Flashing R9 280X for boot screens/PCI System Information

[h9826790]

Yup, that was my understanding of the technique - I don't claim to have any deep knowledge of the decision making here, but that's what the instructions said and all worked great.

Arrr..... It seems that you miss one step - Back up the UEFI ROM.

Even though you has no intention to use the UEFI ROM at this moment. It's still better to back it up.

Anyway, good to hear that you now have a Mac EFI ROM card, with the legacy ROM as the back up boot option.

 

[Ph.D.]

I haven't done this myself, but my thought was that you would flash over the legacy side, not the UEFI side, since the latter is the current default.

 

[Earl Urly]

The UEFI side is only supposed to work with newer PCs.

Not having a backup of the legacy ROM would make it maybe a little more difficult to resell if you decided to get rid of the R9 280X.

I think I remember running an md5 on the 1.0 vs 1.1 legacy ROMs and seeing they were different..

 

[Ph.D.]

Thank you for the clarification.

But just for the record, my MSI 280X came with the switch set by default to the UEFI side. It was left there and has had no problem running (unflashed) on my 3,1.

 

[chrisrand]

Here's what I did: MSI Gaming R9 280X 3G ... then sent to MVC for himto flash and on the alternate BIOS switch setting a custom OC flash ... Bought ePower 450W external GPU PSU. Decided to mod a spare Mac Pro side cover to allow cables to run into it. Pics attached

Hi,

Could you tell me where you purchased your ePower 450W external GPU PSU?

I have searched high and low on the internet, but all I can find for the ePower 450W external GPU PSU or the FSP Booster x5 450w are dead links and out of stock web pages.

Thank you

 

[chrisrand]

R17 resistor has to be removed for 5GT/s.

Is there a guide on how to remove the resistor?

And is it always r17? I mean with every manufacture of Radeon 280x?

I already know about the following guide, but I don't know how to take it off.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1547340/

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

But just for the record, my MSI 280X came with the switch set by default to the UEFI side. It was left there and has had no problem running (unflashed) on my 3,1.

The R9 280X works fine unflashed without boot screens and is unrecognized in PCI System Information. Flashing the card to support those two items is the focus of this thread.

 

[theitsage]

Is there a guide on how to remove the resistor?

And is it always r17? I mean with every manufacture of Radeon 280x?

I already know about the following guide, but I don't know how to take it off.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1547340/

It is the R17 resistor on a Radeon 280x regardless of brand. The proper way to do it is using a solder gun with desoldering wick to remove R17.

If you don't have the equipment and want to wing it, use a nail clipper to snip the resistor off. Take a look at these pictures for reference of R17 location (in the yellow highlighted area).

 

[chrisrand]

It is the R17 resistor on a Radeon 280x regardless of brand. The proper way to do it is using a solder gun with desoldering wick to remove R17.

Thank you a million times over.

I will post back with my results in the coming weeks as I finalize the purchase.

Should I stick with the Gigabyte r9 280x V2 as others have had good luck? Or should I just go with the most affordable and available one I can find?

 

[theitsage]

Thank you a million times over.

I will post back with my results in the coming weeks as I finalize the purchase.

Should I stick with the Gigabyte r9 280x V2 as others have had good luck? Or should I just go with the most affordable and available one I can find?

From what I've read, you will have most success with a 280x which has 2 mini Displayport outputs. MacVidCard wrote about issues on cards with only 1 mini Displayport.

 

[luxnova]

R9 280X Card Temperature

So I got the card and flashed the firm ware using Mr. Zarniwoop rom, thank you so much by the way. However, I am having a difficult time trying to find out the card temperature. I'm running MP 5,1 12 core 2.66 GHz. iStat menu report nothing of the video card and HWMonitor, reports all of the voltage, power consumption and etc. However, when it comes to temperature it just report a flat line 85C. What app are you using to see the card temperature on the mac side and do I need to install extra driver or something?

 

[h9826790]

I think you can only get the 280X's temperature in Windows, but not OSX.

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

However, when it comes to temperature it just report a flat line 85C. What app are you using to see the card temperature on the mac side and do I need to install extra driver or something?

When I was pushing the card for testing I was running Windows.

 

[luxnova]

When I was pushing the card for testing I was running Windows.

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[badslinke]

Making it happen for a Sapphire R9 280x

Ok, n00b here doing my best. I finally got Yosemite on my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1, and a Sapphire R9 280x working well, but no boot screen. Flashing the GPU with modified ROMs seems easy enough with ATIwinflash, so here's where I am stuck:

The custom ROM by Mr. Zarniwoop doesn't work for the Sapphire card (tried it and thought I had bricked the card, but was able to reflash with the backed up original rom and avoided a heart attack - learning the hard way here). If I understand correctly, to make my own ROM to work with the Sapphire, I simply need to take the EFI section from the 7970 ROM Zarniwoop posted in the OP of this thread, and stick it into a copy of the Sapphire's original ROM using a hex editor.

Unfortunately, I have no idea where in either ROM the EFI section should be. Any insight as to what part of the 7970 ROM I need to copy and paste, and where to put it in the Sapphire's original ROM?

As a side note, if I just throw the 7970 ROM on there, would the card suffer any performance decreases? The Sapphire comes factory OC'ed, and I'd rather not lose any speed. I haven't tried this yet (need to rest...) but the discussion here suggests the 7970 ROM might provide the Sapphire a boot screen without any modifications, although the consequences are unclear, if any.

Help is much, much appreciated! Fantastic thread guys, learning a ton.

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

The custom ROM by Mr. Zarniwoop doesn't work for the Sapphire card (tried it and thought I had bricked the card, but was able to reflash with the backed up original rom and avoided a heart attack - learning the hard way here).

If you post some info here that will help others later who may have the same card, I'll make your Mac EFI firmware. No guarantees, but it should work based on past experiences.

• exact model of AMD R9 280X with as much specifics as possible with any revision numbers (photos good too)
• description and/or photo of the video ports on the back of the card (number of mDP, DVI, etc.)
• screenshots of About This Mac showing Graphics along with Graphics/Displays and PCI sections of System Information
• the legacy PC BIOS of the card as dumped by GPU-Z (keep the switch in the legacy position so we can leave the UEFI firmware alone in case you put the card in a PC later)

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

As a side note, if I just throw the 7970 ROM on there, would the card suffer any performance decreases? The Sapphire comes factory OC'ed, and I'd rather not lose any speed.

I don't think so as long as we preserve your proper non-EFI firmware.

 

[badslinke]

If you post some info here that will help others later who may have the same card, I'll make your Mac EFI firmware. No guarantees, but it should work based on past experiences.

• exact model of AMD R9 280X with as much specifics as possible with any revision numbers (photos good too)
• description and/or photo of the video ports on the back of the card (number of mDP, DVI, etc.)
• screenshots of About This Mac showing Graphics along with Graphics/Displays and PCI sections of System Information
• the legacy PC BIOS of the card as dumped by GPU-Z (keep the switch in the legacy position so we can leave the UEFI firmware alone in case you put the card in a PC later)

Well, I've tried using both the netkas script and editing the hex file, to no avail. The netkas script gives me Eficompressor.macosx missing errors, and despite following Rominators instructions to copy everything from offset 65536 in the 7970 ROM hex file over to the Sapphire original ROM, I still get no boot screen. Zarni, you're my last hope man!

MODEL: Sapphire Dual-X R9 280x 3GB OC
OUTPUTS: 2xDVI, 1xDP, 1xHDMI (currently using HDMI, havent tested the other outputs)

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro2,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Processor): 4 MB
Memory: 14 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP21.007F.B06
SMC Version (system): 1.7f10
Serial Number (system): G872509WUPZ
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F20B021C

AMD Radeon HD 7xxx:

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 7xxx
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 3072 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6798
Revision ID: 0x0000
Displays:
SAMSUNG:
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz (1080p)
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Television: Yes

There was an error while gathering PCI device information. (That's all it says in Sys Prof!!!)

 

[h9826790]

Just try the fixrom script with your ROM and my 7950 efi, no error at all.



I guess one of your folder's name may contain empty space which will cause an error.

Try to put all those file on a USB stick named "untitled" (may be just inside a folder called "fixrom"), that will reduce the chance of having error.

Anyway I can't test the ROM since I don't have a 280X, but here is the ROM file

View attachment 280xog.rom.efi.rom.zip

I am too lazy to hex edit the card's name. It may shows up as D700 in your system profile, but that's just a name, won't cause any issue.

 

[badslinke]

You are the freaking man! Full boot screen, recognized as r9 200 series in Windows 7, and FirePro d700 in Yosemite. Can't thank you enough!

To clarify, there won't be any performance hit to the card with a 7950 efi added to it correct? Also, would you know what hex offset the card name is under so I can attack it myself?

Thanks again!

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

Also, would you know what hex offset the card name is under so I can attack it myself?

This is probably the same thing with your firmware but will report R9 280X.

PC BIOS (stock as shipped): Tahiti B0 XTL C38650 GDDR5 3GB 500e/150m, BIOS Version 015.041.000.000.000000, ROM Revision 113-5E24900-O46
Mac EBC EFI: (replaced stock UEFI): ATY,Hamachi, ROM Revision 113-E2080C-101, EFI Driver Version 01.00.624

 

[badslinke]

It did precisely that! A thousand thanks to you as well, kind sir.

For anyone else who wants it, grab Zarni's rom above for a perfectly working Sapphire dual x r9 280x 3gb on Yosemite!

Would either of you be willing to share with us how you did it? Netkas Script, hex editing, something else? Invaluable info for the newbs out there!

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

Would either of you be willing to share with us how you did it? Netkas Script, hex editing, something else? Invaluable info for the newbs out there!

Nothing's really changed since the first post of this thread:

I read the AMD EFI firmware thread on netkas for a general understanding, grabbed Rominator's 7970 EBC firmware, and used them to make my own MSI EBC Mac ROM.

h9826790 even shared the output of the python script.

 

[fiatlux]

I might get a very good deal on an ASUS DirectCUII TOP (2 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 Displayport), to use with my good old 30" HP LCD.

Two things annoy me:

1. the specs mention a max power requirement of 300w (6+8) which seems higher than recommended
2. the specs also mention a max resolution of 2560x1600 over DVI, which is fine for my current display but not really future-proof

I've seen flashed R9 280x advertised as enabling 4k res on Mac Pros. Is this connector dependant?

 

[h9826790]

Two things annoy me:

1. the specs mention a max power requirement of 300w (6+8) which seems higher than recommended
2. the specs also mention a max resolution of 2560x1600 over DVI, which is fine for my current display but not really future-proof

1) You are correct, it's above the Mac Pro's official limit. It's you choice to take the risk or not. I won't recommend anyone to do anything that excess the limit. I've tried to OC my 7950 and let it draw 100W from a single 6pin line (above the 75W limit), no problem so far. However, that's still far from 150W. Someone shared a method to balance the load between the 6pin and 6->8pin cable. It may work better, but still no guarantee that safe to do so.

2)The Display port and HDMI port can handle 4K.