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No, the Mac ROM has a BIOS + EFI. The BIOS is necessary for bootcamp, but also in OSX, according to Netkas.
We were talking about replacing the BIOS part in the Mac ROM by the original BIOS from the PC card that is to be flashed.
Oh, got it now. Thanks. ;)

Does this have something to do with the ports not working correctly?
 
A no-go for me

Well I got brave yesterday and tried to flash my Sapphire HD 4870 card (purchased a couple of weeks ago.) I got the same results as tobyg - the Mac Pro chimes over and over.

I put the card into my PC to flash back to original BIOS, only to discover that my PC refuses to post with this video card plugged in.

Took it to a friend's house, plugged it in there, and his PC won't post with it installed either.

At this point... I am wondering whether I'll ever get my card back. Is there some trick to getting a PC to post with this card now?

:edit:

Here's the details on this card:
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-XXXXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R
 
You need a PC with a standard PCI video card. You might be able to get a PC with an integrated video card working, but I didn't have luck with that and didn't try much to make it work.

You need to go into the bios and make sure you pick the order of the video cards being initialized. I changed mine to PCI/PEG (PCI first, then PCI Express Graphics). After I did that, I was able to boot off of my USB flash drive and reflash the dead card with no problem.

Yeah that is the problem I had too. It won't even post, so the 'trick' The Rominator mentioned (I believe it was him) with memorizing keystrokes won't work, as the PC never posts. You need another video source, and the trick is to make sure the BIOS initializes that other video source first.
 
You need a PC with a standard PCI video card. You might be able to get a PC with an integrated video card working, but I didn't have luck with that and didn't try much to make it work.

You need to go into the bios and make sure you pick the order of the video cards being initialized. I changed mine to PCI/PEG (PCI first, then PCI Express Graphics). After I did that, I was able to boot off of my USB flash drive and reflash the dead card with no problem.

Yeah that is the problem I had too. It won't even post, so the 'trick' The Rominator mentioned (I believe it was him) with memorizing keystrokes won't work, as the PC never posts. You need another video source, and the trick is to make sure the BIOS initializes that other video source first.

Thanks a million tobyg, I was sitting here wondering how I was going to get over the idea that I had killed my video card and couldn't get it back. I'll go to the used PC place this afternoon and see if I can find an old second-hand PCI video card to use for this.
 
Thanks a million tobyg, I was sitting here wondering how I was going to get over the idea that I had killed my video card and couldn't get it back. I'll go to the used PC place this afternoon and see if I can find an old second-hand PCI video card to use for this.

Nah, you didn't kill it. I've had to recover 2 cards already and they both recovered fine.

This may also help. But don't download the rom they link to, as that likely won't work. Use the rom you backed up (I hope you backed up your rom).
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/152
 
you also can use motherboard with 2 pci-e x16 ports, which allows to choose what pcie port to use as primary display (gigabyte mobos support it), then u need any pcie card.

If anyone does a tests with 4850 card - rememeber to plug dvi monitor to dvi port closest to mobo, and dvi2vga adapter (only adapter) to another ports, this is how 4850 works in osx in hacks.
 
Well I got brave yesterday and tried to flash my Sapphire HD 4870 card (purchased a couple of weeks ago.) I got the same results as tobyg - the Mac Pro chimes over and over.



Here's the details on this card:
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5
PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
PN 288-XXXXX-XXXXX
SKU# 11133-03-20R

Hi there,
as Sapphire wrote on there Site, only Cards beginning with PN 102- are "Built by ATI", also called "ATI reference design", which seems to be ok for our purpose.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ge/support/faqs_viewlist.php?faq_cat_id=14&faq_subcat_id=37

I think there SKU beginns with 21133, SKU 11133 seems to be the newer design.

But even today you can find them new - at least here in Germany. Will get my hands on the card in the next few days, orderd them yesterday.

Best regards, Jaberwocky
 
Price?

Hi there,
as Sapphire wrote on there Site, only Cards beginning with PN 102- are "Built by ATI", also called "ATI reference design", which seems to be ok for our purpose.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ge/support/faqs_viewlist.php?faq_cat_id=14&faq_subcat_id=37

I think there SKU beginns with 21133, SKU 11133 seems to be the newer design.

But even today you can find them new - at least here in Germany. Will get my hands on the card in the next few days, orderd them yesterday.

Best regards, Jaberwocky

Hi,
where did u buy it and how much do u pay for it?

Much cheaper than original Apple?
 
Do we think all ATI cards are still made with the ATI reference design? I know that sounds dumb, but maybe ATI came up with a new design also.

I'm asking because a local store has the ATI 4870 card for $259.
 
For your information, I have managed to mix the PC BIOS of my card and the EFI part of the MAC ROM.

What I get is the same as a Hackintosh :
- Dual screen not working in Mac OS X : single headed display only (using the DVI port closest to the Logic Board, the other one does not work)
- VGA output & dual screen working in BootCamp (of course, the original firmware is used ...)

Now, if someone with a unsuccessful flash could pm me a link to their original bios, maybe I can make something out of it.

Same thing if one of you has a 4870x2, or a 1GB 4870, and flashing with the dumped MAC firmware didn't work : send me a link to your original rom, and we'll see.


@netkas: Do you think this single display only issue can be fixed using Natit ?
 
For your information, I have managed to mix the PC BIOS of my card and the EFI part of the MAC ROM.

What I get is the same as a Hackintosh :
- Dual screen not working in Mac OS X : single headed display only (using the DVI port closest to the Logic Board, the other one does not work)
- VGA output & dual screen working in BootCamp (of course, the original firmware is used ...)

Now, if someone with a unsuccessful flash could pm me a link to their original bios, maybe I can make something out of it.

Same thing if one of you has a 4870x2, or a 1GB 4870, and flashing with the dumped MAC firmware didn't work : send me a link to your original rom, and we'll see.


@netkas: Do you think this single display only issue can be fixed using Natit ?

Do you know what Bios P/N and Product Name was?

Mine looks like this with the stock flash:

Code:
	Adapter 0		(BN=01, DN=00, PCIID=94401002, SSID=0502174B)
		ASIC Family		 :  RV770/M98
		Flash Type		 :  PM25LV010	(128 KB)
		Product Name		 :  RV770XT 512M GDDR5 2DVI TVO
		Bios Config File	 :  1E8501SA.002
		Bios P/N		 :  11X-1E8501SA-001
		Bios Version		 :  011.010.000.002.029896
		Bios Date		 :  09/08/08 06:32
 
Hi there,
as Sapphire wrote on there Site, only Cards beginning with PN 102- are "Built by ATI", also called "ATI reference design", which seems to be ok for our purpose.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ge/support/faqs_viewlist.php?faq_cat_id=14&faq_subcat_id=37

I think there SKU beginns with 21133, SKU 11133 seems to be the newer design.

But even today you can find them new - at least here in Germany. Will get my hands on the card in the next few days, orderd them yesterday.

Best regards, Jaberwocky

Nice catch, but I don't read german. ;) Are you sure about the 21133 vs. 11133 thing? Some vendors indicate the SKU, so that could be useful. 21133 cards still seem quite common.
There are two clearly different designs, but they do not seem related to SKU numbers.
Tobig, is the SKU indicated on the box of your Sapphire somewhere?

EDIT: indeed, part numbers 102-B... do seem to correspond to SKU beginning with 21133.
 

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For your information, I have managed to mix the PC BIOS of my card and the EFI part of the MAC ROM.

What I get is the same as a Hackintosh :
- Dual screen not working in Mac OS X : single headed display only (using the DVI port closest to the Logic Board, the other one does not work)
- VGA output & dual screen working in BootCamp (of course, the original firmware is used ...)

Now, if someone with a unsuccessful flash could pm me a link to their original bios, maybe I can make something out of it.

Same thing if one of you has a 4870x2, or a 1GB 4870, and flashing with the dumped MAC firmware didn't work : send me a link to your original rom, and we'll see.


@netkas: Do you think this single display only issue can be fixed using Natit ?

4870x2 will not work without changing device-id to 9440.

Natit makes same what efi rom does for osx - provides info about card. it cant fix bugs in driver (Motmot), I have some ideas...but, I will check them first.

Can u test resolution change in osx with 4870 ?
 
Resolution change works fine on my Diamond 4870.

I started a new thread on 4850....have had some minor results.

Will try the DVI adapter trick later on.

I posted a weird kernel message tat popped up when I booted. (seen via 4870)
 
pipomolo42

there is some trick for hackntoshs to enable dual dvi on 4870, lets try it in your case.

Install this natit and test. (Natit will replace ATY,bin_image key(content - pc part of rom, aka atombios) in ioregistry with macpro's , so, in osx your card will act like it has original 4870 mac rom, and in windows card will have own native rom.)

http://rapidshare.de/files/46144490/Natit.kext.tar.bz2.html
 
Nice catch, but I don't read german. ;) Are you sure about the 21133 vs. 11133 thing? Some vendors indicate the SKU, so that could be useful. 21133 cards still seem quite common.
There are two clearly different designs, but they do not seem related to SKU numbers.
Tobig, is the SKU indicated on the box of your Sapphire somewhere?

EDIT: indeed, part numbers 102-B... do seem to correspond to SKU beginning with 21133.

The card that I have matches your first image (the image on the left,) which is the one with the black cover over the heatsinks with the fan in the middle. This card did not work after using the ROM posted to this thread.
 
The card that I have matches your first image (the image on the left,) which is the one with the black cover over the heatsinks with the fan in the middle. This card did not work after using the ROM posted to this thread.

I think the Sapphire cards with blue PCB are the "new" ones, designed by the ATI-OEM. The left one also didn't use the ATI reference design (fan), isn't it the Toxid one ?

Maybe on wednesday i will have my card, i will write if SKU & S/N fits.

Bye & good night
 
It is my understanding and experience that past Mac cards, especially the Nvidia ones, only used the EFI to START setup of card.

The card is actually "run" by the PC BIOS.

I can PROVE that changing PC clock speeds in BIOS changes performance in OSX on 88GT.

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.
 
It is my understanding and experience that past Mac cards, especially the Nvidia ones, only used the EFI to START setup of card.

The card is actually "run" by the PC BIOS.

I can PROVE that changing PC clock speeds in BIOS changes performance in OSX on 88GT.

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.


Let me ask this then: Is it possible to have a mac pro with 2 pci express cards in it....a "primary card" that OS X recognizes during startup and a second that OS X doesn't recognize on it's own, but becomes available once the boot sequence is completed? Thus far I've noticed different behavior in my ability to boot OS X/bootcamp depending on which card i have in which slot. My best result in booting OSX/bootcamp comes when slot 1 contains a stock gt120 and slot 2 contains a flashed 8800gt. Does the full EFI check happen on all cards in a system?
 
It is my understanding and experience that past Mac cards, especially the Nvidia ones, only used the EFI to START setup of card.

The card is actually "run" by the PC BIOS.

I can PROVE that changing PC clock speeds in BIOS changes performance in OSX on 88GT.

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.
The X1900XT only has EFI in its ROM, but its BIOS is in the firmware of the Mac Pro 1.1. I suppose the BIOS was added by the firmware update that actually offered bootcamp. The card still works on a 2008 Mac Pro, which, as far as I know, does not have the X1900XT BIOS in its firmware (and indeed the card will not work under bootcamp).
 
If the BIOS of the Mac ROM is incompatible with the card, could the EFI work as is?

Well, the EFI part works on 4850 cards ...

So as far as I can see, there is NO WAY to make an "EFI ONLY" rom.

Just because nobody has done it, doesn't mean it's impossible. Just look at how NVIDIA is incapable of building a EFI ByteCode firmware ... Of course, there are other reasons too, like backwards compatibility, and reducing the binary size, by not duplicating data.
 
Success

Ok, well I went to Tiger to return the board I bought and was told I couldn't return it. They've changed their policies and all I can do is exchange it for a different card or get store credit.

I exchanged it, for this card:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3949855&CatId=3670

Opened the card when I got in my car and ... aw crap, blue board. Looks reference of course, but its blue and its not the same as the pictures on the website. Close, but blue.

Anyway, I got home and tried to flash it. Flash took.
Rebooted and expected the PC to hang again. This time it didn't hang, but instead it beeped. No video though, but possibly because I was using analog on that system.

Put it in the Mac Pro and... success! (I had already installed the drivers)

Same issues as everyone else. Bottom port is dual link, top is not. Both work with DVI, neither work with analog.

Either way, I'm happy.

Going to test bootcamp and check out speeds in native Windows.
 
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