Race to dump the 4870 ROM, Who's first?

[c0052350]

success using hybrid rom

just like to report another sapphire 11133-03-20r success using the hybrid rom. The board reported as a wikeva... when using atiflash -ai so a initially tried the apple rom which buggered the board then reflashed using the hybrid rom posted here earlier
Motion seems to run slightly better not really tested much as need another pcie cable
anyway thanks to all who have made this possble

 

[c0052350]

forgot to add using mac pro 1,1

forgot to add using mac pro 1,1

 

[mcroger]

So, here is how I do it:

- get the Mac 4870 rom available in this thread (named 4870.ROM)
- get the 128k vgabios of your PC card (named pc4870.rom)
- get tyhe fixrom.py script that I attached here

run the following commands in a shell (either MacOS X or Linux)

dd if=4870.ROM of=efi.part bs=1 skip=63488 count=49152
blocknum=`printf %d "'\`dd if=pc4870.rom bs=1 skip=2 count=1 2>/dev/null\`"`
size=$(($blocknum * 512))
dd if=efi.part of=pc4870.rom bs=$size seek=1 conv=notrunc
python fixrom.py pc4870.rom pc4870.rom

first one extracts the efi part of the Mac rom
then get the number of 512 bytes blocks of the bios part of your pc rom
then converts it to a size in bytes
then injects the efi part right after the bios part
then the script fixes last rom indicators and checksums

You can then flash the pc4870.rom to your card, using FreeDOS for instance

If you want to do manual modifications to either part of the rom, don't forget to run the fixrom.py script after.

This should work with most (if not all) of the 4870 cards. If it doesn't work for you, just pm me a link to your pc vgabios.

Hi there,

Is not there a syntax error somewhere ?

I got this message as if the $size variable was not used:

$ dd if=efi.part of=pc4870.rom bs=$size seek=1 conv=notrunc
dd: bs must be between 1 and 2147483647


The board from wich I extracted the rom is a Saphhire 512 288-10e85-030SA (11133-03-20R).

Thanks in advance for helping !

 

[Konni]

Did you use "bash" as shell ?

 

[mcroger]

Did not specify, tried in Terminal default in Mac OS X and in Ubuntu as well, same result.

edit: will try in Bash
edit 2: same result

 

[jeanlain]

Did not specify, tried in Terminal default in Mac OS X and in Ubuntu as well, same result.

edit: will try in Bash
edit 2: same result

Maybe you did not extract the PC ROM properly. You could use the hybrid ROM for Sapphire cards that was posted earlier in the thread, or ask c0052350 who has flashed the same card as yours.

 

[tobyg]

About those bloody cables...
Will a PCI-E splitter work, if one already has a cable (I have one with the radeon X1900XT)?
That is much cheaper than another apple-molex to PCI-E cable.
Still, I would be reluctant to connect the two plugs of the 4870 to a single molex. Will it melt? Will I blow a fuse, run out of power during a game?
I suppose there is a good reason for the two plugs on the 4870.

EDIT: it turns out the 4870 does not consumes more power than the X1900XT, so this should be ok. Why the two power plugs on that card?

Where did you find this info? I've read that the X1900 XT uses about 110 watts. Maybe it gets 75 watts from the PCIe slot and the other from the 6 pin molex. Maybe the 4870 gets its power only from the two molex adapters and doesn't draw much from the PCIe slot directly.

I would be afraid of using this. I'm not sure the motherboard traces going to those connectors can handle that much power being drawn from a single connection. This isn't a PC where the 6 pin connectors come directly out of the power supply. If you fry those, you've fried your motherboard.

 

[elvisizer]

i had the same problem with the commands at first, mcroger, until I realized I was being a bonehead- I had named my rom dump 4870pc.rom, and the command is looking for a file name pc4870.rom. make sure the file is in the same directory and has the correct name.

 

[mcroger]

i had the same problem with the commands at first, mcroger, until I realized I was being a bonehead- I had named my rom dump 4870pc.rom, and the command is looking for a file name pc4870.rom. make sure the file is in the same directory and has the correct name.

Just realized it....

Now it works (yes !), small question: did you also get a 112K rom as output ?

Edit: and is the card meant to be able too boot in a PC afterwards (I use it for flashing, PCIe cables not yet arrived for the Mac Pro) ? 'cause if it is no longer meant to run in a PC, fine, otherwise, sh......t, the card does not boot.

 

[Konni]

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture


I think we can add the Club 3D Radeon 4870 to the not working list

 

[jeanlain]

Where did you find this info? I've read that the X1900 XT uses about 110 watts. Maybe it gets 75 watts from the PCIe slot and the other from the 6 pin molex. Maybe the 4870 gets its power only from the two molex adapters and doesn't draw much from the PCIe slot directly.

I would be afraid of using this. I'm not sure the motherboard traces going to those connectors can handle that much power being drawn from a single connection. This isn't a PC where the 6 pin connectors come directly out of the power supply. If you fry those, you've fried your motherboard.

Here the only measure I could find: http://www.behardware.com/articles/...tx-x1900-xt-and-x1900-crossfire-in-tests.html

Oops, I have realized that websites were referring to the power consumption of the whole computer. Not easy to compare with the 4870.

 

[jeanlain]

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture


I think we can add the Club 3D Radeon 4870 to the not working list

You're not using analogous (VGA) output, are you?
Plus, remember to plug your screen to the lower port, the closer to the board and plug a DVI to VGA converter on the other port (but no display).
Can you boot windows or DOS or a PC with you card? This should word without taking care of the above. If not, flashing may have failed.

 

[Konni]

No, I can't get into the Boot "Menu", to select the Bootcamp partition (and I can't select Windows Partition from Leopard to start Windows automaticaly).

No I'm using DVI (I tried both, the upper also the lower Port).

 

[jeanlain]

No, I can't get into the Boot "Menu", to select the Bootcamp partition (and I can't select Windows Partition from Leopard to start Windows automaticaly).

I guess that's normal since it probably has the same limitations as in OS X. You should not see any video before the BIOS emulation starts, in DOS or windows.
Is there a keyboard shortcut to starts with a bootcamp partition?

 

[Konni]

No, there is no shortcut (which I know), but, I removed now all drives (except the one windows drive), so I could select blindly the Windows Partiton, but nothing.

 

[jeanlain]

No, there is no shortcut (which I know), but, I removed now all drives (except the one windows drive), so I could select blindly the Windows Partiton, but nothing.

I would think that the flashing didn't work as it should have. I can't find a reason why the card would not work on windows, since it should still have its original BIOS.

 

[c0052350]

sapphire pn 11133-03-20r

the rom posted by pipomol42 should work for all sapphire cards p/n 11133-03-20r standard 4870 512mb blue pcb and the heatpipe cooler.
Also you can run the card with only one pcie power connector but don't get core image or quartz extreme i.e no hardware acceleration but resolution is fine, runs like this under tiger aswell ( os x does warn you about the missing power connector). This is only a temp measure until i receive a 6pin power cable a guy on ebay sells them for $16 incl shipping.
Another thing i noticed is how much quieter the mac pro is compared to having the x1900 in it.

 

[mcroger]

the rom posted by pipomol42 should work for all sapphire cards p/n 11133-03-20r standard 4870 512mb blue pcb and the heatpipe cooler.

I'll try as soon as my cables have arrived (5-10 days from US to Belgium), then I'll re-flash directly from the Mac Pro using a DOS boot CD (the card prevents my PC from booting ).

Will keep you posted about the outcome, hopefully with yet another success.

 

[pipomolo42]

did you also get a 112K rom as output ?

Edit: and is the card meant to be able too boot in a PC afterwards

If you extracted the rom correctly, it has to be 128k, and yes it's still supposed to run in a PC.

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture


I think we can add the Club 3D Radeon 4870 to the not working list

There is currently nothing like a "not working list". I got your pm, Konni, it seems you have the same problem as mcroger : you didn't do a full 128k dump of your rom.

You can try to look for a bios that works on your card here : http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/

I'll also put a warning in my howto post (well, it was already written "get the 128k vgabios of your PC card" in my original post, now it's in big red letters)

 

[AGDenton]

Experiences with two cards :

1) The Mac Pro just got much noisier.

2) Crossfire works quite well under Windows.

3) The 4870 drivers panic when two cards are present.

Item 3) actually reminds me of a similar problem I encountered when I tried to put two X1900's in a MacPro 1,1 back in 2006... I'm going to pin it on the "WIP" quality of the drivers and wait for 10.5.7's release. In the meantime, I'm unplugging one of the cards when booting OS X, which is probably something I'd do anyway (because of the noise).

I'll try as soon as my cables have arrived (5-10 days from US to Belgium), then I'll re-flash directly from the Mac Pro using a DOS boot CD (the card prevents my PC from booting ).

From my experience, the Mac is even more demanding than a PC when it comes to booting with a "bricked" card in one slot. At least with a PC you can set another card as primary in the BIOS...

I tried the command, and I think it worked, but the Card (Club 3D) won't boot with the ROM in the MacPro (3,1).

The Mac gives out his "Start Beep" but no Picture.

You really need a PC to reflash the card. As far as I've tried, the MP never gets past POST with a bricked card... Alternatively, just RMA the card .

Where did you find this info? I've read that the X1900 XT uses about 110 watts. Maybe it gets 75 watts from the PCIe slot and the other from the 6 pin molex. Maybe the 4870 gets its power only from the two molex adapters and doesn't draw much from the PCIe slot directly.

I would be afraid of using this. I'm not sure the motherboard traces going to those connectors can handle that much power being drawn from a single connection. This isn't a PC where the 6 pin connectors come directly out of the power supply. If you fry those, you've fried your motherboard.

I've been running two cards in Crysis Warhead for ~1h off these PCIe connectors with no problem whatsoever... I actually think it's safer than using the Molex connectors from the ODD bay, which was rather flaky (I guess they're connected to a weaker 12V rail).

it shouldnt stay in kextstat, it attaches to device, sets binimage and detaches.

the only way to check it worked is to connect both dvi ports

Well, in that case, in doesn't work yet . I'm also interested in getting the sleep function back. Do you know which keys are responsible for it?

 

[johnjobs]

hi pipomolo,

I have today received my sapphire 4870, with the pn 288-10E85-030SA, SKU
11133-03-20R. I want to flash, what is the easiest method and what bios should I take? thanks

 

[pipomolo42]

So instead, here are instructions to build small tools that allow to compress and decompress the EFI PE32 binaries : http://boeglin.org/static/efidecompress/

You can get the EFI spec at uefi.org, and look at chapter 13.4.2 for PCI Option ROM details.

FYI, I eventually made binaries, for MacOSX and 64bit Linux. You can get them at the URL above. Files with the .macosx suffix are the MacOSX binaries, and files with the .linux are the Linux binaries.

What we need next are a GCC back-end, and binutils support for EBC, which are a bit less trivial to do

 

[goin3d]

just flashed a sapphire 1gig (288 version) using pipomolo42's great tutorial. So far these are my results:

The card is recognized correctly by OS X. Smaller monitors work in either port at 1280x1024 but my primary which is 26 inch will not initialize in either port. (this normally runs at 1900x1200) Is this a sign that dual link is not working or did i somehow manage to botch the flash job?

Thanks!

PS forgot to add...also tried adding the natit.kext with no change in result

 

[elvisizer]

that's weird, goin3d. i'm driving a 24inch display at 1920x1200, no problems.

 

[goin3d]

that's weird, goin3d. i'm driving a 24inch display at 1920x1200, no problems.

That is weird! I've tried both ports with it so maybe I just need to try a reflash to be on the safe side. If you also had one of the 288 1 gig cards any chance you could post your final pc4870? just out of curiosity...if you're using a 2009, where you able to put this card in the first PCIE slot? I'm having trouble making it fit with the fan screws on the underside of the board