Nvidia Quadro FX 5600 EFI ROM Upgrade

[zebity]

Sorry...

cmhaas,

sorry ... but there is no ROM for older mac pros.

Early 2008 model details:

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name:	Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:	MacPro3,1
  Processor Name:	Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:	3.2 GHz
  Number Of Processors:	2
  Total Number Of Cores:	8
  L2 Cache (per processor):	12 MB
  Memory:	16 GB
  Bus Speed:	1.6 GHz
  Boot ROM Version:	MP31.006C.B05
  SMC Version:	1.25f4
  Serial Number:	G88213E2XYL

The reason for this incompatibility to my knowledge is because Early 2008 model uses 64 bit EFI ROM and prior have 32 bit EFI ROM.

I think that there is a FX 4500 board which runs on early Intel Mac Pro.
But I do not have one of these so cannot get a ROM extract.

There is reasonable demand for Mac'ed FX 5600 on ebay, so if you purchased board especially for Mac, then you should be able to at least recoup your purchase price.

Anyhow here is "About this Mac" image for flashed FX 5600 working...

Cheers,

Zebity.
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mini Mac)

 

[amirulhs]

Latest Model?

Hi zebity..

Does this means that this wont work with the latest Mac Pro model?

 

[nanofrog]

Hi zebity..

Does this means that this wont work with the latest Mac Pro model?

The details are in zebity's post. So the current Mac Pro can use a flashed 5600.

It's the older models that can't, as they need a 32 bit ROM.

 

[amirulhs]

How To?

Thats nice to know

Could some of u guys provide a step by step on how to flash the rom? Please?

 

[nanofrog]

Thats nice to know

Could some of u guys provide a step by step on how to flash the rom? Please?

Check out this post.

Also, if you need more information, search "nvflash". Should be quite a bit.

Good Luck!

 

[amirulhs]

Apple Logo

Thanks Nano

Just curious.. If i managed to get it to work in the new Mac Pro, does it displays the apple logo when booting? Or it wont show at all?

 

[amirulhs]

Step By step

zebity could u please provide the step by step of the command that u typed at the command prompt after booting from the floppy?
Im confused with all the 4 - 5 numbers. What to type first?

 

[formal]

Has anyone tried a FX 4600? ( I have one !) 768MB Ram

 

[nanofrog]

Thanks Nano

Just curious.. If i managed to get it to work in the new Mac Pro, does it displays the apple logo when booting? Or it wont show at all?

As it's the same firmware used by Apple (once flash is complete), it should behave the same as a card bought as a BTO option.

Has anyone tried a FX 4600? ( I have one !) 768MB Ram

I don't know if the 4600's ROM has been extracted, as searching the forum doesn't produce a file or link.

 

[noushy]

So is it working?

Zebity, did you finally flash your fx5600 to work on your mac pro? Do you have the apple nvidia fx5600 firmware then that I see posted earlier? If you need one copied, I can probably pull the card and do it for you as well. You are correct in that newer cards are efi 64 bit, and thus they do not work on the 667 bus mac pro machines that were efi 32 bit. Not sure why apple did this, but apple did change the chipset to the newer 5400X which supports the 1600fsb chips vs. the older 5000P which only supports 1333 or 1066. I would be more interested in someone flashing a newer 260 or 280 to work on the mac. The upgraded quadro card fx5800 is based on a 280 card, much faster, 4gb of ram, crazy and only about $300-$500 more (a new fx5600 lists around $2700, fx5800 goes for around $3000-$3400). Anyways, back to the reality of a great modern machine with 1-2 year old video cards.

Peace,
Noushy

 

[Arbol]

Thanks Zebity

Thank you so much Zebity
Works well!

 

[zebity]

No Problems...

Arpol,

No problems, glad to be of service..

Glad you managed to follow instructions

I would expect that FX 5800 will eventually make its way into Mac Pro and if so I hope it take a little bit less effort than getting FX 5600 up and running ...

With Adobe now having accelerators for Nvidia CUDA built into CS 4 we might start to get some advantages performance wise from large RAM on Quadro cards.

Cheers,

Zebity.
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mini Mac)

 

[RKeyes]

MAC FX 5600 vs. PC

So, I have this Quadro FX 5600 for a PC. Works well enough, but is way beyond my needs and I could use the cash for something more appropriate, like my college tuition. I've decided to sell it and I've been looking around and notice that the Mac versions fetch a lot more than the PC versions...or so it seems. I'd like to be able to sell it as being "for MAC, PC, or LINUX", but don't know if everything will still work on the PC if I do the flash upgrade people have been talking about here. Also, unfortunately for me, I don't have any Intel CPU mac just the old powerpc G4, so I'd have to be doing the flash from a PC/Linux environment. Any ideas on this? Also, where do I get the image for MacOS I need to flash onto the card? If someone wants to mail it to me, I've set my preferences here to allow mail to be sent from other users.

 

[iDrunk]

Sorry...but I Would Like To Know....

I´M BUYING AT THE NVIDIA STORE AN NVIDIA QUADRO FX 5600 WITH 1.5GB, AND I HAVE A NEW * MA970LZ/A Mac Pro (Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon/2 GB 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM) BUT IN THE NVIDIA WEBPAGE THERE´S NOTHING ABOUT THE COMPATIBILITY...COULD YOU HELP ME???

 

[zebity]

Wasting your money ...

iDrunk,

sorry to say that you would be wasting your money on Quadro FX 5600 if you have a dual core Mac Pro (ie 2 cores x 2 processors = 4 Cores total).

The card will not work in this machine and there is no bios available for this card to work on older Mac Pro.

You have to have a quad core Mac Pro (4 x 2 = 8 Cores Total).

Cheers,

Zebity.
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mini Mac)

 

[BrandonG777]

Nvidia FX 4500 Mac Intel ROM

Can anyone dump the ROM from an Nvidia FX 4500 Intel Mac for me? I have a PowerPC version I'm trying to put into a newer Intel Mac Pro.

 

[MacVidCards]

Available for download already:

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/

 

[BrandonG777]

Thank you

Available for download already:

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/

Thank you. I was Googling like a MOFO yesterday but couldn't come up with anything.

 

[iRich]

here is the ROM... happy flashing, let me know if you any problems, as I zipped the file on a mac and not sure if file come across ok...

GREEEAAAT!!!! Thank you very much zebity! Everything went fine. Works perfect! You saved me (and I assume not just for me) a lots of headache!

Thanks again!


iRich

 

[amirulhs]

Default driver

Hi guys.. could someone help me by sharing the default apple nvidia driver?
I mean the one from the leopard installer dvd?
Thanks..

 

[jeffherzog]

dual boot quadro card?

Hi there,

I need a quadro graphics card to put in a mac pro so that it will run OS X but also boot under linux and windows. The programs I need to develop with (Autodesk Smoke and Assimilate Scratch) require high end quadro cards, so I am thinking of going with the 5600. You say that it is possible to have both BIOS and EFI flashed onto the card at the same time-- is this really possible? Do you have to begin with a PC card or a mac card or can you get to this state by starting with either one? I was looking at buying a card on ebay that said it was pulled out of a mac pro and wondering whether it would boot to linux/windows. I have an Early 2008 8 core mac pro.

cmhaas,

firstly the rom/card only works in Mac Pro (early 2008) machine.
Secondly have you added and plugged in auxiliary power cables on Mac?
You need two of these. They are available from "we love macs" web site...

Let me know how you go. I am using flashed card on my mac with no problems...
Oh and the flashed card will still work in PC as it has both BIOS and EFI software.

Cheer,

Zebity.
(MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mini Mac)

 

[sinistrum]

No success…

I have a problem, please help me!

I followed the instructions in the forum and flush the fx5600 with nvflush. Everything seemed fine except when I installed the card into the mac pro it started buzzing immediately after I powered it. It's a really loud buzz. I know, I need two cables… which I connected in every way possible but the card just keeps buzzing. The buzz is supposed to be a sign of low power supply

http://www3.pny.com/QuadroPDFs/5600PowerRequirements.pdf

but I AM connecting both PCIe power supply cables. Is it buzzing because it doesn't recognize the machine? The flush didn't work properly? Any suggestions? Anyone? I can hear the mac os x starting up but obviously there is no signal on the display.

I think basically I have the same problem as this one here
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8531569

My machine IS 8 core but its not the 3.0GHz model but a 2.8GHz model. I wonder maybe if these earlier 8 core machines are not compatible, and they are 32 bit? How can I check that?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please!!

 

[pastrychef]

To those who have successfully done the flash, would you please post the make and model of the cards you used? Thanks in advance.

 

[zebity]

Read the posts...

pastry, please just read the posts... it provides the complete details of what both PC (Bios) and Mac (Bios/EFI) FX 5600 cards report as.

jeffherzog, sorry I cannot advise. Make sure you only have single graphics card and that both power cables are plugged in. My mac is 3.2 GHZ model, so i have no experience with 2.8 GHZ version. You need to purchase second power cable and make sure it is plugged into system board. I had to pull out the fan module to get access to connector on system board.

Others.... use PC to flash and view bios only. Check that flash reports as per my post as Bios/EFI. If so your card is the same as Apple one. It will then work on early 2008 Mac Pro. It will display standard mac logo on boot. It is compatible with bootcamp. It will continue to work an a standard PC (non-mac) as well.

Cheers and signing off this board until FX 5800 appears.

Zebity
(Mac Pro, Mini Mac, MacBook Pro)

 

[bigtom118]

Fx5600 Efi Rom

Zebity,

Have you updated the EFI rom to the latest version?
You posted 3195. I understand that 3221 is available.