MP 1,1-5,1 EVGA Nvidia GTX 780 Mac Pro EFI Rom Leak

[JeffreyA]

Hello all,

I was the owner of a GTX 780 3Gb that was flashed for use in Mac Pro's. These are floating around on eBay with people marking them up for ridiculous prices. I was lucky and found one for a reasonable price. I was able to dump the EFI off the card after doing some digging around (the creator has some kind of flash dump protection on it, it crashed my mac pro completely when I tried to dump the ROM at first). I had to do a lot of trial and error to get this rom off the card, I hope it's worth it. I'd like to donate this ROM to the community to people that are hurting for a better graphics card with EFI support. The ROM is not made by MVC as far as I am aware. The ROM revision says "phx3.systems". After inspecting the card itself, I see nothing that suggests that the card had the flash ROM removed and replaced with a larger one. Therefore, it should work with normal 780's. The ROM is for an EVGA ACX SC 3GB card but it was working fine on an MSI "N780 TF 3GD5/OC" card. You should be able to flash it using the latest version of nvflash using the command "nvflash64 romname.rom". I really hope this helps at least some of you. Let me know your results.

Thanks,

Jeffrey

Update:
David from MVC emailed me and requested I remove the ROM. I will comply with his request as I respect him and his company.
Update again: Turns out it is a pirated MVC ROM which has been modified to seem like it was made by someone else. It's a good thing that David emailed me very quickly reguarding this so I would have an opportunity to take this down.
[doublepost=1531803768][/doublepost]Also quick note for David P. and the team at MacVidCards. This release isn't intended to take revenue from you all. I greatly respect your team's work and I am a customer of you guys as a result. This ROM wasn't even made by you all. My goal is to discourage people from using sketchy eBay sellers who mark up "Mac Video Cards" that they stole the ROM off of themselves. I'm sure you guys don't really sell many 780's anymore anyway.

 

[JeffreyA]

Please note that the ROM is untested (for now) and you are flashing this at your own risk. I cannot guarantee compatibility with your card as I don't have any 780's to test on. I did make sure that the dump was good, so hopefully it shouldn't brick anyone's cards. Also note that this ROM does not have 4k boot screen support. There are workarounds to get a 4k boot screen to sort of work but I don't think it's worth the hassle you have to go through everytime you turn on the computer (you have to change display modes on the monitor at specific times in order to see a boot screen). Personally, I purchased a 1080ti flashed by MacVidCards for that reason alone. I did read that the team there is going to be releasing a 780 ROM with 4K boot support soon. So if you really want a boot screen on your 4k monitor this isn't the ROM for you, go to MVC It's worth it trust me, and no I won't upload his ROMs (so don't even bother asking me) here mostly out of respect and the fact I only have one card with their ROM on it. I also have no idea how they flashed it or if there is any read protection as I'd like the card to work. Lastly, for the people who are uncomfortable with flashing their card or don't understand a word I'm saying. I will be selling cards based on this ROM that I will test in house in order to make a compatibility list. I will be aiming to sell them at the 225 dollar range with shipping, way less than what others on eBay are selling for to compensate for the time and labor spent cleaning, flashing, testing, and troubleshooting any cards I purchase. I will use the proceeds to buy as much of the 780 lineup as possible to come up with a comprehensive compatibility list, more details soon. If you don't get anything I said, just know that cheap "Mac Pro Edition" GTX 780s will be available very soon.

 

[thomasthegps]

Please note that the ROM is untested (for now) and you are flashing this at your own risk. I cannot guarantee compatibility with your card as I don't have any 780's to test on. I did make sure that the dump was good, so hopefully it shouldn't brick anyone's cards. Also note that this ROM does not have 4k boot screen support. There are workarounds to get a 4k boot screen to sort of work but I don't think it's worth the hassle you have to go through everytime you turn on the computer (you have to change display modes on the monitor at specific times in order to see a boot screen). Personally, I purchased a 1080ti flashed by MacVidCards for that reason alone. I did read that the team there is going to be releasing a 780 ROM with 4K boot support soon. So if you really want a boot screen on your 4k monitor this isn't the ROM for you, go to MVC It's worth it trust me, and no I won't upload his ROMs (so don't even bother asking me) here mostly out of respect and the fact I only have one card with their ROM on it. I also have no idea how they flashed it or if there is any read protection as I'd like the card to work. Lastly, for the people who are uncomfortable with flashing their card or don't understand a word I'm saying. I will be selling cards based on this ROM that I will test in house in order to make a compatibility list. I will be aiming to sell them at the 225 dollar range with shipping, way less than what others on eBay are selling for to compensate for the time and labor spent cleaning, flashing, testing, and troubleshooting any cards I purchase. I will use the proceeds to buy as much of the 780 lineup as possible to come up with a comprehensive compatibility list, more details soon. If you don't get anything I said, just know that cheap "Mac Pro Edition" GTX 780s will be available very soon.

Perhaps, since we now have a modified NVIDIA rom, it might be technically possible to understand which modifications have been applied to the EFi and try to reuse that knowledge for Nvidia/AMD cards.

EDIT: I have to admit I hadn't read the whole post. I don't support selling cards with that EFI. I think its a bad idea.

 

[JeffreyA]

Perhaps, since we now have a modified NVIDIA rom, it might be technically possible to understand which modifications have been applied to the EFi and try to reuse that knowledge for Nvidia cards.

We could take a look at a stock EVGA 780 ROM and do some comparisons. I'm not super familiar with that tho. I think this ROM would have an EFI taken from a Mac edition 680 as they would be most similar.

 

[handheldgames]

Stealing and mob mentality is not cool. Theft of IP is still Theft.

Justification of a wrong act = wrong act.

MacVidCards is still in business. Mojave has boosted sales for a American Small Business owner in the LA area where the cost of living is HIGH and EVERY item sold counts.

 

[thomasthegps]

Stealing and mob mentality is not cool. Theft of IP is still Theft.

Justification of a wrong act = wrong act.

MacVidCards is still in business. Mojave has boosted sales for a American Small Business owner in the LA area where the cost of living is HIGH and EVERY item sold counts.

There is nothing wrong with reverse engineering and trying to figure out how proprietary software works. That being said selling that knowledge is prohibited, creating a competing product using that code is also prohibited. I have no intentions nor do I have the skills to do either.

 

[JeffreyA]

Stealing and mob mentality is not cool. Theft of IP is still Theft.

Justification of a wrong act = wrong act.

MacVidCards is still in business. Mojave has boosted sales for a American Small Business owner in the LA area where the cost of living is HIGH and EVERY item sold counts.

This is NOT a MacVidCards ROM!

 

[thomasthegps]

This is not a MacVidCards ROM!

That's not the point. Using that code to understand how to write an EFI for Nvidia/AMD cards is probably legal, but selling that information or trying to sell a competing product with that exact ROM is probably asking for trouble.

 

[JeffreyA]

This is NOT a MacVidCards ROM!

This ROM is made by "phx3.systems" which as far as I'm aware isn't a company that exists nor was I able to find any information that says they ever existed. All MacVidCards ROMs past the 600 series would have his name marked in the ROM. I'm aware that MacVidCards still is an active business, I just purchased a card from them the other day. My hope with this release is to take business away from people who steal his ROMs to resell on eBay by providing a more modern solution. If anyone at MacRumors has a problem with this feel free to delete my file and lock my thread.
[doublepost=1531849304][/doublepost]

That's not the point. Using that code to understand how to write an EFI for Nvidia/AMD cards is probably legal, but selling that information or trying to sell a competing product with that exact ROM is probably asking for trouble.

That's correct we cannot directly take this ROM or any ROM (including MacVidCards) and modify it for resale. We would have to make a new EFI ROM based on our research in order to not get in trouble for IP theft. That being said MacVidCards resells modified Nvidia bioses and they have yet to get into any legal trouble. I guess Nvidia sees no good reason to go after them since it's a small business and they are actually helpful. As far as I'm concerned, I've done nothing illegal. I simply dumped and uploaded a ROM from a GTX 780 I found.
[doublepost=1531849394][/doublepost]I'm really waiting for someone to let me know if it flashes on their 780 or not. I'd recommend using an ACX 780 as that was the card this ROM was made for.

 

[thomasthegps]

This ROM is made by "phx3.systems" which as far as I'm aware isn't a company that exists nor was I able to find any information that says they ever existed. All MacVidCards ROMs past the 600 series would have his name marked in the ROM. I'm aware that MacVidCards still is an active business, I just purchased a card from them the other day. My hope with this release is to take business away from people who steal his ROMs to resell on eBay by providing a more modern solution. If anyone at MacRumors has a problem with this feel free to delete my file and lock my thread.
[doublepost=1531849304][/doublepost]
That's correct we cannot directly take this ROM or any ROM (including MacVidCards) and modify it for resale. We would have to make a new EFI ROM based on our research in order to not get in trouble for IP theft. That being said MacVidCards resells modified Nvidia bioses and they have yet to get into any legal trouble. I guess Nvidia sees no good reason to go after them since it's a small business and they are actually helpful. As far as I'm concerned, I've done nothing illegal. I simply dumped and uploaded a ROM from a GTX 780 I found.
[doublepost=1531849394][/doublepost]I'm really waiting for someone to let me know if it flashes on their 780 or not. I'd recommend using an ACX 780 as that was the card this ROM was made for.

I'm far from an expert on legal stuff. It sounded like you wanted to flash the exact rom and sell it as is. Now that the rom is out there I might have a look at it in the hopes of writing roms for my own Nvidia/AMD cards. It's hard to say whether or not posting that stuff is legal or not but as you have said, I've seen tons of NVIDIA/AMD roms floating around on this forum and on the NETKAS forum, so it's hard to believe you've done anything to upset the community.

 

[JeffreyA]

In my opinion the best thing to do is to study the



I'm far from an expert on legal stuff. It sounded like you wanted to flash the exact rom and sell it as is. Now that the rom is out there I might have a look at it in the hopes of writing roms for my own Nvidia/AMD cards.

Well your going to have a tough time. A lot of things are like byte swapped and all kinds of crazy confusing stuff. I honestly just gave up after a few mins in it. I probably could figure it out with some time but I have school studies to attend to. The ROM dump is my effort and that took some time since it wasn't just a quick dump via gpu-z but maybe if we can get a team together that is willing to release modded ROMs I might consider it but I can't do this solo, I just don't have the time.
[doublepost=1531850241][/doublepost]

In my opinion the best thing to do is to study the



I'm far from an expert on legal stuff. It sounded like you wanted to flash the exact rom and sell it as is. Now that the rom is out there I might have a look at it in the hopes of writing roms for my own Nvidia/AMD cards. It's hard to say whether or not posting that stuff is legal or not but as you have said, I've seen tons of NVIDIA/AMD roms floating around on this forum and on the NETKAS forum, so it's hard to believe you've done anything to upset the community.

My hope is that a high end GPU solution is available cheaply for the community to use instead of getting screwed by those people on eBay. Hopefully, for the price of a 780 people will be able to natively upgrade to mojave without the need for web drivers. Obviously, this won't help you if your looking for something even more powerful or you need a 4k boot screen. Then your stuck with the scumbags on eBay (bad!) or MacVidCards (not really a bad thing).
[doublepost=1531850468][/doublepost]

Well your going to have a tough time. A lot of things are like byte swapped and all kinds of crazy confusing stuff. I honestly just gave up after a few mins in it. I probably could figure it out with some time but I have school studies to attend to. The ROM dump is my effort and that took some time since it wasn't just a quick dump via gpu-z but maybe if we can get a team together that is willing to release modded ROMs I might consider it but I can't do this solo, I just don't have the time.
[doublepost=1531850241][/doublepost]My hope is that a high end GPU solution is available cheaply for the community to use instead of getting screwed by those people on eBay. Hopefully, for the price of a 780 people will be able to natively upgrade to mojave without the need for web drivers. Obviously, this won't help you if your looking for something even more powerful or you need a 4k boot screen. Then your stuck with the scumbags on eBay (bad!) or MacVidCards (not really a bad thing).

We can soon say the best video card you can put into a Mac Pro without getting a "professional flash" is now the Nvidia GTX 780 which is awesome. I really need testers tho. This won't help you if you don't understand how to flash video cards of course but for the people who do. I think this will be very helpful.

 

[thornslack]

Phx systems is just some guy who ripped off MVCs work. MVC and netkas are responsible for all of the nvidia roms post 680.

That being said he flashed my custom 780 classified when MVC was MIA so I know his roms work unlike some others. However I think all there is to be known about these roms has already been discovered. Keep in mind the rom is nearly useless to 780 users as it is larger than the original rom chip on the card. Unless you desolder the original chip and replace it with a larger capacity one you will be unable to flash say a vanilla gtx 780.

 

[JeffreyA]

Phx systems is just some guy who ripped off MVCs work. MVC and netkas are responsible for all of the nvidia roms post 680.

That being said he flashed my custom 780 classified when MVC was MIA so I know his roms work unlike some others. However I think all there is to be known about these roms has already been discovered. Keep in mind the rom is nearly useless to 780 users as it is larger than the original rom chip on the card. Unless you desolder the original chip and replace it with a larger capacity one you will be unable to flash say a vanilla gtx 780.

That's good to know. However, I did some analysis of the PCB components specifically the eprom that holds the VGA bios and found it to likely be the original chip. I think the whole larger eprom thing is a bunch of bs people come up with to justify getting a flashing service. I may be wrong but the eprom part on mine was similar to reference. There maybe some truth to that but I don't think it's the case here.
[doublepost=1531865104][/doublepost]Another

That's good to know. However, I did some analysis of the PCB components specifically the eprom that holds the VGA bios and found it to likely be the original chip. I think the whole larger eprom thing is a bunch of bs people come up with to justify getting a flashing service. I may be wrong but the eprom part on mine was similar to reference. There maybe some truth to that but I don't think it's the case here.

Another piece of anecdotal evidence to consider is when I had my 1080ti flashed by MVC. I specifically asked Dave if he was going to have to physically modify the card in an email which he brushed over for obvious reasons. When I received the card I checked over all the warranty void stickers and found none of them to be tampered with or broken. So there is a pretty good chance he's just booting into bootcamp on a donor Mac pro and flashing his own custom firmware on the cards. I'm not saying I know that for sure, he charges a lot of money for a firmware, it's possible he's just that good at soldering on new chips to the board to the point of not leaving a trace behind. I don't know and I wouldn't be too mad about it since his software is pretty well made considering it's sort of a hack. I won't know for sure until I get a look at the eprom chip itself, which won't happen till I feel the thermal paste needs to be replaced (which could be years). Again I have no definite proof of this, this is just my anecdote.

 

[thomasthegps]

That's good to know. However, I did some analysis of the PCB components specifically the eprom that holds the VGA bios and found it to likely be the original chip. I think the whole larger eprom thing is a bunch of bs people come up with to justify getting a flashing service. I may be wrong but the eprom part on mine was similar to reference. There maybe some truth to that but I don't think it's the case here.

Might be unnecessary on some GPUs. I think the chip can vary in size depending on the vendor.

 

[JeffreyA]

Might be unnecessary on some GPUs. I think the chip can vary in size depending on the vendor.

Well I do have pictures of the PCB. Perhaps, we could id the eprom chip and find a datasheet. I didn't do anything beyond compare the shape of the chip and brand logos since I didn't have a very high res image of the reference board. I also checked for evidence of solder burns or flux and didn't find anything.
[doublepost=1531865451][/doublepost]

Well I do have pictures of the PCB. Perhaps, we could id the eprom chip and find a datasheet. I didn't do anything beyond compare the shape of the chip and brand logos since I didn't have a very high res image of the reference board. I also checked for evidence of solder burns or flux and didn't find anything.

I should have looked for a datasheet with capacity should have I?.......

 

[thornslack]

I know for a fact my eeprom chips were replaced as my card was returned with the originals in an esd bag by request. The 680 did not require this, but general consensus is that all cards post 6xx did. Admittedly I have not followed this super closesly since the 7xx series. I'd love for someone to tell me I could just flash my Titan X pascal

 

[JeffreyA]

I know for a fact my eeprom chips were replaced as my card was returned with the originals in an esd bag by request. The 680 did not require this, but general consensus is that all cards post 6xx did. Admittedly I have not followed this super closesly since the 7xx series. I'd love for someone to tell me I could just flash my Titan X pascal

What model 780 do you have? It's possible that there may be some disparity between manufacturers and models.

 

[handheldgames]

Stealing and mob mentality is not cool. Theft of IP is still Theft.

Justification of a wrong act = wrong act.

MacVidCards is still in business. Mojave has boosted sales for a American Small Business owner in the LA area where the cost of living is HIGH and EVERY item sold counts.

BUMP. Two Wrongs does not make a right. As stated this is sharing the hard work and IP of others, for Personal Gain as well as documented intent. Yes, it is a stolen rom. There are Identifier bits beyond the name that was replaced.

 

[JeffreyA]

BUMP

The ROM has been taken down by me per MVC's request. Turns out it was pirated from MVC originally.
[doublepost=1531875720][/doublepost]

BUMP. Two Wrongs does not make a right. As stated this is sharing the hard work and IP of others, for Personal Gain as well as documented intent. Yes, it is a stolen rom. There are Identifier bits beyond the name that was replaced.

After speaking with MVC reguarding the status of this ROM, the ROM has been removed from this post and any plans to resell cards based on this ROM are no longer being considered since it has come to my attention that it is actually indeed a pirated MVC ROM.

 

[highvoltage12v]

The ROM has been taken down by me per MVC's request. Turns out it was pirated from MVC originally.
[doublepost=1531875720][/doublepost]
After speaking with MVC reguarding the status of this ROM, the ROM has been removed from this post and any plans to resell cards based on this ROM are no longer being considered since it has come to my attention that it is actually indeed a pirated MVC ROM.

Thanks for crippling the chances of there ever being a 780m MXM card available for sale. MVC has lost motivation of completing the 780m project for the 2011 iMac because of this stunt. And if I worked my a$$ off developing a rom that supports EFI, I'd be just as pissed. There is so much trail and error goes into the creation of these roms that its only fair to compensate the developer for their time.
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,13815.msg38197.html#msg38197

 

[JeffreyA]

That's

Thanks for crippling the chances of there ever being a 780m MXM card available for sale. MVC has lost motivation of completing the 780m project for the 2011 iMac because of this stunt. And if I worked my a$$ off developing a rom that supports EFI, I'd be just as pissed. There is so much trail and error goes into the creation of these roms that its only fair to compensate the developer for their time.
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,13815.msg38197.html#msg38197

That's very nice to know. There was a super easy solution to this. David P. had my email address he literally could have emailed me the moment he found out about it and I would have taken it down immediately out of respect for him. Guess what? He emailed me and I removed the ROM immediately and acknowledged that it was actually his ROM. Mind you I'm taking him at his word that it really originally his ROM no questions asked. So no please don't blame me for your imac ROMs not coming out. This is getting ridiculous.

 

[highvoltage12v]

I'm sorry that came out harsh. Lets just move on from this.

 

[MriX]

That's

That's very nice to know. There was a super easy solution to this. David P. had my email address he literally could have emailed me the moment he found out about it and I would have taken it down immediately out of respect for him. Guess what? He emailed me and I removed the ROM immediately and acknowledged that it was actually his ROM. Mind you I'm taking him at his word that it really originally his ROM no questions asked. So no please don't blame me for your imac ROMs not coming out. This is getting ridiculous.

It would be interesting, if David could us say if they replace the EEPROM chip on the GTX780

 

[JeffreyA]

It would be interesting, if David could us say if they replace the EEPROM chip on the GTX780

I don't think that's a good idea right now.

 

[flowrider]

Mods - Could you PLEASE close this thread so no more damage can be done!

Lou