FirePro W7000 in 5,1 works, but . . . Fit?

[Naimfan]

All -

Not that there was any doubt, but a FirePro W7000 does work in a 5,1 MP. (Running 10.12.6; it shows up as Radeon HD 7xxx)

Only problem is fit - with the bottom plate on, it simply does not fit. And rather than hacksaw part of it, I removed the bottom plate - 9 screws - and now am concerned that it may overheat - it appears that the bottom plate is a heatsink. It's installed in the second PCI slot, with nothing above or below it, and I've set MacsFanControl to run the PCI fan based on ambient temperature to provide more airflow to cool it.

Any issues anyone can see? Should I just cut off the tail end of the bottom plate/heatsink?

Thoughts appreciated!

 

[MisterAndrew]

I don’t think you need to be concerned about that. Isn’t it just a rackmount bracket? Not all of them have that.

 

[kohlson]

Question: How's the fan noise? (if any)

 

[MisterAndrew]

Has anyone tried making & flashing an EFI rom to the W7000? Looks like the same chip as 7850 & 7870? However, I read flashing a 7850 reduces it to 1 working DisplayPort.

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5619.0.html
[doublepost=1528999959][/doublepost]It looks like a W9000 would work also. The 6780 device ID is in the driver.

 

[h9826790]

All -

Not that there was any doubt, but a FirePro W7000 does work in a 5,1 MP. (Running 10.12.6; it shows up as Radeon HD 7xxx)

Only problem is fit - with the bottom plate on, it simply does not fit. And rather than hacksaw part of it, I removed the bottom plate - 9 screws - and now am concerned that it may overheat - it appears that the bottom plate is a heatsink. It's installed in the second PCI slot, with nothing above or below it, and I've set MacsFanControl to run the PCI fan based on ambient temperature to provide more airflow to cool it.

Any issues anyone can see? Should I just cut off the tail end of the bottom plate/heatsink?

Thoughts appreciated!

Most backplate can only degrade cooling, not improving.

The backplate should be there to ensure the card's strength. For cMP, that's totally redundant if you install the card in slot 1. In fact, as MisterAndrew pointed out, for W7000, that's not a backplate at all.

You better install the card in slot 1 (for cooling purpose). Hot air rise, the higher slot you use, the more warm air the card breath in. For blower type card, this effect shouldn't be too significant, but in my own test, GPU can get best cooling in slot 1.

Also, you better base on PCIe ambient temperature to spin up the PCIs fan, but not ambient temperature. The GPU may warm up the whole PCIe compartment quite a bit, but the ambient temperature only go up a little bit.
[doublepost=1529004784][/doublepost]

Has anyone tried making & flashing an EFI rom to the W7000? Looks like the same chip as 7850 & 7870? However, I read flashing a 7850 reduces it to 1 working DisplayPort.

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5619.0.html
[doublepost=1528999959][/doublepost]It looks like a W9000 would work also. The 6780 device ID is in the driver.

AFAIK, you can. I am quite sure I've seen someone reported that he flashed the W7000 (may be in this forum, may be in Netkas forum, I really can't remember). But I didn't pay attention on how many display port still work after flash. The Framebuffer is guarantee wrong, IMO, not a good idea to flash this card.

 

[eksu]

h9826790 beat me to the punch, here's the forum about the flashed W7000 from netkas. it works well with one monitor. forum.netkas.org/index.php?topic=13642.0

If I get a Xserve3,1 I'll end up throwing a s7000 in it for Mojave. I'd be interested in using a w7000 if I went to a multigpu setup with passthrough or something, but not right now.

 

[kwikdeth]

is it the one with the great big metal bracket sticking out, for PCI bracket retainer?

i cant be sure about the W7000, but the 5870 I used on my machine had a similar back plate on it, and without it, the top part of the heatsink with the fan wasnt seating properly so I had temperature problems.

eventually, what I ended up doing was removing the back bracket, taking it into my garage, and using a dremel to cut off the bracket part. re-assembled it and didnt have any temperature problems after that. I dont think its a matter of the GPU itself overheating but the bracket plate does act as a heatsink for the VRM and GDDR RAM. by removing the retainer part of the plate, I was able to put it back and ensure the top part of the heatsink was making full contact.

 

[Naimfan]

h9826790 - Thanks - I'll move to slot one tomorrow and see how it does. I've also changed the fan settings per your suggestion.

Re fan noise - I'll try it tomorrow with the fans back to factory settings and report back.

@kwikdeth - Yes, the W7000 is the one with a great big metal bracket - it's just a bit too long to fit in a MP. The fan seems OK, but removing the bracket/bottom plate reveals what I think are 8 VRAM chips (they're all SKHynix), and the plate has what looks like rectangles of insulating material (looks like foam tape) that go over the chips. I'd rather not have to cut the bracket - would make it harder to sell on if needed - but will if it seems to make much difference. It's a machine that's just for fun - a 2.4 GHz 8 core from 2010.

 

[DearthnVader]

Most backplate can only degrade cooling, not improving.

The backplate should be there to ensure the card's strength. For cMP, that's totally redundant if you install the card in slot 1. In fact, as MisterAndrew pointed out, for W7000, that's not a backplate at all.

You better install the card in slot 1 (for cooling purpose). Hot air rise, the higher slot you use, the more warm air the card breath in. For blower type card, this effect shouldn't be too significant, but in my own test, GPU can get best cooling in slot 1.

Also, you better base on PCIe ambient temperature to spin up the PCIs fan, but not ambient temperature. The GPU may warm up the whole PCIe compartment quite a bit, but the ambient temperature only go up a little bit.
[doublepost=1529004784][/doublepost]

AFAIK, you can. I am quite sure I've seen someone reported that he flashed the W7000 (may be in this forum, may be in Netkas forum, I really can't remember). But I didn't pay attention on how many display port still work after flash. The Framebuffer is guarantee wrong, IMO, not a good idea to flash this card.

We could likely mod the rom to fix the port mappings.

 

[h9826790]

We could likely mod the rom to fix the port mappings.

It’s possible but how. No one figured out how to mod the EFI framebuffer yet.

 

[DearthnVader]

It’s possible but how. No one figured out how to mod the EFI framebuffer yet.

Yet.

 

[Naimfan]

You better install the card in slot 1 (for cooling purpose). Hot air rise, the higher slot you use, the more warm air the card breath in. For blower type card, this effect shouldn't be too significant, but in my own test, GPU can get best cooling in slot 1.

Also, you better base on PCIe ambient temperature to spin up the PCIs fan, but not ambient temperature. The GPU may warm up the whole PCIe compartment quite a bit, but the ambient temperature only go up a little bit.
[doublepost=1529004784][/doublepost]

Following up -

I've moved it to slot 1, and anecdotally at least, so far the temperatures appear to be lower - the fans are running slower than they were yesterday (settings changed per your suggestion; so same conditions).

I'll keep an eye on it, but so far it seems a solid upgrade over the stock 5770.

 

[1madman1]

I was running a W7000 in a Mac Pro for several months with the rear plate removed - had no issues.

The attempts I made at flashing the card killed ALL the Displayport outputs on OSX.

 

[Naimfan]

I was running a W7000 in a Mac Pro for several months with the rear plate removed - had no issues.

The attempts I made at flashing the card killed ALL the Displayport outputs on OSX.

Thank you for that! Makes me feel better long-term.

MP will soon be a 12 core 3.33, with X5680s.

 

[eksu]

I've gotten my hands on a W7000 and I'll play around with flashing it. If anyone has any advice let me know.

 

[eksu]

I flashed the W7000 with the ./makerom.sh but I think I've ran into issues with the frame buffer as I don't have output on any of the ports.

I did get updated information in the System Profiler though.



Attached is a zip with both the original rom and my flashed rom. Hopefully I can learn how to fix it.

 

[h9826790]

I flashed the W7000 with the ./makerom.sh but I think I've ran into issues with the frame buffer as I don't have output on any of the ports.

I did get updated information in the System Profiler though.

View attachment 824314

Attached is a zip with both the original rom and my flashed rom. Hopefully I can learn how to fix it.

AFAIK, you can NOT change the Framebuffer. The only way to fix the card (not fix the EFI ROM) is just flash the original firmware back in. It seems you can boot with the Vega FE co-installed and flash the W7000 again.

 

[Methanoid]

Nobody ever got a W7000 flashed and working then?

 

[lavavex]

i'm just looking for a pre modded bios file, with netkas forums dead, its almost impossible to find if one has been done before but since "The Definitive Classic Mac Pro Upgrade Guide" says its flashable, it must be... just no rom to be found atm... (sadly search doesnt work on wayback for netkas, so i gave up) If only that dead company that flashed cards for a fee would just upload their premodded bioses for the masses, that would be nice

 

[tsialex]

i'm just looking for a pre modded bios file, with netkas forums dead, its almost impossible to find if one has been done before but since "The Definitive Classic Mac Pro Upgrade Guide" says its flashable, it must be... just no rom to be found atm... (sadly search doesnt work on wayback for netkas, so i gave up) If only that dead company that flashed cards for a fee would just upload their premodded bioses for the masses, that would be nice

Are you sure that you want to have all the trouble to flash a GPU that only works up to High Sierra? Don't waste your time with Pitcairn based GPUs, get a used RX 580.

 

[lavavex]

Are you sure that you want to have all the trouble to flash a GPU that only works up to High Sierra? Don't waste your time with Pitcairn based GPUs, get a used RX 580.

thats what im probably gonna do, do i need to flash the 580 for boot still im guessing? (i just had a w7000 laying around collecting dust)

 

[tsialex]

thats what im probably gonna do, do i need to flash the 580 for boot still im guessing? (i just had a w7000 laying around collecting dust)

You don't need to flash any PC GPU to work with a Mac Pro, but if you want to have pre-boot configuration support with a MacPro5,1, you can add EnableGop to the GPU firmware:

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

Btw, won't work for a MacPro3,1.

 

[lavavex]

You don't need to flash any PC GPU to work with a Mac Pro, but if you want to have pre-boot configuration support with a MacPro5,1, you can add EnableGop to the GPU firmware:

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

Btw, won't work for a MacPro3,1.

yeah, tried that on my w7000, 3 hours of trying only to find out i need to edit hex code... lol. thanks for the realism check xd. I'll pick up a 580 over the summer and build my ultimate mac pro