Connect LED Cinema Display to a PC Using Apple ATI Radeon 4870

[integrat.ethis]

The ridiculously long thread title pretty much says it all. Is it possible to buy one of Apple's ATI Radeon 4870 cards with the mini-display port connection, install them in a PC, and then use the LED Cinema Display with a PC?

EDIT 5/31/09: Looks like you can! See my last post for details...

[nanofrog]

Originally Posted by integrat.ethis

The ridiculously long thread title pretty much says it all. Is it possible to buy one of Apple's ATI Radeon 4870 cards with the mini-display port connection, install them in a PC, and then use the LED Cinema Display with a PC?

NO. Your PC uses BIOS, while the Mac HD4870 would contain EFI based firmware. Unfortunately, the two different firmware specs aren't compatible with one another.

[pastrychef]

I'm quite certain it will work. Apple's 4870 contians EFI and BIOS firmware. When plugged in to a regular PC, it should just ignor the EFI part.

[integrat.ethis]

NO.

I'm quite certain it will work.

I love the internet.

[pastrychef]

Unfortunately, I don't have a PC, otherwise, I would test it for you.

[nanofrog]

Originally Posted by pastrychef

I'm quite certain it will work. Apple's 4870 contians EFI and BIOS firmware. When plugged in to a regular PC, it should just ignor the EFI part.

The HD3870 does, but the HD4870?
As it's offered by Apple, I'd think this wasn't done. If it where directly by ATI, then I'd expect it.

I've not seen any spec listing BIOS support for it anywhere. Do you have a link by chance?

Originally Posted by pastrychef

Unfortunately, I don't have a PC, otherwise, I would test it for you.

I do. Mind sending one my way?
(I actually have an HD4870 in it now, so I wouldn't even need to install any drivers).

[pastrychef]

Originally Posted by nanofrog

The HD3870 does, but the HD4870?
As it's offered by Apple, I'd think this wasn't done. If it where directly by ATI, then I'd expect it.

I've not seen any spec listing BIOS support for it anywhere. Do you have a link by chance?

I do. Mind sending one my way?
(I actually have an HD4870 in it now, so I wouldn't even need to install any drivers).

I don't have a link, however, when we boot in to Bootcamp, isn't it using the Bios part of it? That's why video cards that have no EFI support at all still work in Bootcamp.

[nanofrog]

Originally Posted by pastrychef

I don't have a link, however, when we boot in to Bootcamp, isn't it using the Bios part of it? That's why video cards that have no EFI support at all still work in Bootcamp.

Mac's have BIOS emulation built into it's EFI. But not the other way around.

If the graphics card has EFI only, a PC can't load the firmware, as BIOS hasn't included an EFI Emulator. That's what Vanilla Kernel does, and why a hack can be made with a little effort. But not "out of the box".

As I've not seen BIOS support listed in the spec, the Mac version used in a PC won't work.

(A link indicating the Mac HD48770 supports BIOS is what I was looking for. So far, I've not found one). So it looks like no Mini DisplayPort (native, no adapters) in a PC.

[integrat.ethis]

So, then, it sounds like my best hope would be getting a graphics card with Display Port, and then scouring the internet for a DP to mini-DP adapter? I'm guessing such an adapter is very, very possible. And though I haven't looked at the spec at all, I'd hope that it would be possible to make an adapter myself, since I'm a little handy in electrical engineering.

[nanofrog]

Originally Posted by integrat.ethis

So, then, it sounds like my best hope would be getting a graphics card with Display Port, and then scouring the internet for a DP to mini-DP adapter? I'm guessing such an adapter is very, very possible. And though I haven't looked at the spec at all, I'd hope that it would be possible to make an adapter myself, since I'm a little handy in electrical engineering.

They aren't currently available, so if you can find the parts (Mini DisplayPort connector), DIY is the only way ATM.

Spec wise, it's easy. Same electrical spec, just a smaller port.

Let us know if you locate the Mini DisplayPort connector, as other members may be interested.

[MVApple]

Originally Posted by integrat.ethis

So, then, it sounds like my best hope would be getting a graphics card with Display Port, and then scouring the internet for a DP to mini-DP adapter? I'm guessing such an adapter is very, very possible. And though I haven't looked at the spec at all, I'd hope that it would be possible to make an adapter myself, since I'm a little handy in electrical engineering.

Making your own adapter sounds like an adventure.

All I can say is that mini-display port is very very new and adapters are just starting to trickle in. Today I received my male displayport to female hdmi adapter and seeing my macbook and movies on the big screen was nice.

[sboerup]

Sorry if I'm naive here, but couldn't you get any standard PC video card that has DVI, then buy apples DVI->Mini DisplayPort for $29 and be up and running? Assuming the 24" ACD does not need Dual Link DVI but only single (Dual Link MDP adapter is $99).

Is the ACD proprietary to Apple GPU connections?

[Tallest Skil]

Originally Posted by sboerup

Sorry if I'm naive here, but couldn't you get any standard PC video card that has DVI, then buy apples DVI->Mini DisplayPort for $29 and be up and running? Assuming the 24" ACD does not need Dual Link DVI but only single (Dual Link MDP adapter is $99).

No.

Is the ACD proprietary to Apple GPU connections?

Yes.

[integrat.ethis]

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Yes.

Now when you say that, you don't really mean Apple GPUs, but just the mini-display port connection (Display Port protocol), right?

[sboerup]

Wow, so not only is Mini DisplayPort only being used by Apple, in order to use the new ACDs, you MUST use it on an Apple Computer? This sounds like hogwash to me . . .

[integrat.ethis]

Found this thread on the official apple support forums... apparently it actually does work!

Following your advice I purchased the $150 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro (early 2009)" that you referred to above and installed it into a Dell Studio Desktop Slim 540s running Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 x64.

It worked right out of the box on startup! It actually worked so well that I was confused at first because my Dell monitor was blank on both the VGA and HMDI inputs - this is because Windows was ignoring the Dell monitor and sending the video signal directly to the ACD.

I am very pleased to say that I have a Windows machine with a Mini DisplayPort outputting directly to a 24" Apple Cinema Display. I did not have to download any NVIDIA drivers and was able to get a 1920 x 1200 resolution using the standard Windows settings that you get by right-clicking on the desktop.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....19902&tstart=0

[pastrychef]

Originally Posted by integrat.ethis

Found this thread on the official apple support forums... apparently it actually does work!



http://discussions.apple.com/thread....19902&tstart=0

Like I said, I'm quite certain it will work.

[rtheb]

Originally Posted by integrat.ethis

Found this thread on the official apple support forums... apparently it actually does work!



http://discussions.apple.com/thread....19902&tstart=0

You forgot to mention to the "HACKSAW"

The only issue I ran into was the fact that the graphics card is physically wider than the Dell computer. I had to use a hacksaw to cut off 1/4" of the rear-facing plate (where the DVI and Mini DisplayPort outputs reside) just so I could fully seat it into the PCI port - otherwise, all of the pins would not contact each other. Because of this I can not reseal the desktop panel and the internal components will now be exposed. This will probably not affect normal-size desktop computers.

[integrat.ethis]

Originally Posted by rtheb

You forgot to mention to the "HACKSAW"

Oh, that just makes it all the more hardcore. He said this probably wouldn't be an issue for normal PCs, so I'm not too worried about it.

[alphaod]

Originally Posted by integrat.ethis

Oh, that just makes it all the more hardcore. He said this probably wouldn't be an issue for normal PCs, so I'm not too worried about it.

Except Dell chassis are normal in size…

[TheStrudel]

The 4870 does have BIOS, I think, usable in a PC. Those of us who flashed essentially edited our ROM by adding the EFI portion to ours. I think - but don't know, The Rominator and Netkas could tell you better - that the EFI essentially launches the BIOS portion, so using the 4870 to get MDP working might potentially work.

Now, as another solution entirely, check monoprice for MDP adapters. They've got a couple already and are working on others.

[hitekalex]

Originally Posted by TheStrudel

Now, as another solution entirely, check monoprice for MDP adapters. They've got a couple already and are working on others.

MonoPrice doesn't carry any DP-to-MDP adapters.. they only have HDMI/DVI/VGA ones, which doesn't help. I e-mailed them inquiring about MDP-DP earlier, and the response was these adopters don't exist

http://www.monoprice.com/products/su...04&cp_id=10428

[TheStrudel]

Given how few video cards have displayport out at this point, I was thinking of the adapters they do have. I didn't think he had a DP out.

[hitekalex]

Well, the adapters that they do have won't help attach a PC to LED Cinema Display. You can't use DVI/HDMI video cards to connect to LED-CD, the DVI-MDP adapter is of no use here.