Could a firmware be made for the SIL3114 too? As I understand this is a chip very similar to the SIL3112, but supporting 4 SATA drives instead of only two.
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Guide to flashing PC SIL3112 SATA cards for Mac
- Thread starter harrymatic
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Hi!
Did anybody have any success with an optical drive connected to a flashed 3112?
I tried two different blu-ray writers, an LG and a pioneer, with one of those cards. They both are recognized fine with the correct information by System Profiler and open and close as the key is pressed. But as soon as i put any media in, no matter if it's a BD, DVD or CD, any sofware that tries to use the drive, i.e. Toast or Disk Utility, beachballs forever, the media cannot be ejected anymore and - of course - does not mount.
The card works as expected with HDs, which means makes use of them and even boots Tiger as well as Leo.
I have the latest 128k bios available in this thread (the one posted here) flashed to it. Machine is an 1.8 Single G5.
Any experience with the 3112 and opticals on the PC-side welcome too. Maybe this is just an nogo.
Did anybody have any success with an optical drive connected to a flashed 3112?
I tried two different blu-ray writers, an LG and a pioneer, with one of those cards. They both are recognized fine with the correct information by System Profiler and open and close as the key is pressed. But as soon as i put any media in, no matter if it's a BD, DVD or CD, any sofware that tries to use the drive, i.e. Toast or Disk Utility, beachballs forever, the media cannot be ejected anymore and - of course - does not mount.
The card works as expected with HDs, which means makes use of them and even boots Tiger as well as Leo.
I have the latest 128k bios available in this thread (the one posted here) flashed to it. Machine is an 1.8 Single G5.
Any experience with the 3112 and opticals on the PC-side welcome too. Maybe this is just an nogo.
I've never tried it, but I'd always assumed it probably wouldn't work. It seems like either the firmware or the SIL3112 chip itself doesn't support the ATAPI command set, or at least not fully enough to work.
Ahh, thanks for your quick replies!
Another explanation i found somewhere else has been that opticals don't work connected to RAID cards. Which leads to another question: Is there any software, control panel or so, which can "configure“ those cards "features". I.e. Raid or non-Raid use etc. Did Sonnet or Firmtek offer something like that? Maybe this could solve this issues.
Sure there is a workaround for this by simply attaching the drive to one of the onboard SATA ports and using the card for the second HD (which works fine). But the "more elegant" solution would be keeping the HD drive bays as they are and using the card for the optical or an additional SSD.
Another explanation i found somewhere else has been that opticals don't work connected to RAID cards. Which leads to another question: Is there any software, control panel or so, which can "configure“ those cards "features". I.e. Raid or non-Raid use etc. Did Sonnet or Firmtek offer something like that? Maybe this could solve this issues.
Sure there is a workaround for this by simply attaching the drive to one of the onboard SATA ports and using the card for the second HD (which works fine). But the "more elegant" solution would be keeping the HD drive bays as they are and using the card for the optical or an additional SSD.
Hi all. Firstly, big thanks to Harrymatic for this terrific post. It gave me what I needed to flash 2 SIL3112 cards.
Secondly, I have some good news. I have reverse-engineered the Seritek card software and created a firmware for MacOS 9 (and 9 only, not X) that will fit on 128k EPROMs. Those of you who have read through the posts above will probably know the implications.
The cards flashed with this firmware will register as SCSI cards, not ATA cards. This seems to be one of the major differences between the Firmtek and Wiebe firmwares. It makes the cards more compatible, as Harrymatic suggested. However, the cards still won't work in certain Quicksilver configurations. MDDs seem fine.
I have yet to conduct further testing, I am writing this very early. However, things are looking good, and in case you are interested, I will upload the modified firmware for you to use. Again, it is designed to be used with OS9 only. (Making it OSX compatible would make the firmware not fit on standard cards EPROM.)
More to come. Stay tuned.
Secondly, I have some good news. I have reverse-engineered the Seritek card software and created a firmware for MacOS 9 (and 9 only, not X) that will fit on 128k EPROMs. Those of you who have read through the posts above will probably know the implications.
The cards flashed with this firmware will register as SCSI cards, not ATA cards. This seems to be one of the major differences between the Firmtek and Wiebe firmwares. It makes the cards more compatible, as Harrymatic suggested. However, the cards still won't work in certain Quicksilver configurations. MDDs seem fine.
I have yet to conduct further testing, I am writing this very early. However, things are looking good, and in case you are interested, I will upload the modified firmware for you to use. Again, it is designed to be used with OS9 only. (Making it OSX compatible would make the firmware not fit on standard cards EPROM.)
More to come. Stay tuned.
I have heard of this, that there are some rare "PC" cards that have an EPROM chip where it would fit and one could see from the board layout. Yet we would have to find out what these cards would look like (i.e. where the bigger ROM chip is located on these cards).
Hi all. Firstly, big thanks to Harrymatic for this terrific post. It gave me what I needed to flash 2 SIL3112 cards.
Secondly, I have some good news. I have reverse-engineered the Seritek card software and created a firmware for MacOS 9 (and 9 only, not X) that will fit on 128k EPROMs. Those of you who have read through the posts above will probably know the implications.
The cards flashed with this firmware will register as SCSI cards, not ATA cards. This seems to be one of the major differences between the Firmtek and Wiebe firmwares. It makes the cards more compatible, as Harrymatic suggested. However, the cards still won't work in certain Quicksilver configurations. MDDs seem fine.
I have yet to conduct further testing, I am writing this very early. However, things are looking good, and in case you are interested, I will upload the modified firmware for you to use. Again, it is designed to be used with OS9 only. (Making it OSX compatible would make the firmware not fit on standard cards EPROM.)
More to come. Stay tuned.
So you have deactivated the EPROM model check in the Firmtek's firmware as well?
@harrymatic.
Is it possible that even though I had a good flash with this card that it would be functioning (or not) in such a way as to make my hard drives overwork and not perform at their optimal speed?
I ask because the card died two weeks ago and the new card that I have is far superior. I am booting in a matter of seconds now and drive operations are considerably faster than with the flashed card.
And my drive temps are under 100º even under load.
Is it possible that even though I had a good flash with this card that it would be functioning (or not) in such a way as to make my hard drives overwork and not perform at their optimal speed?
I ask because the card died two weeks ago and the new card that I have is far superior. I am booting in a matter of seconds now and drive operations are considerably faster than with the flashed card.
And my drive temps are under 100º even under load.
It is quite possible that the card's firmware isn't written very well (in fact it's pretty likely given all of the problems people have with Quicksilver machines), and causes unnecessary disk activity resulting in the excessive temperatures. Glad you found another card and got it sorted though.
Bumping this thread slightly. I found this card on Marktplaats (Dutch site) for 5 euro excluding shipping. It only has one internal SATA port, but for the QuickSilver I want to get it for, I don't need more than one drive. I can see in the image that it has a SIL3112 chip, so I assume this would work, but I figured it can't hurt to ask!
Having a really bad time right now
The first card I showed in this thread, which I received today, does not go along with the QuickSilver at all. The QS refuses to give any video signal when the PCI card is inserted. It makes DVD drive noises, but not more. Pull the card, it boots. However, the MDD is having no issues with it, even automatically mounting my NTFS drive in OS X Tiger.
I was actually shooting my progress on video to make a YouTube guide, but it seems I'm gonna put that off for later. Reflashing can't hurt.
I actually ran into something unknown when flashing, as it did not recognize the PMC EPROM and asked me what I should pick. The PMC chip has 512 in its model number, so I assumed I should go with either of the 512Kb ROM images. First I tried he seventh option, the Atmel 512Kb, after having issues with the QS I flashed it to the Winbond 512Kb, which made no difference to the QS, and the MDD is still happily accessing the drive. What am I doing wrong? Is it just incompatible with my QS?
The first card I showed in this thread, which I received today, does not go along with the QuickSilver at all. The QS refuses to give any video signal when the PCI card is inserted. It makes DVD drive noises, but not more. Pull the card, it boots. However, the MDD is having no issues with it, even automatically mounting my NTFS drive in OS X Tiger.
I was actually shooting my progress on video to make a YouTube guide, but it seems I'm gonna put that off for later. Reflashing can't hurt.
I actually ran into something unknown when flashing, as it did not recognize the PMC EPROM and asked me what I should pick. The PMC chip has 512 in its model number, so I assumed I should go with either of the 512Kb ROM images. First I tried he seventh option, the Atmel 512Kb, after having issues with the QS I flashed it to the Winbond 512Kb, which made no difference to the QS, and the MDD is still happily accessing the drive. What am I doing wrong? Is it just incompatible with my QS?
You are going to find that the QS is it's own animal.Having a really bad time right now
The first card I showed in this thread, which I received today, does not go along with the QuickSilver at all. The QS refuses to give any video signal when the PCI card is inserted. It makes DVD drive noises, but not more. Pull the card, it boots. However, the MDD is having no issues with it, even automatically mounting my NTFS drive in OS X Tiger.
I was actually shooting my progress on video to make a YouTube guide, but it seems I'm gonna put that off for later. Reflashing can't hurt.
I actually ran into something unknown when flashing, as it did not recognize the PMC EPROM and asked me what I should pick. The PMC chip has 512 in its model number, so I assumed I should go with either of the 512Kb ROM images. First I tried he seventh option, the Atmel 512Kb, after having issues with the QS I flashed it to the Winbond 512Kb, which made no difference to the QS, and the MDD is still happily accessing the drive. What am I doing wrong? Is it just incompatible with my QS?
There are video cards that will work in both the MDD, the DA and Sawtooth Macs, but not the QS. And vice-versa. My NVIDIA card apparently is quite happy in a QS but has problems in an MDD.
I cannot for the life of me make any video card in my QS work that requires taping pins. The only reason the NVIDIA card works is because the traces were cut.
So, it's highly likely that whatever you flashed won't work in the QS because of the difference in architecture. The MDD is a much more modern G4.
It just striked me as odd, because I thought due to the fact it uses the same controller, it wouldn't have any issue on a QS because others have been able to use this controller just fine on a QS. I guess something, whatever it might be, about this card is upsetting the QS. I can still use this card just fine for the MDD, I suppose, as it's playing along nicely with my SATA disks. I'll try installing Leopard on my spare laptop drive, to see if it successfully boots off of the SATA.
Having a really bad time right now
The first card I showed in this thread, which I received today, does not go along with the QuickSilver at all. The QS refuses to give any video signal when the PCI card is inserted. It makes DVD drive noises, but not more. Pull the card, it boots. However, the MDD is having no issues with it, even automatically mounting my NTFS drive in OS X Tiger.
I was actually shooting my progress on video to make a YouTube guide, but it seems I'm gonna put that off for later. Reflashing can't hurt.
I actually ran into something unknown when flashing, as it did not recognize the PMC EPROM and asked me what I should pick. The PMC chip has 512 in its model number, so I assumed I should go with either of the 512Kb ROM images. First I tried he seventh option, the Atmel 512Kb, after having issues with the QS I flashed it to the Winbond 512Kb, which made no difference to the QS, and the MDD is still happily accessing the drive. What am I doing wrong? Is it just incompatible with my QS?
The firmware in this thread is modified from WiebeTech's firmware.
If the PMC chip on the first card is Pm39LV512, you should be able to flash it with the Wiebetech's flasher on the Mac. Although it probably doesn't make a difference for your QS incompatibility, doesn't hurt to try.
When I flashed, I booted into root and in Safe mode (OS X 10.5.8), otherwise it would fail.
Firmware and flasher: https://web.archive.org/web/20110107124934/http://www.wiebetech.com/download.php?id=120
User Manual: https://web.archive.org/web/20110107124934/http://www.wiebetech.com/download.php?id=109
PS. mikiotty got it working in a QS and offered some tips, starting from https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-to-flashing-pc-sil3112-sata-cards-for-mac.1690231/page-2
I'll try again later with a different card. It works with the MDD, I've used Carbon Copy to copy the OS from the IDE drive to the SATA drive, which now boots perfectly. The Jaguar installer refused to install to the SATA drive though, citing the device wasn't bootable. Well, that's wrong. If Leopard makes a fuzz about it, I guess I can still get out the IDE drive, install to there, then just copy it over to the SATA disk and call it a day. I'm getting a 2TB drive to replace the 1TB drive I use for music storage, and I'll give the 1TB to the MDD. It's not exactly a new drive, but it should last for a good while. After all, hard drives are getting cheaper by the day, so if it starts to fail, I can cheaply replace it.
Just some thoughts.
You say Jaguar has a problem with the card. Could it be, that the other user that got the card working in his Quicksilver used Tiger?
Also, there are two different Motherboards used in the Quicksilver. This leads me to two questions:
a) you have the Single 800MHz QS, this one has the rev. B Motherboard, this does not have the 128GB HDD limit. I assume you want an SATA drive for better access times as a boot drive (not just for the drive space?), right?
You don't neccessarily need the SATA-Card for it. You can just use a simple non Mac unflashed IDE-to-SATA drive adapter (there is however a certain MArvell chipset that works best, though others will work, too) and will be able to use the 1-2TB HDD on the IDE bus. The result will be faster access time.
If you are hoping for a faster data throughput, there is no real difference with the card you chose and IDE in a QS. The SATA-PCI card tops out at 35MB/s and the IDE-BUS is ATA-66 (ATA-5) which will be about 35MB/s, too.
You get speeds of 65MB/s, if you search for a PCI-X card (I don't know if these are flashable, but given the same chipset, they should be).
But try your own, since it's fun. and anyway you could still have it as a secondary drive and keep the IDE drive.
b) could it be, that the other user had the rev. A Mobo in his QS?
You say Jaguar has a problem with the card. Could it be, that the other user that got the card working in his Quicksilver used Tiger?
Also, there are two different Motherboards used in the Quicksilver. This leads me to two questions:
a) you have the Single 800MHz QS, this one has the rev. B Motherboard, this does not have the 128GB HDD limit. I assume you want an SATA drive for better access times as a boot drive (not just for the drive space?), right?
You don't neccessarily need the SATA-Card for it. You can just use a simple non Mac unflashed IDE-to-SATA drive adapter (there is however a certain MArvell chipset that works best, though others will work, too) and will be able to use the 1-2TB HDD on the IDE bus. The result will be faster access time.
If you are hoping for a faster data throughput, there is no real difference with the card you chose and IDE in a QS. The SATA-PCI card tops out at 35MB/s and the IDE-BUS is ATA-66 (ATA-5) which will be about 35MB/s, too.
You get speeds of 65MB/s, if you search for a PCI-X card (I don't know if these are flashable, but given the same chipset, they should be).
But try your own, since it's fun.
and anyway you could still have it as a secondary drive and keep the IDE drive.b) could it be, that the other user had the rev. A Mobo in his QS?
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The QuickSilver does not even send out a video signal when the card is installed. So I wasn't able to test the Jaguar installer on that, I tested it on the MDD instead. I'll just use this card with the MDD, which now has a 1TB WD Green Drive, which means that one is closer to being finalized than the QS. I will make a thread on the MDD this week, since there's still stuff to be done, when I get a little bit more money. RAM is already maxed out, SATA card and HDD are, of course already installed. It needs quieter fans, a Radeon 9600/9800 card, and I need to fix the power button (you need to press hard and on a specific spot to get it to work), but other than that, it should only require the OS and image editing software + fonts I use, and it's ready to rock.
Your MDD came with 10.2.3, is the Jaguar install disc from that MDD and did it install on the IDE drive before? If the questions are to be answered with no, the, could it be that your install disc is maybe 10.2.2 or .1 or .0?
No, the MDD came with Tiger, which I cloned to the SATA drive. I just tried to see if the OS X disc could install to it, and Jaguar was the quickest I could grab. Maybe Leopard will be less problematic, else I'll just install Leopard to the IDE disk and clone it to the SATA afterwards.
Just an FYI, the card successfully flashed but is not recognized by my G5. Bummer. Unless I managed to mess it up somehow. I did reset PRAM and NVRAM after installing the card. Any suggestions?
Here is the card on Ebay (not my ad):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-to-2-SA...er-/331677428152?_trksid=p2385738.m2548.l4275
UPDATE: I yanked it out of the G5 (Leopard) and put it in my MDD (Tiger) . Guess what? It works! It shows up in the PCI section but not in the Serial-ATA in System Profile. I was able to hook up a SATA drive. I'm not sure why it is not working in my G5 but I am happy it works in the MDD. I'm a happy camper now. Thanks harrymatic !
Here is the card on Ebay (not my ad):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-to-2-SA...er-/331677428152?_trksid=p2385738.m2548.l4275
UPDATE: I yanked it out of the G5 (Leopard) and put it in my MDD (Tiger) . Guess what? It works! It shows up in the PCI section but not in the Serial-ATA in System Profile. I was able to hook up a SATA drive. I'm not sure why it is not working in my G5 but I am happy it works in the MDD. I'm a happy camper now. Thanks harrymatic !
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Both these links are dead because of archive.org's ridiculous robots.txt policy nuking all history forever. If you still have the files, could you please attach them here?