8800gt EFI64 ROM

[diamond.g]

When I tested it playing Crysis in Win XP I still reached 60C GPU temperature easily so I don't plan to do a lot of tuning to get maybe 10% more speed with the risk of damaging the card.

I know this is going to sound outlandish, but the Geforce cards can run pretty reliably up to about 90-100C. At that point they will throttle themselves so you don't burn the card up. With overclocking the card you are far more likely to run out of voltage, thus hitting a clock speed wall, than to overheat the card and have it burn up. Of course I think it may be possible to burn up the memory though, but from experience you will see artifacts and lockups before destroying a card.

Also always test your overclocks in software before modding the firmware, you will save yourself some grief.

 

[inCider]

Still no joy...

My luck is not as good as most of you.

I found two cards with 128K eeproms; an eVGA 512-P3-N801-FR (thats an FR and not an AR) and a XFX PVT88PYDE4. They both flash fine with nvflash -4 -5 -6 image.rom . Thats where things start to go bad for me...

THe eVGA card boots from grey to blue but I am never presented with the login screen. You can hear the computer crunching away, so I dont think its crashed.

The XFX card will boot and let me log in 50% of the time before it 'crashes'. The screen image corrupts (similar to this post:https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4804504/) and the mouse will continue to move, but I can't interact with the desktop (no clicking).

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? I have reflashed a few times and diff'd the rom from subsequent downloads, so I dont think its related to the flash of the cards. I would try a fresh install, but I get the same behavior when booting to the installer dvd.

I would appreciate any insight,
inCider

 

[hadleydb]

My luck is not as good as most of you.

I found two cards with 128K eeproms; an eVGA 512-P3-N801-FR (thats an FR and not an AR) and a XFX PVT88PYDE4. They both flash fine with nvflash -4 -5 -6 image.rom . Thats where things start to go bad for me...

THe eVGA card boots from grey to blue but I am never presented with the login screen. You can hear the computer crunching away, so I dont think its crashed.

The XFX card will boot and let me log in 50% of the time before it 'crashes'. The screen image corrupts (similar to this post:https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4804504/) and the mouse will continue to move, but I can't interact with the desktop (no clicking).

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? I have reflashed a few times and diff'd the rom from subsequent downloads, so I dont think its related to the flash of the cards. I would try a fresh install, but I get the same behavior when booting to the installer dvd.

I would appreciate any insight,
inCider

I haven't noticed anything like that, but I will have more time to play with it tonight after work. Do you have 10.5.2 and the driver update installed? Strange. Anyone else seeing problems like this?

 

[inCider]

I haven't noticed anything like that, but I will have more time to play with it tonight after work. Do you have 10.5.2 and the driver update installed? Strange. Anyone else seeing problems like this?

Yeah, sorry for not mentioning that in my earlier post. I'm running all the latest software updates and I haven't had a peep of trouble with the stock ATI card.

 

[hadleydb]

Yeah, sorry for not mentioning that in my earlier post. I'm running all the latest software updates and I haven't had a peep of trouble with the stock ATI card.

That is really odd. What type of power setup do you have? If running from the Molex connector do you have both power molex cables going into the pciexpress adaptor? I only had one hooked up at first and had a problem booting. I guess it takes 3 wires from each one to make the six. I just don't know other than that. I will report back after I've played some games etc. on mine for a good hour or two.

 

[mrcandy]

THe eVGA card boots from grey to blue but I am never presented with the login screen. You can hear the computer crunching away, so I dont think its crashed.

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? I have reflashed a few times and diff'd the rom from subsequent downloads, so I dont think its related to the flash of the cards. I would try a fresh install, but I get the same behavior when booting to the installer dvd.

I would appreciate any insight,
inCider

I've not seen anything like that. What slot do you have the 8800GT in? It must be in either the bottom slot or the one above bottom (1 or 2).

I ran my 8800 for about 24hours with the PCIe to molex adapter and had only one of the two molex's connected. It was daisy chained into the optical bay which also had the stock optical drive plus a hard drive installed. Ran the Crysis demo for an hour or so with no problems.

 

[inCider]

That is really odd. What type of power setup do you have? If running from the Molex connector do you have both power molex cables going into the pciexpress adaptor? I only had one hooked up at first and had a problem booting. I guess it takes 3 wires from each one to make the six. I just don't know other than that. I will report back after I've played some games etc. on mine for a good hour or two.

I have tried a few power options; off the optical molex leads (single and dual) and with a stand alone power supply feeding the card directly. They all exhibited the same behavior.

Since the part numbers for the cards I tried were slightly different than those of others for the same brand, I am going to try to find a third card with the exact same part number. I may also install XP under bootcamp and see if I experience similar issues under windows to help rule out a MP hardware issue.

 

[inCider]

I've not seen anything like that. What slot do you have the 8800GT in? It must be in either the bottom slot or the one above bottom (1 or 2).

I ran my 8800 for about 24hours with the PCIe to molex adapter and had only one of the two molex's connected. It was daisy chained into the optical bay which also had the stock optical drive plus a hard drive installed. Ran the Crysis demo for an hour or so with no problems.

All my testing thus far has been in the bottom (#1) slot. I'm hopeful that you have seen that level of stability. My cards all had recent manufacture dates and I am wondering if I need to find an older card closer to the reference spec. Any idea when your eVGA was manufactured?

 

[millisecond]

I have tried a few power options; off the optical molex leads (single and dual) and with a stand alone power supply feeding the card directly. They all exhibited the same behavior.

Since the part numbers for the cards I tried were slightly different than those of others for the same brand, I am going to try to find a third card with the exact same part number. I may also install XP under bootcamp and see if I experience similar issues under windows to help rule out a MP hardware issue.

It almost sounds like your ROM image was ever so slightly corrupted. Try re-downloading, and flashing it to the cards from a different boot source? (i.e. don't use the same floppy/USB ley/etc you used last time)

 

[hadleydb]

All my testing thus far has been in the bottom (#1) slot. I'm hopeful that you have seen that level of stability. My cards all had recent manufacture dates and I am wondering if I need to find an older card closer to the reference spec. Any idea when your eVGA was manufactured?

I have mine in slot #2 and just pulled out my ATI card once I had it in. I wonder if it has to do with the slot? I used the image posted by ntux post 23 of this thread. You have probably already tried that image though. Do you have it on CD, thumbdrive, hard drive? I did the CD image with FreeDOS and I used Ultra ISO to put the image and nvflash on the CD. But I also have a November 2007 older card.

So does anyone know if it matters to have both Molex hooked up to the PCI-E adaptor. I just saw on another thread somewhere it was required after my machine wouldn't boot up a couple of times. So I hooked both up and it booted.

None of these seem to be the problem. Let us know once you try another card. Anyone else use slot 1 or slot 2?

 

[mrcandy]

Any idea when your eVGA was manufactured?

Not at home right now, but I still have the box so I'll check tonight and post an update.

 

[slackpacker]

I did the CD image with FreeDOS and I used Ultra ISO to put the image and nvflash on the CD. But I also have a November 2007 older card.
quote]

How did you see the nVflash program on the CD? I cant seem to get the MPro to see the CD Drive with my FreeDOS.

I did the UltraISO trick as well but what dir did you put it in and what commands? I'm so close to getting this to work.

Thanks

 

[hadleydb]

I did the CD image with FreeDOS and I used Ultra ISO to put the image and nvflash on the CD. But I also have a November 2007 older card.
quote]

How did you see the nVflash program on the CD? I cant seem to get the MPro to see the CD Drive with my FreeDOS.

I did the UltraISO trick as well but what dir did you put it in and what commands? I'm so close to getting this to work.

Thanks

I think by using UltraISO something happens to the CD and corrupts it somehow. I did the following: Boot by CD by pressing Enter when getting to the first FreeDOS screen. Then on the next screen choose to install FreeDOS to a hard drive. Once you get to what I believe is the language screen press ESC and it will take you to another menu with options. Now select the Boot to CD and go to command prompt option. It should take you to a command prompt with the drive letter being X:\ now you should be able to do the dir command and see all your files. This worked for me on accident and helped another forum member out as well. You may not be able to find another drive to save your current rom to however. So hopefully the graphics card company has firmware roms on their sites if something goes wrong.

As far as the directory. I just put everything in the main directory on the CD. I didn't use any folders etc. Then used the: X:\Nvflash --check to see if I had the 128 or 64 k, and then proceeded once I knew I had the 1024k X 1S to do the following command: X:\Nvflash -4 -5 -6 romname.rom

Mine happened to be named mp8800gt.rom which I downloaded from post #23 in this thread. You will get warnings that the card is not compatible with the firmware, but I just kept hitting the "Y" key with my fingers crossed and everything worked.

 

[slackpacker]

I think by using UltraISO something happens to the CD and corrupts it somehow. I did the following: Boot by CD by pressing Enter when getting to the first FreeDOS screen. Then on the next screen choose to install FreeDOS to a hard drive. Once you get to what I believe is the language screen press ESC and it will take you to another menu with options. Now select the Boot to CD and go to command prompt option. It should take you to a command prompt with the drive letter being X:\ now you should be able to do the dir command and see all your files. This worked for me on accident and helped another forum member out as well. You may not be able to find another drive to save your current rom to however. So hopefully the graphics card company has firmware roms on their sites if something goes wrong.

As far as the directory. I just put everything in the main directory on the CD. I didn't use any folders etc. Then used the: X:\Nvflash --check to see if I had the 128 or 64 k, and then proceeded once I knew I had the 1024k X 1S to do the following command: X:\Nvflash -4 -5 -6 romname.rom

Mine happened to be named mp8800gt.rom which I downloaded from post #23 in this thread. You will get warnings that the card is not compatible with the firmware, but I just kept hitting the "Y" key with my fingers crossed and everything worked.

Is the Hard Drive option a Virtual Hard drive or does FreeDOS really install to your Mac/Bootcamp Hard Drive?

 

[hadleydb]

Is the Hard Drive option a Virtual Hard drive or does it really install to your Mac/Bootcamp Hard Drive?

I believe it would really install to a hard drive. But you need to press the ESC key once you get to a language window. So nothing actually installs to your Mac. This is just kind of a work around to get the CD drive working. So don't actually go through with the install. After pressing ESC it should take you to more options and just boot to CD with command prompt.

 

[arcsbite]

I hate to be "that guy"
but I would really like to do this as I bought the stock Pro with the ATI in Jan and now use my mac as a gaming machine so much I'd love the upgrade.

is there a mini-guide anywhere on how to do this?
I'm a novice, but learn quickly (I can hack Consoles, iPhones and the like but have never touched a Gfx card)

also, does anyone know which version of the card I should buy?
I'm in the UK and have looking at ebay, but there are so many 8800gt's out there and I just don't know where to start

Some Here

Just looking for a little help to get me going.
...or if anyone wants to sell me a pre-flashed 8800gt for my pro...that could work too lol.

 

[Gokhan]

k

same position as you arcsbite , look at overclockers.co.uk
and tey to go with kwon cards in this thread.

hell give overclokers a call they are very helpful they might even check to see rom size ?

 

[slackpacker]

I hate to be "that guy"
but I would really like to do this as I bought the stock Pro with the ATI in Jan and now use my mac as a gaming machine so much I'd love the upgrade.

is there a mini-guide anywhere on how to do this?
I'm a novice, but learn quickly (I can hack Consoles, iPhones and the like but have never touched a Gfx card)

also, does anyone know which version of the card I should buy?
I'm in the UK and have looking at ebay, but there are so many 8800gt's out there and I just don't know where to start

Some Here

Just looking for a little help to get me going.
...or if anyone wants to sell me a pre-flashed 8800gt for my pro...that could work too lol.

Just look back on Page 5 or 6 mrCandy did a great Job describing the process. I still have not gotten it done yet but I'm 98.9% of the way there to flashing.

 

[arcsbite]

Just look back on Page 5 or 6 mrCandy did a great Job describing the process. I still have not gotten it done yet but I'm 98.9% of the way there to flashing.

thanks, I'm half way through page 3, so will get there lol

 

[arcsbite]

same position as you arcsbite , look at overclockers.co.uk
and tey to go with kwon cards in this thread.

hell give overclokers a call they are very helpful they might even check to see rom size ?

Not a bad idea, I have no idea what I'm asking at the minute though, gonna finish reading the thread and see if things are any clearer!

 

[smgfreak]

My luck is not as good as most of you.

I found two cards with 128K eeproms; an eVGA 512-P3-N801-FR (thats an FR and not an AR) and a XFX PVT88PYDE4. They both flash fine with nvflash -4 -5 -6 image.rom . Thats where things start to go bad for me...

THe eVGA card boots from grey to blue but I am never presented with the login screen. You can hear the computer crunching away, so I dont think its crashed.

The XFX card will boot and let me log in 50% of the time before it 'crashes'. The screen image corrupts (similar to this post:https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4804504/) and the mouse will continue to move, but I can't interact with the desktop (no clicking).

Has anyone else seen this type of behavior? I have reflashed a few times and diff'd the rom from subsequent downloads, so I dont think its related to the flash of the cards. I would try a fresh install, but I get the same behavior when booting to the installer dvd.

I would appreciate any insight,
inCider

i can tell you my INFOs.

I had the same Problem , because i Swapped the STOCK Cooler to a ZALMAN VF900CU . the Problem was , no cooling for because the screws where not that tight.

Second

same Problem in the old Macpro 2,66 with a Flashed X1900XT Grey and blue but no mouse !

The X1900 i bought on ebay , and it was broken before ! the pixel engines where blown.

so if you have mounted a special Cooler take it off an use the Nvida one.

 

[thagomizer]

than i tried my friends PNY 8800GT 512 same Clocks as above, it did not work at all.

both Cards with ERROR Mismatch 64k ( 128k is only in APPLE OEM 8800GT)
there is no BRAND Shipping 8800GT for PC with 128k chip.

My PNY card just arrived, and I have the same result.

EEPROM ID (9D, 7B) : PMC Pm25LV512 2.7-3.6V 64Kx8S, page

Green PCB.

64K flash. I guess Millisecond got lucky with his PNY card.

 

[Brianna]

Do we have a list of working cards yet? I just bought a Zotac 8800GT 700MHz AMP version w/ a 2000MHz memory clock. Sounds promising. I should have it by Saturday. I just hope it has the 1024 ROM or it seems I'll be sh*t out of luck.
If it does work, and anyone wants to buy the stock 8800GT that came in my Mac pro I'll sell it at a good price. Better than the Apple upgrade. Theirs is $349.00 and it ships in 5-7 weeks. I'll let mine go for $200 + shipping which is cheap. It is still what I would consider brand new after all. Its a week and a day old today. And being that it's the stock Apple card it should work through any updates.

Although I am leaving out of town on business Sunday, so If I don't get the card by Saturday I'll be gone until next Friday. So don't PM me unless your patient because I might not have the new one by then.

 

[arcsbite]

Although I am leaving out of town on business Sunday, so If I don't get the card by Saturday I'll be gone until next Friday. So don't PM me unless your patient because I might not have the new one by then.

Would you be willing to ship to the UK? I'd cover all costs and chuck another $20 your way as well.

If so. please let me have first refusal on it as I could REALLY use it.
cheers

 

[thagomizer]

To those who successfully flashed an EVGA card, would you mind posting when you purchased your card, and from where? If it's true that newer cards are being produced with only 64k flash, we might have to buy from a place that doesn't have a lot of turnaround.

Anyone successfully flash a card that they bought recently from newegg or Amazon?