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Installing Radeon 9650 in Quicksilver

Haemoglobin

Haemoglobin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 25, 2018
157
125
England, inside a house, sitting on a chair
Hi guys

So I've read the wiki here

And wondered how many have attempted this and how easy it was to perform, I bought a video card last year and it's been sitting in a drawer ever since. I was considering going down the cutting traces route, instead of using tape, as it's feels less reliable.

I just wanted to get your thoughts and opinions, I guess before I start pulling stuff out of a working machine. I've had the QS for about a year now and not really tinkered with it like my other systems.
 
Thought I'd report back, was a bit surprised that nobody has replied. I was sure there would be people on here who have fitted AGP x8 cards in to G4 Powermacs with ADC.

Anyways, looking at the guide, I was a little thrown off by the fact my AGP card is slightly different to the one in the guide, specifically the edge connector and the number of notches. It's been a couple of decades since I played around with AGP, so couldn't remember what the significance was.

But after speaking with a friend, he explained it's because my Ati 9650 is AGP Pro from a G5, the connectors are different to that of your basic PC AGP, like the one pictured in the tutorial. Hopefully today, I'll take a shot of getting it installed. I'm going for the tape route first, just to make sure the card will work. Then I might look at cutting the traces to pin 11 & 3.
 
I haven't tried what you describe as my QSs are retrofitted with MDD 9000 Pros, however if the tape works, I'd leave it there vs any permanent mod so you or someone else can put it back into a G5 in the future. I do have the card but it lives in an a1047 DP 2.0Ghz PMG5 :D

Thanks for reminding me that I probably should repaste that card. I think the last time I touched it was around 2017-18 maybe.
 
So I’ve installed the 9650 and a curious thing is happening, it will boot up. White screen, apple logo, then switch to a blue screen. Usually at this point showing a progress bar as OS X boots. But instead it just sits with a blue screen and never reaches the desktop.
 
Hmm, so I took a look at macelite and while they do list the 9650 as working in a QS, it comes with the caveat that it might not work too LOL :D I guess your 9650 is on the not working side of that statement. I have a couple QS and a 9650 in my a1147. Im tempted now to tape the pins and see if I can get it to work or if I get the same result. Time permitting of course LOL I've got lawn furniture to assemble.
 
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You could pick up a cheap Ati Radeon 9200 or 9200 pro off eBay, download an appropriate rom from Macelite and then flash it in your MDD with graphiccelerator.

The last ati card I flashed with this tool was a pci visiontek Radeon 7000 for my B&W. Worked pretty well for me. IIRC dosdude made a YT video on the process. If you’re looking to flash an agp card, you’d need a Mac pci vid card of some type to provide GUI while the unflashed 9200 occupies the agp slot. In my B&W scenario, that Mac is all pci so used two pci slots.
 
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My friend has come to the rescue with an ATI 9000 64mb card, which is better than the Geforce 2 mx 32mb I'm using at the moment. I'm hoping this current card is the reason for the poor frame rate. My Quicksilver has a 1.8Ghz G4 installed, it's currently clocked at 1.6Ghz so as not to over tax the PSU. Still KOTOR does struggle at times, not sure if that's the game or my system.

I removed the 9650 and I'm giving it to my friend to put in one of his systems, it's useless to me. Plug he's giving me the 9000, so only fair.

In other news, I discovered the SATA card i bought a few years back doesn't work. I bought two, first one worked but I never bothered testing this one as the person selling it me seemed trustworthy. But turns out it will not work in the QS, GAH!
 
The 9000 has been a great card in my QS and has performed very well in 3D environments like Quake 3 Arena.

Well, Quicksilvers are very picky due to voltages. Technically most of the 3112, 3512 etc sata cards could work ok if they’re flashed with an appropriate rom (Weibetech, firmtek, etc) and you switch the voltage/regulator from 5v down to 3.3v. These cards vary in design and component a lot however (not just between 3112 & 3512 but rather between different cards of the same number), some requiring eeprom replacement others can be flashed through a windows computer, some flashed through classic macOS, some flashed through OSX and still more by removing the eeprom chip outright and flashing through an eeprom reader tool so, it’s not as straightforward as it may seem - truthfully the deeper you get, the harder it can seem. Here are a couple good threads to read up on the topic: HERE and HERE. Out of the box, sonnet, Acard and firmtek cards work well. They are absurdly $$ at this point and hard to find though. I tend to use pata/sata adapters in my QS as they abundant, allow me to connect sata hdd/ssd, are cheap n’ easy and I still get a nice speed boost.
 
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Haemoglobin said:
Thought I'd report back, was a bit surprised that nobody has replied. I was sure there would be people on here who have fitted AGP x8 cards in to G4 Powermacs with ADC.
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I used different cards in my own Quicksilver, but the question you were asking was specific. I always taped pins, I never cut traces. I have a habit of swapping cards around and I'd rather remove tape because otherwise there's only one computer that card is going to work in if you've cut the traces.

So, not having any experience in that I didn't answer.

I did have a 9800 Pro in my Quicksilver for quite a while. Then, later on an NVIDIA card that is only stable in Quicksilvers. I was running that card, a Radeon 9200 and a flashed Radeon 7000 for a few years (yes, all three cards in the QS for six displays).
 
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Certificate of Excellence said:
Hmm, so I took a look at macelite and while they do list the 9650 as working in a QS, it comes with the caveat that it might not work too LOL :D I guess your 9650 is on the not working side of that statement. I have a couple QS and a 9650 in my a1147. Im tempted now to tape the pins and see if I can get it to work or if I get the same result. Time permitting of course LOL I've got lawn furniture to assemble.
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Do let me know if you have any luck with your 9650, at the moment it’s looking like it’s a 9000 for me
 
eyoungren said:
I used different cards in my own Quicksilver, but the question you were asking was specific. I always taped pins, I never cut traces. I have a habit of swapping cards around and I'd rather remove tape because otherwise there's only one computer that card is going to work in if you've cut the traces.

So, not having any experience in that I didn't answer.

I did have a 9800 Pro in my Quicksilver for quite a while. Then, later on an NVIDIA card that is only stable in Quicksilvers. I was running that card, a Radeon 9200 and a flashed Radeon 7000 for a few years (yes, all three cards in the QS for six displays).
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The 9800 pro looks like a rather expensive card, going on eBay prices. Not sure I can stretch to over $100.
 
I've found that 9800s are also horrendously unreliable. In an unrelated build I've thrown three 9800 Pros at it and all of them were faulty and for that reason I would not recommend any 9800 card.
 
Fortunately my friend has a 9000 ati he's said he'll swap me for the 9650, which honestly is fine with me. He's getting a card he can put in one of his G5's or Graphite's and I'm getting something that will require no modding. I'm all for having an easy life!
 
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