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

Mr. Mister

macrumors 6502
Feb 15, 2006
440
0
timb said:
My Mac Pro should be in Monday. I have a 7800 GT (not GTX) I will try. Here's my thought:

A 7900 is not recognized at all. A 7800 GTX is recognized but doesn't work. Perhaps a 7800 GT will be recognized *and* work under OS X, because there is a native driver for it (since there are 7800 GT cards for the G5s, should be the same driver).

At any rate, this is good news indeed, and progress.

-timb
The 7800GT driver is for PPC though, and I'm sure Apple didn't go out of their way to make it work on Intel seeing as they have no Intel Macs officially shipping with that card.
 

timb

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2003
249
0
Mr. Mister said:
The 7800GT driver is for PPC though, and I'm sure Apple didn't go out of their way to make it work on Intel seeing as they have no Intel Macs officially shipping with that card.

Yea, time will tell. :)

Incidentally, who had that link to the video card flashing community forums? I can't seem to find the thread it was in. I remember it had the word "dog" in it.
 

Mr. Mister

macrumors 6502
Feb 15, 2006
440
0
Does anybody know whether PC 7300GTs work in the Mac Pro with drivers thus paving the way for X1900 XTs?
 

tobyg

macrumors 6502a
Aug 31, 2004
528
2
Mr. Mister said:
Does anybody know whether PC 7300GTs work in the Mac Pro with drivers thus paving the way for X1900 XTs?

I tried an XFX 7300GT in the Mac Pro. Works fine, in Windows. OSX won't talk to it.
 

Mr. Mister

macrumors 6502
Feb 15, 2006
440
0
Just wondering whether I should cancel my order and go on over to Newegg.

Also, are the XTX cards the same as the XT but overclocked, so they have the same drivers? Just wanna know if I can use Sapphire's X1900XTX Venom card that beats the 7950GX2 and uses liquid cooling. :eek:
 

tobyg

macrumors 6502a
Aug 31, 2004
528
2
Mr. Mister said:
Just wondering whether I should cancel my order and go on over to Newegg.

Also, are the XTX cards the same as the XT but overclocked, so they have the same drivers? Just wanna know if I can use Sapphire's X1900XTX Venom card that beats the 7950GX2 and uses liquid cooling. :eek:

So far it seems like you could use any card you want, in Windows. But it's not as simple as that either, because if you want to see the boot process you need to have your monitor hooked up to the stock Apple card. Then, you can switch to the other video card. Again, that's not entirely simple either because in my experience if you don't have the video cable hooked up prior to windows starting, you won't get a display.

I have my 7300GT hooked up to my Dell 24" on the DVI input. I have my 7800 GTX hooked up to my Dell 24" on the DB15/VGA input. I start my mac with my Dell 24" input set to DVI, I hold down option, I select Windows. After Windows starts booting, I can then switch the input signal on my monitor to the DB15/VGA input.

That's how mine is currently working. And it works well, for me.

Good luck.
 

Deerhunter04

macrumors member
Aug 11, 2006
55
0
Illinois
tobyg said:
I have my 7300GT hooked up to my Dell 24" on the DVI input. I have my 7800 GTX hooked up to my Dell 24" on the DB15/VGA input. I start my mac with my Dell 24" input set to DVI, I hold down option, I select Windows. After Windows starts booting, I can then switch the input signal on my monitor to the DB15/VGA input.

This is exactly how i'm going to switch back and forth with my Mac Pro. I'm glad it's working for you. I get my pro in a few days. :)
 

tobyg

macrumors 6502a
Aug 31, 2004
528
2
Deerhunter04 said:
This is exactly how i'm going to switch back and forth with my Mac Pro. I'm glad it's working for you. I get my pro in a few days. :)

It works well enough. I played some flatout 2 last night (not terribly graphic intensive, but it was the one game I wanted to play) just fine on my 7800 GTX. All of the benchmarks I have done put my Mac Pro with 7800 GTX well ahead of my previous gaming rig, an Athlon 64 3400+ (with the same card). The Athlon 64 3400+ is actually better at most games even compared to an Intel Pentium D 950 cpu running at 3.4ghz, and the fact that the Mac Pro beats that is all I was hoping for. Conroe would be faster, but there are no Conroe macs (yet).

BTW, I put my 7800 GTX in slot 1 (16x slot) and the 7300GT in slot 2 (set at 8x).
 

tobyg

macrumors 6502a
Aug 31, 2004
528
2
Mr. Mister said:
Erm, Conroe shouldn't be faster, since Woodcrest is Conroe with more cache and better memory.

I'm not going to liter this thread with a debate if Conroe vs Woodcrest would be faster, but in the context of gaming, a Conroe box would probably be faster. There are other threads we could hop into to debate the speed of Conroe vs. Woodcrest.
 

tshen83

macrumors newbie
Aug 14, 2006
1
0
tobyg said:
I just did dump the rom on both the apple 7300 GT and the XFX 7300 GT I bought tonight... bad news. Looks like Lord Blackadder was right. Looks like Apple is still up to their old ways. They are still using 128k roms.

This was all done with nvflash version 5.36

XFX 7300 GT
nvflash --list
<0> GeForce 7300 GT (10DE,0393,1682,4006) H:N B:01,PCI,D:00,F:00
Image Size : 65024 bytes
Version : 05.73.22.25.81
~CRC32 : 548C3CFB
Subsystem Vendor ID : 1682
Subsystem ID : 4006
Hierarchy ID : Normal Board

EEPROM ID (9D,7B) : PMC Pm25LV512 2.7-3.6V 64Kx8S, page
Saved to XFX7300.rom


Apple 7300 GT
nvflash --list
<0> GeForce 7300 GT (10DE,0393,0000,0400) H:N B:01,PCI,D:00,F:00
Image Size : 102912 bytes
Version : 05.73.22.29.A0
~CRC32 : BBF10FE5
Subsystem Vendor ID : 0000
Subsystem ID : 0400
Hierarchy ID : Normal Board

nvflash --check
EEPROM ID (1F,60) : Atmel AT25F1024 2.7-3.6V 128Kx8S, page

Saved to APL7300.rom


AND:

As suspected, OSX won't work with it. No gray screen when booting.

When booting into windows, it did see it. I slapped on the little SLI connector, and got a message saying "Your motherboard is not qualified for SLI". Damnit!

Found nothing really good online regarding how to fix that. One suggestion was to try older drivers. I was running 91.31, downloaded 84.21 to try. 84.21 doesn't support the 7300 GT. Used the driver CD from the XFX CD, 84.26. This time it says I can enable SLI just as soon as I remove the incompatible video card in my system. Not sure what that would be, as there is no other video card in my system other than the two 7300 GT's.

I used slot 1 and 2, both set at 8X.

So, as of now, no luck with SLI... but I haven't given up on it yet.

Oh and the XFX video card looks similar but the PCB is quite different from the Apple 7300 GT. The heat sink looks to be identical, but that's about it.

I did some quick research, looks like we need to replace the SOIC chip PM25LV512-25SCE? with PM25LV010-25SCE chip which is pin compatible and a 1MBit device. See this
http://www.pmcflash.com/resource_center/docs/Pm25LV512-010 V1.4.pdf

additionally the Atmel AT25F1024A chip datasheet shows that it is is pin compatible with PM25LV010-25SCE. depends on price/availability of those 8pin SOIC chips, they are interchangable.

back of the card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...6MB+GDDR2+PCI+Express+x16+Video+Card+-+Retail

and on the backside, right next to the GPU area you see a 8pin SOIC chip, which I assume to be the PM25LV512. It might be hard to hand solder a newer chip preflashed, but it might be doable with steady hands.

I am ordering a XFX 7300GT soon so i can mess with it.
 

CyberPrey

macrumors regular
Aug 10, 2006
209
0
IGH, MN
Well fudge :( I just bit the bullet and hit the apple store and ordered the x1900.... **EDIT** 5 weeks ship time :( I think they need to fill the orders for Mac Pro's that need it before they send the accessory upgrade kits**

the Mac Pro does NOT come with a GPU power cable. There are, however, TWO plugs on the mainboard that are there for the express reason of powering the GPU's. They are 2x3 design, and Apple sends the power cable that plugs in there with the video card. I pestered both Apple customer support and apple tech support, but both are saying the power cable is not available for sale seperate.

Although, if you have 1 superdrive, you COULD run the 2nd superdrive power plug down into the case for a GPU....
 

Lord Blackadder

macrumors P6
May 7, 2004
15,678
5,511
Sod off
Wow, lots of good detective work here!

After reading the posts by tobyg and JNaut, my opinion is that the PC cards are totally hardware compatible with the Mac - the differences are still all in firmware.

I still think that a 64k-->128k ROM chip swap on a PC card (from a card class that is already available on the Mac, i.e. 7300 or X1900) and a flash with a Mac ROM will produce a working, dual platform card. It may require minor tweaks like a device ID change, but that's just a little fiddling with a hex editor. The ROM chips are little surface mount things, so there is some skill involved, but it's a small price to pay.

tobg, I think you may get working SLI in Windows if you flash your PC 7300 card (after doing the ROM swap) to the Mac ROM and use those hacked drivers...anyway this looks good from the standpoint that flashing dual-platform cards and SLI look to be possible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Petri Krohn

user2

macrumors newbie
Aug 17, 2006
1
0
Hello all, I've just joined the forum due to this thread. Is there any chance you will be posting that rom image? I would very much like the chance to work with it.
 

timb

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2003
249
0
I need another card (to run 3 monitors) for my Mac Pro ASAP, so I was considering of ordering another 7300 GT for the time being. I was also thinking of just biting the bullet and grabbing the ATI card, however I'm worried about it not working with the 7300. I did call Apple support, and the tech said he didn't know why both cards wouldn't work, but I've seen elsewhere that it won't.

Incidentally, my PC card was a 256 MB 7800 GTX. Tried it, didn't work. (Of course.)
 

friendlydacat

macrumors newbie
Aug 17, 2006
7
1
Windows XP Problem

Hello All,

I hope this is the right forum to ask this question.

I have tried both Windows XP64 Pro, and Windows XP Pro and after installing all drivers I'm left with four drivers with an exclamation point under the System Devices:
(!) Intel(r) 5000 Series Chipset PCI x4 Port 3 -25E3
(!) Intel(r) 5000 Series Chipset PCI x4 Port 5 -25E5
(!) Intel(r) 5000 Series Chipset PCI x4 Port 6 -25E6
(!) Intel(r) 5000 Series Chipset PCI x4 Port 7 -25E7

I can't seem to get these to install under both XP64 Pro and Xp Pro.

If I install "PCI standard host CPU Bridge" for Port 6, it seems to work (but not for ports 3,5, and 7)

I hope that this MAC Pro is not defective. I don't really want to pack this up and returning it to Fry's.
Any help is appreciated.
 

CyberPrey

macrumors regular
Aug 10, 2006
209
0
IGH, MN
I think all of us who have installed XP on our Mac Pro get that. It looks like for some reason any PCIe slot that is unpopulated shows that.
 

friendlydacat

macrumors newbie
Aug 17, 2006
7
1
Thanks! I wish I would have known that. I have been struggling for three days trying to figure it out. I'll start over and reinstall XP64 since I had that fully functional.
 

chrismmx

macrumors member
Aug 19, 2006
32
0
Paris,France
friendlydacat said:
Thanks! I wish I would have known that. I have been struggling for three days trying to figure it out. I'll start over and reinstall XP64 since I had that fully functional.

Hi,i would like to ask if you got de problem of the hard disque's poor preformance in windows just like the others guys here? :(

thanks
 

friendlydacat

macrumors newbie
Aug 17, 2006
7
1
7800gt

Ok, so I installed an eVGA 7800gt into the Intel MAC PRO and connected to the dvi input of Dell 20.1 inch monitor. I get the initial bootup screen (the white screen with apple logo). Then as the system loads, it blanks out, but the monitor still shows it's receiving a signal. I switch to the 7300gt (connected to the vga15) and also have a black screen, but monitor shows it's receiving a signal. I disconnect the 7800gt and reboot the system with the 7300gt and I boot to OSX with no problems (7300gt is connected to slot4).

I look in the hardware info "about this mac", and it shows that a "g70" card is in pci slot1, and the 7300gt is in slot 4. It also shows that the 7300gt is the main display, and connected to a Dell monitor, while the 7800gt is not connected to any main display. At this point I connect the DVI cable, and the 7800gt is working under OSX. I check, again, under Hardware->Graphics/Display, and it now shows the G70 board is connected to the Dell monitor and it's set as the main display.

The problem is if I reboot it doesn't work again. I have to go through the same process to get the 7800gt to work under osx.

This tells me that apple needs to make a driver for the 7800GT since it does display the initial boot up--the white screen with apple logo.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Petri Krohn

friendlydacat

macrumors newbie
Aug 17, 2006
7
1
CyberPrey said:
I think all of us who have installed XP on our Mac Pro get that. It looks like for some reason any PCIe slot that is unpopulated shows that.

CyberPrey,
I now have two PCI-e cards installed and the populated PCIe slots still shows an "!".
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.