Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

8800gt EFI64 ROM

vortigern said:
Thanks for the thread guys, great work.

But I've registered to relay some bad news. I have an inno3D GREEN PCB 8800GT dated 49/2007 part number i-8800GT-H5GTCDS.

When I run nvflash --check it lists

eeprom id (1f ,65) : Atmel at25512a 2.7-3.6v 64kx8s, page

So a green PCB would appear to be no guarantee.


EDIT:
Click to expand...

NO GO with your CARD ! cause of the 64k Flash Chip !

you need to get a 2007 GREEN Nvidia Reference PCB Layout !
:(
 
antsh said:
Though I am not using my 8800GT for a Mac Pro, I though it might be of some use to you guys to know that the XFX 8800GT Alpha Dog Edition in my PC does in fact have a 1024 chip. I just got done flashing faster clocks and a different fan setting onto it for my PC, and it reported the chip as 1x1024. The model number of my card is PVT88PYDD4.
Click to expand...

Hello antsh,
quick question to you. Can you tell me/us when did you buy the above mentioned XFX card and what is the color of it? I bought a card of the same part number just now but had no chance to test flashing it (maybe later in the evening). I am not too optimistic since the color of my card is blue. My card was manufactured 11/07.
Thanks for help!
 
smgfreak said:
If you get the OLDER one with the Green PCP ! YES ! but Online they always put up Old Pictures and when you get it by mail , you get the NEW ONE BLUE 64k PCB !

the Best thing ist to Buy in STORE so you can Check the EEPROM yourself !
Click to expand...

smgfreak, I think you have miss read my earlier post, getting a green PCB does NOT guarantee that it will work. I have a 2007 GREEN PCB and it has a 64k ROM.
 
smgfreak said:
If you get the OLDER one with the Green PCP ! YES ! but Online they always put up Old Pictures and when you get it by mail , you get the NEW ONE BLUE 64k PCB !

the Best thing ist to Buy in STORE so you can Check the EEPROM yourself !
Click to expand...

I am not too convinced that the whole story is as simple as: old->green->good and new->blue->bad. I guess we need more success- as well as unsuccess-stories to get a clue.
Does anybody know when the first 8800GTs with G92 were produced? I think it was in late 2007 (November?). My XFX GT8800 is November 2007 and already doesn't have the green color anymore (although it has a green board on most pics online). Might be hard to find true "old" cards in shops (yes, they mostly have old pics on the webpage though) - maybe ebay is a better source, especially since it might be easier to get details before you buy.
Please continue to post your experiences!
 
vortigern said:
smgfreak, I think you have miss read my earlier post, getting a green PCB does NOT guarantee that it will work. I have a 2007 GREEN PCB and it has a 64k ROM.
Click to expand...

GREEN NVIDIA Reference BOARD Layout 100% 128K Chip!

of course there are Green PCB´s on the market, Just Look at the Fotos from MRCANDY page 4 ..

you could make a Foto of your card and post it here.
 
smgfreak said:
GREEN NVIDIA Reference BOARD Layout 100% 128K Chip!

of course there are Green PCB´s on the market, Just Look at the Fotos from MRCANDY page 4 ..

you could make a Foto of your card and post it here.
Click to expand...


In which case your answer to erteclas is wrong, you told him that if he gets a green one "yes" , whereas the answer is "Maybe"

For ref my PCB layout is identical to mrcandy's even down to the writing on the board as far as I can see, however some of the components are slightly different, obviously.

All this means is that the PCB colour was not changed at the same time as the chips.

Ironically if you look at the image in your inquirer link then mine is more similar to it than mrcandys. If you look at the largish chip labeled "1RO" on this image, (lower edge right hand side) and compare it to the inquirers ref board, mrcandys is different, mine is as the inquirers ref board and I think this may be the ROM chip.

So if the inqs is a ref board mrcandy's is not as they are different, or more likely there is more than one ref board, same pcb layout but with slightly different chips, one of which is the ROM.

EDIT: the inq notes that virtually all boards are made by foxconn or flextronics, so this could be the difference.Get a foxcon one 128k get aflextronics one 64k?
 
EEPROM soldering?

Anybody here in the forum has experience with EEPROM soldering?

I could imagine that for people with a little bit of "mechanical skills" this might be a good alternative to hunting for the right card?! This way a lot of people could use just the card they desire or already have in hand, right?
Somebody can tell the exact location of the EEPROM and knows where to get the required spare part? I would give it a try though my experience with the soldering iron is limited.
Thank you for any help!
 
I've RMA'd my card and got myself a BFG 8800GT OC 512... and nearly flung it against the wall when I saw it had a black PCB. But I tried to flash it anyway and, lo and behold, it has a 128K EEPROM ! So, two new datapoints :

Gainward 8800GT 1G (red PCB) -> Nope
BFG 8800GT OC 512MB (black PCB) -> OK

The BFG card's P/N is BFGR88512GTOCE.

And now, a question for pipomolo42 : it's probably possible to replace the BIOS part of the Apple card's ROM by whatever ROM the card previously had in order to conserve factory overclocks and TV I/O capabilities in BootCamp, right? Is it as simple as cat'ing the two together ? If not, would it be possible to write an utility to turn a BIOS ROM into an hybrid one?

AG
 
AGDenton said:
I've RMA'd my card and got myself a BFG 8800GT OC 512... and nearly flung it against the wall when I saw it had a black PCB. But I tried to flash it anyway and, lo and behold, it has a 128K EEPROM ! So, two new datapoints :

Gainward 8800GT 1G (red PCB) -> Nope
BFG 8800GT OC 512MB (black PCB) -> OK

The BFG card's P/N is BFGR88512GTOCE.
Click to expand...

Just opened it up to confirm and my PNY card does have a green PCB, but I agree with other posters that while this might be a indication of success, it is far from a guarantee and you shouldn't base a purchasing decision on solely the color of the PCB.
 
millisecond said:
Just opened it up to confirm and my PNY card does have a green PCB, but I agree with other posters that while this might be a indication of success, it is far from a guarantee and you shouldn't base a purchasing decision on solely the color of the PCB.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the only way to be sure without putting the card in a PC is to take the cooler off the card to have a look at the EEPROM, just besides the core (cf. post 108). The P/N number itself may be too imprecise in some cases (BFG has apparently branded different PCBs under the same P/N). So I guess looking for the right card will remain guesswork for the time being...

AG
 
Ok so if you do have the 128krom version and want to flash it, do you need a pc with a pcie? Or can you use the mac pro via bootcamp???
 
Okay, I can confirm that XFX 8800GT alphadog edition part PV-T88P-YDDA has working 128k eeprom - although PCB is black!
 
jjahshik32 said:
Ok so if you do have the 128krom version and want to flash it, do you need a pc with a pcie? Or can you use the mac pro via bootcamp???
Click to expand...

I used the Nvflash tool from a FreeDOS boot CD on a Mac Pro with a boot camp directory {drive C:} where I copied my own MP_ROM.ROM, and also stored the nvflash tool at it's root directory.

In other words I didn't use a PC.
 
All right, if I've read this correctly, then some of the people in this thread have successfully flashed a few PC 8800 GT cards to be recognized in OS X.

What we now need is:

1. A list of supported (128k ROM) 8800 GT (and where to find them?)
2. A (MacRumors) Guide on how to do the flashing
3. What/where to find any additional hardware needed to run the card (I was reading about specialized molex connectors?)
 
SuperGrobi said:
Anybody here in the forum has experience with EEPROM soldering?

I could imagine that for people with a little bit of "mechanical skills" this might be a good alternative to hunting for the right card?! This way a lot of people could use just the card they desire or already have in hand, right?
Somebody can tell the exact location of the EEPROM and knows where to get the required spare part? I would give it a try though my experience with the soldering iron is limited.
Thank you for any help!
Click to expand...

I did this when I flashed a Radeon 9800 Pro for my Sawtooth. I desoldered the original EEPROM and soldered a 128K ROM chip from another, older card instead. I used a normal soldering iron, very few tin and a bit of patience, but it worked!
 
It makes no sense to Solder a 128k Chip on to a NEW CARD for around 220-300 $ . it is to dangerous .

i mean a 9800pro is 25-35$ no big deal if it is broken after it .

if someone has a 8800GT with 64k chip, just sell it on eBay and buy a new one. my friends are going to to that right now.
 
Sorry for the long response time SuperGrobi, I was busy with biochem research all day. I bought this card literally the week they came out, 10/30/07 to be exact. It has a green PCB, and since its the older model it has the smaller fan. Let me know if I could be of any more help.
 
k

hi guys


congrats on your successes however i just want to ask seen as im ordering a mac pro soon with a 8800gt mac card , whats the performance differences between the pc and mac versions of the 8800's ??

any help before i decide to lay some dough down ?
 
Gokhan said:
hi guys


congrats on your successes however i just want to ask seen as im ordering a mac pro soon with a 8800gt mac card , whats the performance differences between the pc and mac versions of the 8800's ??

any help before i decide to lay some dough down ?
Click to expand...

it is simple ! if you buy a PC 8800GT wih the right PCB, you can Flash it and it is the same as Apple uses ! BUT !! if you buy a PC 8800GT lets say a OVECLOCKED Version ! you can then overclock it back under bootcamp !
so you have in MAC OS X the Standard Clock, and in bootcamp you overcklock the GPU and RAM etc, it is only useful if you play games or encode HD Movies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back