Cube only works with GeForce 2MX

[flyproductions]

Title says it all. I have a "spare"-G4 Cube which i use to test things from time to time. The machine runs fine so far, but has one major issue: It refuses to give any video output with any video card, but a GeForce 2MX, Mac Edition with ADC and VGA outputs. With this card it works completely like normal. But no other card shows any sign of life. Not even the Rage Pro it was shipped with.

This hasn't always been like that and most likely i messed it up myself. I played around with some different cards a while ago. Mainly Radeons, a 7500 and a 9000 Pro. And all of a sudden, i think with the 9000, the screen went black and never came back to life again. Troubleshooting, i found the 2MX working. But that's it so far.

Things i tried:
- Reset PRAM, 4 bongs, multiple times
- tried another AGP riser card
- tried another CPU
- tried multiple vid-cards (different GF 6200, Radeon 7500, Radeon 9000 Pro, GF 5200, Rage Pro, the 8x AGP-cards with pin 3 and 11 taped of course)
- tried another PSU

All with no success.

So, if anybody has any suggestions, i'd be happy to hear of. Thanks in advance!

Edit: The Cube fully boots with other cards and can be accessed via Screen Sharing. But with any card but the 2MX, System Profiler shows "No information found" in the Graphics / Displays - section.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Title says it all. I have a "spare"-G4 Cube which i use to test things from time to time. The machine runs fine so far, but has one major issue: It refuses to give any video output with any video card, but a GeForce 2MX, Mac Edition with ADC and VGA outputs. With this card it works completely like normal. But no other card shows any sign of life. Not even the Rage Pro it was shipped with.

This hasn't always been like that and most likely i messed it up myself. I played around with some different cards a while ago. Mainly Radeons, a 7500 and a 9000 Pro. And all of a sudden, i think with the 9000, the screen went black and never came back to life again. Troubleshooting, i found the 2MX working. But that's it so far.

Things i tried:
- Reset PRAM, 4 bongs, multiple times
- tried another AGP riser card
- tried another CPU
- tried multiple vid-cards (different GF 6200, Radeon 7500, Radeon 9000 Pro, GF 5200, Rage Pro, the 8x AGP-cards with pin 3 and 11 taped of course)
- tried another PSU

All with no success.

So, if anybody has any suggestions, i'd be happy to hear of. Thanks in advance!

Edit: The Cube fully boots with other cards and can be accessed via Screen Sharing. But with any card but the 2MX, System Profiler shows "No information found" in the Graphics / Displays - section.

whats your BootROM version is it fully up to date?

I do wonder if something has happened that is stopping the cube from being able to load OptionROM's properly

the reason I mention this is, the BootROM of the G4 cube specifically has a GeForce 2MX OptionROM embedded in it im pretty sure, thus even if it cant load an OptionROM from an EEPROM on a card

it will still match in boot rom and activate that way

this is also true for Sawtooth-DA's (and maybe later?) and you could use unflashed PC 2MX's in these machines because of it


is the BootROM patched in any way for 7447+ CPU support? if so have you tried removing these patches?

 

[flyproductions]

whats your BootROM version is it fully up to date?

Yes. It has Boot ROM 4.1.9f1.

is the BootROM patched in any way for 7447+ CPU support? if so have you tried removing these patches?

Yes, there have been some patches. And after removing them, i got an error message:

"! Backup RAM image does not match flash contents"

Could this mean, that there is some damage to the actual BootROM? And if so, how can it be restored? If i try to reinstall the latest firmware, i just get a message that it is up to date and can not rerun the update.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Yes, there have been some patches. And after removing them, i got an error message:

"! Backup RAM image does not match flash contents"

Could this mean, that there is some damage to the actual BootROM? And if so, how can it be restored? If i try to reinstall the latest firmware, i just get a message that it is up to date and can not rerun the update.

interesting! just wondering have you tried different RAM?

"Backup RAM image does not match flash contents" almost sounds like its backed up the BootROM to RAM but then suddenly it does match, almost as if the backup image has been corrupted, say by failing RAM sticks



as an aside who was the original patch by and what are you using to now remove it?

also im not sure what happens if you try and apply an update over a patched ROM so id be weary of trying, however as a last ditch effort if you fake your BootROM version as 4.1.8 or such, or just manually plop update file itself at the Root of the drive and boot from it in programmers mode, then it should install itself

 

[flyproductions]

interesting! just wondering have you tried different RAM?

Yes, tried different sticks. One at a time.

"Backup RAM image does not match flash contents" almost sounds like its backed up the BootROM to RAM but then suddenly it does match, almost as if the backup image has been corrupted, say by failing RAM sticks

I repatched and unpatched again. And all of a sudden this error didn't appear anymore.

as an aside who was the original patch by and what are you using to now remove it?

I booted with a PowerLogix-CD. When first booted, it offered only options to remove patches. So i think the machine was patched with PL before or other manufacturers patches are also recognized and can be removed by this software.

also im not sure what happens if you try and apply an update over a patched ROM so id be weary of trying, however as a last ditch effort if you fake your BootROM version as 4.1.8 or such, or just manually plop update file itself at the Root of the drive and boot from it in programmers mode, then it should install itself

Couldn't removing the version-check from the installer script be an option too?