Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MP 1,1-5,1 HD 7970 won't display bootscreen even after flash

RealKGB

RealKGB

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 26, 2021
34
6
As described. I have a Sapphire HD 7970 blower-cooler design:
14-202-182-06.jpg

It's currently in my Mac Pro 2,1 (1,1 flashed) running Mavericks 10.9.5 perfectly. However, I can't get it to display a bootscreen.
I've followed this guide to no avail - no bootscreen output on any display - not even DVI. I used eidairaman1's guide on the TPU forums to flash using atiflash and it seemed to go ok (I installed windows 7 to a separate drive).
On the subject of DVI-only output, is it possible to change that or is that just a limitation of the 7970?

Thank you!
 
RealKGB said:
As described. I have a Sapphire HD 7970 blower-cooler design:
14-202-182-06.jpg

It's currently in my Mac Pro 2,1 (1,1 flashed) running Mavericks 10.9.5 perfectly. However, I can't get it to display a bootscreen.
I've followed this guide to no avail - no bootscreen output on any display - not even DVI. I used eidairaman1's guide on the TPU forums to flash using atiflash and it seemed to go ok (I installed windows 7 to a separate drive).
On the subject of DVI-only output, is it possible to change that or is that just a limitation of the 7970?

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Did you create your own Mac EFI ROM? Or you simply downloaded the EFI ROM from another post?
 
Dump your actual ROM and compare it in any hex editor with untouched and modded ROM. Instead using atiflash or amdflash under Windows you can also use "GPU-Z". If dumped ROM is the same as unmodded ROM, flashing wasn't succesful. If its identical to modded one, the mod didn't work.

Attach or upload both ROMs.
 
Borowski said:
Dump your actual ROM and compare it in any hex editor with untouched and modded ROM. Instead using atiflash or amdflash under Windows you can also use "GPU-Z". If dumped ROM is the same as unmodded ROM, flashing wasn't succesful. If its identical to modded one, the mod didn't work.

Attach or upload both ROMs.
Click to expand...
Can't get Windows to boot anymore - just hangs on a white screen. Mouse is lit up, but keyboards don't respond.

EDIT:
DVI port and the miniDP port on the edge also don't work. It reports as a Radeon HD 7xxx 3072MB in About This Mac and System Information - not sure if this is correct?
 
No. The missing bootscreen and truncated name is a very reliable sign for a not working EFI.
 
RealKGB said:
I followed the guide I linked, creating my own
Click to expand...
Please re-do that "create you own ROM" part, then screen capture the terminal screen output and post that to here.

People often ignore the error warning in that terminal screen, and assume the EFI ROM is correctly created.
 
Borowski said:
No. The missing bootscreen and truncated name is a very reliable sign for a not working EFI.
Click to expand...
Yep, booting Windows (I added in a GTX 650 Ti and it booted???) reports "AMD Radeon R9 200 / HD 7900 Series" and it can't read existing GPU/memory clocks or the amount of VRAM. It can't read GPU clocks for my 7300 GT either though.

EDIT: Turned out I have the obscure E208 blower model, not the common 0B00. I have a working ROM for it now, available here
h9826790 said:
Please re-do that "create you own ROM" part, then screen capture the terminal screen output and post that to here.

People often ignore the error warning in that terminal screen, and assume the EFI ROM is correctly created.
Click to expand...
Code: 
running on 7950mac.efi, efiromheader.rom for device-id 0x6798
Patching files 7950mac.efi, efiromheader.rom for device-id 0x6798
Successfully patched efi file
Successfully patched efi rom file
./makerom.sh: line 42: /Users/whitetailani/Downloads/bundle: is a directory
dd: 7950mac.efi.comp: No such file or directory //I looked for this, but I can't see it referenced in the script
EFI part is ready at 6798.efipart.rom
orig size - 65536
65536+0 records in
65536+0 records out
65536 bytes transferred in 0.342285 secs (191466 bytes/sec)
rm: 7950mac.efi.comp: No such file or directory
Before:
OpRom (size=65536, indicator_offset=0x225, indicator=0x80, checksum=0xff)
OpRom (size=48128, indicator_offset=0x31, indicator=0x80, checksum=0x0)
RawData (size=17408)

After:
OpRom (size=65536, indicator_offset=0x225, indicator=0x0, checksum=0x7f)
OpRom (size=48128, indicator_offset=0x31, indicator=0x80, checksum=0x89)
RawData (size=17408)
the rom is ready at 7970.rom.efi.rom
I ran this on latest Lion
 
Last edited:
RealKGB said:
Yep, booting Windows (I added in a GTX 650 Ti and it booted???) reports "AMD Radeon R9 200 / HD 7900 Series" and it can't read existing GPU/memory clocks or the amount of VRAM. It can't read GPU clocks for my 7300 GT either though.

EDIT: Turned out I have the obscure E208 blower model, not the common 0B00. I have a working ROM for it now, available here

Code: 
running on 7950mac.efi, efiromheader.rom for device-id 0x6798
Patching files 7950mac.efi, efiromheader.rom for device-id 0x6798
Successfully patched efi file
Successfully patched efi rom file
./makerom.sh: line 42: /Users/whitetailani/Downloads/bundle: is a directory
dd: 7950mac.efi.comp: No such file or directory //I looked for this, but I can't see it referenced in the script
EFI part is ready at 6798.efipart.rom
orig size - 65536
65536+0 records in
65536+0 records out
65536 bytes transferred in 0.342285 secs (191466 bytes/sec)
rm: 7950mac.efi.comp: No such file or directory
Before:
OpRom (size=65536, indicator_offset=0x225, indicator=0x80, checksum=0xff)
OpRom (size=48128, indicator_offset=0x31, indicator=0x80, checksum=0x0)
RawData (size=17408)

After:
OpRom (size=65536, indicator_offset=0x225, indicator=0x0, checksum=0x7f)
OpRom (size=48128, indicator_offset=0x31, indicator=0x80, checksum=0x89)
RawData (size=17408)
the rom is ready at 7970.rom.efi.rom
I ran this on latest Lion
Click to expand...
As you can see, there is an error "No such file or directory".

This often overlooked when there is a space in the path (e.g. The drive name is "My SSD", then the space between "My" and "SSD" will case this issue).

You better put everything onto a USB thumb drive, leave that drive named "UNTITLED", or something as simple as "USB". Don't use any folder, and put all the files at the root directory of this USB flash drive. Then run the script again.
 
h9826790 said:
Don't use any folder, and put all the files at the root directory of this USB flash drive. Then run the script again.
Click to expand...
Without patched ROM, DVI and miniDP ports are still dead in Mavericks, and it still reports as a 7xxx.

Just having no spaces should suffice - so I just renamed to bundle2. /Volumes/Sonia/Users/whitetailani/Downloads/bundle2 has no spaces.

Running on Lion produced
./makerom.sh: line 46: 1649 Segmentation fault: 1 $PWD/$EFICOMPRESSNAME $EFIFILE $EFIFILE.comp

Running on Mavericks produced
./makerom.sh: line 46: 492 Illegal instruction: 4 $PWD/$EFICOMPRESSNAME $EFIFILE $EFIFILE.comp

Running on Sierra produced no errors, so I'm trying that ROM.
 
Using the Sierra-made ROM produces nothing over DVI... until it boots OS X, where it will display a super zoomed out version.
Unplugging it makes it never display over DVI again, but it displays fine over DVI on my 650 Ti (required to boot Windows for some reason).

It also detects as an HD 7950 now, which is an improvement over a 7xxx? Maybe it just didn't know what a 7970 was.

EDIT: More DVI stupidity. It will display to my OTHER DVI monitor, but not my Studio Display with a DVI-ADC converter.
 
Last edited:
Please attach your original ROM or post a link to the same found on techpowerup for example.
 
Unzip the attached rom, flash it under Windows or DOS and report if it works (or not).
 

Attachments

  • Sapphire.HD7970.3072.120207_2.zip
    86.7 KB · Views: 52
Borowski said:
Unzip the attached rom, flash it under Windows or DOS and report if it works (or not).
Click to expand...
This worked - as did my Sierra ROM.
Turns out the issue is that the HD 7970 can only output to two displays. Display #3 will just not get any output.
Thanks for your assistance!

I do have another question - in About This Mac, it ID's as an HD 7950. Is it possible to change that to 7970? It'd probably be in a strings somewhere, just not sure which
 
RealKGB said:
This worked - as did my Sierra ROM.
Turns out the issue is that the HD 7970 can only output to two displays. Display #3 will just not get any output.
Thanks for your assistance!

I do have another question - in About This Mac, it ID's as an HD 7950. Is it possible to change that to 7970? It'd probably be in a strings somewhere, just not sure which
Click to expand...
You have to do this BEFORE you create the EFI ROM. The GPU ident is inside the 7950mac.efi. You can hex edit it to show 7970 if you want to (N.B. There are two idents inside the ROM, please change both).
 
  • Like
Reactions: RealKGB
h9826790 said:
You have to do this BEFORE you create the EFI ROM. The GPU ident is inside the 7950mac.efi. You can hex edit it to show 7970 if you want to (N.B. There are two idents inside the ROM, please change both).
Click to expand...
Would I then need to mod something in OS X? Since when it was just a regular 7970, it reported as a 7xxx.
EDIT: No you don't, that's awesome!
 
Last edited:
RealKGB said:
I do have another question - in About This Mac, it ID's as an HD 7950. Is it possible to change that to 7970?
Click to expand...

In system profiler and "about this mac" it should named AMD Radeon HD 7970. I checked/corrected all strings in EFI and header.

If you still get no video-output on some ports: Check first with stock-rom in a Windows- or Linux-PC (yes, not Mac) that it isn't driver-related or hardware defect.

Keep in mind: avoid adapters and high-resolution displays won't work for bootscreen.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RealKGB
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back