I recently picked up a 2002 G4 MDD with the matching 17 inch cinema display for 40 bucks. Unfortunately the radeon 9000 pro slipped out of my hands and broke. I ordered a radeon 9650 from a G5 that should work with the tape mod but that graphics card isnt supported by os9. Is it possible to stick in an os9 compatible pci graphics card along with the radeon 9650 and use the 9650 for osx and plug the monitor into the pci graphics card for os9. If so what is a decent mac pci graphics card. The rage 128 isnt really going to be good enough. Did they make a mac pci version of something like the geforce 4mx or an older but still decent radeon card.
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MDD Dual graphics cards
- Thread starter mustagcoupe
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You need an ADC port for the acrylic 17" Studio Display, and no PCI graphics card has those, so you need an Apple DVI to ADC adapter (A1006) as well.
Radeon 7000s are cheap and plentiful and easily flashable.
Radeon 7000s are cheap and plentiful and easily flashable.
Im not that worried about using the studio display natively. I will buy or make an adapter for it if i want to use it, i was just mentioning it came with the computer. What i really need to know is if i buy something like a pci radeon 7000 and install it along side the radeon 9650 can i use the 9650 with osx and plug the monitor into the radeon 7000 for only os9 without it causing issues or confusing the computer. Thats the way it works in windows but ive never tried to do something like this on a mac.
*frowns*
Broke? Broke how? Even old GPUs are pretty resilient. Are you saying you knocked a component off the board? Even in those circumstances, unless you somehow cracked an IC or something, I have a hard time believing your issue is non-recoverable.
It hit something on the way down and knocked 2 legs off of one of the memory chips. The memory chip is cracked where the legs broke off and theres no stubs sticking out. im addition one of the pads is ripped off. Its definitely fixable for someone with a hot air rework station, a new memory chip and far finer soldering equipment than i have. I will put it aside for spare parts or try to fix it someday if i get that stuff.
Since a radeon 9000 does not have the power for what i want to do with this machine and i was planning to replace it anyway its not a massive loss but i am a bit upset because i was planning to put it in my quicksilver which is my main os9 machine instead of the geforce 4mx it came with. I just want the option to boot into os9 with a supported graphics card on this MDD without removing and swapping graphics cards in the event i need to use os9 on it.
Take some pictures, my friend. I'm not a soldering god, but I'm quite capable, and if I can, I'd love to be able to fix this for you. Post a few pics and let me see what I think.
Here are the pictures you requested. The card works enough to install leopard and i thought it survived and everything was normal until it hung trying to boot after install every time. I took it out for a closer look and saw that. Ironically i killed the graphics card trying to make the computer live longer. The only reason i had it out was to clean all of the dust out of the computer and power supply and wash all of the plastic panels. This MDD is the original 2002 model and has the original 400 watt power supply and fans.
EDIT: Okay, so fortunately, I found the data sheet for that chip. You're LUCKY - the leg that is ripped off is NC, so it doesn't need to be there. I think your issue is that the bent leg is a data bus line, and it's in contact with a output buffer power supply line. If you're very lucky, you might be able to simply bend that leg away from the VDDQ line it's contacting without damaging it and have a functioning card again.
If you want, send that bugger to me and I'll see if I can't get it back in operational status for you.
EDIT 2: As for why you're able to get video during install but not during normal booting, the Install environment routes very basic video (I suspect CPU rendered) through the video output. I've dealt with a couple of bunk cards that work for install but not for normal operations - in fact, I have a broken FX4500 that produces very similar symptoms to you, but will boot into Safe Mode just fine, as only the most basic of drivers are utilized, so no Quartz or anything like that. I'm curious if your card will successfully do Safe Mode as well...?
If you want, send that bugger to me and I'll see if I can't get it back in operational status for you.
EDIT 2: As for why you're able to get video during install but not during normal booting, the Install environment routes very basic video (I suspect CPU rendered) through the video output. I've dealt with a couple of bunk cards that work for install but not for normal operations - in fact, I have a broken FX4500 that produces very similar symptoms to you, but will boot into Safe Mode just fine, as only the most basic of drivers are utilized, so no Quartz or anything like that. I'm curious if your card will successfully do Safe Mode as well...?
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Unfortunately both legs are broken. Its just difficult to see because this phone does not take good pictures. However the solder pad for the leg thats partially there is still intact so if the completely broken one with the missing solder pad is NC it just needs a new memory chip. I could possibly drag solder it if i got better solder and new tips for my iron but i think it would still be beyond my ability to solder. It would be far easier with a hot air rework station to remove and resolder the chip. I can look through my stack of dead pc graphics cards and see if any have a compatible memory chip but if not im not sure where i would get a single ram chip for a reasonable price. It also looks like theres a cracked solder joint on the small orange cap above and to the left of the broken pins that i think is to small for me to re solder. If you are interested in trying to repair it your welcome to try.
EDIT: I took a better picture of the damaged chip and removed the partial piece of chip leg.
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Honestly, I think removing the IC would be a bad step - you'd risk pulling off traces, even if you have the tools and know what you're doing (which I do, and which I also, do). I'm pretty convinced that it would be a relatively simple matter to bend the leg back and create a solder bridge to the flash that is poking out from the chip housing or, if need be, grind the housing back to expose some of the metal (something I have successfully done before but which is not for the faint of heart).
The cap is not really an issue - a quick reflow to repair the solder joint if it's in good shape electrically (which I can test c/o my LCR meter) or a replacement if it is not.
As for replacing the whole chip, I did look for them, but any site that claims to have them falls under the highly suspect heading for me. I feel it very unlikely that you'd be realistically able to find even a pulled one.
You would definitely need to grind the chip back to find a leg stub to solder to. I cant see any metal glimmer in the area in person or in the pictures. The chip has a chip in the area where the 2 legs are missing. I have a couple of pc geforce 2 and 4 mx cards that either have bad memory and glitch out once the drivers are installed or are totally dead. When i get a chance i will look through them and see if one has a chip that will work. If your interested in doing it your welcome to try. How would it work. Do i just pay postage both ways or do you charge for your time. If you want the card for yourself to try and repair and keep you can have it for free if you pay postage.
Eh. Let's call it just postage one ways unless I get the thing working, at which point I guess you can do postage back plus...I dunno? Something reasonable? I don't imagine I'd charge more than maybe $25 at most for labor if it's repairable. I guess worst case scenario is I can't fix it and you're out like $9 shipping.
Deal. I will look through my stack of dead cards and see if one has a compatible memory chip. If i find one i will include it in the package in case you need it. It might be a couple days before i get to it though. Do you want to pm me your address?
I am still interested in knowing if i can use both an agp and a pci graphics card in a mac using the agp one in osx and the pci one in os9 without it causing any issues or confusing the operating systems. I want to use a core image card in this mdd for leopard but still have supported graphics in os9 if i need to use it without swapping the cards all the time cause thats asking for trouble. Will os9 ignore the agp graphics card if theres no monitor plugged into it like windows and osx or will it still cause issues. Is there a way to disable it like there is in windows so it doesnt use resources.
PM'd.
With regards to the dual AGP/PCI GPU questions...I honestly don't know. My main MDD is rocking a Geforce 4 4600TI, and my only PCI gpu is a GeForce 5200 that I keep in my GPU flashing computer in case I have to revert a flash. I have absolutely no idea of how they would handle multiple GPUs under the scenarios outlined.
I have a feeling nobody else has really tried to do this. Ive run into this a few times in the pc world where the things i want to do nobody else has ever tried to do and if they have they haven't documented it and if they have its usually poorly documented in russian or some other eastern european language that i cant speak and can only sort of read sometimes. Now i seem to be running into it in the mac world like my plywood g5 project. I was unable to find any documentation of anybody else putting a g5 in a new case and getting it to pass thermal calibration and i cant find any real information on this video card thing either. I might just have to buy a cheap radeon 7000 or rage 128 and see what happens.
I have like four AGP Rage 128 cards. If I can't repair the 9000 card, and if you want, I can ship you one of them for shipping costs only.
The problem is i need a pci card. I dont want to swap the graphics cards all the time. Its way to easy to slip and break something or just wear out the slot or crack a solder joint doing that all the time. I store my towers in stacks or on shelves and pull one out when i need it so its no big deal to just plug the monitor into a different graphics card. Its annoying to go and get a different graphics card out of the graphics card box and a screwdriver and swap them. Plus i might drop the card and end up in the situation im in right now again with a broken card. Thank you for the offer though. I might take that rage 128 as a spare if you get the radeon 9000 working. You could ship them in the same box and save on the shipping.
So I've been looking around, and there doesn't seem to be an easily obtainable replacement part for the chip. I can find 64M DRAM chips easily enough, and even with the same pinout, which is thankfully standard, but the onboard chip is rated at 275MHz, and the closest I can find is around 175MHz-200MHz, which might not be close enough to work.
I'm specifically looking for 3.3V devices, but I might have to branch out into 1.8V devices and install an onboard regulator to feed the appropriate voltage to the new DRAM chip. I'm examining a lot of different possibilities at the moment.
I'm specifically looking for 3.3V devices, but I might have to branch out into 1.8V devices and install an onboard regulator to feed the appropriate voltage to the new DRAM chip. I'm examining a lot of different possibilities at the moment.
You probably already have this in mind, but the HY5DV641622AT-36 datasheet says that the data lines are referenced to 2.5V, so you may need some level shifters as well as that linear regulator for a 1.8V part unless it’s 2.5V-tolerant.
I think that grinding into the epoxy and soldering DQ8’s pad to the lead-frame is looking like a lower-effort option and at the very least worth trying before desoldering the chip for replacement.