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Jiggly Billy

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 2, 2012
87
38
I finally got our XFX 6200 (WANG) in the mail yesterday. I have no display connected to it, and am using Remote Desktop to access the computer to flash the card. I've tried both NVFlash 1.1 and 1.2, and 1.1 says NULL when I attempt to flash with 1.1. I get nothing in the message box when I attempt 1.2. Any suggestions on flashing? I'm in 10.4, and have no old PC w/AGP.

Thank you all!
 
I finally got our XFX 6200 (WANG) in the mail yesterday. I have no display connected to it, and am using Remote Desktop to access the computer to flash the card. I've tried both NVFlash 1.1 and 1.2, and 1.1 says NULL when I attempt to flash with 1.1. I get nothing in the message box when I attempt 1.2. Any suggestions on flashing? I'm in 10.4, and have no old PC w/AGP.

Thank you all!

Maybe try Graphiccelerator ? Boot into safe mode in Tiger by holding the shift key or setting boot-args="-x" in OpenFirmware or via the 'nvram' command line tool. Then run the dumping/flashing tools in the Graphiccelerator folder. This worked for me with a PC Radeon 9700 (128MB) card on a Sawtooth G4 (AGP) tower.
 
Maybe try Graphiccelerator ? Boot into safe mode in Tiger by holding the shift key or setting boot-args="-x" in OpenFirmware or via the 'nvram' command line tool. Then run the dumping/flashing tools in the Graphiccelerator folder. This worked for me with a PC Radeon 9700 (128MB) card on a Sawtooth G4 (AGP) tower.

I’ll have to try moving the programs over when I get home. I got the NVFlash Utility with the Graphiccelerator download. I haven’t tried booting into safe-mode (since the whole lack of a display thing right now, I’ll have a DVI monitor today).

Different question: I know it’s not as good, but there are pre-flashed Radeon 9200s for sale on eBay, but they say they don’t work with the Cube (but they work with the Sawtooth G4?). Any reason why it wouldn’t work? The dimensions look like the Rage 128 that I pulled out of it
 
Here are the error screens. The blank one is running with NVFlash 1.2, the one with messages is NVFlash 1.1. Keep in mind, I'm running all of these via Remote Desktop, since the card won't display anything at this point
 

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Here are the error screens. The blank one is running with NVFlash 1.2, the one with messages is NVFlash 1.1. Keep in mind, I'm running all of these via Remote Desktop, since the card won't display anything at this point

So the IOIteratorNext call returning NULL would indicate that the card is not registering on a hardware level and therefore not available to the IOKit framework. Does it appear in System Profiler?

The 2nd part to that is, does the graphics card require any additional power from the PSU?

And lastly, was the card sold as working or untested?
 
To flash NVIDIA PC cards to Mac you generally need to do it in an AGP PC to do so

once the NVIDIA Card has a Mac ROM then you may be able to flash it in OS X.

(also avoid those pre-flashed Radeon 9200s bloody rip off those plus those wont fit a cube unless ya VRM move)
 
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So the IOIteratorNext call returning NULL would indicate that the card is not registering on a hardware level and therefore not available to the IOKit framework. Does it appear in System Profiler?

The 2nd part to that is, does the graphics card require any additional power from the PSU?

And lastly, was the card sold as working or untested?
Card was sold as new, and shows up in System Profiler as a Nvidia card (VGA adapter, no actual details naming it as a 6200 for obvious reasons). It's an XFX WANG board so it doesn't require any external power
[doublepost=1530408005][/doublepost]
(also avoid those pre-flashed Radeon 9200s bloody rip off those plus those wont fit a cube unless ya VRM move)

It looks like the card still sits below the top of the bracket, which means it should fit?

If I can't make this card work, I may have to look into alternate options :\ Maybe just squeeze in a 4MX or 7500
 

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I know what that Radeon 9200, guess who bought one back in 2013 when I was a complete idiot! LOL

its an utter rip off dont go for it, you can buy much better pre-flashed/Mac Cube cards for how much those cost.

all you have to do is flash your wang (heh :D ) in an AGP PC, and tape pins 3 and 11 then you will have a very nice Cube card that also supports Core image :)
 
I know what that Radeon 9200, guess who bought one back in 2013 when I was a complete idiot! LOL

its an utter rip off dont go for it, you can buy much better pre-flashed/Mac Cube cards for how much those cost.

all you have to do is flash your wang (heh :D ) in an AGP PC, and tape pins 3 and 11 then you will have a very nice Cube card that also supports Core image :)
The lack of a PC with AGP is 99% of my problem right now, not to mention that our Goodwill never has anything half decent that's electronic -_-

If I were to get a pre-flashed card/OEM card (due to my no old PC handicap), which would be most recommended by you?
 
The lack of a PC with AGP is 99% of my problem right now, not to mention that our Goodwill never has anything half decent that's electronic -_-

If I were to get a pre-flashed card/OEM card (due to my no old PC handicap), which would be most recommended by you?

For now I recommend picking up a Mac GeForce2 MX off ebay

they are nice and cheap, compatible with the G4 Cube mounting bracket from the Rage 128 and give you Quartz extreme

alternatively do you have a hardware EEPROM programmer? you could directly flash the WANGs SPI ROM with one :)
 
For now I recommend picking up a Mac GeForce2 MX off ebay

they are nice and cheap, compatible with the G4 Cube mounting bracket from the Rage 128 and give you Quartz extreme

alternatively do you have a hardware EEPROM programmer? you could directly flash the WANGs SPI ROM with one :)
I don't quite mind if the faceplate can get swapped over, since it'll never really move and I can fabricate one off the factory standoff that was used in the top-right corner of the card. It'll be mostly for gaming, so something beefier than a 2MX is on my list :\ Hence the 4MX/7500. May be leaning the 4MX way as it performs better in games, and supports both the ADC and DVI Cinema Displays we have (for whichever one we choose to use with it)

Wish I did, I would have done this a long time ago if I did haha!
[doublepost=1530431677][/doublepost]
I have heard stories about flash working only on Panther.
Would love to attempt this, if the CD drive in the cube worked :mad:
 
It is possible to flash a PC card in a Mac, so long as the EEPROM on the card is supported by the OS X version of nvflash.

With the Cube, you have to setup a telnet session to telnet into Open Firmware, then load a small script.

See this thread for info on how to setup a telnet session.

Testing FCode roms before you flash.

To accomplish that you need a PCI video card or telnet access to OF.
In order to minimize typing you should first copy the fcode program to the root directory of your first partition (use short and easy filenames). When in OF you can see the listing of the contens by typing:
dir hd:\
In OF prompt type:
dev pci0
(this navigates to the node where AGP device is located)
type :
ls
(gets you the listing of the devices so you know what the card is called)
type:
dev cardname
(the cardname is something like pci10de,333)

Now it's time to load the fcode program, type:
boot hd:\nvflasher.txt

You can verify that the properties are there by typing:
.properties

Then type:
mac-boot
and when the Mac is up proceed as normal.

Code:
\ comment

cr

hex

000010de encode-int " vendor-id" property
00000321 encode-int " device-id" property
000000b1 encode-int " revision-id" property
00030000 encode-int " class-code" property
00000001 encode-int " interrupts" property
00000005 encode-int " min-grant" property
00000001 encode-int " max-latency" property
000010de encode-int " subsystem-vendor-id" property
00000010 encode-int " subsystem-id" property
00000001 encode-int " devsel-speed" property
00000000 encode-int " fcode-rom-offset" property
" GeForce FX 5200" encode-string " model" property
" NVDA,GeForceFX5200" encode-string " device_type" property
" "(01000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000)" encode-string " NVPM" property
" "(02000100 00100003 001c0003 015e)" encode-string " NVCAP" property
" NVDA,Parent" encode-string " name" property
" "(32303630 00)" encode-string " rom-revision" property
0026002f encode-int " NVDA,Features" property
00000001 encode-int " NVDA,Level" property
00000001 encode-int " #address-cells" property
00000000 encode-int " #size-cells" property
 

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The 4MX won’t fit in a Cube without moving the VRM. The 7500 is a good, passively cooled card that supports QE and games reasonably. Someone on here knocked up a design for a 3D printed faceplate for the 7500 - it fits perfectly and I got one printed for less that £4 delivered.

In my experience, and some others’, the flashed WANG 6200 doesn’t wake from sleep in the Cube. No one has ever figured out why this function will work in some machines and not others. It’s great otherwise.
 
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