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Release: ATI Flashing Tool

wescravn said:
Cindori,

I guess i'm a first then. Check the image below.

...

I read what you said was supported and not but wasn't going to let that stop me. Only problem is on boot, you have to move to nvidia, and then move the cable back to ati, but ati works for me as you can see on VGA, and stable.
Click to expand...

VGA working? That's great news! Hopefully it will stay stable. Do you plan on trying it in slot 0 again?

I'm currently using an HDFury converter to go from my 4870 ZHFC's DVI w/HDCP to VGA, but can't get 1920x1200 working (1920x1080 is the highest I can get it to go). I need VGA because my HDMI connector on my Westinghouse 24" MVA panel drops out on occasion, but I can use DVI/HDMI for boot purposes if needs be.

I may have to upgrade my 4870 to one of these if this works out for you in the long run. I really would like for it to boot in Slot 0 (either off of DVI or VGA) without any problems though.
 
Gelid,

I guess i'm going to have to try again sometime soon. I see from the expansion slot utility that the graphics card is running at x1 (not good) and that would explain low opencl frame rates (13-15 fps).

However when i moved to slot 1 the system was unstable and crashed. My first test however will be to change to Two X8 Lane + Two x4 Lane Slots and see how that works, and if the system doesn't crash, etc.

I'm not sure why all ports can't just be x16, however trying one of the other configs may work. If so that will boost the graphics performance of the card in slot 2. I will then try at some point if all goes well with expansion slot utility to try in slot 1 and see if computer does not crash in sl.😉
 
Ok, kinda odd question, so bear with me.

I bought an ATI XFX Radeon HD 4870 from Newegg some time ago with the intentions of flashing it for my Macpro 1,1. I had heard that this model was going out of production so I bought it with the intentions of flashing it later.

I finally got around to it like 4 months later 🙂.

I followed directions on a site for flashing that exact same model of card. I flashed it on my Windows box using a boot CD and the ATIFLasher program.

I flashed it and installed it in the Macpro and everything seems to be working fine.

My question is - do I need to do anything else? Should I be installing drivers or k-exts or anything exotic like that, or am I good to go? Like I said, it all seems to be running hunky-dorey, but I figured I'd check with you experts to make sure 🙂.
 
Here's results for anyone interested. I moved the card to slot 1 (ati radeon 4890) and moved nvidia 7300gt (slot 3). I changed in expansion utility 4890 to x16. I ran opencl frame rates and got 75 fps, much improvement over 13-14 fps on x1, and cinebench r10, results ~1:30 with multiple cores (4) and 4.5 single core. This is all on non-overclocked rom.

My system did lock up while running opencl tests for extended period 10 minutes, not sure why, however system seems ok, so far. I will monitor. Radeon 4890 might be more than this old mac pro (1,1) can handle, however general display is fine. This time i booted up off vga and didn't switch connectors, and i got half a screen until osx was booted, nevertheless it worked on vga. mileage may vary, but I don't use overextended amounts of times usually.
 
Work with Other Cards?

Hello,
I Have a PowerMac G5 DP2.0GHZ and i need a video card for it, so i got an ATI HD2600XT that is AGP8x and my question is can i use this flash tool to inject the Mac Rom into this card, or will this tool only work for the 4890? Also can this card even be flashed from a PC version to a Mac version. any help would be greatly appreciated. Or can i stick the Card into my PC and use the onboard on there and then flash the card on there to Mac, B/c my main problem is that i do not have any Video cards or onboard on teh mac that would allow me to see what i am booting...
Thanks soo much

Dakota
 
The HD2600 XT is not compatible with your Power Mac. As far as I know Cindori's tool only works (currently, anyway) for 4870s and 4890s. I don't recall off the top of my head what works with your machine, but nothing recent. Not even close. You could use the card in your PC but there'd be no way for you to flash it.
 
charlyp,
thanks for the reply,
got ya, so i need a Video card for my machine and i should look for one that was made for my machine, right? or are there any cards that i can flash for my machine. or am i better off just buying one made for it...
thanks soo much!

Dakota
 
Hey, everyone.

I've got an XFX 4870-ZWFC, that after reflashing with this great tool, it appears to work with a few catches. I have two monitors, and older 30" and a newer 30" that supports HDCP.

#1 If the new monitor is connected while powering up, I get the message "This content cannot be displayed at this resolution. Lower your resolution to 1920x1200 to view this content." If it's unplugged until after it boots up, it works fine.

#2 Either monitor plugged in by itself works fine, but if I have both plugged in at once, one of them is limited to 1280x800 instead of 2560x1600. The same card in Windows worked fine with both. (Tested everything in Windows before reflashing)

I'm also getting the power cable warning on boot, but I don't mind skipping past that.

Anyone have any ideas for either of these?
 
bobdunk said:
Hey, everyone.

I've got an XFX 4870-ZWFC, that after reflashing with this great tool, it appears to work with a few catches. I have two monitors, and older 30" and a newer 30" that supports HDCP.

#1 If the new monitor is connected while powering up, I get the message "This content cannot be displayed at this resolution. Lower your resolution to 1920x1200 to view this content." If it's unplugged until after it boots up, it works fine.

#2 Either monitor plugged in by itself works fine, but if I have both plugged in at once, one of them is limited to 1280x800 instead of 2560x1600. The same card in Windows worked fine with both. (Tested everything in Windows before reflashing)

I'm also getting the power cable warning on boot, but I don't mind skipping past that.

Anyone have any ideas for either of these?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about point number 1 but point number 2 is a known issue with all flashed 4870s. No flashed 4870 has two working dual link DVI ports in OS X. There is no work around as yet and probably won't ever be. Chances are that this is because Apple's 4870 only has one Dual-link DVI port while the other is a display port connector.

The only thing I can suggest is to buy a second identical card and flash it too so as to have one card dedicated to each display. I ran two flashed 4870s in my Mac Pro for ages for crossfire use in Windows. You'll need to get a pair of 6pin PCIe y splitter cables though.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
I'm not sure about point number 1 but point number 2 is a known issue with all flashed 4870s. No flashed 4870 has two working dual link DVI ports in OS X. There is no work around as yet and probably won't ever be. Chances are that this is because Apple's 4870 only has one Dual-link DVI port while the other is a display port connector.

The only thing I can suggest is to buy a second identical card and flash it too so as to have one card dedicated to each display. I ran two flashed 4870s in my Mac Pro for ages for crossfire use in Windows. You'll need to get a pair of 6pin PCIe y splitter cables though.
Click to expand...

About 2 minutes after making that post, I saw another thread about the single link problem. Very frustrating, but I guess I should have read up on this more before buying. This is on a MacPro1,1, so my options would be running one at x16 and the other at x4, or both at x8. Not really what I wanted to do either, but I'm wondering if I'd notice x8 or not.

As for the first message, I'm kinda stumped. It's the monitor displaying it, not the computer. The title of the window says "Protected Content" so I think something is triggering HDCP momentarily on boot. Not a huge deal, but unplugging the DVI cable every time I boot up is going to get old. 🙂
 
bobdunk said:
About 2 minutes after making that post, I saw another thread about the single link problem. Very frustrating, but I guess I should have read up on this more before buying. This is on a MacPro1,1, so my options would be running one at x16 and the other at x4, or both at x8. Not really what I wanted to do either, but I'm wondering if I'd notice x8 or not.

As for the first message, I'm kinda stumped. It's the monitor displaying it, not the computer. The title of the window says "Protected Content" so I think something is triggering HDCP momentarily on boot. Not a huge deal, but unplugging the DVI cable every time I boot up is going to get old. 🙂
Click to expand...

Mine was a 2006 Mac Pro. I ran both of them at x8 and never noticed any issues. In fact the only program benchmarked where it actually makes a real world noticeable difference is Mudbox.
 
JimNoble said:
Has anyone tried a "Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 Vapor X PCI-Express Graphics Card" with SKU "11133-16-20R" using this tool?
Click to expand...

Well, I didn't manage to confirm whether those cards would flash ok, and now they've sold out 🙁

However, I just noticed that http://www.videocardshop.co.uk has some XFX HD-487A-ZDFC in stock! (20 of them, when I looked (*))

So I've ordered one of them and a pair of cables off ebay 😀

(*) Now 19 😀

Jim
 
Those of you with the a XFX HD-489X-ZSFC have you had any issues or power cable messages?
 
I found someone locally that has a v1.6, but he is looking for a little too much for it. He is wanting to trade it for a 270 or 280 for it. I offered him cash for it, but he wasn't interested. I am torn how much better the 285 is then a 4890 too. They are sure a lot more expensive.
 
Just wanted to thank cindori for his brilliant work, my flash was successful and incredibly easy thanks to you.

Cheers!!
 
dsiew81 said:
Awesome. Another success story, awaiting my own Sapphire NE to test.

What revision/version is your ZDFC?
Click to expand...

Rev A.1

No power cable warning, the dvi nearest the motherboard is running dual link to a 30" Dell, the other is running single link, but the ATI 2600XT showed the grey boot screen on the 30", the 4870 will only show it on the Single link output. Still not v important and small bother for a huge increase in performance. Was so sick of running out of gpu acceleration in photoshop after opening 4 documents! Can manage 16 now 🙂

PS The clock speeds of my card seem higher than reference, at 775mhz/950mhz (not in windows right now but I think thats what they were. These seem to be XFX 4870 XXX edition kinds of speeds? Or is there a slight overclock in the modified rom?
 
ZWFL Issues (or I think this is the case)

1st, excuse me if this was explained and I just missed it.

I am attempting to help a friend repair a card that I believe is the ZWFL card. I know my buddy purchased the XFX 4870 1gb model and using a PC attempted to flash it to work in a Mac 3,1.

Now when I try to boot the card, it gives the red screen in the PC that the power is not hooked up correctly to the card, it wont post bios. I think he used the wrong "efi firmware". When the card is moved to a Mac, it gives the power message, but when you click okay, the screen is all blocky and wont display.

I now want to simply return it to stock, but he didnt save the original rom. Even if I could get a macpro efi flash onto it, the card is for his father, and the power message is not acceptable to them. I told them okay, they will need to buy a real mac 4870, and they are okay with that. Now they just want to return the card to orignal so that it can be used in a pc.

So to recap, no original ZWFL rom was saved, the incorrect XFX EFI 4870 was flashed to card, leaving it in a state that when booting in a PC, it gives the RED "Power is not hooked up correctly" screen and wont allow machine to move past it. Testing in a MAC card boots, but gives the power warning, but unlike everyone else that can hit okay and just deal with message, this card doesnt just move along when clicking okay, it pixelates and stays in 1024x768 and is all jacked up.

I believe that if I used the original bin from the ROM zip that is in the 4870 > XFX ZWFL & ZWFC (original.bin 128k) that card will be returned to a working PC bios 4870 version.

Can someone confirm that this method is correct.

(I assume that if this is correct, that one could also used the mac modified rom in the same folder and get a working EFI card, which will give the missing power cable warning, but can be clicked on okay, and then the card will actually work in the mac pro?).

ALso, does one just rename the original.bin to original.rom if using the atiflash -p 0 (rom name) -f method to flash roms to card?

Thanks in advance for your assistance and understanding.

SD
 
another question re: EFI and BIOS Roms

I was able to use one of the provided original.rom's and fix the card mentioned previously to work on the PC. Now it boots and works, and it also works in a osX86 box without having to do anything to it.

I decided since I now have the working original, I could attempt to use the mac version of the ROM. Of course, I'm flashing cards in a PC. Using atiflash within freedos off ubcd. When I apply the MAC version of the ROM. The card is all scrambled when the PC reboots. I have done the 8800GT before, and after this card was done, the card worked still in both the MAC and the PC. Is this the case with the 4870? Or, once its flashed to Mac EFI, will it no longer work in a PC? I ask because I dont have the Mac Pro at my disposal, otherwise, I would just flash the card and then put it in the MacPro3,1.

One other question, is this ATIFlasher program written by the thread starter known to work under OSx86, I tried it and got applescript errors seconds after pushing "Flash".

Thanks for the rom's, saved my buddies rear, thats for sure.

-SD
 
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