I wouldnt mind having this done for me.....please PM me with what i need to do to get this done and i hope you are still selling the service to people?? I just bought a gtx285 for my windows desktop but would much rather have it in my mac!! get back to me asap my aim is numnutz2005 or i guess pm me on here.
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Test the First Flashed GTX285 ?
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Use Free DOS CD on Mac Pro
numnutz2005...don't do AIM....get someone you know to PM me, or post an email addy in some disguised form
numnutz2005...don't do AIM....get someone you know to PM me, or post an email addy in some disguised form
You need to do in Mac Pro....download the FreeDOS disk. Would be best to use a 2600XT as card to "see" from.
If it still says "No Nvidia Adapters" then you buggered the soldering.
On another note, I have done another 1G GTX285...working great in my 1st Gen. Pity that the 2 Gig FTW one I got sits unused and unloved most of the time, due to OSX "2 Gig Bug"
Redoing the ROM...
Hi Rominator,
yes it could be soldering... I took card to my local tv repair shop and it looks like he has done a nice soldering job... but you never know.
In the meantime just to be sure to avoid possibility of getting it wrong a second time I have got a USB ROM Reader/Writer on the way, so will use this to "pre-write" onto another of the 2M EEPROMs (I have 4... just in case) prior to taking board back to repair shop. This way if it still does not work then I know it is because either soldering or disassembly has caused card to be trashed. I hope not.
Expect USB Read/Writer to arrive next week and so will be ready to report progress after that.
Thanks for tip... as I only 285s available (my original GT 8800 and flashed FX 5600 Quadro boards went out to ebay to cover costs of 285s ;-) ) getting two boards into my Mac Pro is not such an easy thing... hence pre-write prior to soldering approach.
It also means I might have some "pre-written" roms, available if experiment to get 2GB 285 FTW works out.
I have read thread on 2GB problem... but this is for standard card in combination with "injectors" isn't it?
I am still hoping that using original ROM might give a different result... if it is signed/unsigned integer problem then this would mean that hacked 4GB Quadro would be no go in Mac Pro until OS X bug if fixed ... but that is the next experiment down the road. It really pisses me off that we are getting "middle" range cards for Mac Pro, rather than top of range ones! After all machines like this are mostly purchased by professional users and not game players... but who I am to comment as I don't run Apple/Nvidia/EVGA/PNY marketing departments..
Cheers,
Zebity
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac).
Hi Rominator,
yes it could be soldering... I took card to my local tv repair shop and it looks like he has done a nice soldering job... but you never know.
In the meantime just to be sure to avoid possibility of getting it wrong a second time I have got a USB ROM Reader/Writer on the way, so will use this to "pre-write" onto another of the 2M EEPROMs (I have 4... just in case) prior to taking board back to repair shop. This way if it still does not work then I know it is because either soldering or disassembly has caused card to be trashed. I hope not.
Expect USB Read/Writer to arrive next week and so will be ready to report progress after that.
Thanks for tip... as I only 285s available (my original GT 8800 and flashed FX 5600 Quadro boards went out to ebay to cover costs of 285s ;-) ) getting two boards into my Mac Pro is not such an easy thing... hence pre-write prior to soldering approach.
It also means I might have some "pre-written" roms, available if experiment to get 2GB 285 FTW works out.
I have read thread on 2GB problem... but this is for standard card in combination with "injectors" isn't it?
I am still hoping that using original ROM might give a different result... if it is signed/unsigned integer problem then this would mean that hacked 4GB Quadro would be no go in Mac Pro until OS X bug if fixed ... but that is the next experiment down the road. It really pisses me off that we are getting "middle" range cards for Mac Pro, rather than top of range ones! After all machines like this are mostly purchased by professional users and not game players... but who I am to comment as I don't run Apple/Nvidia/EVGA/PNY marketing departments..
Cheers,
Zebity
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac).
Hi Romi & Co ... what's the latest on this... why is the thread dead now?
Are there now better alternatives?
Is this because the Mac card is now only $450?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130500
The refurb PC one is now $275 though:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130488
Thread went dead 'cause my card went dead ;-)
AlienXXXgod,
for me the thread went dead as my 2GB 285 card went dead...
I got original 512k bit rom resoldered into my PC EVGA GeForce 285 2GB FTW card, but it was cactus....
I have now got a replacement card so am ready to do some further testing. This time I should be sure not to damage board in any way to get access to EEPROM chip.
I have just tested my 2M bit chips in ROM Reader/Writer and still have 2 that read ok, so I will open up the replacement board and try again to see if I can get a 2M bit ROM going on the 2GB 285 card.
Also since this thread started I have upgraded to Snow Leopard. I will post on further findings in due course...
Greetings from Oz...
Zebity
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac)
AlienXXXgod,
for me the thread went dead as my 2GB 285 card went dead...
I got original 512k bit rom resoldered into my PC EVGA GeForce 285 2GB FTW card, but it was cactus....
I have now got a replacement card so am ready to do some further testing. This time I should be sure not to damage board in any way to get access to EEPROM chip.
I have just tested my 2M bit chips in ROM Reader/Writer and still have 2 that read ok, so I will open up the replacement board and try again to see if I can get a 2M bit ROM going on the 2GB 285 card.
Also since this thread started I have upgraded to Snow Leopard. I will post on further findings in due course...
Greetings from Oz...
Zebity
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac)
GTX 285 Rom
Hi. I was wondering if anyone could send me a copy of this ROM. I managed to snag a card from a PC friend for $190 (Rent Money was Due) and wanted to flash this one. I have done the EEPROM replacement procedure before(still have the special tools I made) back when I had my old G5 rig and it worked out nicely. If someone could send me a copy of the rom or a link to a place I could download it that would be awesome. I would be glad to report back any the results (if anyone is interested). Thanks in advanced.
P.S.
As you can tell I am new here. So I am still trying to set up my messaging/contact information here but I will have it all up and running in a bit.
Hi. I was wondering if anyone could send me a copy of this ROM. I managed to snag a card from a PC friend for $190 (Rent Money was Due) and wanted to flash this one. I have done the EEPROM replacement procedure before(still have the special tools I made) back when I had my old G5 rig and it worked out nicely. If someone could send me a copy of the rom or a link to a place I could download it that would be awesome. I would be glad to report back any the results (if anyone is interested). Thanks in advanced.
P.S.
As you can tell I am new here. So I am still trying to set up my messaging/contact information here but I will have it all up and running in a bit.
Hi, Zebity!
Could you share with me that the original 512-kbit ROM file? I also spend some experiments on the firmware of my PC EVGA GTX 285 ...
This is frustrating....
Rominator and others...
Well I got my free replacement for 285 GB FTW card and got 2MB ROM soldered in with the exact same result...
It comes up as "No Nvidia Graphics Card found" when I try flash it. Pretty much the same result as before.
As per Rominator's advise I thought I would try the flash in Mac Pro by booting FreeDOS live CD. However when I do this I end up in DOS but then it does not detect CDROM and so I cannot eject DOS Boot CD and put in a CD with NVFLASH on it to Flash card...
Rominator... sorry about another help request... but how did you get NVFLASH and ROM image onto the FreeDOS boot CD?
If I can get that then I will give this one more try...
Other possibility is that I send you card and you could try one of your ROMs which seem to work while my MX ones don't.
Cheers,
Zebity
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac)
Rominator and others...
Well I got my free replacement for 285 GB FTW card and got 2MB ROM soldered in with the exact same result...
It comes up as "No Nvidia Graphics Card found" when I try flash it. Pretty much the same result as before.
As per Rominator's advise I thought I would try the flash in Mac Pro by booting FreeDOS live CD. However when I do this I end up in DOS but then it does not detect CDROM and so I cannot eject DOS Boot CD and put in a CD with NVFLASH on it to Flash card...
Rominator... sorry about another help request... but how did you get NVFLASH and ROM image onto the FreeDOS boot CD?
If I can get that then I will give this one more try...
Other possibility is that I send you card and you could try one of your ROMs which seem to work while my MX ones don't.
Cheers,
Zebity
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac)
Sorry to hear of more woes.
This is why I don't think the GTX285 is ever going to be an easy flash for everyone, like the 4870 was.
I use Freedos to boot, and it gets me to an "A:" prompt. I then simply hit "C:" to switch to the C drive, which is a partition I made for Bootcamp. This drive is accessible in OSX and Windows, as well as DOS. I keep Nvflash and the ROMs I am using at root level and do all my flashing from this C drive.
When flashing an Nvidia card, I see from at ATI2600, and when I flash an ATI card, I use my trusty 7300GT. Reduces crossflashing errors to 0.
I used to get "No Nvidia Adapter Found" when I was using an old ECS MoBo that had AGP, PCI, and PCIE on it if I didn't have the boot config properly set. (I think I am using 5.71 now, from memory...which are you using?)
When I flash GTX285, I put it in lowest slot, with 2600XT in slot 3.
Keep trying, it isn't impossible. I have done like 4 now. (Still charging a 6 of Stella a piece. ) Still happy to have anyone in LA stop by with an GTX285 for a quick switch and flash.
This is why I don't think the GTX285 is ever going to be an easy flash for everyone, like the 4870 was.
I use Freedos to boot, and it gets me to an "A:" prompt. I then simply hit "C:" to switch to the C drive, which is a partition I made for Bootcamp. This drive is accessible in OSX and Windows, as well as DOS. I keep Nvflash and the ROMs I am using at root level and do all my flashing from this C drive.
When flashing an Nvidia card, I see from at ATI2600, and when I flash an ATI card, I use my trusty 7300GT. Reduces crossflashing errors to 0.
I used to get "No Nvidia Adapter Found" when I was using an old ECS MoBo that had AGP, PCI, and PCIE on it if I didn't have the boot config properly set. (I think I am using 5.71 now, from memory...which are you using?)
When I flash GTX285, I put it in lowest slot, with 2600XT in slot 3.
Keep trying, it isn't impossible. I have done like 4 now. (Still charging a 6 of Stella a piece. ) Still happy to have anyone in LA stop by with an GTX285 for a quick switch and flash.
I never was able to figure out how to boot my 08 Pro from some external source, so ran the Windows version of NVFLASH under bootcamp. I was unsuccessful due to small ROM chip (and cluelessness over soldering), but in all other respects my 2G 285 was recognized OK under windows. Maybe you could try that - if it still does not work you maybe really have got the soldering wrong.
Just to remind people, several pages back somewhere I said that my (injected) 2G card was working OK under OS X with a Mac 285 as boot card, at least as far as driving a monitor and running CUDA apps. The fact that the memory comes up as -2G is not causing me problems, though it is clear some apps do have a real problem.
Just to remind people, several pages back somewhere I said that my (injected) 2G card was working OK under OS X with a Mac 285 as boot card, at least as far as driving a monitor and running CUDA apps. The fact that the memory comes up as -2G is not causing me problems, though it is clear some apps do have a real problem.
Simpler way to Flash Blank ROM via Mac Pro
Hi Rominator,
thanks for tip on flashing via Mac Pro.
I used an alternative method, as my Boot Camp partition has EXT2 partition with special stage1/stage2 files to enable AHCI mode and I did not want to have to stuff around with this having put considerable energy into getting AHCI XP up and running.
What I did is so simple... it was stupid of me not to have tried it earlier.
I created a DOS boot floppy image and then copied all my NVIDIA flash files and ROMs onto it via XP VMWare version and then used this to create Bootable CD-ROM.
The steps are:
1. On Mac copy blank 1.44MB floppy image to somewhere on HD
2. Add Floppy to VMWare XP Virtual Machine
3. Start Virtual Machine XP Machine
4. Connect Blank Floppy Image to XP VM
5. Right Click on Floppy and Select format option with DOS Boot box ticked
6. Copy NVIDIA directory to this
7. Disconnect Floppy
8. Using Roxio CD Creator create Boot CD-ROM choosing created boot floppy as bootable image
9. Reboot Machine with 285 installed and select Boot CD to boot from
10. This boots to DOS and a: prompt and I was able to re-flash ROM from here.
The problem with this technique is that as I booted from CD-ROM I cannot save any ROM back to disk... but that was ok in this case as I just wanted to restore ROM. In attempting to flash the board with GTX 285 Mac Edition ROM it complained about incompatible PCI and Board IDs. Overriding with -4 -5 -6 flags forced flash, but this failed...
So I then reflashed with original FTW PC ROM and board is once more usable but still not where I want to be...
But this is another hurdle out of the way.... as now I have a card that is usable in my "bread board" PC and so I can experiment without having to put card into Mac Pro.
Thanks for tip on using Mac Pro to flash blank ROM. The combination of having Motherboard with internal VGA, PCI and PCI-E slot definitely confused NVFLASH utility.
Now working on trying to create working 2GB GTX 285 Mac Card again.....
Cheers,
Zebity.
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac)
Hi Rominator,
thanks for tip on flashing via Mac Pro.
I used an alternative method, as my Boot Camp partition has EXT2 partition with special stage1/stage2 files to enable AHCI mode and I did not want to have to stuff around with this having put considerable energy into getting AHCI XP up and running.
What I did is so simple... it was stupid of me not to have tried it earlier.
I created a DOS boot floppy image and then copied all my NVIDIA flash files and ROMs onto it via XP VMWare version and then used this to create Bootable CD-ROM.
The steps are:
1. On Mac copy blank 1.44MB floppy image to somewhere on HD
2. Add Floppy to VMWare XP Virtual Machine
3. Start Virtual Machine XP Machine
4. Connect Blank Floppy Image to XP VM
5. Right Click on Floppy and Select format option with DOS Boot box ticked
6. Copy NVIDIA directory to this
7. Disconnect Floppy
8. Using Roxio CD Creator create Boot CD-ROM choosing created boot floppy as bootable image
9. Reboot Machine with 285 installed and select Boot CD to boot from
10. This boots to DOS and a: prompt and I was able to re-flash ROM from here.
The problem with this technique is that as I booted from CD-ROM I cannot save any ROM back to disk... but that was ok in this case as I just wanted to restore ROM. In attempting to flash the board with GTX 285 Mac Edition ROM it complained about incompatible PCI and Board IDs. Overriding with -4 -5 -6 flags forced flash, but this failed...
So I then reflashed with original FTW PC ROM and board is once more usable but still not where I want to be...
But this is another hurdle out of the way.... as now I have a card that is usable in my "bread board" PC and so I can experiment without having to put card into Mac Pro.
Thanks for tip on using Mac Pro to flash blank ROM. The combination of having Motherboard with internal VGA, PCI and PCI-E slot definitely confused NVFLASH utility.
Now working on trying to create working 2GB GTX 285 Mac Card again.....
Cheers,
Zebity.
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mini Mac)
1. I have been interested in booting a Mac Pro from DOS for flashing for some time. I assume that your Bootcamp partition is FAT32? So you can read stuff from there when you are booting from the FreeDOS CD? I might give that a try.
2. Which would be currently the best PC 285 for flashing? I'm not so interested in big memory and more in keeping the compatibility with the Apple card max. Soldering isn't desirable but possible.
Being in Europe I see no alternative to doing my own flash. I do have a trusted shop that do EEPROM replacements. I'm using the MP4,1 in my sig. So it got EFI64.
Can Anybody send me Mac gtx 285 Rom to smitay@mail.ru ? I need it for some experiments.
Or upload it somewhere
Or upload it somewhere
Abandoning 285 FTW Edition Upgrade to EFI64
Hi 285 ROM experimenters,
unfortunately while experimenting with 285 FTW Edition I somehow ended up with dead Mac 285 (replaced by EVGA thankfully) & fried Mac Pro RAID card (which cost AUD $700 to replace) and also meant my machine was down for some considerable time waiting for parts.
All too frustrating and so it is difficult to warrant further work. I have sold off all my 255 cards (Mac Edition & FTW 2GB) via eBay and put in Quadro 4800 Mac Edition with 1.5 GB RAM instead
I think that next experiment should be to try to get Quadro 5800 up and running... I believe that this is same physical hardware as GeForce 285 but with 4GB RAM, which means it would be "down flashable" to GeForce.
Has anyone ever dumped a 5800 and found out what size EEPROM it has? I do not think I want to go down the soldering path again... it is simple to much work for too little reward....
Other possibility is to use combination of Quadro 4800 Mac Edition with GT200/Fermi (when it is available) Tesla for OpenCL/CUDA acceleration. I think that with OpenCL now in Mac OS, it is very much in Apple and Nividia interest to start to raise the bar on GPU computing on Mac Pro.
Cheers from Oz.
Zebity
(Mac Pro Early 2008, MacBook Pro, Mac mini)
Hi 285 ROM experimenters,
unfortunately while experimenting with 285 FTW Edition I somehow ended up with dead Mac 285 (replaced by EVGA thankfully) & fried Mac Pro RAID card (which cost AUD $700 to replace) and also meant my machine was down for some considerable time waiting for parts.
All too frustrating and so it is difficult to warrant further work. I have sold off all my 255 cards (Mac Edition & FTW 2GB) via eBay and put in Quadro 4800 Mac Edition with 1.5 GB RAM instead
I think that next experiment should be to try to get Quadro 5800 up and running... I believe that this is same physical hardware as GeForce 285 but with 4GB RAM, which means it would be "down flashable" to GeForce.
Has anyone ever dumped a 5800 and found out what size EEPROM it has? I do not think I want to go down the soldering path again... it is simple to much work for too little reward....
Other possibility is to use combination of Quadro 4800 Mac Edition with GT200/Fermi (when it is available) Tesla for OpenCL/CUDA acceleration. I think that with OpenCL now in Mac OS, it is very much in Apple and Nividia interest to start to raise the bar on GPU computing on Mac Pro.
Cheers from Oz.
Zebity
(Mac Pro Early 2008, MacBook Pro, Mac mini)
Pretty strange that the raid card got blown but I would always remove non essential parts from the equation when hacking. Live n learn. I have done in Mac motherboards before learning....
by the time you guys sort out flashing these cards they will be obsolete the way we are going.
In the meantime I will soon have my eSata out on a 27" i7 iMac and apart from the 4850HD limitation will be a screen Mac with an awesome screen.
P.S. Yes always good to see a fellow Aussie willing to have a go.
I laugh that Steve Jobs is responsible for more Apple's success ... the iMac was done but not release before he came back. If I was CEO I would make a mid range tower with thinner cheaper Alu case, use generic i7 chips, do a deal with Corsair on mass non ECC 2000Mhz ram, do a deal with Logitech on a sexy white n see through M950 mouse combo'd with an illuminated keyboard (until the Mac mouse has gestures as good as a MacBook forget the fancy stuff, give me a great mouse that just feels and works well), do a deal with ATi to make most high end generic PC cards that come out easily flashable to OS X efi firmware, on board esata. Make Winblow 7 an OEM option (yes it blows at multitasking compared to 10.6 but let's be real here... you want market share.... n give more the opportunity to try OS X in the comfort of their own premises on a fast reasonably priced machine)
Basically make a Mac tower that is so hot & sexy at running both Winblows 7 and Snow Leopard that every Mac Basher on earth finally says "God I hate Apple they finally made a PC that I have to buy". Half the mini population would buy one. All now with G5's and early MacPros would buy one now. Sure you would need to upgrade the Mac Pro but that isn't hard. Some Mac Pro lost sales but big deal Mac Pro has never been teh big money spinner really....
Now that would seriously make headlines and a dent into the crossover camp....
gg
Wouldn't it be easier to just buy the GTX 285 from Apple as the upgrade card and reflash it?
Can you shed some light on possible boards that will work in the 2006 MacPro?
I have heard the GeForce 8800 can be reflashed (Apple no longer sells them). But why not use a faster card?
Any ideas what works on the 2006 MacPro from the PC side of things?
Are there any newer cards then the 8800 that work?
I'd love to get a GTX 295 working.
Thanks
Can you shed some light on possible boards that will work in the 2006 MacPro?
I have heard the GeForce 8800 can be reflashed (Apple no longer sells them). But why not use a faster card?
Any ideas what works on the 2006 MacPro from the PC side of things?
Are there any newer cards then the 8800 that work?
I'd love to get a GTX 295 working.
Thanks
If you'd look there are a bunch of threads on this very subject.
I run an HD4890 in my 2006 Mac Pro.
A little bit off topic, but how hard would it be to make something like EVGAs Precision utility for the Mac or at least a little tool that has access to the cards fan ?
The 285 Mac Editions fan runs 24/7 on 40% fan speed even when in 2D mode so its clearly audible. When working on Windows 7, I can adjust the fan with EVGAs utility down to 25% which makes the card nearly silent and the idle temps are just 8°C higher.
Since we're able to control the Mac Pro fans with stuff like FanControl or SMCfc it shouldn't be too hard to get access to the cards fan, right ?
The 285 Mac Editions fan runs 24/7 on 40% fan speed even when in 2D mode so its clearly audible. When working on Windows 7, I can adjust the fan with EVGAs utility down to 25% which makes the card nearly silent and the idle temps are just 8°C higher.
Since we're able to control the Mac Pro fans with stuff like FanControl or SMCfc it shouldn't be too hard to get access to the cards fan, right ?
Can Anybody send me Mac gtx 285 for MAC Rom to demorg82@gmail.com ? I need it for some experiments.
Or upload it somewhere
Or upload it somewhere
ROM location?
Heya!
I have the same EVGA card in my Win7 box that Apple is selling (except for the 256k rom).
Is there any chance you could point out on the card where the ROM is located? Or a number that I can track it down and see if a friend can solder on a new one?
Thanks!
ATF
Heya!
I have the same EVGA card in my Win7 box that Apple is selling (except for the 256k rom).
Is there any chance you could point out on the card where the ROM is located? Or a number that I can track it down and see if a friend can solder on a new one?
Thanks!
ATF
Hi Rominator and 285 ROM experimenters,
Please will send me ROM file for Nvidia 285GTX for MAC. At me the card with SST SST25LF020 2048Kx1S the chip lies. The ROM file is necessary very strongly.
email: demorg82@gmail.com
Please will send me ROM file for Nvidia 285GTX for MAC. At me the card with SST SST25LF020 2048Kx1S the chip lies. The ROM file is necessary very strongly.
email: demorg82@gmail.com