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Problem with flashed GeForce 6200 in Cube

siddhartha

siddhartha

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 8, 2008
161
44
Northern Virgina
Hi all,

I have a strange issue here. I purchased a flashed GeForce 6200 on eBay, and it arrived. Pins are properly taped, and it WILL boot in to OS 9.2, but with only one resolution option, and only 256 color option. It will NOT boot in to OSx Tiger (14.11) at all. It will show the apple logo, then the grey "you have to reboot" screen. If I try safe mode, it will have the grey apple logo, and spinner, and will go for about a minute or so, then freeze.
Not sure what to do-this machine works great with the stock video card, but I wanted to do this upgrade. Is there a kext that needs to be altered, or something else?
Thanks in advance!
Chris
 
siddhartha said:
Is there a kext that needs to be altered, or something else?
Click to expand...
Hi, I've flashed my XFX PVT44AWANG with the specific version for the cube (http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2) in latter 2019 after trying so many times until it was all right with no errors. So after that was the tape the pins properly (without that no picture at all). But kext I will be sincere that I don't know if 10.4 has support for this card since I only use 10.5.8 Leopard with this machine and maybe in the holidays I'll get some time to try Void Linux with some hope that Nouveau drivers work.
 
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dextructor said:
Hi, I've flashed my XFX PVT44AWANG with the specific version for the cube (http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2) in latter 2019 after trying so many times until it was all right with no errors. So after that was the tape the pins properly (without that no picture at all). But kext I will be sincere that I don't know if 10.4 has support for this card since I only use 10.5.8 Leopard with this machine and maybe in the holidays I'll get some time to try Void Linux with some hope that Nouveau drivers work.
Click to expand...
Thank you!
Did you ever have a sequence like I am describing? I am interested to see if I need to re-flash. I got this card pre-flashed because I don't have access to a PC with AGP slot, and my alligator clip CH314 didn't seem to work to flash a different GeForce 6200
 
siddhartha said:
Did you ever have a sequence like I am describing?
Click to expand...
I don't have OS9 and I don't think that 6200 was supported in OS9 at all, it was an much older GeForce (4MX but the best was 4Ti) and I don't have the DVD working so well to test an Tiger install to help you further. If I'm not mistaken the Cube won't boot with an non-flashed card. There's some chance of "semi-flashed"? Could but I really doubt it. You could flash it in OSX with vnc but I never tried and here have some much more knowledge and experienced members to help you through this process. I think that's worth a shot to try install Leopard to see if it boot's correctly at least.
 
I think the issue has been an inadequate flash. I tried to re-flash, and got garbled video, so am waiting on a new CH341a to re-do it. I have a couple of cards to try, and see. One, another GeForce 6200, I just noticed has swollen caps, so probably won't try to use it (or replace the caps-we shall see). I may end up just getting an Apple AGP card, and settle on that.
 
CubeHacker said:
I am 99% sure that 10.4 is supported with the 6200. It definitely runs under leopard.
Click to expand...
From your username, I am assuming you know far, far more than I do about this stuff. Thanks for the comment. I'd love to get this all working. I am up to 3 Cubes, wishing to keep one stock, but the other two? I have CPU upgrades, but would love to get better video on them, so they're usable for Leopard, if not more usable with Tiger
 
siddhartha said:
I think the issue has been an inadequate flash. I tried to re-flash, and got garbled video, so am waiting on a new CH341a to re-do it. I have a couple of cards to try, and see. One, another GeForce 6200, I just noticed has swollen caps, so probably won't try to use it (or replace the caps-we shall see). I may end up just getting an Apple AGP card, and settle on that.
Click to expand...
I was very late to the Mac modding myself. When I couyld buy an Geforce 6200 with much more available options than it is today. When I started to search for 6200 to flash myself the first two wasn't working well enough with stock BIOS in a PC ( I bought an old AMD64 just for flashing). After stress test and some games both was garbled and texture errors. I returned both and only with the third that was flawless and the flashing wasn't well documented that I spent more time that initially planed but now it just works. SO be sure that your 6200 it's ok because today to find this cards 100% and latter on the future just with some collectors.
 
siddhartha said:
From your username, I am assuming you know far, far more than I do about this stuff. Thanks for the comment. I'd love to get this all working. I am up to 3 Cubes, wishing to keep one stock, but the other two? I have CPU upgrades, but would love to get better video on them, so they're usable for Leopard, if not more usable with Tiger
Click to expand...
Yes, I have a heavily modded cube sitting right next to me. Unfortunately, it doesn't get my use these days as I no longer have a display hooked up to it, and its use as a daily driver is becoming less and less.

I bought it back in 2004 for $200 with a display, and proceeded to upgrade as much as I could over the next 5 years. It was a system that was on 24/7, and ran for years as my torrent box, and never skipped a beat. It has a 6200 inside which runs surprisingly well.
 
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I now have 3 Cubes, in various states of repair/upgrade:
One with a NewerTech 1.6GHz CPU card (working on a system to use original heatsink) with 1.5GB RAM, and an upgraded Apple vid card (I have not had luck with flashing at all!), Cooling fan
One stock, which will get a Sonnet 1.4GHz upgrade card, and an SSD upgrade, then perhaps vid card. Cooling fan.
One that suddenly shows no video, despite powering on, switched out video card/VRM. I suspect it is something like the CPU card becoming unseated, and needs investigation. Will get Sonnet 1.4GHz card as well, and upgraded vid card, has upgraded HD. Cooling fan.
I'd like them all to be upgraded, but not huge variations from stock, i.e., no big cutting of case/backplate/heatsinks, but we will see. I just got a replacement outer shell for the one with a cracked case. All the way from Japan!
 
Hi,

I actually got in a search through jauce.com. It's a site that allows US/foreign customers to purchase/bid on Japanese auction sites. I was not looking for an outer case, but one came up, and I put in a reasonable (around 35$) bid, and ended up getting it. It was a bit of a process, as you purchase through the site, it's sent to their warehouse, inspected, packed for international shipping, and then sent to you. So, you end up paying fees, and there's a wait, but I found some items I was looking for that don't show up in other places. I have gotten this outer shell, a Dr. Bott adapter, and a few other things through it. OK place to look for G4 CPU upgrades, as well.
 
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Geforce 6200 is 100% supported in Tiger.
This sounds like there could be something wrong with the installation. Do you have another Tiger installation you can boot from? (Or leopard, as it will work fine on the Cube so long as you have enough ram)

The behavior you describe in OS 9 is expected. Anything newer than the Geforce 4 series doesn’t get acceleration in OS 9.
 
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Project Alice said:
Geforce 6200 is 100% supported in Tiger.
This sounds like there could be something wrong with the installation. Do you have another Tiger installation you can boot from? (Or leopard, as it will work fine on the Cube so long as you have enough ram)

The behavior you describe in OS 9 is expected. Anything newer than the Geforce 4 series doesn’t get acceleration in OS 9.
Click to expand...
Thank you. So, I ended up trying to reflash the card, and now it's not working at all. I get static/grey, small repeated images, etc. So, I put in an ATI 7500 that works.
The other cube I have been working on will NOT show video, and doesn't show up in Target Disk mode. I have no idea why. Worked fine, then one day, no video at all. The red light/green light and power light all come on, but it will not show a thing on the screen. No video output, and I've swapped out cards, even the VRM. Same thing. I am thinking maybe a problem with the logic board.
 
siddhartha said:
Thank you. So, I ended up trying to reflash the card, and now it's not working at all. I get static/grey, small repeated images, etc. So, I put in an ATI 7500 that works.
The other cube I have been working on will NOT show video, and doesn't show up in Target Disk mode. I have no idea why. Worked fine, then one day, no video at all. The red light/green light and power light all come on, but it will not show a thing on the screen. No video output, and I've swapped out cards, even the VRM. Same thing. I am thinking maybe a problem with the logic board.
Click to expand...
Do you have another AGP Mac you can stick the 6200 in to test?
 
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I do, and got the same issue. So, I have flashed a quadro for a 27" 2012 imac, and that has been successful, no issues. I find the flashing process with a CH341a to be inconsistent at best, and usually a huge pain. At this point, I am either interested in a pre-flashed card (again) or a stock Apple card that would work.
For now, I am trying to get a dead Cube revived, as it will not display any video at all, but has the power button lit, red/green LEDs lit, and power is definitely there. Cannot use target disk mode, either
 
siddhartha said:
I do, and got the same issue. So, I have flashed a quadro for a 27" 2012 imac, and that has been successful, no issues. I find the flashing process with a CH341a to be inconsistent at best, and usually a huge pain. At this point, I am either interested in a pre-flashed card (again) or a stock Apple card that would work.
For now, I am trying to get a dead Cube revived, as it will not display any video at all, but has the power button lit, red/green LEDs lit, and power is definitely there. Cannot use target disk mode, either
Click to expand...
I just bought a flashed 6200 from ebay (Hongkong of all places) and it works great in my Cube with Leopard. If you need some help on flashing yourself you might want to watch a Youtube film from Retro Action (
) who had some issues but finally succeeded to get it going.

On your dead Cube, do you hear it trying to access the DVD or harddrive? If not, you might want to swap the VRM card from one of your other Cubes just to make sure.
 
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Wouter3 said:
I just bought a flashed 6200 from ebay (Hongkong of all places) and it works great in my Cube with Leopard. If you need some help on flashing yourself you might want to watch a Youtube film from Retro Action (
) who had some issues but finally succeeded to get it going.

On your dead Cube, do you hear it trying to access the DVD or harddrive? If not, you might want to swap the VRM card from one of your other Cubes just to make sure.
Click to expand...
That was the card I bought, too. I couldn't get it to work in Tiger, never tried Leopard, because I thought it SHOULD work in Tiger. I got the 4-color (or 256?) in Mac OS 9.2, so I tried to reflash that card, and was unsuccessful. I really dislike the CH341a method, but it's what I have without an AGP PC available. I may buy another card from HK to replace it, and keep my clumsy paws off of it.
Re: the "dead" Cube-I did try to swap out the VRM, etc., with no luck. It will NOT show any vid signal, with multiple vid cards, ram swaps, power supplies, VRM, etc. I can only assume the logic board is somehow kaput.
I'll check out that video, as I have a few cards here, and only 1 successful flash thus far. How hard SHOULD it be?

I actually have another Cube on the way, with plans to upgrade the processor (I have 3 Sonnet/Powerlogix CPU upgrades) and the vid card, nothing crazy, but I'd like it to have a reasonable vid board, memory, and speed. I actually love the slot-loading DVD, so I keep that.
 
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