Issues with ATI Radeon 9200 Mac Edition graphics card in a Power Macintosh G3 (Minitower)

[LeoI07]

I bought an in-box ATI Radeon 9200 Mac Edition graphics card on eBay to use with my Power Macintosh G3 (Minitower 266 MHz) and got it in the mail today, so I decided to install it. I first put the card in the top PCI slot, and moved the FireWire/USB card which had previously occupied it into the middle slot. However, when I booted up the G3 to Mac OS X 10.2.8 (the only OS on there), I would get some garbled graphics on the screen and the system would hang.

I then removed the Radeon 9200 and moved the FW/USB card back into the top slot, then booted it back up. It booted successfully, and I proceeded to install the Radeon 9200 drivers from the CD it came with, then shut down the computer and put the Radeon 9200 back in. However, I couldn't get it to output any video from the graphics card to my TV (because I didn't want to use a CRT and I didn't have any flat-panel monitors) using the DVI port on the Radeon 9200 plugged into a DVI to HDMI adapter that was plugged into an HDMI cable that was plugged into my TV. I tried using the VGA port with a VGA to HDMI adapter, but that didn't work either.

Then I plugged the VGA to HDMI adapter into a DB-15 to VGA adapter, which I was able to get video out from before. I verbose booted OS X to see what happened during boot, and saw a kernel panic message saying:
panic(cpu 0): 0x200 - Machine check
This also happened with the Radeon 9200 in the top PCI slot. During one attempt it didn't panic, but rather it got farther before hanging up. These were the last three lines it displayed before hanging up:

Starting timed execution services
Apr  4 23:07:18 [redacted]s-Computer xinetd[273]: 273 {init_services} no services. Exiting...
/etc/rc: line 247:    98 Hangup                  SystemStarter -g ${VerboseFlag} ${SafeBoot}

Does anyone know what I could do to fix this issue? I repeatedly tried resetting NVRAM and also tried booting from an OS X 10.2 CD, but to no avail. I'd appreciate a working solution.

 

[theMarble]

Xinetd seems to manage internet services in OS X, so reading your panic code it sounds like that xinetd seems to not be working probably, which means it will quit. I would try booting into safe mode (Hold Shift on boot) and seeing if it boots fine.

 

[LeoI07]

Xinetd seems to manage internet services in OS X, so reading your panic code it sounds like that xinetd seems to not be working probably, which means it will quit. I would try booting into safe mode (Hold Shift on boot) and seeing if it boots fine.

Alright, I tried booting into safe mode, but it now gets hung up at Starting Window Server. (This is with the Radeon 9200 in the middle PCI slot, by the way.)

 

[theMarble]

Did the original graphics card work fine and what slot was it in?

 

[LeoI07]

Did the original graphics card work fine and what slot was it in?

There was no original graphics card; the ATI 3D Rage II+ graphics chip is on the motherboard. It obviously worked fine.

 

[DearthnVader]

Sounds like you may have a bad card.

Some Radeon PCI cards had trouble in the Beige G3 when other PCI FCode ROM cards where present. A work around was to use the pci-probe-list command in Open Firmware to disable the built-in Rage Pro. I don't really remember, it had something to do with the amount of RAM OF has to deal with FCODE ROMs.

That doesn't sound like your trouble tho, do you have any other Macs to test the R9200 in?

 

[LeoI07]

Sounds like you may have a bad card.

Some Radeon PCI cards had trouble in the Beige G3 when other PCI FCode ROM cards where present. A work around was to use the pci-probe-list command in Open Firmware to disable the built-in Rage Pro. I don't really remember, it had something to do with the amount of RAM OF has to deal with FCODE ROMs.

That doesn't sound like your trouble tho, do you have any other Macs to test the R9200 in?

No, I don't have any other Macs to test with. I'm gonna try disabling the built-in GPU with that Open Firmware command, although I'd like you to specify what command I have to use. By the way, if my Radeon 9200 is faulty, is there a specific hardware problem causing that, can it be fixed, and if so, how?

Edit: I tried executing the pci-probe-list command in OF to see what it did, and all it did was increment the prompt from 0 > to 1 > to 2 > to (345678) to 9 > to A >. Must be hexadecimal for something.

 

[DearthnVader]

No, I don't have any other Macs to test with. I'm gonna try disabling the built-in GPU with that Open Firmware command, although I'd like you to specify what command I have to use. By the way, if my Radeon 9200 is faulty, is there a specific hardware problem causing that, can it be fixed, and if so, how?

Edit: I tried executing the pci-probe-list command in OF to see what it did, and all it did was increment the prompt from 0 > to 1 > to 2 > to (345678) to 9 > to A >. Must be hexadecimal for something.

I think in OF: @joevt

setenv pci-probe-list 0xfffbffff
reset-all

Clearing the pram should revert to -1 or 0xffffffff.

Really, you need to test the R9200 in another Mac to see is it works proper, otherwise you may just be chasing your tail with bad hardware. Unless you can see something obvious like a blown cap on the R9200 there isn't much that can be done as far has hardware repair of the card itself without a detailed schematic and an oscilloscope.

I also think you can do it from the Terminal.app in OS X:

sudo nvram pci-probe-list="-262145"
sudo reboot

 

[LeoI07]

I think in OF: @joevt

setenv pci-probe-list 0xfffbffff
reset-all

Clearing the pram should revert to -1 or 0xffffffff.

Really, you need to test the R9200 in another Mac to see is it works proper, otherwise you may just be chasing your tail with bad hardware. Unless you can see something obvious like a blown cap on the R9200 there isn't much that can be done as far has hardware repair of the card itself without a detailed schematic and an oscilloscope.

I also think you can do it from the Terminal.app in OS X:

sudo nvram pci-probe-list="-262145"
sudo reboot

I tried doing both the Open Firmware and Terminal ones and I haven't been able to get it to work. Trying the Open Firmware command just threw an error saying "invalid number". I tried it from the Terminal after taking the Radeon 9200 out, however I still can't get any output from the 9200 via the VGA port. I doubt the DVI port would work either.

My only option now is to test it with a different Mac. Like I said, I don't have any other Macs to test with. However, I expect to be getting a G3 Blue & White next week, so if I get that I'll test the Radeon 9200 in there and see if it works.

 

[joevt]

I think in OF: @joevt

setenv pci-probe-list 0xfffbffff
reset-all

Clearing the pram should revert to -1 or 0xffffffff.

Really, you need to test the R9200 in another Mac to see is it works proper, otherwise you may just be chasing your tail with bad hardware. Unless you can see something obvious like a blown cap on the R9200 there isn't much that can be done as far has hardware repair of the card itself without a detailed schematic and an oscilloscope.

I also think you can do it from the Terminal.app in OS X:

sudo nvram pci-probe-list="-262145"
sudo reboot

It's been nearly a couple decades since I played with OpenFirmware and GPUs. I still have all the hardware and code though.

Hex numbers in OF don't include the 0x part.
I found this https://forums.macrumors.com/attach...macs-installation-and-setup-guide-pdf.686245/ which explains that fffbffff is for disabling the built-in ATI Rage+ controller, but I can't find the macrumors post that includes that attachment.

Before using the terminal to set pci-probe-list, use nvram -p to see the current format (after pram is zapped to get the default value) just to be sure.

I forget, what is the default OpenFirwmare input and output device for beige g3? If it's the display then won't disabling the ATI Rage+ cause you to be unable to go back into Open Firmware? Or will it try another GPU? You may want to be using serial for input/output. You can get a USB serial adapter for a modern computer and use that computer to do open firmware stuff.