7800 gtx rom

[DearthnVader]

I can't identify which chip on the back is the BIOS chip. My eyes aren't good enough to read the small text. Think you can tell me which one it is?View attachment 1948633



Unfortunately, all of my native PCs are older models without PCIe slots or 'office' computers with only a single 16x slot.

EDIT: Crap. Accidentally double-posted while trying to edit my previous post.

0521 looks like an EEPROM, but beware it could be on the front of the card too, maybe under the HeatSink.

I can't read the markings on the chip @0521, you'll need to find the one with the markings of an EEPROM and Google the markings to ensure you've found it.

 

[DearthnVader]

Unfortunately, all of my native PCs are older models without PCIe slots or 'office' computers with only a single 16x slot.

That's not going to work, you'll need a second graphics card or you'll be trying to flash blind.

 

[RetroDan]

0521 looks like an EEPROM, but beware it could be on the front of the card too, maybe under the HeatSink.

I can't read the markings on the chip @0521, you'll need to find the one with the markings of an EEPROM and Google the markings to ensure you've found it.

SP8J5. It's a MOSFET, which the Q in Q521 indicates (identifies transistors). Not the BIOS chip.

 

[DearthnVader]

SP8J5. It's a MOSFET, which the Q in Q521 indicates (identifies transistors). Not the BIOS chip.View attachment 1948655

good catch, the chip is likely on the front of the card, it will look like the MOSFET ( 8 pin ) but have a part # to identify it as an EEROM

 

[z970]

Was just passing by and thought I'd chime in ...

That's not going to work, you'll need a second graphics card or you'll be trying to flash blind.

Sure it will. @RetroDan, just get a PCI graphics card (like a Radeon 7000), and pull your video from that while flashing the 7800 GTX in the sole x16 slot - I've done that many times.

Pretty much all office computers I've ever seen have at least one or two additional PCI slots plus their PCIe graphics slot - unless you meant that there's literally only one expansion slot on the board as the 16x PCIe slot, in which case, that would be different.

 

[RetroDan]

Was just passing by and thought I'd chime in ...



Sure it will. @RetroDan, just get a PCI graphics card (like a Radeon 7000), and pull your video from that while flashing the 7800 GTX in the sole x16 slot - I've done that many times.

Pretty much all office computers I've ever seen have at least one or two additional PCI slots plus their PCIe graphics slot - unless you meant that there's literally only one expansion slot on the board as the 16x PCIe slot, in which case, that would be different.

I think I have AGP GPUs but not any PCI ones. I'll have to check.

 

[RetroDan]

Found a PCI FX5200 in an old P4 Dell in my storage. Have successfully cleared and flashed the original firmware to my 7800GTX. I'm much less concerned going forward with flashing now. Thanks for your help!

Now I just need to get a firmware image that works.

The card I'm using is an EVGA model, and I get complaints about the SUB_VENDOR strap when I try to flash the .ROM from post #14, so I'm wondering if there is a difference - I'm just glad I decided to back up the original .ROM before I flashed it in the first place. For one thing, it claims that the BIOS I'm replacing is a 10DE 0090 version (which is correct), but that I'm trying to replace it with a 10DE 0092 BIOS, which is for the GT model. Something is screwy here...

Think if I posted the original .ROM here, someone would be interested in making a PPC .ROM for it?

 

[666sheep]

Just FYI: EEPROM on reference 7800GTX 256/512 is located under the heatsink, in a place marked U4.

 

[pc297]

Well, I successfully flashed the X1950XT ROM into a X1950XTX. The result?

See that smaller glitch box? That's the mouse icon, which I can move.

Needless to say, turns out using that ROM on the 512MB version of the card doesn't work, and the myth of claims of it working is false. (With that ROM, anyway.)
Before flashing, I backed up the original XTX ROM, and turns out it's 128k big. The Mac one we use on the XT is 64k only, though. (Not sure how big the original XT ROM is for PC. Gotta check.) So it fits, but I'm not sure if we are supposed to write another 64k of 0s to avoid leftover garbage and prevent it from interfering (if it does).

With a second GPU on SLOT-3, I could boot normally and see the XTX (as X1900) and all, so I know the flashing itself worked. 256MB and all.

But this ROM has to be modified beforehand. At first, we knew that was a requirement for the VRAM to be fully used. But now, we see it's also a requirement for the card itself to work properly at all.

Always good to learn something everyday!

This looks a bit like having flashed e.g. a Radeon 9000/9200 with an FCode rom without having done the resistor mod, could it be that something along those lines needs to be done with the X1950XTX?

 

[pc297]

The ROM we have for the 7800 GTX is already for the 512MB version, so fortunately that is covered. The problem is actually the opposite: we lack a 7800 GTX ROM for the 256MB version. I have no idea what would happen if the 512 ROM was flashed on a 256MB card... At best it would work until it tries to access more VRAM than the physical limit, and at worst nothing of it will work.

As for editing the ROM to be able to detect more VRAM for the X1950XTX, reading about it everywhere online gave me the impression it's not feasible. But you know, I wonder about that myself everyday. (Same goes for a 256MB 7800GTX ROM).

For the GTX, I wonder if using the unmodified 7800 GT (not GTX) ROM would do the trick? Both have 256MB of VRAM.

About the X1950XTX, I do have one idea, but I'm not sure what the odds of success of such an approach are. Both the X1950XT and X1950XTX have a fully-functional PC ROM/BIOS. If we do a comparison between the two binaries, and see where they are equal and where they are different (I think a number of tools can do that), it may give us an idea where to hex-edit in the corresponding Mac ROM/BIOS that already works for the X1950XT. Although this assumes both the XT and XTX have the same ROM sizes. I didn't check (yet). If different, this may be a lot harder.

In any way, as with lots of things, it's possible. "Where there is a will there is a way."

Although the true way to move forward with the G5 is to go get modern PCIe 3.0 cards working, even if partially (due to PCIe 1.0 speed limitations). But for me, that can wait until I'm done with the XTX. 🙂 (I'll be able to get my hands on a strong-enough power supply to do the flashing with within a week. In both times, I had to borrow it.)

Incidentally, I do have to say one thing: I don't yet know what to do with "so much power". As in, I tried finding the HEAVIEST programs in graphical tasks I could find for the G5, and for starters I decided to give Doom 3 and Quake 4 a try at the most maximum of settings (on my non-HD, puny single-link DVI monitor, though). Everything plays smoothly "too easily". By that, what I mean to say is that I'm struggling to find software with which I could really push the X1950XT to its limits. Maybe I'd be able to tell the difference in higher resolutions, but the official GeForce Quadro, although weaker, is still strong enough to also play these games completely smoothly.

By that, I mean to say, for all other PCIe G5 owners out there, the official Quadro can easily be considered a "good-enough goal". To give words of encouragement to anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn't have one of those flashed GPUs.

Do you think the X1950XT FCode rom will work in the AGP version of the card out of the box, or does it need editing?

 

[mrsnrub]

Hey, new user but been following these posts for a little while. I've flashed my 7800 GTX with the rom pm7300 uploaded and it nearly worked as my G5 posted and had a display working but sadly with serious artificating/corruption and then kernel panics. I've modified his rom use the timings of my Leadtek card and it's a solid machine now. The only downside is that it appears to only have 256MB VRAM, but what the hell it's stable for me. In the spirit of this site, I thought I'd upload this in the hope that it helps someone.

I appreciate that I'm an unknown user, so in an attempt to be as transparent, I've included my original VBIOS, an image of the diff (between pm7300's rom and mine) which shows most of the changes, but please do check for yourselves. Of course who could forget, the obligatory system profiler screenshot.

Enjoy!

 

[reddrag0n]

aqua-mac had some of these cards and he was only able to get half the vram working.

Gainward Bliss 7800GS 512mb & 7800 GT

 

[DearthnVader]

Hey, new user but been following these posts for a little while. I've flashed my 7800 GTX with the rom pm7300 uploaded and it nearly worked as my G5 posted and had a display working but sadly with serious artificating/corruption and then kernel panics. I've modified his rom use the timings of my Leadtek card and it's a solid machine now. The only downside is that it appears to only have 256MB VRAM, but what the hell it's stable for me. In the spirit of this site, I thought I'd upload this in the hope that it helps someone.

I appreciate that I'm an unknown user, so in an attempt to be as transparent, I've included my original VBIOS, an image of the diff (between pm7300's rom and mine) which shows most of the changes, but please do check for yourselves. Of course who could forget, the obligatory system profiler screenshot.

Enjoy!

View attachment 2159094

You did not copy over the nvstrap from the PC VBios to your Mac FCODE ROM.

If you want all 512MB you are going to need to do that.

 

[diego351]

I run freedos, successfully flashed x1950 xt with this one, on first shot: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/need-help-flashing-a-radeon-x1950-xt.2192094/post-30671833

The problem is the card doesnt wake up on first pcie slot in my quad - no chime. When I try second slot it works, boots up. I think I must be doing something wrong. Second slot is not satisfactory 🙁

Can you help me?


PS: There's one more detail. For now I'm running the card from external ATX PSU as I'm still waiting for the adapter. It works no problem on second slot though.

PS2: Geforce 6600LE works on first slot

PS3: I heavily tested before the card in windows 7 3dmark 03 05 06 - worked fine

PS4 I flashed on optiplex 9020 i7 4790, gpu - Intel® HD Graphics 4600. Don't have any pci card.