I have one, and I confirmed it using ATIWinFlash.
Also:
Also, I raised the EFI Bios issue on GPU-Z forum a few months ago, but never got any answer from w1z ...
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Ati 3870 Bios
- Thread starter H00NER
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I have one, and I confirmed it using ATIWinFlash.
Also:
Also, I raised the EFI Bios issue on GPU-Z forum a few months ago, but never got any answer from w1z ...
I have one of the sapphire 3870 cards that I will put into my mac pro this weekend, and try the ATIWinFlash program to get the ROM info.
I supposedly have a ATI 3870 Mac & PC Edition coming from BuyNow.com coming early this week, if ATI doesn't fulfill my long-standing order, first, which I doubt.
I hope that if all goes well, I will have a ROM and Mac Drivers for others to use by Thurdsday afternoon - if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
I will post the Sapphire 3870 ROM info later today or tomorrow.
I supposedly have a ATI 3870 Mac & PC Edition coming from BuyNow.com coming early this week, if ATI doesn't fulfill my long-standing order, first, which I doubt.
I hope that if all goes well, I will have a ROM and Mac Drivers for others to use by Thurdsday afternoon - if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
I will post the Sapphire 3870 ROM info later today or tomorrow.
There is another forum posting here that may help folks to work with this card. I am anxious to learn if PC card could be flashed.
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=115326
If you are using leopard, please try this tool: RadeonDump.zip (file attached)
.
To use it, cd to the files folder and type below cmds:
sudo chown -R 0:0 RadeonPCI.kext
sudo kextload -t RadeonPCI.kext
./RadeonDump -d
Upon success, it will create a ROM file with device-ID within name in that folder.
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=115326
If you are using leopard, please try this tool: RadeonDump.zip (file attached)
.
To use it, cd to the files folder and type below cmds:
sudo chown -R 0:0 RadeonPCI.kext
sudo kextload -t RadeonPCI.kext
./RadeonDump -d
Upon success, it will create a ROM file with device-ID within name in that folder.
Potentially bad news...
I ran the win flash utility and found out that the ROM on the Sapphire card is only 64KB in size. I verified this by also looking up the flash part number and finding that it's a 512Mbit part (64KB).
I also had doubly bad news... the retailer that had the board in stock had an inventory error, and they are not supposed to get any boards in until the end of the month... just like everyone else.
It would be great if one of the few people to have received one ran this windows flash utility to at least tell us the size of the ROM on the official mac edition.
I ran the win flash utility and found out that the ROM on the Sapphire card is only 64KB in size. I verified this by also looking up the flash part number and finding that it's a 512Mbit part (64KB).
I also had doubly bad news... the retailer that had the board in stock had an inventory error, and they are not supposed to get any boards in until the end of the month... just like everyone else.
It would be great if one of the few people to have received one ran this windows flash utility to at least tell us the size of the ROM on the official mac edition.
Something just occurred to me. The EFI support may not actually be in the ROM. From my understanding, ATI requires you to run the software installation before plugging in the card. The EFI "firmware" may actually be written to the EFI partition on the hard disk.
Can someone post a DMG of the installation CD?
Can someone post a DMG of the installation CD?
Just thought I would let people know... ATI currently has the 3870 in stock online. If this is another short run like the last one, you better act fast.
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3857975
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3857975
Yup, I actually have 2 of them, just in case I can't flash the sapphire to the ATI mac rom. BUT, after installing the ATI drivers my system refused to boot. I am reinstalling the OS, and trying again. Once I have it booting in to OS X, I will go back to Windows and get the ROM.
I have the ROM. It's regrettably the non-PC-standard 128KB. So for anyone thinking of flashing a PC version of the card, good luck finding a 3870 with that large of a ROM.
I have posted the 198MB zip that contains the ROM and the Driver CD image. You can find it at:
http://rapidshare.com/files/132474929/ATI3870Mac.zip.html
I'd be curious to know if anyone finds a compatible board!
I have posted the 198MB zip that contains the ROM and the Driver CD image. You can find it at:
http://rapidshare.com/files/132474929/ATI3870Mac.zip.html
I'd be curious to know if anyone finds a compatible board!
Thanks for that, I'm downloading it now. I wonder if there's any way to extract the EFI part only so as to have a card that's compatible in OS X only. I've been using my Sapphire card in Boot Camp only and I'd quite like to see what its like in OS X while I wait for my real one to arrive.
I thought that might be the case. Thank you for checking. Just for the record, how did you confirm that the ROM is 128K?
I used ATIWinFlash. It reported the size as 0x20000. My PC Sapphire 3870 reported a flash size of 0x10000 using the same utility.
Hi,
Extracting the EFI part is quite simple, but there's no guarantee it would work ...
If someone wants to try it, here's the EFI part of the rom: http://dl.free.fr/py8JP87Mb
Before flashing, just make sure you have a PC with MS DOS or FreeDOS and another graphics card available, so that you can flash back the original rom.
I just gave this a try and unfortunately, it didn't work.
Guess I'll just have to wait for my 3870 MAC edition to be delivered. They've just pushed back the ETA by another two weeks here... for the third time. Yeah, first we have to "afford" the Mac Pro and then we are hornswoggled to pay an exorbitant price for an outdated graphic card. I agree, that's quite fair
Yeah, first we have to "afford" the Mac Pro and then we are hornswoggled to pay an exorbitant price for an outdated graphic card. I agree, that's quiet fair
Not to mention all the money these big graphics card manufacturers are losing on the hundereds (maybe???) of cards being LEGALLY flashed to serve a different purpose!
Not to mention all the money these big graphics card manufacturers are losing on the hundereds (maybe???) of cards being LEGALLY flashed to serve a different purpose!
That's what they get for being slow and greedy.
As a proud owner of a Flashed x1900 card, I am all for this flashing thing. Charging $200+ dollars for a card that PC users get for $99.
So hopefully the 3870 will get flashed as well!
So hopefully the 3870 will get flashed as well!
im just dusting off my flashing skills
well in the old days few years back we would set a heat fan on the board
desolderd the 64K bios chip and put a 128 K chip on the board. the 128K chips only cost a few pennies and you get them from any radio shack.
or what we did was edit the rom the make it 64K
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/reducing-ati-roms
well in the old days few years back we would set a heat fan on the board
desolderd the 64K bios chip and put a 128 K chip on the board. the 128K chips only cost a few pennies and you get them from any radio shack.
or what we did was edit the rom the make it 64K
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/reducing-ati-roms
I don't think many have the inclination, tools, or skills to do this.im just dusting off my flashing skills
well in the old days few years back we would set a heat fan on the board
desolderd the 64K bios chip and put a 128 K chip on the board. the 128K chips only cost a few pennies and you get them from any radio shack.
or what we did was edit the rom the make it 64K
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/reducing-ati-roms
But if they do, it sure makes things cheaper doesn't it?
Once they start releasing them REASONABLY close to the PC date, I'm happy to pay for them. But the fact of the matter is that laziness and greed are why they're doing things the way they are, so I'm using my laziness and greed to send a shot back at 'em
That having been said, I have the Apple-supplied 8800GT in my Mac Pro… but I got it on eBay
im just dusting off my flashing skills
well in the old days few years back we would set a heat fan on the board
desolderd the 64K bios chip and put a 128 K chip on the board. the 128K chips only cost a few pennies and you get them from any radio shack.
I have actually gone that way and had a 128k chip fitted to a Sapphire card that looks completely like the ATI HD3870 PC & Mac Edition to the last electronic component. My Mac is a 2006 2,66 GHz Quad which is 1st Generation.
I had the card loaded with the ATI3870Mac.rom from Sirnh's post. Unfortunately I have no OS X joy with it. In a PC it works in XP 64 and 32. in Bootcamp with XP 32 I have it also working with the help of initially booting with my trusted X1900XT.
In OS X 10.5.7 with the ATIHD3870.dmg image loaded it is not properly recognised as a HD3870. It gives the right device ID but shows up as a Monitor and not as a grafic card. I have repaired the rights but will still not work in OS X. What a bummer.
I have run atiflash -i on it and it reports the modified 128K ROM and the ROM Version that is readable in the ROM file.
When I backup the ROM with: Atiflash -s 0 backup.rom 20000
I get 128 K back. Any suggestions what could be going wrong here with OS X?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1784906&tstart=0
So now I'm learning that there was a OEM 2 slot red version and the retail blue 1 slot version. Having had no joy with Sirnh's ROM file I must assume now that he lifted it from a OEM Version. I have wasted 2 days with trying to make that run somehow in my MacPro. I have an original retail version coming in the next week and will use a ROM file which I will lift myself from the blue card.
If someone can post a ROM file definetely from the blue retail version I could save some time trying that.
So now I'm learning that there was a OEM 2 slot red version and the retail blue 1 slot version. Having had no joy with Sirnh's ROM file I must assume now that he lifted it from a OEM Version. I have wasted 2 days with trying to make that run somehow in my MacPro. I have an original retail version coming in the next week and will use a ROM file which I will lift myself from the blue card.
If someone can post a ROM file definetely from the blue retail version I could save some time trying that.