Flashing Two GPUs - Two Dead Bricks | The PowerMac G4 Misadventures - What Now?

[MicroTecture]

Hi,

I have this PowerMac G4, it's a 466MHZ (Mac OS reports 467MHZ) G4. The machine has an ATi Rage Pro 128 with 16MB of RAM, pretty low end even for late 90's and early 2000's standards. I have two graphics cards for AGP. I read up online about if they are supported or not.

The process:
The first GPU is an Nvidia FX 5200 128MB, this is the 64-bit version and not the 128-bit version of the card, confirming this I chose the only appropriate ROM file from the Wikidownloads2 (Mac Elite) page:
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2
I booted up my old Pentium 4 Dell with the card in it, booted into FreeDOS, backup the ROM, ran NVFlash, and after trying to flash I get a message that is has been successfully flashed. Knowing that I would never use this card again in that Dell, I first tried the tape method for pins 3 and 11 since my machine requires it or else it doesn't boot. Doing so, I got a POST but nothing on the monitor. Later on, I had someone else help me physically remove the pins with a knife and some kind of blade object. Same difference, yes I did recount the pins one by one to make sure.

GPUs in this situation: Radeon 9200 128MB and FX 5200 128MB

Troubleshooting for this card before moving to the next one:
I tried putting my original Rage 128 Pro back into the system to make sure it is still functional. Sure enough, still is. I put the FX 5200 back in the Dell and I pulled out a PCI graphics card (This was the next day and I was brought a PCI GPU, some old Matrox GPU). I booted up FreeDOS again, and tried to identify the NVIDIA GPU using NVFlash. Sure enough, NVFlash found a "GeForce 5200 Ultra" which was a bit strange because the GPU is just a standard FX 5200. Regardless, it was recognized, trying to restore the original ROM I dumped or even trying to erase it to try re-flashing the original ROM proved impossible because of some "Could not read PROM pins" or at some points was it "Could not read EEPROM pins" kind of error. Forgot which error, but regardless, it did not work. The Mac would POST with the card in there, but nothing on the monitor. Just a "No Signal" I did try a DVI to VGA adapter to see if this would help since I have been using VGA this entire time on this Mac. That being a no-go and no existing posts I can find at the moment, this is where I tried flashing another AGP GPU I have that I know works. Later I would try to directly boot the machine with the FX card and it was nothing, "No Signal" error.

The next GPU:
This new GPU that goes into play I bought off of eBay almost a year ago I believe. The seller claims that it was recapped so I know the chances of this card being faulty was pretty slim. I tested this on WinXP and Win98SE at one point. This card is the Radeon 9200. Just a regular 9200, I found one of the ROMs, and tried downloading it with a copy of ATiFlash. Two versions of ATiFlash to save a headache so I didn't have to go back to the other Windows machine to get another copy of ATiFlash. I went to the Pentium Dell again, put in the AGP Radeon 9200, and booted into FreeDOS. With ATiFlash did I try to flash the GPU but every time I tried, I kept getting an error that it couldn't find any devices. Both versions I tried gave me the same error. For fun I tried to see if NVFlash would find it but of course it didn't after trying. I assumed that maybe resources were being used since I booted FreeDOS off of that GPU, and I was just given a crappy old PCI GPU so I booted off of that, and tried to flash it again, no devices found, Google was no help either. I booted into Hirens Boot CD's MiniXP just moments ago and used ATiWinFlash, I did backup the ROM in that since it allowed me. I tried to program the GPU that way and it gave me some error in regards to VBIOS image not found. I used the command-line with ATiWinFlash and it programmed and went all the way through without a problem. I did not use the Matrox PCI GPU to boot up MiniXP because every time I tried the monitor/tv I was using would get a "No Signal" error every time, but when I used the Radeon card, it didn't for some reason. This would happen every time after the Windows XP logo disappeared as well. After flashing the GPU, for safe measures I did not physically remove the pins 3 and 11 and just put tape over them. The machine POSTed like the NVIDIA card but same issue, "No Signal" so I'm at another brick. I decided to remove tape from what I believe is pin 3, and wanted to see if it did anything. It POSTed to my surprise, but removing the tape from pin 11, it quit trying to POST. I inspected the tape work closely, I did do this right. Well, the machine still won't boot at all. Not sure what to do now other than use that slow Rage 128.

This is the first time I've ever flashed any GPU, this is a first timer thing, I've even watched a video of someone flashing a GeForce 6200 for their G4 cube just in case. Guess I got two bricks now? Not sure what I could of done wrong here. At this point I would be ready to pay anyone to sell me a pre-flashed 9800 256MB card, or any 9800 card with 256MB that is already premodified. Not sure if I want to waste money for me to destroy another card or not and I'm not shelling out $200-$300 for that Radeon 9800 Mac Edition card on eBay (What are these people smoking? lol). I don't plan to use an NVIDIA GPU, I only modified that FX card because I knew it would be plenty faster than the Rage 128 Pro any day of the week, it was going to be a temporary solution and fall-back card if I ever had to fall back to it one day. I plan to actually use an ATi/AMD card in here because of the better Linux open source GPU support. GPU acceleration working better on ATi/AMD cards on Linux.

Things to keep noted: These GPUs do not require any extra power by any external source at all.

Anyone got any advice/suggestions?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

 

[AYates]

Well you fried the second hard, it's toast. You didn't understand why the pins were supposed to be blocked off and assuming your AGP slot still works the card is done.

The first card probably does work still but you can't re-flash the card until you reconnect the broken traces, that is what the error is telling you. Bodge wire it and use the tape method until you get a flash that works.

Also what OS are you running?

 

[z970]

I can't sleep ... and I desperately have to get my mind off of something.

So, I have a couple of points too:

NVFlash is reporting "GeForce 5200 Ultra" because the only Mac version of the FX 5200 released was the Ultra edition; not the regular version. The Mac version also only had a 128-bit pipeline, so you could imagine how flashing a BIOS that's expecting a 128-bit pipeline would react when it finds out it only has 64-bits to work with instead. Needless to say, your particular card is incompatible with the Mac BIOS.

Take a sharp pencil, and use the very end of the pointed tip to lightly, and carefully, bridge the little gap where the connections were severed. The graphite painted onto the board is conductive enough to serve as new electrical pathways. Now, just reinstall the card into the Dell and re-flash its original BIOS back on. Good as new.

As for the 9200, I'm not yet convinced it's been totaled. There is debate whether pins 3 and 11 control the AGP 8x speed, or ADC output functionality (or both), but nothing else. Either one does not sound like it would irreparably damage the card if improperly tampered with to me.

In any case, as I understand it, you tried it in the Power Mac, and booted it with tape only attached to pin 11 (which it chimed with), and then tried with tape only attached to pin 3, at which point the machine stopped turning on entirely? Or did it simply not chime whenever the flashed and partially taped 9200 was inserted?

Can you confirm that the machine turns on, chimes, and produces a picture if you reinstall the Rage Pro 128?

 

[MicroTecture]

I can't sleep ... and I desperately have to get my mind off of something.

So, I have a couple of points too:

NVFlash is reporting "GeForce 5200 Ultra" because the only Mac version of the FX 5200 released was the Ultra edition; not the regular version. The Mac version also only had a 128-bit pipeline, so you could imagine how flashing a BIOS that's expecting a 128-bit pipeline would react when it finds out it only has 64-bits to work with instead. Needless to say, your particular card is incompatible with the Mac BIOS.

Take a sharp pencil, and use the very end of the pointed tip to lightly, and carefully, bridge the little gap where the connections were severed. The graphite painted onto the board is conductive enough to serve as new electrical pathways. Now, just reinstall the card into the Dell and re-flash its original BIOS back on. Good as new.

As for the 9200, I'm not yet convinced it's been totaled. There is debate whether pins 3 and 11 control the AGP 8x speed, or ADC output functionality (or both), but nothing else. Either one does not sound like it would irreparably damage the card if improperly tampered with to me.

In any case, as I understand it, you tried it in the Power Mac, and booted it with tape only attached to pin 11 (which it chimed with), and then tried with tape only attached to pin 3, at which point the machine stopped turning on entirely? Or did it simply not chime whenever the flashed and partially taped 9200 was inserted?

Can you confirm that the machine turns on, chimes, and produces a picture if you reinstall the Rage Pro 128?

I was able to VNC to the Mac with the NVIDIA GPU in it, the one with physically removed pins, it actually shows up in macOS viewing from VNC but there’s barely any info showing. Claiming its PCI and its an NVIDIA GPU but nearly nothing else. Same thing applies for the Radeon 9200 with both pins taped (except it is recognized as an ATI GPU obviously). The Radeon 9200 allows the machine to post with pins 3 and 11 covered, although the machine still posts with only 11 covered by the tape. I have not yet attempted to VNC to the machine with only 11 taped over for the 9200. NVFlash and Windows 98 SE both recognize the FX 5200 GPU in the Dell, I have not yet tried the 9200 in the Dell and seeing if Windows will recognize it. ATiFlash never recognized the GPU to begin with, ATiWinFlash did but the Matrox PCI GPU hates MiniXP so I’ll have to do a fresh install of WinXP if I want to use it again. As a last ditch effort, I booted into 10.4.11 Server (what it came with), VNC’ed again, and tried to flash the NVIDIA GPU with Graphicaccelerator? I forgot what you call it but it has ATI and NVIDIA tools so for the FX I tried multiple ROMs and it never even tried to flash, just gave me an error, when trying the ATI card and its respective ROMs, same thing their too. I did read the text documents and watched DosDude1 flash a FireGL card on a PMG4 on YouTube for reference.

Yes the machine still boots with the Rage 128 Pro.

 

[z970]

A little piece about the tape; they are meant to be present simultaneously, and never one without the other. They are also only necessary when installed into the Power Mac, not the Dell or any other PC.

Being that I don't know if your 9200 uses BGA DDR or TSOP DDR, go back to The Mac Elite and download the other 9200 ROM that you didn't use (if downloading the TSOP, or AGP / PCI variant, choose revision 201 - otherwise select the rev. 101 "Pro" variant). Now, my suggestion for the 9200 (as I already told you what to do with the FX 5200) is to get your chosen ROM ready, acquire ATIFlash 4.07, go back into FreeDOS, and try flashing it with that ROM using that version of ATIFlash. I say this because I have never had a problem with ATIFlash 4.07 with flashing ATI cards for PowerPC machines, and nor have others from what I gather.

Assuming the Power Mac boots and produces a clean picture, then there is nothing to worry about regarding your AGP slot (I don't know why he thought that; computers even of this age have many fail safe mechanisms in place to protect both the components and machine).

Let me know what happens.

 

[weckart]

With the 9200 you also have to move some resistors. I had to do that with mine. Bear in mind that you will probably lose half the VRAM once flashed as most PC cards seem to use high density VRAM, which Apple never appeared to deal well with.

 

[AYates]

Sorry I was a little on edge, I'm dealing with a similar problem on a Quicksilver where the former owner screwed up the pins and had a cap blow which then fried the AGP slot - at least I'm sure a good AGP card doesn't work in that machine and the old one is smoke flavored.

That said, I thought about this some more and I'm pretty sure you broke the wrong traces.

Pin 3 and 11 need to be taped on the BACK but not the FRONT of the card - with a little luck that's the only issue here.

 

[MicroTecture]

Thank you all. I did tape on the back and did read up on what I need to do.

I will give ATiFlash another go here with that AGP 9200. I am thinking about getting a Linux PPC friendly ATI GPU to upgrade from this Radeon 9200 since it was a spare GPU that would be certainly better than the Rage Pro.

ATI cards are best supported under PPC Linux but I do not want to overpay since I've seen some GPUs going for $200USD which is too much for AGP and NVIDIA is out of the question for Linux PPC support really. Nouveau drivers were poorly supported on x86 and performance demonstrated from NVIDIA PPC Macs like that iMac, GPU acceleration works but it is really slow (and poor) and is almost the equivalent of no GPU acceleration and PPC NVIDIA has a poor reputation as I've seen in forum posts and personal experience.

FireGL x3 is so unstable under Linux apparently and it wouldn't be worth running that in Linux if Xorg and the open-source drivers crash constantly. I can get GPU accel under Linux with a Radeon 9200 as I did with my iBook (Which has a Mobility 9200) but I do plan to upgrade this GPU along with a better CPU (which I have ordered already). I already looked into upgrading the OpenFirmware but it looks like after trying to boot into my OS9 USB and running the updater for 4.2.8 it's already running a newer version of 4.2.8f1? I think? Must've been updated already then so QS CPUs won't be an issue for me that is if I can find one.

I do plan to run Leopard on here on one of the drives as well as Linux, was wishing MDD CPUs would work on the DA since I could then get a dual 1GHZ G4 to put in here, and currently any compatible QS CPU that is dual are either overpriced or not available. I think the only QS CPUs I've found that are dual were not on eBay and were wanting an absurd amount of money for.

Radeon 9800 PROs look okay but I question if the price is worth paying especially when I can't properly verify if it would work after flashing and the FireGL GPU that has the same part number as the Mac Elite website costs over $100, although other FireGL cards with different part numbers do exist, I have no confirmation if they would work at all.
If all else fails I may as well have to troubleshoot and do extensive debugging to get a FireGL x3 to play okay with Debian but as far as I've seen, no one has really tried it and those who did never got a working GUI with hardware acceleration (driver/Xorg crashing) or it was just too easy to break.

I do hope to be able to upgrade to a QE/CI supported GPU in the future that works well which is of course ATI for that Linux support as well.

I will write back as soon as I can get any new info on the Radeon 9200.

If anyone has suggestions for a powerful GPU that doesn't cost too much that wouldn't be a hassle to get running on here (with the flashing and kind of stuff I have to do), I'd appreciate the info!