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

rhildinger said:
Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.
Click to expand...

+3
 
Just a short Beep from here :p - my MacPro 1.1 baby is now running the sapphire 512MB 4870, both DVI-Ports are working, deep sleep is ok, VGA does not work (as expected).

Thank you all for support, more about some physical difficulties tomorrow :D, jaberwocky
 
jaberwocky said:
Just a short Beep from here :p - my MacPro 1.1 baby is now running the sapphire 512MB 4870, both DVI-Ports are working, deep sleep is ok, VGA does not work (as expected).

Thank you all for support, more about some physical difficulties tomorrow :D, jaberwocky
Click to expand...
Good to hear. Have you tried dual screen?
Others had only one port working with the sapphire cards... Have you installed natit.kext? Or maybe it's because your card is closer to the original design.
 
I'm following this thread with some interest, still waiting to hear more success stories or any progress on the trouble areas...

In the meanwhile, can anyone explain why the DVI to VGA converters don't work? I'm baffled why it makes any difference. Do they even work with Apple's 4870?
 
rhildinger said:
Okay, I originally bricked this card by flashing with a custom ROM that was corrupted by the EFI insertion process. I reflashed back to orig BIOS on a friend's PC so I could actually post with it in my Mac Pro. I figured out what went wrong with the EFI insertion process, fixed it, and reflashed. Now I have a fully working 4870 video card in windows and OS X, and the full GB of memory is recognized in both!

I'm currently running with the latest beta of OS X 10.5.7, and the 4870 is fully recognized. I know one poster had mentioned having trouble sleeping his system with this card, but it appears to work perfectly on mine.

The specific card I'm using is an XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's.
Click to expand...

Hi rhildinger !! Any chance on getting a copy of that rom too? My email
is ddorbuck at gmail dot com

Thank you !
 
jaberwocky said:
Just a short Beep from here :p - my MacPro 1.1 baby is now running the sapphire 512MB 4870, both DVI-Ports are working, deep sleep is ok, VGA does not work (as expected).

Thank you all for support, more about some physical difficulties tomorrow :D, jaberwocky
Click to expand...

Help!
Hello jaberwocky,
I have the same 4870 from Arlt. I flashed the card today with the orig. Mac ROM, after a reboot the only thing that I get was a black screen and a beep, beep :mad:
What BIOS did you used? Would you please post or email the ROM you used? My email is "johnjobs at gmx dot de". Thanks in advance.
 
Working ROM file for XFX 1GB XXX edition

As per multiple forum requests, I am posting the custom ROM file that I made using pipomolo42 instructions (with slight adjustments for the original bios size). As I indicated earlier, this ROM was built for a XFX Radeon HD4870 XXX Edition 1GB PCI-Express Video Card purchased from a local Fry's, model number HD-487A-ZD. So far this ROM seems to be working great - the card is fully functional in both OS X and Windows, though it does have the same issue everyone else is getting where the secondary DVI port will only function in single-link mode.

Obligatory CMA: I am no way responsible if this ROM bricks your card. Use it entirely at your own risk.
 

Attachments

  • macxfx4870rom.zip
    93.7 KB · Views: 3,221
Sorry if this is a silly question, but in order to flash the card can this be done on your Mac or must you do this on your PC then transfer the card to the Mac?
 
davewolfs said:
Sorry if this is a silly question, but in order to flash the card can this be done on your Mac or must you do this on your PC then transfer the card to the Mac?
Click to expand...

Hi davewolfs,
As far as I read, some people are using a real PC and some others are using the mac pro with bootcamp.
Myself, I didn't try yet as I'm waiting for OS 10.5.7

Good luck

Zapp
:)
 
jeanlain said:
Because the card is not supported by 10.5.6.
Crossfire is not supported either, but I doubt this will change in the future.
Click to expand...

If that is the case, why is it that the new mac pros released work with 10.5.6, also on the apple site it states 10.5.6 as the requirement not 10.5.7?

lol I dont think crossfire will ever be supported. I would love to setup 2 flashed 4870's with crossfire for gaming (windows)..and no kernal panics in osX :p
 
johnjobs said:
Help!
What BIOS did you used? Would you please post or email the ROM you used?
Click to expand...

Hi, i build my own from the original bios of the card and the EFI-Part from the 4870 card, as described by pipolo42.

BTW, you can read-out the BIOS within VISTA with latest GPU-Z , so no need for a DOS/FAT-partition with write access. For flashing a DOS-CD is still better.

Final: You got a PM.

best regards, Jaberwocky
 
jaberwocky said:
Hi, i build my own from the original bios of the card and the EFI-Part from the 4870 card, as described by pipolo42.

BTW, you can read-out the BIOS within VISTA with latest GPU-Z , so no need for a DOS/FAT-partition with write access. For flashing a DOS-CD is still better.

Final: You got a PM.

best regards, Jaberwocky
Click to expand...

Thank you!!

I reanimate my Card with a PC. Anything but the Sleep Modus works fine. In my 10.5.6 I have no CI and QE :(. Where I can get the driver from?

Thank yo to all on here, it´s great forum :)
 
matthew.russo said:
If that is the case, why is it that the new mac pros released work with 10.5.6, also on the apple site it states 10.5.6 as the requirement not 10.5.7? :p
Click to expand...

AFAIK, there's no driver for the 4870 in 10.5.6, except in the special version that ships with new Mac Pros. That's why people here have installed beta drivers from the 10.5.7 update.
 
johnjobs said:
Thank you!!

I reanimate my Card with a PC. Anything but the Sleep Modus works fine. In my 10.5.6 I have no CI and QE :(. Where I can get the driver from?

Thank yo to all on here, it´s great forum :)
Click to expand...

Look at the headings of the #radeonhd channel on irc.osx86.hu, for instance - you'll find a package with drivers from the 10.5.6 build used in '09 Mac Pros (courtesy of Netkas, I think). Remember to deselect the Natit kext from the "customize" section first, as it's only useful for Hackintoshes at this point.

To anyone who got sleep/second output/etc. working :

Can you post the output of

ioreg -l -w0 -p IODeviceTree | grep device-properties

here?? It should be possible to craft a set of Natit keys from it to allow other 4870 revisions to fully function...
 
rhildinger said:
It's for the XXX edition card, which is slightly overclocked. The specific version of my card is the "ZDDC" version.
Click to expand...

Hi Rhildinger,

Did you try to plug 2 displays in dvi in order to work with 2 screens simultneously?
If yes until which resolution you got?

Thanks and Regards

Zapp
:)
 
jeanlain said:
..Have you tried dual screen?
Others had only one port working with the sapphire cards... Have you installed natit.kext? Or maybe it's because your card is closer to the original design.
Click to expand...

Hi, only one DVI-Display here, so i can't check for dual-screen. Only switching from one port to the other. I didn't installed natit.kext.

Bye, jaberwocky
 
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