EEPROM replacement and flashing X850 XT ROM on FireGL X3

[ervus]

Wow, thanks for the quick and helpful reply! It looks like it works great. I took your ROM file, knocked down the speeds 10% in graphiccelerator (infineon RAM is supposed to be slower than samsung?), programmed the EEPROM, soldered it onto the FireGL X3, removed R2/R4, put the card in my quicksilver, and it fired right up on the first try! Even with the reduced speed it's easily faster than the 9800Pro that it replaced:

The fan on the built-in cooler runs fast when the computer first boots, then it slows down. It doesn't ever really seem to speed up with software/load like openmark, so I'm suspicious of the fan control program.

I'm tempted to try higher speeds, but I don't want to break my new toy. How hot is too hot? With higher clocks, do artifacts always precede letting the magic smoke out, or should I just be happy that it's working and leave it alone?

 

[LightBulbFun]

Wow, thanks for the quick and helpful reply! It looks like it works great. I took your ROM file, knocked down the speeds 10% in graphiccelerator (infineon RAM is supposed to be slower than samsung?), programmed the EEPROM, soldered it onto the FireGL X3, removed R2/R4, put the card in my quicksilver, and it fired right up on the first try! Even with the reduced speed it's easily faster than the 9800Pro that it replaced:

View attachment 2098486

The fan on the built-in cooler runs fast when the computer first boots, then it slows down. It doesn't ever really seem to speed up with software/load like openmark, so I'm suspicious of the fan control program.

I'm tempted to try higher speeds, but I don't want to break my new toy. How hot is too hot? With higher clocks, do artifacts always precede letting the magic smoke out, or should I just be happy that it's working and leave it alone?

glad to see its working well for you!

does your card really have Infineon RAM? from what I have heard on those cards you really had to lower the memory clocks for it to work, im talking like 330Mhz

your memory clock of 486 is actually a slight overclock over the stock FireGL X3 ROM that everyone else uses!

so if your card really does have Infineon RAM, then thats very curious how well the ROM is working for you! and it would be interesting to see other Infineon card owners to try it

(maybe the X850 XT's higher stock memory clocks has slightly looser timings that work with Infineon RAM? the issue with the samsung vs Infineon RAM is not so much clock speed but timings)


the fan running flat out before the OS loads is normal behaviour even real X800 XT/X850 XT Mac cards do that

on overclocking it, the one thing id watch is, when I played with overclocking my FireGL X3 with the on the fly overclocking tool, if I clocked too fast and and put a load on it, the fan would stop spinning!

so thats something to watch out for, I dont know if the same bug happens when you modify the ROM clocks themselves but its something to watch out for!


have you tried flashing the ROM stock and unedited? (I do note an earlier post of yours where you said you tried that but got artifacting, but im not sure if this is the same card?)

namely I noticed you lowered the GPU core clocks below stock which should not be needed, so id try bringing those back up

 

[ervus]

Yes, we are talking about two different FireGL cards now. The first one I got always has artifacts with different ROMs and speeds, so I got a second one to try again. Here is a side-by-side picture. They are nearly identical, but note the different part numbers.

PN 109-A30101-00 samsung RAM, works in MDD (with artifacts), does not work in quicksilver

PN 109-A30131-10 infineon RAM, works in MDD and in quicksilver

You were right about the speeds. I installed the unmodified ROM and it works fine. I even turned up the speed a bit with ATIccelerator (18k in openmark) and it works fine. I'm concerned about the cooling though, so I'm going to tinker with that a bit. Maybe I'll just put the existing fan on a separate controller.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Yes, we are talking about two different FireGL cards now. The first one I got always has artifacts with different ROMs and speeds, so I got a second one to try again. Here is a side-by-side picture. They are nearly identical, but note the different part numbers.

View attachment 2098598
PN 109-A30101-00 samsung RAM, works in MDD (with artifacts), does not work in quicksilver

PN 109-A30131-10 infineon RAM, works in MDD and in quicksilver

You were right about the speeds. I installed the unmodified ROM and it works fine. I even turned up the speed a bit with ATIccelerator (18k in openmark) and it works fine. I'm concerned about the cooling though, so I'm going to tinker with that a bit. Maybe I'll just put the existing fan on a separate controller.

View attachment 2098600

very interesting!

I had generally read that the Infineon cards had to have their ram down clocked heavily to play nice wth the Mac ROM

but thats clearly not the case for you, do you think you could flash the standard FireGL X3 Mac ROM that everyone normally uses

it would be interesting to see if that works or gives you artifacts

im wondering if its 1 one of 3 things

1: the X850 XT ROM has looser timings thus works with the different

2: you have a different sort of infineon RAM that is compatible with the Mac ROM (thats why I want to see ya try the normal FireGL X3 (X800 XT based) ROM)

or

3: perhaps infineon RAM is not incompatible after all and the reports came from a defective card in some regard? tho I seem to recall multiple reports of infineon cards having issues with the Mac ROM


also its very interesting to hear that one of your FireGL X3's wont work a QS while the other one will

is this with the same QS or 2 different quicksilvers?

we have been trying to work out if the reason the FireGL X3 is so touch and go in the DA/QS is down to the machine or the card! so its interesting to hear in your case its the card not the machine!

 

[ervus]

is this with the same QS or 2 different quicksilvers?

Two different quicksilvers, same result. One has a 820-1276 logic board and one has 820-1342, which might be the "2002" version? In both machines one FireGL works fine, and the other FireGL does not output video. It seems to boot, but the video never comes up. I have not tried (recently at least) to VNC into the machine, nor have I tried all the video port combinations with DVI-to-VGA adapters, etc.

Your FireGL works in a quicksilver, right? Which PN does it have? My quicksilver-working card has a few extra components on the back side; perhaps this is what makes it work?

The other ROM files I know about are from here:

themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

Which one would you like me to test?

 

[LightBulbFun]

Two different quicksilvers, same result. One has a 820-1276 logic board and one has 820-1342, which might be the "2002" version? In both machines one FireGL works fine, and the other FireGL does not output video. It seems to boot, but the video never comes up. I have not tried (recently at least) to VNC into the machine, nor have I tried all the video port combinations with DVI-to-VGA adapters, etc.

Your FireGL works in a quicksilver, right? Which PN does it have? My quicksilver-working card has a few extra components on the back side; perhaps this is what makes it work?

interesting that would suggest the non working bug is with the GPU rather then the machine

my FireGL X3 works just fine in both my 1Ghz QS and my 733Mhz DA, but ill have to dig it out to grab its board PN, its a Samsung VRAM card I remember that much!

The other ROM files I know about are from here:

themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

Which one would you like me to test?

the FireGL X3 one please (aka the last ROM at the list of ATI reduced ROMs make sure you have the ATI 4.5.7 update installed first!)

 

[ervus]

I think you're onto something. I put that reduced ROM on the card and it booted with lots of snow-like corruption, even at the apple logo screen. ATIccelerator does not seem to work properly with this ROM, because changing the settings didn't seem to have any effect--even on benchmark speeds. So I reduced the speeds in the reduced ROM to 400/400 with graphicelerator and the problem seemed to get worse. I put your ROM back on and it works perfect again.

I did notice that the fan never seems to change speed (around 5.5v), even when the card is hotter than I can touch. So I just hooked it up to constant 12v. It doesn't seem all that loud and the card should be happier.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I think you're onto something. I put that reduced ROM on the card and it booted with lots of snow-like corruption, even at the apple logo screen. ATIccelerator does not seem to work properly with this ROM, because changing the settings didn't seem to have any effect--even on benchmark speeds. So I reduced the speeds in the reduced ROM to 400/400 with graphicelerator and the problem seemed to get worse. I put your ROM back on and it works perfect again.

I did notice that the fan never seems to change speed (around 5.5v), even when the card is hotter than I can touch. So I just hooked it up to constant 12v. It doesn't seem all that loud and the card should be happier.

very interesting! do you have a picture of the corruption? and you had the ATI 4.5.7 update installed right?

but yeah very interesting to hear that the possibly looser timings of the X850 XT ROM seem to make it play nice with Infineon cards!

does anyone else have an Infineon card they can EEPROM swap and flash with the X850 XT ROM to help verify these findings?

 

[ervus]

If this is? a discovery on the correct ROM to use on these, maybe one of the members in europe could get a bunch of those german infineon FireGL cards as a sort of group buy for mac users on the forum here. It seems like good AGP video cards that will work in a G4 are getting hard to find. Even 9800 cards are rare now, so putting those FireGL cards into the hands of mac owners might be a worthwhile project...

 

[ervus]

Could I coax some of the ROM/fcode experts to poke around in the posted files to see if there is an easy or obvious way to disable some of the TMU/ROP/shaders? This could be the explanation for some of the apparently dead cards.

Also, I flashed the reduced ROM onto a fireGL card and it worked in a MDD but not in a QS. I soldered on a bigger eeprom and flashed it with a full x800 ROM and now it also works in a QS. It's a single data point, but interesting.

 

[svamethyst99]

hate to necro a thread like a fool but i decided i'd do just this.
i took a 128k flash chip off a dead radeon 9600 mac (OEM early 2005 G5 card, not a great one at that) that had several smd components knocked off of it, soldered it to the X3 in place of the 64K chip, and then proceeded with the process.
i did not have any spare coolers around so what i did was i decreased the clocks of the original OEM X850 XT ROM to 500core/486mem so that the thing won't choke itself on the stock cooler. seems arbitrary, i know, but i wanted to unlock whatever extra TMUs were on here. a colleague and i were talking the other day about this exact idea and she managed to get it to work on hers too after i confirmed it working on mine. (funny enough we both own the same monitor too!) i actually had to change the clocks before changing the dev IDs to 4A 4D (or rather, 4D 4A since the ROM is in big endian... lmao) and then... voila!


this thing will absolutely kick the rear-end of a radeon 9600, let alone the god awful nVidia FX 5200... the latter were terrible and i have PTSD from working on computers equipped with such cards. i got lucky since i am not getting any artefacting whatsoever and i am not getting any stability issues... granted i DID decrease the clock speeds. i did also confirm this working with a modded X800XT ROM but i thought it'd be fun to see if the extra TMUs or whatever would work.
with that said my trusty G5 will live on again.
i will upload the ROMs soon, just need to get to my main computer since i had to do this on vanilla leopard on a separate hard drive and not on sorbet (ati multiflasher crashed) with my intel 320 SSD.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome glad to see it worked for you as well

as for extra TMU's the X800 XT and X850 XT are identical in this regard, the only difference between the 2 on a hardware level is simply clock-speeds, both are 16/16 ROP/TMU cards (the X800 Pro X850 Pro and FireGL X3 are the 12/12 cards)

so in that regard if your card works with the X800 XT ROM, then a down-clocked X850 XT ROM would also work

the fun in the X850 XT ROM comes from its higher clock speeds and possibly tweaked timings

its worth trying out a stock ROM and seeing if your card can handle the extra clocks , the Apple OEM X850 XT was unique in that it had a single slot cooler unlike all other X850 XT's and said cooler is identical to the FireGL X3 one

Certainly I have never had any overheating issues with my FireGL X3 for what thats worth

 

[svamethyst99]

Awesome glad to see it worked for you as well

as for extra TMU's the X800 XT and X850 XT are identical in this regard, the only difference between the 2 on a hardware level is simply clock-speeds, both are 16/16 ROP/TMU cards (the X800 Pro X850 Pro and FireGL X3 are the 12/12 cards)

so in that regard if your card works with the X800 XT ROM, then a down-clocked X850 XT ROM would also work

the fun in the X850 XT ROM comes from its higher clock speeds and possibly tweaked timings

its worth trying out a stock ROM and seeing if your card can handle the extra clocks , the Apple OEM X850 XT was unique in that it had a single slot cooler unlike all other X850 XT's and said cooler is identical to the FireGL X3 one

Certainly I have never had any overheating issues with my FireGL X3 for what thats worth

considering myself lucky because this straight up works. i'm shocked apple's version just straight up used the firegl cooler but at the same time the G5 had a more open case that had tons of airflow so i'm sure this card is going to be a-ok. who needs a geforce 6800 DDL?? lol... already noticing a bit of a performance boost which is great.

 

[alectrona6400]

a colleague and i were talking the other day about this exact idea and she managed to get it to work on hers too after i confirmed it working on mine.

Didn't expect to see you here! Thanks again for your help! I recently bought one off of eBay to install into my 2003 Dual 2.0GHz Power Mac G5 (which I got as a grad gift from my high school tech teacher) and it is definitely an improvement over my 9600 Pro. I was originally planning to use the reduced ROM but I just decided to go the extra mile and grab a chip off of a dead 9000 Pro I had sitting around so I could flash the X850 XT BIOS. ATIFLASH on DOS didn't quite work so I had to resort to the multi flasher thru vanilla 10.5 since it also didn't work for sorbet on my end... it would just not open. I did set my card's speeds to the FireGL clocks for the X850 XT ROM, but ultimately just decided to dive into full-speed because I have the samsung version which is already known to work.
I couldn't be happier. This card is insanely quick and completes my G5 for sure.

 

[cpc6128]

oooooh I wish I saw this thread before flashing my FireGL X3 card. I used the rom that was suggested in the Macwiki

My FireGL x3 is a Infineon version. I attempted 3/4 flashing of the card with no success using the 'FireGLX3 Reduced by Tome' rom but kept getting a blank screen.

in the end I came across a thread here on MacRumors - regarding a method with the Hex trick changing the ID (reversing the 4A4D etc) and I think screwed it from that point on - I don't know if I've entered it incorrectly and saved the rom (lesson learnt - don't work when tired).

The card is no longer being detected under system profile (usually a generic name) and ATI Flasher just quits when opening (probably because there is no card being detected any longer)..

Is this a behaviour of a bricked card? if so, is there any way to reset the rom?

I do have a spare 9000 Pro card that I can see if somebody can switch the EEPROM for me if I can't unbrick the card. I have no soldering skills sadly!

Doing all this on a G4 1.42ghz Mac, Running OSX Leopard safe mode (Sorbet won't even boot the ATI Flasher under safe mode)

Any tips would be amazing! thanks all.

 

[LightBulbFun]

The card is no longer being detected under system profile (usually a generic name) and ATI Flasher just quits when opening (probably because there is no card being detected any longer)..

just to confirm, you are running the "run me first" every time you reboot right? without doing that first ATI Flasher wont work


generally a card with a bad ROM on it, will prevent the computer from posting entirely, so I do just want to make sure you are running the run me first

if you have an Infineon card I would recommend trying the X850 XT full ROM, the X800 XT ROM is known to be incompatible with that card, (generally it will POST but show artefacts)

you dont have to sacrifice a Radeon 9000 Pro for it mind, ya just need a 128KB EEPROM http://themacelite.wikidot.com/rom-s

you can usually find someone selling a few on eBay or such being a new blank ROM, it will get the card showing up enough for ATI Flash to handle it


if you do end up going down the pillage a ROM off another ATI card route, i'd recommend flashing the X850 XT ROM to it *before* you remove the ROM from the donor card


(I only used a Radeon 9000, because I slightly defective one kicking around, an easy source for a 128K EEPROM )

 

[cpc6128]

just to confirm, you are running the "run me first" every time you reboot right? without doing that first ATI Flasher wont work


generally a card with a bad ROM on it, will prevent the computer from posting entirely, so I do just want to make sure you are running the run me first

if you have an Infineon card I would recommend trying the X850 XT full ROM, the X800 XT ROM is known to be incompatible with that card, (generally it will POST but show artefacts)

you dont have to sacrifice a Radeon 9000 Pro for it mind, ya just need a 128KB EEPROM http://themacelite.wikidot.com/rom-s

you can usually find someone selling a few on eBay or such being a new blank ROM, it will get the card showing up enough for ATI Flash to handle it


if you do end up going down the pillage a ROM off another ATI card route, i'd recommend flashing the X850 XT ROM to it *before* you remove the ROM from the donor card


(I only used a Radeon 9000, because I slightly defective one kicking around, an easy source for a 128K EEPROM )

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Yep I’ve been running the ‘run me first’ script first before running the ATi flasher. It just quits immediately. Previously it was working fine.

The card is not being detected at all under system preferences - I think I’ve definitely entered the wrong ID into the hex then flashed it.

Is there a way to unbrick it?

 

[LightBulbFun]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Yep I’ve been running the ‘run me first’ script first before running the ATi flasher. It just quits immediately. Previously it was working fine.

The card is not being detected at all under system preferences - I think I’ve definitely entered the wrong ID into the hex then flashed it.

Is there a way to unbrick it?

do you have an AGP PC to try and recover the card in?

if not, then I think your best bet is to replace the EEPROM on the card


as always, always worth doing a PRAM reset and cleaning the contacts of the card just to be on the safe side

it is strange how its *completely* vanished from the system like that

 

[cpc6128]

do you have an AGP PC to try and recover the card in?

if not, then I think your best bet is to replace the EEPROM on the card


as always, always worth doing a PRAM reset and cleaning the contacts of the card just to be on the safe side

it is strange how its *completely* vanished from the system like that

Tried those no change.

Managed to get An agp pc from ewaste, running 98 - it does detect a vga card asking for drivers but atiflash is telling me no decicated gpu is available.. so I’ve given up.

Will go the EEPROM route.

Thanks!

 

[cpc6128]

Ok since I'm going the EEPROM route - Is there a site that has a step by step instructions? Just struggling to find one.

From my understanding you need to flash a ATi donor card that has a larger EEPROM (I have a ATI 9000 Pro - from a MDD G4) and flash it with 'FireGL Reduced rom by Tome' before removing - can anybody point me which chip is the EEPROM on the ATi 9000 Pro pls?

It would assume that the 9000 Pro will not longer display anything once it's flashed? (to confirm its done)

Remove EEPROM on the FireGL X3 marked U11 under the heatsink and replace with EEPROM from Ali 9000 pro. Is there any way to tell which is the correct way up?

Thanks all.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Ya dont need to have use an ATI donor card, I just did that because it was convenient for me,

you can just buy and stick on a new suitable blank EEPROM on and ATI flash should pick it up


regardless of which way ya go, you want to use the full X850 XT ROM however since you have an Infineon card


but before all that,

I recommend watching the later half of this video, which shows you how to flash the card on PC

I would not recommend trying to do it from windows 98

 

[cpc6128]

Thanks heaps - I'm going to flash the 9000 card with the rom and then get an expert to do the EEPROM switch for me in the next week or two. Then I should be able to flash it properly with the x850 XT Rom via the Mac once the EEPROM been switched?

Will watch that video shortly!

If the pc detects a 'VGA Card' with a (!) and it's not picked up by the ATi Driver 'an Ati card not found' is this still a good sign the card itself is probably fine and a EEPROM could possibly unbrick it?

 

[LightBulbFun]

Thanks heaps - I'm going to flash the 9000 card with the rom and then get an expert to do the EEPROM switch for me in the next week or two. Then I should be able to flash it properly with the x850 XT Rom via the Mac once the EEPROM been switched?

you flash the 9000 Pro with the X850 XT ROM directly, no flashing is required after the swap.

If the pc detects a 'VGA Card' with a (!) and it's not picked up by the ATi Driver 'an Ati card not found' is this still a good sign the card itself is probably fine and a EEPROM could possibly unbrick it?

yeah if the card is still detected by a system in some form like that, it generally means things are recoverable

 

[cpc6128]

you flash the 9000 Pro with the X850 XT ROM directly, no flashing is required after the swap.


yeah if the card is still detected by a system in some form like that, it generally means things are recoverable

Thanks for that.

i have more questions and thanks heaps for the replies.

- Is the EEPROM marked U11 also on the 9000 pro?

- Is the rom you were referring to - OEM version under ‘original ati ppc Rom’s’ under themacelite ?

- lastly, if that’s the correct Rom, should I be concerned about the 500/550 mhz speeds or has it been reported to handle it fine?

I’ve attached the two images from both cards to double check these are the EEPROMs? Will attempt to do them myself over the weekend.

Cheers!

 

[cpc6128]

Bit of an update - done the transfer. No good, I think I have a defective card.

No change and still no ago card detected under osx profile.

Will order another card but will test it on a pc to ensure it’s running.

If the next card has the same Infineon ram do I need to lower the mhz speed on the ‘x800 reduced by time’ Rom?

Don’t want to attempt the eeprom
Switch again lol.