed framebuffer driver for 4870/4850 and it will have other name than Motmot, we will need to edit some strings in efi driver.

hm. it opens possibilities to create roms for 8800gt/gts512 9800gt/gtx with their native bioses.

[jeanlain]

bahh i'm in the same boat. The sapphire 1g card finally arrived today and i only have 1 of those power cables. (forgot i needed 2!!). I was hoping to get it flashed tonight so i'll have to see if i can put something together.
About those bloody cables... :rolleyes:
Will a PCI-E splitter work, if one already has a cable (I have one with the radeon X1900XT)?
That is much cheaper than another apple-molex to PCI-E cable.
Still, I would be reluctant to connect the two plugs of the 4870 to a single molex. Will it melt? Will I blow a fuse, run out of power during a game? :D :eek:
I suppose there is a good reason for the two plugs on the 4870.

EDIT: it turns out the 4870 does not consumes more power than the X1900XT, so this should be ok. Why the two power plugs on that card?

[Rankrotten]

About those bloody cables... :rolleyes:
Will a PCI-E splitter work, if one already has a cable (I have one with the radeon X1900XT)?
That is much cheaper than another apple-molex to PCI-E cable.
Still, I would be reluctant to connect the two plugs of the 4870 to a single molex. Will it melt? Will I blow a fuse, run out of power during a game? :D :eek:


I took two feeds off an optical bay molex plus a pcie feed for a 3870x2 and an X1900XT on a MacPro 1,1 and all seemed fine. Loaded up COD4, pressed mouse button to fire and the MacPro shut down. Red LEDs were indicating CPU A+B failures but this was linked to the PSU crapping out on the molex connector which was drawing more juice than it was designed for.

Eventually got a pcie power splitter Y cable and ditched the X1900 for a 3870.

Going to replace both with a flashed 4870 now. Might reduce my electricity bills also...

[v0n]

4870 draws considerably more power than X1900. The reason why you have two connectors on the card is because it is expected to draw more than 10 Amps on 12V rail. Unless there is some documentation to suggest dual molex cable in mac pros is on rail rated to 24Amps+ keep in mind they were originally only supposed to power two combo drives drawing 25W each.

Later on today I will hook up my regular PC to wattmeter, first with PCI card, then with 4870 and tell you exactly how much power it draws under load.

[irishgrizzly]

I wonder what the total saving on getting a flashed card over an apple card is?

What would the break down be? If you factor in extras needed plus the cost of your time?

[v0n]

At current UK prices you can buy PC version of 4870 around £140-150 mark, Apple Store price is £280, so it's almost two to one. Additionally, availability of cards from Apple varies between 4 and 6 weeks from day to day, whereas you can grab PC one from any shop with next day delivery.

Another advantage, already hinted in this thread, is that you can actually edit the rom before merging with EFI and improve on clock speeds.
Once we sort out quick availability of cables it's a no brainer. I'm waiting for delivery guys to knock on my door today and tomorrow and as soon as I have all the gubbins and gismos I'll try and post quick instructions how to crimp yourself a cable in a jiffy or two for under a tenner.

[macz1]

The cost is perhaps one of the less important reasons for flashing a card. It's not only a matter of principles, but there are also a couple of people who enjoy playing around with electronic devices (including me) therefor this can be considered as a hobby. There are not much occasions to fiddle about the hardware in Apple computers, and this is one of the rare situations where the work can lead to something very useful...

[pipomolo42]

pipomolo, it's not easy because pe image is compressed.

althought it's easy to dump anything from efi memory, using efi shell :)

Well, it's quite easy to do actually : the EFI SDK provides an implementation of the compression & decompression algorithms. I can post binaries for simple compression and decompression tools this evening.

And by the way, I wouldn't trust something dumped from ram as there is some possibility that it was altered during execution.

why it can be usefull ? well, if there will be a fixed framebuffer driver for 4870/4850 and it will have other name than Motmot, we will need to edit some strings in efi driver.

True. But until we actually know what to edit, the simple copy & paste of the compressed binary using dd is far enough.

[jeanlain]

4870 draws considerably more power than X1900. The reason why you have two connectors on the card is because it is expected to draw more than 10 Amps on 12V rail. Unless there is some documentation to suggest dual molex cable in mac pros is on rail rated to 24Amps+ keep in mind they were originally only supposed to power two combo drives drawing 25W each.
With the PIC-E Y splitter, the 4870 will not be connected to the molex cable initially feeding the drive bay, but to the one feeding the X1900XT.

Anyway, in seems that I could just use a standard cable and connect the second PIC-E to the molex dedicated to the second optical drive.

[prismra]

It would appear the 512/1024MB cards bear the same device ID (http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=85883, also saw it mentioned on a couple other forums), so I would hope that makes it easier to flash the 1GB cards.

I'm running with a early '08 octo-2.8 and looking to attempt to upgrade my 8800 by flashing one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801

Been watching this thread since it's inception...so I have some hope this will ultimately work. I would just assume it's an issue of properly accounting for the larger memory table.

Hey guys! Been lurking here for a while. A couple of questions if you don't mind.

Can anyone confirm that this card (the 1 gig) works with the flashing method posted here?

I need to order two of the ATI mac power cables, right?

Thanks in advance!!!

[tobyg]

I wonder what the total saving on getting a flashed card over an apple card is?

What would the break down be? If you factor in extras needed plus the cost of your time?

The cost is perhaps one of the less important reasons for flashing a card. It's not only a matter of principles, but there are also a couple of people who enjoy playing around with electronic devices (including me) therefor this can be considered as a hobby. There are not much occasions to fiddle about the hardware in Apple computers, and this is one of the rare situations where the work can lead to something very useful...

For me, it's a few things.

Cost is not really the huge factor. For me, it's knowing I can go and find alternate cards to work in the Mac Pro, so I'm not entirely locked into Apple. Yeah, it would be hard to find a non-apple power supply to fix the Mac Pro if it broke, but for things like ram, video cards, processors, etc, its nice to know I have other alternatives if I need them/want. If I wanted an upgraded card in 3 years, but Apple stopped selling cards that worked in the Mac Pro, at least I may have alternatives available to me.

The other factor is the fact that I may not want to be 'locked in'. If I bought an Apple 4870, I may not be able to ever use it in anything other than the Mac Pro. Here, I have a 4870 in my Mac Pro that works great for me now. But if I do want to build a dedicated gaming computer at a later date, I can reflash and put it in a PC. That may not be an option with the Apple 4870, you'd have to find a PC rom that is compatible with the Apple 4870 hardware.

Yeah, there are some drawbacks. For instance, the issue with this is Dual Link DVI doesn't work on both ports and no analog signals. Well, that's not entirely a big deal. If I don't need analog (which I don't) or a mini DisplayPort connection, this proves actually to be better for me.

With the Apple 4870, if you want to drive 2 Dual Link monitors (2 30" monitors) you would need to also buy the mini DisplayPort to Dual Link adapter for $99. That makes the card all that more expensive. Heck, even to drive 2 DVI monitors, you need to spend another $29 on an adapter to get you from mini DisplayPort to DVI. I'd probably rather take that $99 and invest a little more and buy another video card, such as the 2600XT or NV120 (if it is proven to work in the older Mac Pro's)

Then there is what macz1 said. It's about enjoying playing around with electronics and seeing what you can do. Granted, I haven't taken it as far as others with this card such as hacking roms and bulding my own roms (although I am willing to learn how to do that, and have done that with other things). There's also this small little guilty pleasure you get when you are able to make something work the way it wasn't intended to work. This is why (some) people build Hackintoshes. I've done it. But just to play around. I wouldn't do it for anything other than for fun. I own a Mac Pro, Macbook Pro, and iMac. I built a Hackintosh before Intel macs were available. I bought a Mac Pro as my first Intel Mac as soon as they were available.

And then it's also availability. Much like when the 8800 GT was announced/launched, the 4870 isn't readily available. I can't just walk in an Apple store today and get a 4870. So, we find alternatives. To tell you the truth, if Apple had the 4870 in the store in a reasonable amount of time, I would have just paid the premium and got it from Apple. But they still aren't available in the store, or even online outside of ordering them in a new Mac Pro. This is the reason I now have a flashed 4870 and a flashed 8800 GT. Well, along with all of the other reasons above.

[jaberwocky]

Later on today I will hook up my regular PC to wattmeter, first with PCI card, then with 4870 and tell you exactly how much power it draws under load.

Well, it should be around 70 Watt Idle, 135 Watt normal 3D and 200 Watt with full load (Peak) for a standard 4870 card.

PCI-express could deliver around 75 Watt on each PCIe-socket (also Apple claims max. 300 Watt for 4 PCIe sockets), so there is a real need for the two additional PCIe power connections, at least under full load of the card!

Bye

[elvisizer]

so, after reading pipomolo's post about creating custom roms, i'm about ready to just buy a 1 GB card and get to hacking, but i thought I'd check again to see if anyone has tried a 1 gb card yet. I know there were posts saying people were going to try it, but has anyone reported back yet with results?
thanks

[v0n]

N/M, misread something

[elvisizer]

in store pick up only, but if you're near one of their locations this is a great price. $175 for a 1 gb 4870. (http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/ccp68170--sapphire-ati-radeon-hd4870-1gb-ddr5-pci-e-2-0-10-100259-1gl-vgaatir4873r.htm)
i'll be creating a custom rom from that card tonight, i'll report back tomorrow

[Ikyo]

Anyone actually able to connect to the osx86 IRC server? I keeping getting a timeout on it.

[BConvery]

in store pick up only, but if you're near one of their locations this is a great price. $175 for a 1 gb 4870. (http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/ccp68170--sapphire-ati-radeon-hd4870-1gb-ddr5-pci-e-2-0-10-100259-1gl-vgaatir4873r.htm)
i'll be creating a custom rom from that card tonight, i'll report back tomorrow

Awesome! There's one of those 3 miles from work...if you can get your build work I'll go pick one up...tyvm!

[Ikyo]

Got connected, but had to up the connect time to 80 seconds from 40.

[pipomolo42]

in store pick up only, but if you're near one of their locations this is a great price. $175 for a 1 gb 4870. (http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/ccp68170--sapphire-ati-radeon-hd4870-1gb-ddr5-pci-e-2-0-10-100259-1gl-vgaatir4873r.htm)
i'll be creating a custom rom from that card tonight, i'll report back tomorrow

Thank you for trying this ! I was starting to get bored with people asking the same question over and over again ...

[jeanlain]

Thank you for trying this ! I was starting to get bored with people asking the same question over and over again ...
I think that the 1GB HD4870 works on hackintoshes, so there is good hope that it will work on a Mac Pro with its original BIOS + EFI. :)

[johnjobs]

I have a sapphire 4850 and will flash. what bios should I take? thanks

[netkas]

dont forget to try natit.kext from 12 page with custom rom 4870.... for dual dvi output.

johnjobs, nothing to flash, 4850 has 64kb rom, not enough.

[jeanlain]

I have a sapphire 4850 and will flash. what bios should I take? thanks

Before flashing, check the ROM size with Atiflash. If it is less than 128KBytes (1Mbit), don't flash your card.
If it is 128KB, you should make your own BIOS follow pipomolo's instructions, on page 14 I think.

[thehimay]

in store pick up only, but if you're near one of their locations this is a great price. $175 for a 1 gb 4870. (http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/ccp68170--sapphire-ati-radeon-hd4870-1gb-ddr5-pci-e-2-0-10-100259-1gl-vgaatir4873r.htm)
i'll be creating a custom rom from that card tonight, i'll report back tomorrow

Just received that same model from Newegg today. Unfortunately, I won't have any time to do anything with it until likely tomorrow evening. Going to try and at least get a copy of the ROM off of it tonight if possible so I can tinker with it at work tomorrow.

[netkas]

Before flashing, check the ROM size with Atiflash. If it is less than 128KBytes (1Mbit), don't flash your card.
If it is 128KB, you should make your own BIOS follow pipomolo's instructions, on page 14 I think.

no no, if he follow this, he will end up with pc only card, because efi part has device-id matching, he needs to use bios i posted earlier, but i doubt he will need it, because most likely the card has 64k rom

[AGDenton]

Hello,

I just bought the Sapphire HD 4870 1GB this afternoon, and, using the method outlined by pipomolo42 above, I've successfully converted it to a EFI card ! The whole GB of RAM is recognized, fan control works, QE/CI works, etc.

Given the success of pipomolo42's process, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was able to convert both the cards in a 4870x2, for instance. Very good news indeed...

Next up : buying a second 4870 for Crossfire... I'm pretty sure the auxiliary PCIe power plugs will handle the load, as I've been running a 8800GT+9800GX2 on them for more than six months now.

AG

PS : I've attached the ROM I used to reflash the card.

[elvisizer]

hey AG, which model is that? I bought a sapphire at lunch today, but i'm having trouble with the shell variable in pipomolo's commands, so it'd be nice if i could just use that rom.
the model i have is PN 288-20e85-130sa
SKU# 11133-04-20r

thanks!!
:D

[tobyg]

Hello,

I just bought the Sapphire HD 4870 1GB this afternoon, and, using the method outlined by pipomolo42 above, I've successfully converted it to a EFI card ! The whole GB of RAM is recognized, fan control works, QE/CI works, etc.

Given the success of pipomolo42's process, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was able to convert both the cards in a 4870x2, for instance. Very good news indeed...

Next up : buying a second 4870 for Crossfire... I'm pretty sure the auxiliary PCIe power plugs will handle the load, as I've been running a 8800GT+9800GX2 on them for more than six months now.

AG

PS : I've attached the ROM I used to reflash the card.

I'm actually thinking of grabbing a 4850 to do Crossfire. Cheaper, only need it in Windows anyway so I don't care about flashing, and only needs one power adapter which I'm hoping to string down from the optical bay.

Granted, 4870+4850 in Crossfire run more like 2 4850's in crossfire, that's still quicker than a single 4870 so that should work nice. 2 4870's are much faster, but create even more heat/need even more power.

[goin3d]

Hello,

I just bought the Sapphire HD 4870 1GB this afternoon, and, using the method outlined by pipomolo42 above, I've successfully converted it to a EFI card ! The whole GB of RAM is recognized, fan control works, QE/CI works, etc.

Given the success of pipomolo42's process, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was able to convert both the cards in a 4870x2, for instance. Very good news indeed...

Next up : buying a second 4870 for Crossfire... I'm pretty sure the auxiliary PCIe power plugs will handle the load, as I've been running a 8800GT+9800GX2 on them for more than six months now.

AG

PS : I've attached the ROM I used to reflash the card.

TYVM for this!!! My power cables will be here tomorrow so i'll finally be able to use the card :) Just out of curiosity...did you flash this via a DOS boot method or from bootcamp with winatiflash?

[abisai]

Hello,

I just bought the Sapphire HD 4870 1GB this afternoon, and, using the method outlined by pipomolo42 above, I've successfully converted it to a EFI card ! The whole GB of RAM is recognized, fan control works, QE/CI works, etc.

Given the success of pipomolo42's process, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was able to convert both the cards in a 4870x2, for instance. Very good news indeed...

Next up : buying a second 4870 for Crossfire... I'm pretty sure the auxiliary PCIe power plugs will handle the load, as I've been running a 8800GT+9800GX2 on them for more than six months now.

AG

PS : I've attached the ROM I used to reflash the card.

Are both your DVI ports working driving resolutions higher than 1280x1024?

[macz1]

But has anyone a clue how to get the card to output an analog signal in OS X? Is there hope that this issue cuold be fixed in 10.5.7 when the newest and official drivers will be included in the OS?

Unfortunately I need this %&ç(/%** analog output. This is the only problem which prevents me from getting a 1GB Radeon... :(

[AGDenton]

Further remarks :

The P/N on my card is 113-B7710C-176. The primary port can output dual-DVI;
when I connected a second monitor to the other port, it actually stopped recognizing the one connected to the first port (weird). So it seems only one screen can be driven at this point... I haven't been able to check for analog output, for lack of CRT.

I flashed the card by installing FreeDOS on a FAT32 BootCamp partition to which I had added atiflash.exe. To me, this remains the safest solution...

hey AG, which model is that? I bought a sapphire at lunch today, but i'm having trouble with the shell variable in pipomolo's commands, so it'd be nice if i could just use that rom.
the model i have is PN 288-20e85-130sa
SKU# 11133-04-20r

I really think you should rather incorporate the EFI BIOS in your card's ROM. Are you sure your shell is set to bash ?

AG

[pipomolo42]

But has anyone a clue how to get the card to output an analog signal in OS X? Is there hope that this issue cuold be fixed in 10.5.7 when the newest and official drivers will be included in the OS?

Unfortunately I need this %&ç(/%** analog output. This is the only problem which prevents me from getting a 1GB Radeon... :(

Well, it seems that Apple's mini displayport to vga adapter had a firmware update recently ...

Would it be realistic to say that maybe it contains a microcontroller that handle the Digital to Analog conversion, and that the video card is unable to do it because it has purposely broken drivers ?

[pipomolo42]

the EFI SDK provides an implementation of the compression & decompression algorithms. I can post binaries for simple compression and decompression tools this evening.

So, I don't have XCode installed, and don't really want to download 1GB just for this.

So instead, here are instructions to build small tools that allow to compress and decompress the EFI PE32 binaries : http://boeglin.org/static/efidecompress/

You can get the EFI spec at uefi.org, and look at chapter 13.4.2 for PCI Option ROM details.

[jeanlain]

Well, it seems that Apple's mini displayport to vga adapter had a firmware update recently ...

Would it be realistic to say that maybe it contains a microcontroller that handle the Digital to Analog conversion, and that the video card is unable to do it because it has purposely broken drivers ?
But what about the DVI port on the apple card? Surely, it can output VGA.

[goin3d]

That's interesting...didn't know the 1gig cards also came in a 113-** model. Mine is 288* as well. (So i might be back to having to put together the rom + efi again)

[elvisizer]

I really think you should rather incorporate the EFI BIOS in your card's ROM.
AG
yes, especially since the part numbers are different, probably not a good idea to use that rom with my card.

[macz1]

Well, it seems that Apple's mini displayport to vga adapter had a firmware update recently ...

Would it be realistic to say that maybe it contains a microcontroller that handle the Digital to Analog conversion, and that the video card is unable to do it because it has purposely broken drivers ?


That's funny! Nowdays even a cable has its own firmware! haha. This is absurd. But true...

[elvisizer]

that's how every other displayport to vga adapter i've seen works, so i wouldn't be surprised.

off topic
I hate displayport right now. The nvidia 5800's are so freaking flaky under linux when you use the displayport, it's making my life hell at work.
/off topic

[Chilz0r]

You guys who want vga really need to get with the times lol. Like get a monitor that supports digital input.

[red9]

Just had a few more total newbie questions-

1. Am thinking of getting the 1GB Sapphire card that most people seem to want to get. Do I ALSO need that extra power cable from http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778 ? I am in the USA, do electronics stores carry the cable also, or is it a very special item?

2. I have ONLY a Mac Pro, no PC. I don't have bootcamp installed atm, but can install it whenever. Can I safely do all the flashing procedures necessary without a PC? If so, is there a quick tutorial on what I'd need to do to get it working?

Thanks for the help!

[elvisizer]

this is a sapphire, PN# 288-20e85-130sa/SKU# 11133-04-20r.
i used pipomolo42's method to create a frankenrom, and did the flashing using a pc, bootable usb key with DOS, and atiflash. osx drivers are from the irc channel netkas mentioned.
the card's up and running with no problems. i don't have analog to test, sorry. everything i have tested is working under os x and vista.

[thehimay]

Just had a few more total newbie questions-

1. Am thinking of getting the 1GB Sapphire card that most people seem to want to get. Do I ALSO need that extra power cable from http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778 ? I am in the USA, do electronics stores carry the cable also, or is it a very special item?

2. I have ONLY a Mac Pro, no PC. I don't have bootcamp installed atm, but can install it whenever. Can I safely do all the flashing procedures necessary without a PC? If so, is there a quick tutorial on what I'd need to do to get it working?

Thanks for the help!

1. Probably going to have to order the cable. It would appear Apple only gives them to you if you have cards that need them. There's only one in my machine for the 8800GT in it. I had to put an order in for it tonight...hopefully I'll see it in a day or two. I had no luck finding it locally, but it was by no means an exhaustive search.

2. Yes, you should be able to. Netkas wrote a brief tutorial on it (http://netkas.org/?p=90, somewhere around page 3 or 4 I think), and pipomolo added some more to it for finetuning the ROM edit I think (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=661681&page=14#344). Any other details, you can track down within this thread or they'll tell you where to go.

[netkas]

AGDenton.

Could you install this kext and check if it changes dvi ports attitude ?

http://rapidshare.de/files/46144490/Natit.kext.tar.bz2.html

[macz1]

You guys who want vga really need to get with the times lol. Like get a monitor that supports digital input.

Yes, but this won't happen until I see an LCD with comparable contrast and black levels to my good CRT. Not to mention the viewing-angle independent color accuracy... You see, I have my reasons to stick with analog...

[jeanlain]

1. Probably going to have to order the cable. It would appear Apple only gives them to you if you have cards that need them. There's only one in my machine for the 8800GT in it. I had to put an order in for it tonight...hopefully I'll see it in a day or two. I had no luck finding it locally, but it was by no means an exhaustive search.
Couldn't you use a standard PSU to 6-pin PIC-E cable that should be bundled with the card? Connect it to the available plug in the optical drive bay, unless you have two drives or a Mac Pro 2009?
In fact, I am not sure that you can connect two PCI-E apple cables on the motherboard. But I haven't looked.

[7x7]

Have read somewhere this:

[ATI Radeon HD2600 was device ID 9589 and Apple Device ID is 9598. This card works properly editing BIOS.rom and change the ID's to the apple ID's and flashing it].
Noticed ID´s mismatch?

Have someone checked this with HD4870?

[thehimay]

Couldn't you use a standard PSU to 6-pin PIC-E cable that should be bundled with the card? Connect it to the available plug in the optical drive bay, unless you have two drives or a Mac Pro 2009?
In fact, I am not sure that you can connect two PCI-E apple cables on the motherboard. But I haven't looked.

The MP boards come with two auxiliary 6-pin power supplies. I could use the cables that came with the card, but as you stated, I'm in the situation I've got two optical drives in my MP. I'll just have to wait on the cable (unless I want to temporarily disable an optical drive...tempted, so I can get the firmware done and taken care of).

[MacRumorUser]

So anybody tried one of these frankencards inside a REV 1.1 mac pro yet ?

[smgfreak]

I did 6 Pairs of Cable today for me and some friends cause everybody needs them for the 4870.

1. you Buy the Enermax EMC004 Cable = 3 $
2. you Just Buy the MICRO PLUGS
3. you buy the PINS
4. CUT One Plug that is to big and Swap it with the MICRO PLUG

it took me 5 Minutes Each !

My Final Price for a PAIR for 4870 is TOTAL 12 $

NO I DO NOT SELL THEM

[jeanlain]

So anybody tried one of these frankencards inside a REV 1.1 mac pro yet ?
Some tried PC cards with the unmodified Mac ROM and it works. There is no reason why custom ROMs should not work in these machines (either with 512MB or 1024MB cards).
The apple ROM uses EBC, which is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit EFI.
PCI-E 1.1 is not a problem.
I may give it a try myself once 10.5.7 is out. :rolleyes:

[netkas]

Have read somewhere this:

[ATI Radeon HD2600 was device ID 9589 and Apple Device ID is 9598. This card works properly editing BIOS.rom and change the ID's to the apple ID's and flashing it].
Noticed ID´s mismatch?

Have someone checked this with HD4870?

7x7, what hardware noob wrote that ? :)

Apple's 2600 device id is 9588 , which is match to radeon 2600xt, and 9589 is 2600pro, which isnt even supported by osx by default (need to edit some plist).

[PatrikL]

Darn, would like to know if it would be possible to moddify the bios to fit on a 4870x2 i'm thinking of buying that card or 2x 4870 but a 4870x2 would be nicer.
Any idea?
//Patrik

[jeanlain]

Have read somewhere this:

[ATI Radeon HD2600 was device ID 9589 and Apple Device ID is 9598. This card works properly editing BIOS.rom and change the ID's to the apple ID's and flashing it].
Noticed ID´s mismatch?

Have someone checked this with HD4870?

Same device ID: 9440.

[netkas]

Darn, would like to know if it would be possible to moddify the bios to fit on a 4870x2 i'm thinking of buying that card or 2x 4870 but a 4870x2 would be nicer.
Any idea?
//Patrik
as long as device id remains 0x9441 (normal for 4870x2), the card WILL NOT work in osx.
if you will write 4870's rom to both bioses (if there is two), u will(maybe) get two 4870 cards crossfire connected(this could prevent from them working in osx), and u will loose 4870x2 .
last thing, crossfire doesnt work in osx at all, there is absolutely no point to get 4870x2 for osx, because it will (if will) work as two 4870 cards.

[PatrikL]

as long as device id remains 0x9441 (normal for 4870x2), the card WILL NOT work in osx.
if you will write 4870's rom to both bioses (if there is two), u will(maybe) get two 4870 cards crossfire connected(this could prevent from them working in osx), and u will loose 4870x2 .
last thing, crossfire doesnt work in osx at all, there is absolutely no point to get 4870x2 for osx, because it will (if will) work as two 4870 cards.



Yeah i know! maybe i should get two 4870 then.
I want to have the crossfire option in windows. (osx doesnt need to have this because i only use osx when i'm working etc not playing games)
//BR
Patrik

[AGDenton]

Hello,

I just discovered that the 1GB 4870 will not sleep (the card stays on and keeps driving the monitor, even though the rest of the system stops). I guess some variables are missing in IORegistry...

AGDenton.

Could you install this kext and check if it changes dvi ports attitude ?

http://rapidshare.de/files/46144490/Natit.kext.tar.bz2.html

I've put this kext in /System/Library/Extensions, corrected the permissions, and rebuilt Extensions.mkext, but it still doesn't load (no entry in kextstat). Do you know what could cause this?

By the way, here's what I get for the card when I run ioreg -lw 0 in single-user mode :

[netkas]

it shouldnt stay in kextstat, it attaches to device, sets binimage and detaches.

the only way to check it worked is to connect both dvi ports

and, if you want to make ioreg for checks, make it this way

ioreg -l -w0 -p IODeviceTree | grep device-properties > dump.txt

device-properties var hass all keys efi driver module passes to kernel.

btw, about your dump:

| | | | "@0,display-dual-link" = <02000000>

i think we need to try to set this key (with natit) for second display ("@1,display-dual-link" = <02000000>)

[c0052350]

just like to report another sapphire 11133-03-20r success using the hybrid rom. The board reported as a wikeva... when using atiflash -ai so a initially tried the apple rom which buggered the board then reflashed using the hybrid rom posted here earlier
Motion seems to run slightly better not really tested much as need another pcie cable
anyway thanks to all who have made this possble

[c0052350]

forgot to add using mac pro 1,1

[mcroger]

So, here is how I do it:

- get the Mac 4870 rom available in this thread (named 4870.ROM)
- get the 128k vgabios of your PC card (named pc4870.rom)
- get tyhe fixrom.py script that I attached here

run the following commands in a shell (either MacOS X or Linux)
dd if=4870.ROM of=efi.part bs=1 skip=63488 count=49152
blocknum=`printf %d "'\`dd if=pc4870.rom bs=1 skip=2 count=1 2>/dev/null\`"`
size=$(($blocknum * 512))
dd if=efi.part of=pc4870.rom bs=$size seek=1 conv=notrunc
python fixrom.py pc4870.rom pc4870.rom

first one extracts the efi part of the Mac rom
then get the number of 512 bytes blocks of the bios part of your pc rom
then converts it to a size in bytes
then injects the efi part right after the bios part
then the script fixes last rom indicators and checksums

You can then flash the pc4870.rom to your card, using FreeDOS for instance

If you want to do manual modifications to either part of the rom, don't forget to run the fixrom.py script after.

This should work with most (if not all) of the 4870 cards. If it doesn't work for you, just pm me a link to your pc vgabios.

Hi there,

Is not there a syntax error somewhere ?

I got this message as if the $size variable was not used:

$ dd if=efi.part of=pc4870.rom bs=$size seek=1 conv=notrunc
dd: bs must be between 1 and 2147483647


The board from wich I extracted the rom is a Saphhire 512 288-10e85-030SA (11133-03-20R).

Thanks in advance for helping !

[Konni]

Did you use "bash" as shell ?

[mcroger]

Did not specify, tried in Terminal default in Mac OS X and in Ubuntu as well, same result.

edit: will try in Bash :)
edit 2: same result :(

[jeanlain]

Did not specify, tried in Terminal default in Mac OS X and in Ubuntu as well, same result.

edit: will try in Bash :)
edit 2: same result :(
Maybe you did not extract the PC ROM properly. You could use the hybrid ROM for Sapphire cards that was posted earlier in the thread, or ask c0052350 who has flashed the same card as yours.

[tobyg]

About those bloody cables... :rolleyes:
Will a PCI-E splitter work, if one already has a cable (I have one with the radeon X1900XT)?
That is much cheaper than another apple-molex to PCI-E cable.
Still, I would be reluctant to connect the two plugs of the 4870 to a single molex. Will it melt? Will I blow a fuse, run out of power during a game? :D :eek:
I suppose there is a good reason for the two plugs on the 4870.

EDIT: it turns out the 4870 does not consumes more power than the X1900XT, so this should be ok. Why the two power plugs on that card?

Where did you find this info? I've read that the X1900 XT uses about 110 watts. Maybe it gets 75 watts from the PCIe slot and the other from the 6 pin molex. Maybe the 4870 gets its power only from the two molex adapters and doesn't draw much from the PCIe slot directly.

I would be afraid of using this. I'm not sure the motherboard traces going to those connectors can handle that much power being drawn from a single connection. This isn't a PC where the 6 pin connectors come directly out of the power supply. If you fry those, you've fried your motherboard.

[elvisizer]

i had the same problem with the commands at first, mcroger, until I realized I was being a bonehead- I had named my rom dump 4870pc.rom, and the command is looking for a file name pc4870.rom. make sure the file is in the same directory and has the correct name.

[mcroger]

i had the same problem with the commands at first, mcroger, until I realized I was being a bonehead- I had named my rom dump 4870pc.rom, and the command is looking for a file name pc4870.rom. make sure the file is in the same directory and has the correct name.

Just realized it....

Now it works (yes !), small question: did you also get a 112K rom as output ?

Edit: and is the card meant to be able too boot in a PC afterwards (I use it for flashing, PCIe cables not yet arrived for the Mac Pro) ? 'cause if it is no longer meant to run in a PC, fine, otherwise, sh......t, the card does not boot.

[Konni]

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture :(


I think we can add the Club 3D Radeon 4870 (http://www.club3d.nl/index.php/products/graphics/item/372) to the not working list

[jeanlain]

Where did you find this info? I've read that the X1900 XT uses about 110 watts. Maybe it gets 75 watts from the PCIe slot and the other from the 6 pin molex. Maybe the 4870 gets its power only from the two molex adapters and doesn't draw much from the PCIe slot directly.

I would be afraid of using this. I'm not sure the motherboard traces going to those connectors can handle that much power being drawn from a single connection. This isn't a PC where the 6 pin connectors come directly out of the power supply. If you fry those, you've fried your motherboard.

Here the only measure I could find: http://www.behardware.com/articles/605-4/the-radeon-x1900-xtx-x1900-xt-and-x1900-crossfire-in-tests.html

Oops, I have realized that websites were referring to the power consumption of the whole computer. Not easy to compare with the 4870.

[jeanlain]

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture :(


I think we can add the Club 3D Radeon 4870 (http://www.club3d.nl/index.php/products/graphics/item/372) to the not working list
You're not using analogous (VGA) output, are you?
Plus, remember to plug your screen to the lower port, the closer to the board and plug a DVI to VGA converter on the other port (but no display).
Can you boot windows or DOS or a PC with you card? This should word without taking care of the above. If not, flashing may have failed.

[Konni]

No, I can't get into the Boot "Menu", to select the Bootcamp partition (and I can't select Windows Partition from Leopard to start Windows automaticaly).

No I'm using DVI (I tried both, the upper also the lower Port).

[jeanlain]

No, I can't get into the Boot "Menu", to select the Bootcamp partition (and I can't select Windows Partition from Leopard to start Windows automaticaly).
I guess that's normal since it probably has the same limitations as in OS X. You should not see any video before the BIOS emulation starts, in DOS or windows.
Is there a keyboard shortcut to starts with a bootcamp partition?

[Konni]

No, there is no shortcut (which I know), but, I removed now all drives (except the one windows drive), so I could select blindly the Windows Partiton, but nothing.

[jeanlain]

No, there is no shortcut (which I know), but, I removed now all drives (except the one windows drive), so I could select blindly the Windows Partiton, but nothing.
I would think that the flashing didn't work as it should have. I can't find a reason why the card would not work on windows, since it should still have its original BIOS.

[c0052350]

the rom posted by pipomol42 should work for all sapphire cards p/n 11133-03-20r standard 4870 512mb blue pcb and the heatpipe cooler.
Also you can run the card with only one pcie power connector but don't get core image or quartz extreme i.e no hardware acceleration but resolution is fine, runs like this under tiger aswell ( os x does warn you about the missing power connector). This is only a temp measure until i receive a 6pin power cable a guy on ebay sells them for $16 incl shipping.
Another thing i noticed is how much quieter the mac pro is compared to having the x1900 in it.

[mcroger]

the rom posted by pipomol42 should work for all sapphire cards p/n 11133-03-20r standard 4870 512mb blue pcb and the heatpipe cooler.


I'll try as soon as my cables have arrived (5-10 days from US to Belgium), then I'll re-flash directly from the Mac Pro using a DOS boot CD (the card prevents my PC from booting :( ).

Will keep you posted about the outcome, hopefully with yet another success.

[pipomolo42]

did you also get a 112K rom as output ?

Edit: and is the card meant to be able too boot in a PC afterwards

If you extracted the rom correctly, it has to be 128k, and yes it's still supposed to run in a PC.

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture :(


I think we can add the Club 3D Radeon 4870 (http://www.club3d.nl/index.php/products/graphics/item/372) to the not working list

There is currently nothing like a "not working list". I got your pm, Konni, it seems you have the same problem as mcroger : you didn't do a full 128k dump of your rom.

You can try to look for a bios that works on your card here : http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/

I'll also put a warning in my howto post (well, it was already written "get the 128k vgabios of your PC card" in my original post, now it's in big red letters)

[AGDenton]

Experiences with two cards :

1) The Mac Pro just got much noisier.

2) Crossfire works quite well under Windows.

3) The 4870 drivers panic when two cards are present.:(

Item 3) actually reminds me of a similar problem I encountered when I tried to put two X1900's in a MacPro 1,1 back in 2006... I'm going to pin it on the "WIP" quality of the drivers and wait for 10.5.7's release. In the meantime, I'm unplugging one of the cards when booting OS X, which is probably something I'd do anyway (because of the noise).



I'll try as soon as my cables have arrived (5-10 days from US to Belgium), then I'll re-flash directly from the Mac Pro using a DOS boot CD (the card prevents my PC from booting ).

From my experience, the Mac is even more demanding than a PC when it comes to booting with a "bricked" card in one slot. At least with a PC you can set another card as primary in the BIOS...



I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture.

You really need a PC to reflash the card. As far as I've tried, the MP never gets past POST with a bricked card... Alternatively, just RMA the card :).



Where did you find this info? I've read that the X1900 XT uses about 110 watts. Maybe it gets 75 watts from the PCIe slot and the other from the 6 pin molex. Maybe the 4870 gets its power only from the two molex adapters and doesn't draw much from the PCIe slot directly.

I would be afraid of using this. I'm not sure the motherboard traces going to those connectors can handle that much power being drawn from a single connection. This isn't a PC where the 6 pin connectors come directly out of the power supply. If you fry those, you've fried your motherboard.

I've been running two cards in Crysis Warhead for ~1h off these PCIe connectors with no problem whatsoever... I actually think it's safer than using the Molex connectors from the ODD bay, which was rather flaky (I guess they're connected to a weaker 12V rail).


it shouldnt stay in kextstat, it attaches to device, sets binimage and detaches.

the only way to check it worked is to connect both dvi ports

Well, in that case, in doesn't work yet :). I'm also interested in getting the sleep function back. Do you know which keys are responsible for it?

[johnjobs]

hi pipomolo,

I have today received my sapphire 4870, with the pn 288-10E85-030SA, SKU
11133-03-20R. I want to flash, what is the easiest method and what bios should I take? thanks

[pipomolo42]

So instead, here are instructions to build small tools that allow to compress and decompress the EFI PE32 binaries : http://boeglin.org/static/efidecompress/

You can get the EFI spec at uefi.org, and look at chapter 13.4.2 for PCI Option ROM details.

FYI, I eventually made binaries, for MacOSX and 64bit Linux. You can get them at the URL above. Files with the .macosx suffix are the MacOSX binaries, and files with the .linux are the Linux binaries.

What we need next are a GCC back-end, and binutils support for EBC, which are a bit less trivial to do ;)

[goin3d]

just flashed a sapphire 1gig (288 version) using pipomolo42's great tutorial. So far these are my results:

The card is recognized correctly by OS X. Smaller monitors work in either port at 1280x1024 but my primary which is 26 inch will not initialize in either port. (this normally runs at 1900x1200) Is this a sign that dual link is not working or did i somehow manage to botch the flash job?

Thanks!

PS forgot to add...also tried adding the natit.kext with no change in result

[elvisizer]

that's weird, goin3d. i'm driving a 24inch display at 1920x1200, no problems.

[goin3d]

that's weird, goin3d. i'm driving a 24inch display at 1920x1200, no problems.

That is weird! I've tried both ports with it so maybe I just need to try a reflash to be on the safe side. If you also had one of the 288 1 gig cards any chance you could post your final pc4870? just out of curiosity...if you're using a 2009, where you able to put this card in the first PCIE slot? I'm having trouble making it fit with the fan screws on the underside of the board

[gzfelix]

I'm just wondering, anybody needs GT120's rom?

[thehimay]

That is weird! I've tried both ports with it so maybe I just need to try a reflash to be on the safe side. If you also had one of the 288 1 gig cards any chance you could post your final pc4870? just out of curiosity...if you're using a 2009, where you able to put this card in the first PCIE slot? I'm having trouble making it fit with the fan screws on the underside of the board

Having similar issues with that card in the early '08 MP...doesn't appear to want to fit in Slot 1. Looks like I'll just have to resort to using it in Slot 2 for the time being. Successfully got it flashed and driving a 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 pair of displays.

Edit: I take that back about driving both displays. I'm getting stuck with a blue screen on both upon boot (but when I press the power button to sleep, both displays momentarily properly display their contents), so I'm just driving the widescreen display so far.

[goin3d]

Having similar issues with that card in the early '08 MP...doesn't appear to want to fit in Slot 1. Looks like I'll just have to resort to using it in Slot 2 for the time being. Successfully got it flashed and driving a 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 pair of displays.

Was that one of the sapphire 1g cards?

[thehimay]

Was that one of the sapphire 1g cards?

Yup. P/N 288-20E85-130SA, SKU 11133-04-20R (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801)

[goin3d]

Yup. P/N 288-20E85-130SA, SKU 11133-04-20R (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801)

Good to hear! I'll keep working at it then. So far I'm at a loss though :eek:

If anyone with the 288 1gig card could post their fixed ROM that would be a huge help as well! (if not comfortable with that please IM me)

[tobyg]

I've been running two cards in Crysis Warhead for ~1h off these PCIe connectors with no problem whatsoever... I actually think it's safer than using the Molex connectors from the ODD bay, which was rather flaky (I guess they're connected to a weaker 12V rail).



2 cards, a splitter off of each onboard connection... with both connections from the splitter going to the same card or alternate cards?

Either way, I'd be very worried about drawing too many amps across those connections. I don't know what gauge wire is used on the trace on the motherboard. I'd like to find out what the maximum draw in watts or amps they are rated for.

I don't think I'm willing to take the risk.

[tobyg]

Having similar issues with that card in the early '08 MP...doesn't appear to want to fit in Slot 1. Looks like I'll just have to resort to using it in Slot 2 for the time being. Successfully got it flashed and driving a 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 pair of displays.

I tried to warn people about this in earlier posts. The screws stick out too far to put it in the first slot, they hit the memory cage on a lot of these boards. From what I've seen, if your board doesn't have a metal support bracket in the back, the screws are probably too long. Look at various pictures of boards on newegg to see what I mean.

[goin3d]

I tried to warn people about this in earlier posts. The screws stick out too far to put it in the first slot, they hit the memory cage on a lot of these boards. From what I've seen, if your board doesn't have a metal support bracket in the back, the screws are probably too long. Look at various pictures of boards on newegg to see what I mean.

I ended up just going with slot 2 for the moment as well until I decide if I am going to be able to get the card working correctly. After starting over again from scratch and trying multiple combinations of ports/monitors I can say that nothing that involves a resolution over 1280x1024 will work regardless of which port is used. Is there anything special about that resolution?

[TheStrudel]

Is there a card with similar specs, but isn't problematic space-wise? Because that's exactly the card I was thinking of getting.

And OS X was stable - and graphic intensive work or games, anything that stressed the card worked fine with running both PCIe taps out of one port using a splitter? Or am I misinterpreting what you've described, AG?

[Arkillion]

I was able to get the modified sapphire 512mb rom working (after 6 hours of trying to get dos to boot with atiflash). I can run my 30" ACD fine, but when I plug in my 24" dell to the other dvi port, the screens both go blue and eventually the computer restarts itself.

[rhildinger]

But I know what went wrong...

I used pipomolo42's instructions to create a custom rom with Apple EFI portion. The part that got screwed up has to do with the mapping of the original ROM in the card.

1. The size of the bios portion in the original XFX rom is 0x200 bytes larger than the size of the bios portion in the Apple rom.
2. The location of what appears to be some sort of jump table (or parheps soft strap code) is the same for both the Apple and XFX roms: 0x1B800
3. Pipomolo42's code inserts the efi portion at the correct location in the XFX rom, but since that location is 0x200 bytes larger than the location in the apple Rom, the tail end of the efi code tramples over the first 0x200 bytes of the jump table or whtever it is.

So, what would be the correct course of action to get this ROM working? Should the jump table or whatever it is simply be pushed down another 0x200 bytes to make room for the larger bios portion?

Also, is there absolutely no way to recover the screwed up XFX card on a 2008 Mac PRo? Do I have to try and find a PC to do this with?

Thanks!
-Robert

[thehimay]

I was able to get the modified sapphire 512mb rom working (after 6 hours of trying to get dos to boot with atiflash). I can run my 30" ACD fine, but when I plug in my 24" dell to the other dvi port, the screens both go blue and eventually the computer restarts itself.

Sounds like the same issue I was having with dual displays. Back to running on the 8800GT until my other 6-pin Molex connector arrives. I can't close my case when I'm patching from the optical drive power connectors, so I'd rather not introduce more unnecessary dust for now.

Any thoughts from others if this is a driver/kext issue or a firmware issue? Sounded like some earlier commentary gave me hope this is a driver/kext, although I'm not sure how much easier that would be to address.

Bootup sure was quieter with the 4870 in place, instead of the 8800GT's turbine fan blaring.

[vicentk]

I was able to get the modified sapphire 512mb rom working (after 6 hours of trying to get dos to boot with atiflash). I can run my 30" ACD fine, but when I plug in my 24" dell to the other dvi port, the screens both go blue and eventually the computer restarts itself.

May I know which rom you use?

[Arkillion]

May I know which rom you use?

I used pipomolo's from page 13.

I put my 8800gt in slot 2, running power from the extra molex in the optical bay and connected my second monitor to it. Both monitors are running great and after I receive a molex extension cable, I should have no problem closing the case.

[vicentk]

I used pipomolo's from page 13.

I put my 8800gt in slot 2, running power from the extra molex in the optical bay and connected my second monitor to it. Both monitors are running great and after I receive a molex extension cable, I should have no problem closing the case.

Thank your reply, seen I still love my 8800GT, but for later I will buy 4870 *2 run crossfire in windows, because on intel board just crossfire can run.

[The Rominator]

I'm just wondering, anybody needs GT120's rom?

I was sent this ROM by another member here.

The most interesting thing that I noticed right away is it's size...156K.

We enter the era of 256K Flashrom chips with this card.

We should all be quite thankful that the 4870 rom didn't extend a trifle past 128K, I'm surprised actually.

[AGDenton]

2 cards, a splitter off of each onboard connection... with both connections from the splitter going to the same card or alternate cards?

Either way, I'd be very worried about drawing too many amps across those connections. I don't know what gauge wire is used on the trace on the motherboard. I'd like to find out what the maximum draw in watts or amps they are rated for.

So far, I've connected the two outputs of each splitter to the same card in order to reduce cable clutter. Since the worst power figures I've seen for two 4870's are <500W for the whole system, and substracting ~100W for "everything but the cards" and 2x75W for power provided via the PCIe slots, I figure pulling >300W via the booster cables (the limit specified by Apple) seems really unlikely.

What I'm really trying to say here is that this beats getting power from the ODD bay, which for me resulted in a PSU shutdown multiple times. Of course, bringing in another PSU will certainly never make things worse...

And OS X was stable - and graphic intensive work or games, anything that stressed the card worked fine with running both PCIe taps out of one port using a splitter? Or am I misinterpreting what you've described, AG?

With one card, OS X is certainly stable, but the driver seems less than stellar - while Core Animation effects are noticeably smoother than with the NVidia drivers, it seems that subpixel rendering is applied inconsistently across the screen, and of course the driver crashes with the second card installed... Definitely "beta" quality here.

The only stress-testing I've done has been in Windows, with two cards (running Crysis Warhead in 2560x1600 with Crossfire on). I haven't noticed any stability problems for more than an hour there. Time will tell...

[pipomolo42]

So, what would be the correct course of action to get this ROM working? Should the jump table or whatever it is simply be pushed down another 0x200 bytes to make room for the larger bios portion?

Yes, that's the way to do it. If you look around 0xba00 in your original rom, you should find the offset to this table, and you can then change this value and move the table accordingly. Or you can PM it to me.

Also, is there absolutely no way to recover the screwed up XFX card on a 2008 Mac PRo? Do I have to try and find a PC to do this with?

I'm affraid it's not possible to do it on a EFI machine : it scans all cards at boot time, whereas BIOS just stops after the first one it initializes.

[Konni]

Yes you need a PC :(

And important, Boards with integrated chipset graphic don't work to flash back the BIOS, you need on this Boards also a PCI Graphiccard.

[pipomolo42]

Yes you need a PC :(

And important, Boards with integrated chipset graphic don't work to flash back the BIOS, you need on this Boards also a PCI Graphiccard.

Err, mine does. The BIOS has an option to specify which one should be used first : Integrated or PCIe

For reference, it's an Asus V3-M2A690G Barebone.

[testmn3d]

i had the same problem with the commands at first, mcroger, until I realized I was being a bonehead- I had named my rom dump 4870pc.rom, and the command is looking for a file name pc4870.rom. make sure the file is in the same directory and has the correct name.

hi elvisizer,

would you send me your modified ROM please? i have same card sapphire Radeon HD4870 with 1 GB P/N 288-20E85-130SA SKU# 11133-04-20R

Thank you
best regards
testmn3d

[johnjobs]

has someone already successfully flashed a sapphire 4870, with the PN 288-10E85-030SA, SKU 11133-03-20R? thanks

[goin3d]

hi elvisizer,

would you send me your modified ROM please? i have same card sapphire Radeon HD4870 with 1 GB P/N 288-20E85-130SA SKU# 11133-04-20R

Thank you
best regards
testmn3d

I'd like to second that request! At least then we could rule that out as a possible issue for those with the 1 gig 288 cards still having some issues.

Thanks!

[jaberwocky]

Yeah, get a call that my pci-e power cables arrived, so i will try flashing my card today.

Yust kneed to find a solution to save the orig. rom on my MacPro 1,1, cause only booting with FreeDOS on cd works, but can't change to fat partion .-(
(boot camp)

Bye, jaberwocjky

[v0n]

Yust kneed to find a solution to save the orig. rom on my MacPro 1,1, cause only booting with FreeDOS on cd works, but can't change to fat partion .-(
(boot camp)

Bye, jaberwocjky

Boot off USB pen?

[elvisizer]

I'd like to second that request! At least then we could rule that out as a possible issue for those with the 1 gig 288 cards still having some issues.

Thanks!

sure, here you go.
this is for a sapphire, PN# 288-20e85-130sa/SKU# 11133-04-20r
i have mine in slot 1. it's tight, but if you work on the memory cage housing a bit, it'll go.

[netkas]

updated natit for tests on macpro, it now sets display-dual-link property for both heads, lets see if it changes something.

http://rapidshare.de/files/46229759/Natit.kext.tar.bz2.html

[jaberwocky]

Boot off USB pen?

Doesn't work - without using rEfit it's not seen as startup disk, within rEfit 0.12 it's end up with "Error: Not Found returned from legacy loader,Error: Not Found from LocateDevicePath".

On a normal (older) PC (without PCI-express) the USB pen works ..

Bye, Jaberwocky

[jeanlain]

Doesn't work - without using rEfit it's not seen as startup disk, within rEfit 0.12 it's end up with "Error: Not Found returned from legacy loader,Error: Not Found from LocateDevicePath".

On a normal (older) PC (without PCI-express) the USB pen works ..

Bye, Jaberwocky
What is the problem with booting on the DOS CD? Copy Atiflash on your DOS partition and boot with the CD.
You can also flash under windows with Ati winflash. Actually, I'd be interested to know if that works. You just gotta ask yourself the question: do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? ;)
Keep us informed. :)

[jaberwocky]

What is the problem with booting on the DOS CD? Copy Atiflash on your DOS partition and boot with the CD.
You can also flash under windows with Ati winflash. Actually, I'd be interested to know if that works. You just gotta ask yourself the question: do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? ;)
Keep us unformed. :)

Well, the Problem is that i first want to save the original ROM from the card for backup & edit purpose. Booting with DOS-CD is no problem, only without rw.
Maybe someone can PM me the orig ROM from the sapphire card with his checksum (ATIFlash -cb 0). So i can verify that it's the same as installed on my card and i'm save so that i can start the party :D

My card: Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-10EXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R

Bye, jaberwocky

[c0052350]

Err, mine does. The BIOS has an option to specify which one should be used first : Integrated or PCIe

For reference, it's an Asus V3-M2A690G Barebone.

my brother has one of those asus barbones whilst it does give you that option it does not initialise the pcie slot and atiflash reports adapter not found

[johnjobs]

Well, the Problem is that i first want to save the original ROM from the card for backup & edit purpose. Booting with DOS-CD is no problem, only without rw.
Maybe someone can PM me the orig ROM from the sapphire card with his checksum (ATIFlash -cb 0). So i can verify that it's the same as installed on my card and i'm save so that i can start the party :D

My card: Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-10EXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R

Bye, jaberwocky

hello jaberwocky,

I bought the same card by Arlt, please can you send me your Bios. Thank you!

[The Rominator]

Yeah, get a call that my pci-e power cables arrived, so i will try flashing my card today.

Yust kneed to find a solution to save the orig. rom on my MacPro 1,1, cause only booting with FreeDOS on cd works, but can't change to fat partion .-(
(boot camp)

Bye, jaberwocjky


During FreeDOS boot I hit "Enter" at screen where you can choose "h" to boot off Hard Drive...then "2" to boot with no additional drivers.

I end up at an "A:" prompt

from here I did what I did in 1983..."C:" to switch drives then "dir/w" for a viewable list of what's on the drive. I can load ROMs in WIndows or OSX and there they are in DOS.

Atiflash -s 0 oldrom.rom

Bingo

[jeanlain]

Well, the Problem is that i first want to save the original ROM from the card for backup & edit purpose. Booting with DOS-CD is no problem, only without rw.
I still don't see why you cannot save the ROM to your DOS partition (the one holding atiflash) while freeDOS is booted from a CD.
There is a procedure explained here: http://www.hardmac.com/articles/78/page4
Remember that you can create a DOS partition with disk utility.

[goin3d]

I still don't see why you cannot save the ROM to your DOS partition (the one holding atiflash) while freeDOS is booted from a CD.
There is a procedure explained here: http://www.hardmac.com/articles/78/page4
Remember that you can create a DOS partition with disk utility.

That worked like a charm!

I did try the Natit that Netkas posted and experienced no change. (Netkas, when did you make a change to that kext? When I downloaded it the modify date was 3/16.)

I then tried the rom that elvisizer posted recently and did receive some better results...so thanks Elvisizer!!! Here is where i'm at with the 1g sapphire 288* card: the 4870 will drive any 1 monitor regardless of which port is used. IE i can use a 1920x monitor in either port. Trying to connect a second monitor of any resolution crashes OS X, or booting with 2 connected fails. Which for my needs will work great as I will just plug my 2 "non-primary" monitors into a gt120. It is interesting though that either dvi port works but never both together.

But thank you everyone for the help that got things this far!

[vicentk]

hello jaberwocky,

I bought the same card by Arlt, please can you send me your Bios. Thank you!

May I know is that card had a huge fan? Because in Hong Kong is no more standard version now.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m166/vicentk/sapphire-radeon-hd-4870-silent-512m.gif

[dusanv]

Where does everyone get the power cables for the card? Someone here put up an instruction to roll your own but I'd like to avoid that if I can because it'll take me a while to assemble all the parts needed.

Which ROM should I use now? There are a bunch flying around.

Can you use the card in a PC with the Mac ROM on it?

I'm thinking of hanging on to my x1900, if I need to reinstall 10.5. BTW, I put in good thermal paste when I got and it's been running like a champ. No problems with it.

P.S. That Sapphire card looks good, with the fan exhausting out the back.

[thehimay]

Where does everyone get the power cables for the card? Someone here put up an instruction to roll your own but I'd like to avoid that if I can because it'll take me a while to assemble all the parts needed.

From ATi. (http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778)

[dusanv]

From ATi. (http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778)

Thanks for the info.

But for CDN $55 ($18/pop + $13 shipping + tax), I just might spare an hour to make my own. ATI are worse than Apple, and that's quite something.

Anyway, here's Slughead's excellent instruction (http://www.tenthousandpercent.com/?section=other&article=96) on how to roll your own power cables.

[Konni]

I got the Cable from ebay for 20 US$

Search following article number 250310817907

[testmn3d]

That worked like a charm!

I did try the Natit that Netkas posted and experienced no change. (Netkas, when did you make a change to that kext? When I downloaded it the modify date was 3/16.)

I then tried the rom that elvisizer posted recently and did receive some better results...so thanks Elvisizer!!! Here is where i'm at with the 1g sapphire 288* card: the 4870 will drive any 1 monitor regardless of which port is used. IE i can use a 1920x monitor in either port. Trying to connect a second monitor of any resolution crashes OS X, or booting with 2 connected fails. Which for my needs will work great as I will just plug my 2 "non-primary" monitors into a gt120. It is interesting though that either dvi port works but never both together.

But thank you everyone for the help that got things this far!

thanks for the good news!
and thanks for elvisizer for the rom. i will try to flash my card tonight.

[jaberwocky]

Hi there,

i switched to another pc and extract the flash with atiflash360, it was only 63488 bytes, eg. 62 Kbyte, but the flash is ready for 128 KB.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1148/exteinfo.jpg

After doing the conversion described by pipolo42 the final flash is only 112640 Byte (112 KB) :confused: instead of the expected 128 KB like the Apple Flash or the one from pipolo42 ?

Any hint ? What about the others here with there customized flashs, did you always got 128 KB ?

OK, did a look on the dumped flash from the apple card, it seems that after the EFI-part (112640) [which also ends with some fill-bytes (0xFF)] there is a third part until 128076/0x1F44C which is not copied by the instructions from pipolo24, after this block there are only fill-bytes (0xFF) to get to 128 KK.

So, maybe i append only the fill-bytes to go to 128 Kbyte and use the fix-script ?

Bye, Jaberwocky

[jeanlain]

Hi there,

i switched to another pc and extract the flash with atiflash360, it was only 63488 bytes, eg. 62 Kbyte, but the flash is ready for 128 KB.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1148/exteinfo.jpg

After doing the conversion described by pipolo42 the final flash is only 112640 Byte (112 KB) :confused: instead of the expected 128 KB like the Apple Flash or the one from pipolo42 ?

Any hint ? What about the others here with there customized flashs, did you always got 128 KB ?

OK, did a look on the dumped flash from the apple card, it seems that after 0x1F44C there are only fill-bytes (0xFF) to get to 128 KK.

Bye, Jaberwocky
Careful there. It seems you have not extracted the full PC BIOS, which should exceed 64K. Plus, I recall someone had a problem with a final ROM of 112K.

[jaberwocky]

Careful there. It seems you have not extracted the full PC BIOS, which should exceed 64K. Plus, I recall someone had a problem with pipomolo's method, which may not work properly for all cards. Your card is not a sapphire, is it?

It's the normal 512 Mbyte sapphire, same SKU as other here used, (see above posts from me).
Also the ckecksum from atiflash about the bios from card (-cb) & saved file (-cf) are the same (0x6F00)

[jeanlain]

It's the normal 512 Mbyte sapphire, same SKU as other here used, (see above posts from me)
Ok so did you flash it? :)
The board information in your photo is similar to the one posted by Rominator "Wekiva RV770.... B50701". Other people who bought a recent Sapphire had something like "RV770XT..."
Maybe your card is the original design and would work with the apple ROM.
If I were you, I'd re-extract the full ROM (i.e. 128K) and retry the "hybridization" to end with a 128K hybrid ROM before flashing.

[pipomolo42]

After doing the conversion described by pipolo42 the final flash is only 112640 Byte (112 KB)

You have to specify the size, in the atiflash -s command line. Something like atiflash -s 0 pc4870.rom 20000

invoking the atiflash.exe without parameters will give you a help message.

[jaberwocky]

You have to specify the size, in the atiflash -s command line. Something like atiflash -s 0 pc4870.rom 20000

invoking the atiflash.exe without parameters will give you a help message.

Or you use ATIflash 3.62 - it saved the complete flash now! (got it from sapphire) But atiflash -cb is still broken, only uses 64 Kbyte for doing checksum. Some photos will come later.

Anyway, i will come back in a few hours with the new card up and running, i hope !

Thank you, jaberwocky

[rhildinger]

Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.

[vicentk]

Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.

Could you share your rom, if not pl'e send to my mail vicent at gmail.com

[pastrychef]

Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.

I'd like to second the request. Would you please post or email the ROM you used? My email is "chefpastry at yahoo dot com". Thanks in advance.

[BConvery]

Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.

+3

[jaberwocky]

Just a short Beep from here :p - my MacPro 1.1 baby is now running the sapphire 512MB 4870, both DVI-Ports are working, deep sleep is ok, VGA does not work (as expected).

Thank you all for support, more about some physical difficulties tomorrow :D, jaberwocky

[jeanlain]

Just a short Beep from here :p - my MacPro 1.1 baby is now running the sapphire 512MB 4870, both DVI-Ports are working, deep sleep is ok, VGA does not work (as expected).

Thank you all for support, more about some physical difficulties tomorrow :D, jaberwocky
Good to hear. Have you tried dual screen?
Others had only one port working with the sapphire cards... Have you installed natit.kext? Or maybe it's because your card is closer to the original design.

[netkas]

blah, need to start making database of roms

[Weepul]

I'm following this thread with some interest, still waiting to hear more success stories or any progress on the trouble areas...

In the meanwhile, can anyone explain why the DVI to VGA converters don't work? I'm baffled why it makes any difference. Do they even work with Apple's 4870?

[ddorbuck]

Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.

Hi rhildinger !! Any chance on getting a copy of that rom too? My email
is ddorbuck at gmail dot com

Thank you !

[johnjobs]

Just a short Beep from here :p - my MacPro 1.1 baby is now running the sapphire 512MB 4870, both DVI-Ports are working, deep sleep is ok, VGA does not work (as expected).

Thank you all for support, more about some physical difficulties tomorrow :D, jaberwocky

Help!
Hello jaberwocky,
I have the same 4870 from Arlt. I flashed the card today with the orig. Mac ROM, after a reboot the only thing that I get was a black screen and a beep, beep :mad:
What BIOS did you used? Would you please post or email the ROM you used? My email is "johnjobs at gmx dot de". Thanks in advance.

[rhildinger]

As per multiple forum requests, I am posting the custom ROM file that I made using pipomolo42 instructions (with slight adjustments for the original bios size). As I indicated earlier, this ROM was built for a XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's, model number HD-487A-ZD. So far this ROM seems to be working great - the card is fully functional in both OS X and Windows, though it does have the same issue everyone else is getting where the secondary DVI port will only function in single-link mode.

Obligatory CMA: I am no way responsible if this ROM bricks your card. Use it entirely at your own risk.

[Mackilroy]

As I indicated earlier, this ROM was built for a XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's, model number HD-487A-ZD.

Would that be either this card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150339) or this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150352)? Or neither?

[vicentk]

Would that be either this card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150339) or this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150352)? Or neither?

I want know too, becuase ZD had 2 version, one is ZDDC and ZDFC

[davewolfs]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but in order to flash the card can this be done on your Mac or must you do this on your PC then transfer the card to the Mac?

[matthew.russo]

Im looking at getting 2 x 4870's to flash and setup in crossfire.

Can anyone recommend a brand for a 4870 card that can be flashed ok?

I was reading a lot in this forum about users flashing the sapphire 4870 is this the correct model?

http://www.sapphiretech.com/at/products/products_overview.php?gpid=245&grp=3

Purchasing it from here.

http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=82&bid=4&sid=33874

[zappvirtual]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but in order to flash the card can this be done on your Mac or must you do this on your PC then transfer the card to the Mac?

Hi davewolfs,
As far as I read, some people are using a real PC and some others are using the mac pro with bootcamp.
Myself, I didn't try yet as I'm waiting for OS 10.5.7

Good luck

Zapp
:)

[matthew.russo]

Hi davewolfs,

Myself, I didn't try yet as I'm waiting for OS 10.5.7



Out of curiosity why so?

[jeanlain]

Out of curiosity why so?

Because the card is not supported by 10.5.6.
Crossfire is not supported either, but I doubt this will change in the future.

[matthew.russo]

Because the card is not supported by 10.5.6.
Crossfire is not supported either, but I doubt this will change in the future.

If that is the case, why is it that the new mac pros released work with 10.5.6, also on the apple site it states 10.5.6 as the requirement not 10.5.7?

lol I dont think crossfire will ever be supported. I would love to setup 2 flashed 4870's with crossfire for gaming (windows)..and no kernal panics in osX :p

[jaberwocky]

Help!
What BIOS did you used? Would you please post or email the ROM you used?

Hi, i build my own from the original bios of the card and the EFI-Part from the 4870 card, as described by pipolo42.

BTW, you can read-out the BIOS within VISTA with latest GPU-Z , so no need for a DOS/FAT-partition with write access. For flashing a DOS-CD is still better.

Final: You got a PM.

best regards, Jaberwocky

[johnjobs]

Hi, i build my own from the original bios of the card and the EFI-Part from the 4870 card, as described by pipolo42.

BTW, you can read-out the BIOS within VISTA with latest GPU-Z , so no need for a DOS/FAT-partition with write access. For flashing a DOS-CD is still better.

Final: You got a PM.

best regards, Jaberwocky

Thank you!!

I reanimate my Card with a PC. Anything but the Sleep Modus works fine. In my 10.5.6 I have no CI and QE :(. Where I can get the driver from?

Thank yo to all on here, it´s great forum :)

[jeanlain]

If that is the case, why is it that the new mac pros released work with 10.5.6, also on the apple site it states 10.5.6 as the requirement not 10.5.7? :p

AFAIK, there's no driver for the 4870 in 10.5.6, except in the special version that ships with new Mac Pros. That's why people here have installed beta drivers from the 10.5.7 update.

[AGDenton]

Thank you!!

I reanimate my Card with a PC. Anything but the Sleep Modus works fine. In my 10.5.6 I have no CI and QE :(. Where I can get the driver from?

Thank yo to all on here, it´s great forum :)

Look at the headings of the #radeonhd channel on irc.osx86.hu, for instance - you'll find a package with drivers from the 10.5.6 build used in '09 Mac Pros (courtesy of Netkas, I think). Remember to deselect the Natit kext from the "customize" section first, as it's only useful for Hackintoshes at this point.

To anyone who got sleep/second output/etc. working :

Can you post the output of

ioreg -l -w0 -p IODeviceTree | grep device-properties

here?? It should be possible to craft a set of Natit keys from it to allow other 4870 revisions to fully function...

[jaberwocky]

To anyone who got sleep/second output/etc. working :

Can you post the output of

ioreg -l -w0 -p IODeviceTree | grep device-properties

here?? It should be possible to craft a set of Natit keys from it to allow other 4870 revisions to fully function...

Here we go: http://rapidshare.com/files/212190460/IOREG.html

Bye,

[rhildinger]

Would that be either this card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150339) or this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150352)? Or neither?

It's for the XXX edition card, which is slightly overclocked. The specific version of my card is the "ZDDC" version.