Flashed FX5200 Causes Kernel Panic in XServe

[bunnspecial]

I mentioned this elsewhere, but thought I'd give it a mention here.

I have a flashed PCI FX5200 that I've used in several G4 towers. This particular card is a PNY brand with 256mb of VRAM and dual VGA.

I recently acquired an Xserve G5, which only has PCI-X slots so the graphics cards options are limited to PCI. Since high-performance PCI video cards are not exactly common, I'd intended to install the FX5200 long enough to get the computer set up(I ultimately plan to run it headless, but am not good enough in terminal to do everything through SSH).

The computer is running OS X Tiger Server.

When I attempt to boot the computer with the 5200 installed, it will boot to the gray Apple screen and show the spinning progress bar. It would, however, kernel panic before booting to the desktop. I was able to get it to boot to single user mode(I didn't try verbose mode).

I installed a Rage 128, and it works perfectly although obviously is not a great card for Tiger.

Does anyone have any ideas about what would cause the problem I was having?

If it's of any relevance, when received the computer was running 10.4.0(the version it shipped with). I've since run software update and brought it up to 10.4.11, although I can't see this necessarily making a difference.

 

[LightBulbFun]

PCI geforce 5200 cards only work in OS X 10.4.6 and up that's why its kernel panicking on your stock install

 

[bunnspecial]

PCI geforce 5200 cards only work in OS X 10.4.6 and up that's why its kernel panicking on your stock install

Thanks-I'll try again now that I'm on 10.4.11.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Did you get it working? How does it perform if it works?

 

[bunnspecial]

I'll try it today

I'm running the 9200 now, as I wanted to(try) and install Leopard and though the 9200 was probably a safer bet until I get it installed.

 

[bunnspecial]

Just wanted to report I have everything working fine with the 5200 under Leopard Server. Since I intend on running the Xserve headless with VNC, I'm going to pull the card and use it elsewhere(removing it lowers system temps a bit, and there's no real need for the card in the Xserve) but at least it does work.

 

[LightBulbFun]

awesome glad to see its working in the xserve G5 I am thinking of getting one of these cards my self to get my hands wet in Nvidia flashing so to speak heh

 

[ctmpkmlec4]

The GIMP on an Xserve? But, why?

 

[Ih8reno]

Great to hear you solved the issue! You inspired me to get an xserve myself, something I have 0 experience with. Got it at an insane price and should be picking it up tomorrow. It's not a Power Pc version however, a late 2006 in fact.

 

[bunnspecial]

The GIMP on an Xserve? But, why?

Sorry, I should have cropped it. That's the dock on my Macbook Pro(where I can't afford the current version of the real thing).

Here's the dock on the Xserve-looking as a proper server dock should

 

[ctmpkmlec4]

Lol. I wasn't hating. I guess I should have taken a closer look!

 

[bunnspecial]

Great to hear you solved the issue! You inspired me to get an xserve myself, something I have 0 experience with. Got it at an insane price and should be picking it up tomorrow. It's not a Power Pc version however, a late 2006 in fact.

Truth be told that's probably a lot more useful of a device than what I have. I've been meaning to hackintosh one of my IBMs, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I have an 8 core(2x4 Xeons) with the same p/n CPUs as were used in one of the Mac Pros, so would like to think that installing OS X would be straight forward(famous last words).

In any case, though, these things are fun and by and large you can pick them up inexpensively.

 

[Ih8reno]

Haven't tried mine yet, brought it home and man that box was incredibly heavy! Got it at a sick deal as I said with a 1tb drive and 10GB of ram. Seller included the os install with it. Gonna be a fun toy, now I got to decide what purpose of any it will have.

 

[bunnspecial]

Yes, they're heavy alright. I think that the Intel ones are probably worse since(at least per Intell) they have dual PSUs.

My IBMs have redundant hot-swappable PSUs. When you see that, you know that they mean business and aren't going to let something piddly like a dead PSU cause down time. The IBMs scream at you something awful(I guess they have to in order to be heard over all the fans) if you don't plug in both PSUs.