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PC GTX 285 in Mac Pro 2009

D

daffydowden

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I know that others have had success flashing the bios for a PC GTX 285 in their Mac pros, but I read that it requires changing the rom chip for a larger 256kb one to accomodate the EFI rom. This was back in June, and there's now a GTx 295 out too, so I was wondering whether there are any newer PC GTX 285, or even 295, cards on the market which have a larger rom chip onboard, and therefore wouldn't require any soldiering, or whether the method for flashing has changed at all. Anyone know anymore details? 😱

Daf
 
I have flashed like 6 of the GTX285 cards.

They all had either a 64K or a 128K chip on them...ie...they all needed a new chip.

Don't imagine that anyone else has looked. My guess is that there is no reason to have a larger chip, as the PC ROM fits in 64K....the 256K chips are oddball ones, hard to find.

I still do the cards for price of a six of Stella if you bring it to me.

In LA area.

You are probably better off using Netkas "bag'o'tricks" with an Nividia helper card if not.
 
Thanks Rominator,

not too keen on doing any soldering, as I don't have the equipment and haven't done any in a long while. Unfortunately I live in the UK, otherwise your offer for 6 stellas would be a bargain. So unless you do international orders via escrow, or similar, 😉 then I might just have to fork out for the mac card.

Daf
 
What Pro do you have and with which basic card. If you have 8800GT or 120 in an 08 or later Pro Netkas' trick will work fine with a PC 285. Before I got my Mac 285 I had 8800+PC285 just fine.
 
I've got an 09, with the default GT 120 in there. The Netkas trick requires soldiering though doesn't it?
 
The "Netkas Trick" is a little software dongle that utilizes EFI from ANOTHER Nvidia card to get GTX285 going.

So other card needs to be in a 4X or faster slot and BINGO it works.

It even works with GTX295 but I don't think you get the full benefit of the DUal cores.

Nice thing is that the little software piece that does the magic isn't replaced by Apple software on next update. In other words, unlike the 4890, you don't need to update with every update.
 
That sounds good, but just to confirm, this still requires soldiering on the card to replace the rom chip, or do you have to leave the dongle in the machine permanently?
 
I know a company in Germany who do a chip exchange for 30 € and flash the new EEPROM at the same time if you give them the file. If you are interested I will dig out their web site and email. They did a Sapphire 3870 for me with a Mac&Pc ROM which required a bigger ROM chip as well. The job was done very nicely. Unfortunately there were other differences in the hardware which I never found so the Mac side never ran but the PC wasn't a problem. I finally sold it as a PC card with the bigger ROM.
 
that sounds interesting gugucom, how does it work? You send them your purchased PC graphics card and the new rom, and they do the rest and post it back?
 
daffydowden said:
that sounds interesting gugucom, how does it work? You send them your purchased PC graphics card and the new rom, and they do the rest and post it back?
Click to expand...

Actually the cost covered the ROM as well.

http://www.bios-fix.de/catalog/index.php

They did not have exactly the same brand that I initially had selected but they garanteed that it was technically suitable and it worked.

Their email is service@bios-fix.de You may have to mail your request to find out if they do business in the English language, but I'm confident they do.
 
Would I have to send them the firmware I want on the card, or do they deal with everything, and I just send them the card (the specifics of which I've yet to decide on...)

thanks for all the help!
Daf
 
They are flexible for all kinds of deals. At least that was my experience. If you want to flash your card later they will simply put the original ROM file on it if you ask. That way you have a functional card whatever happens.
 
The Rominator said:
It even works with GTX295 but I don't think you get the full benefit of the DUal cores.

Nice thing is that the little software piece that does the magic isn't replaced by Apple software on next update. In other words, unlike the 4890, you don't need to update with every update.
Click to expand...

So is it worth it to try vs. the 285?
 
On the benefit or otherwise of a 295. This seems to load on both Mac and Linux as two separate GPUs. You CAN get the benefit of both GPUs within multi-GPU applications of OpenCL and CUDA, but it is far from clear whether under OS X that games or other graphics will. Likewise with two separate 285s. If anyone has evidence that general OpenCL-ized bits of OS X do get some benefit from multi-GPUs I would be interested to hear this?
 
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