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New MDD GPU time!

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Original poster
Jan 10, 2016
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So I've been hinting at upgrading the MDD's GPU. I've taken my time to find the right card, and I think that served me well, because today, I bought one, and it should be here soon. What is it?

It's the ASUS A9800XT 256MB card!
$_85.JPG


I checked on Mac Elite what cards would work best, and apparently, this was a well-recommended card, as it can be flashed just fine as well as run at XT clock speed, and it is much quieter than some other cards when clocked to XT speeds.

One question about the pin taping: Can a tiny bit of superglue suffice? The bottles I have come with tiny brushes that should make it easy to spread only over the said pins, but I don't know if that's gonna wreak havoc in the AGP slot. If it's possible, it beats having to cut tape to a precise shape :p
 
I got it a few days ago, and I've been trying to flash it. Sadly, any motherboard with an AGP slot I try seems to have some sort of issue with ATiFLASH, as I keep on getting "Adapter not found" errors. Kind of frustrating! Is there a way I can flash it in a Mac, while booting with a Rage 128 PCI card?
 
It's being fed power by the PSU via Molex. I'm using it, so it wouldn't display anything if it didn't get power. I didn't read that you can't use it while flashing, am I wrong in that assumption?
 
Someone said that ATi cards can be flashed inside of a PPC Mac, if one boots on a PCI card, like a Rage128. I can't remember who said that though. If anyone knows if this is correct, and how it can be done, I'd love to hear about it. I still have a functioning Rage128 from a dead B&W G3.
 
I have had a lot of luck flashing ATI cards directly in PPC Macs.

I think the key to doing it successfully is to use Tiger or below and boot in safe mode. This combination has worked for me in the past.

I will add, though, that I've only ever flashed cards in a G5, but see no reason why an MDD wouldn't work provided that you correctly tape/disable the appropriate pins.

And, yes, use a PCI card in one of the other slots to see what you're doing!
 
Do you have any kind of guide on how to do that? The Mac Elite only describes how to do it with a DOS bootdisk which for me has been unsuccessful.
 
Thanks! I'll tape off the contacts and flash it, I want to make sure it flashes correctly before taking the iron and removing the resistors (it's just a bit neater and less prone to failure).
 
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