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

[BEIGE]

I finally got it!

The key was to use the aforementioned UBCD. I'll write up a complete how-to with all of the details tomorrow for any other fellow idiots.

Thanks for ALL of your help! Very cool thing to replace my 7300gt with this powerhouse... wow.

I booted into Vista with the card (just set your boot camp partition as the startup drive before you shut down in OS X) and ran Winflash. It worked fine. Didn't need FreeDOS

 

[gzfelix]

I booted into Vista with the card (just set your boot camp partition as the startup drive before you shut down in OS X) and ran Winflash. It worked fine. Didn't need FreeDOS

WinFlash is not stable on some machines, and somebody just wants to keep their hard drive clean without bootcamp. UBCD is a solution then.

 

[rew]

I booted into Vista with the card (just set your boot camp partition as the startup drive before you shut down in OS X) and ran Winflash. It worked fine. Didn't need FreeDOS

I was running Windows XP, perhaps that made a difference? It was certainly frustrating - Windows would recognize the card but wouldn't display anything from it's DVI ports and WinFlash wouldn't even open. I could see it running in task manager, but never ONCE got a UI.

 

[mcroger]

Oops I bricked it again....

Sapphire HD4870 512M 11333-03-20R

Used the 4870.rom supplied here-above with atiflash on an USB boot stick.

So the statement that the ROM supplied in this thread should always be valid for this SKU number is not correct, better use Pipimolo's way in all cases IMHO.

unfortunately my PC does not allow booting on a PCI card while a PCIe is plugged in, I'll have to find someone to help me re-flash.

Edit: BTW, if anyone can email me another ROM that worked for him with a similar SKU, that would be great 'cause I was too impatient to save properly mine...
My email is guy (dot) delathouwer (at) gmail (dot) com

 

[medsource]

OK - so now it looks like I have to go down the FreeDos route, right? Has noone been able to flash their card in a Windows XP environment running on Bootcamp? Thanks for all of your help, guys.

I was able to do it; but, I had to remove my 8800gt first. I had a similar problem in XP with both cards installed that winflash wouldn't launch. After yanking the 8800gt, everything was smooth. Note: set your startup disk to auto start in windows else it won't boot correctly on the unflashed 4870 (no OS select screen if you only have an unflashed card in the system). Once flashed, you can set it back to OS X if you like as the default OS.

 

[skyhand]

OK - so now it looks like I have to go down the FreeDos route, right? Has noone been able to flash their card in a Windows XP environment running on Bootcamp? Thanks for all of your help, guys.

I was able to flash my Sapphire 1GB with WinFlash running in XP / Bootcamp. However, I found it easier to disable my old card in Device Manager to get XP to play nice if both were cards installed. After that, flashing went very smoothly.

 

[rew]

Step by Step: How to flash a PC 4870 1 Gig Video Card for your 2006 Mac Pro (1,1)

Intro:
I've been looking to upgrade the video card in my Mac Pro for quite a while since the 7300gt it came with was woefully inadequate for most modern gaming.

This forum helped me immensely in getting up and running, so I figured the least I could do was attempt to write a noob-proof, step-by-step guide with as much clarity as possible to help take some of the pressure off of the geniuses in there who answered my stupid questions. I STILL RECOMMEND YOU READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE THREAD.

What we're doing in a nutshell:
We're going to buy the PC version of an ATI 4870 video card because they're going to cost a good deal less than the official cards from Apple. The firmware on these PC cards is NOT compatible with our Mac Pros, however. Our goal then is to essentially update this firmware with something that our Mac Pros can understand. This is a slightly tricky process since we can't update the firmware from within OS X, and so we'll first have to boot to a DOS environment, flash the card from there, and then install the drivers for the video card onto OS X just like we would with Windows. Folks HAVE been able to flash directly from Windows, I just wasn't able to do it myself.

The end result:
A 4870 that is supported in both OS X and Windows. NOTE: CURRENTLY WITHIN OS X, ONLY ONE DVI MONITOR MAY BE ATTACHED TO THE CARD.

Assumptions:
You have a Mac Pro and you have Bootcamp installed on that Mac Pro (alternatively, if you have a PC in addition to your Mac Pro, you may execute the first two phases of the directions below on your PC and just transfer the card to your Mac when finished with phase two). You use a DVI connection between your monitor and your current video card. You have Windows XP installed on Bootcamp (Vista is probably fine, but I did NOT test it). You're somewhat of a power user and know how to make your way around DOS, are comfortable with ISO files, and have no issues with modifying system files. This isn't brain surgery, but you should be able to follow along with what's going on lest you run into problems. If this isn't you, then you shouldn't try this.

Notes:

• This guide is for a stock Mac Pro purchased in August of 2006. It had one 7300GT card and upgraded RAM and an additional CD-ROM drive, but past that, all stock.
• I haven't seen any specific instructions for specific Mac Pro models, so if you have a newer Mac Pro these directions MAY still be sufficient. Newer Macs will likely work, but obviously I haven't been able to test them.
• There are numerous methods that folks have used to flash their cards. Some used WinFlash (flash your card from within Windows), some used a version of DOS (what we will be doing), and some used a standalone PC to boot into DOS, flash the card, and drop the card into the Mac. The point being that you don't HAVE to do it this way - I have Windows and Bootcamp installed, you might not want to install those if you don't already have them. At any rate, there ARE other methods, this is just the method I chose.
• Obviously proceed with care - I'm not responsible for any damage you may do to your computer and flashing cards can be serious business.

What you need to buy (HARDWARE):

• This EXACT Sapphire video card: SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP. PN# 288-20e85-130sa SKU# 11133-04-20r. You can buy it HERE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801.
• TWO of these EXACT internal power cables. The Sapphire comes with power cables, but they won't fit in our Mac Pros, so we need to get these instead. You can buy them HERE: http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778. Alternatively, some folks have crafted their own cables. Instructions are present earlier in the thread.

What you need to download (SOFTWARE):

• GPU-Z. We're going to use this Windows application to safely backup the factory ROM on the card in case something goes wrong. Get it here: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
• evlisizer's ROM. This is the firmware that we will be placing on the card. Get it from HERE (it's the pc4870.zip attachment): https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7314503#post7314503
• ATIFlash. This is the application that will copy elvisizer's ROM onto the card. Get if from HERE: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1123/mirrors.php
• The OS X Radeon Drivers. These enable full support of the card (minus the second DVI port) within OS X. Get them HERE (if they're not present, Google for "MacOSX_10.5.6_radeon_hd_48x0_drivers.pkg"): http://www.sendspace.com/file/gvsi12
• Ultimate Boot CD: We are going to make a bootable CD that will get us into a DOS environment where we can flash the card. Download the ISO version from here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
• MagicISO: When we boot off of our Ultimate Boot CD, we're going to need to have ATIFlash and the new ROM file also burned onto the CD so that we can flash the ROM. We're going to use MagicISO to open the iso file from Ultimate Boot CD and put those files into the ISO before we burn it.

Assuming you've met the assumptions and have all of the hardware and software, here are the Step-By-Step Directions:

Stage one: Install the card, backup the ROM, setup the boot CD.

1. Install the new 4870 in the first slot (your primary card is probably sitting here). Move the card that resides in that slot to the second slot. Install both of the power cables (if your Mac Pro is upgright and you're looking into it, then the connectors are toward the upper left of the motherboard). Use some caution here - it's a snug fit.
2. Plug the DVI cable into your OLD video card, NOT the new card. This might just have been my computer, but when I tried to view any sort of video through the new card (even in Windows) it didn't put out a signal in either DVI ports. Don't be concerned if this happens to you.
3. Turn your Mac on. Using Bootcamp, load Windows. When Windows is loaded, you should see that it found the 4870. Don't worry about installing the drivers for it yet, we just want to make sure that you have the card and power cables installed correctly and that Windows can see it.
4. Open GPU-Z. At the bottom of the application, you'll see a dropdown box, probably with your old video card selected. Select the new card. Next to the "BIOS Version" label, you'll see a small icon of a chip with a green arrow. Click it and save the resulting file in a safe location - THIS IS YOUR BACKUP ROM.
5. Open MagicISO. Load the Ultimate Boot CD ROM. In the upper right window, create a new folder and call it "Mac". In this folder, add the contents of the ATIFlash.zip file that you downloaded (don't just put the zip file in here, unzip it and dump the contents!) and the "pc4870.rom" file that is in the "pc4870.zip" file you downloaded. I also threw "MacOSX_10.5.6_radeon_hd_48x0_drivers.pkg" in this directory just so that I had the files handy for OS X. Once you have the files in place, save the ISO.
6. Burn the ISO file to a CD.

Stage two: Flash the video card

• With the CD we created in step 6, reboot your computer and hold down the "Alt" key to bring up the Bootcamp Bootloader. On the very right, you should see an option to boot from the CD. Do this. As it loads, you'll see another screen asking you to hit enter to boot from the CD. Do it.
• At the main menu, select the "DOS/Linux Boot Disks" option.
• Select the OpenDOS Boot Disk. You may have to hit "enter" a few times here. I didn't do anything fancy here, just let it run through the process and pretty much said "yes" for everything. Keep your eye open to see which letter it maps your CD to - mine was something like T:.
• Navigate to your CD's "Mac" directory that we setup in step 5.
• Type "ATIFlash -i" and hit enter. This will display information about the ATI cards on your system. Again, we're just ensuring that the card is being read and is ready to be flashed. Don't be concerned if you only see one card here even if you have two installed - this will ONLY show ATI cards that are installed, and so it ignored my Nvidia 7300 GT.
• Time to flash the card. Assuming your situation is similar to mine and the above only shows one single card, type "ATIFlash -p 0 pc4870.rom -f" and hit enter. You should see a successful message telling you that your card has been updated and to restart. If two cards show up, I BELIEVE you will substitute the "0" for whichever number (from the above stuff) the 4870 is in.
• Turn your Mac off. Pull out the old video card and plug your monitor into the new video card. Only one of the DVI outputs works - I think it's the upper one.
• Power back on. With any luck your screen will light up and OS X will load! If you've gotten this far, then you're pretty much golden.

Stage three: Install the drivers for OS X (Enter your password as necessary)

• OS X will now load. It may look completely fine, but the drivers aren't installed yet and so you'll be getting degraded video performance and Quartz Extreme won't be supported (you can see that in the System Profiler). Assuming you still have the boot CD in your drive, open it and navigate to the "Mac" directory. Copy the "Natit.kext.zip" and "MacOSX_10.5.6_radeon_hd_48x0_drivers.pkg" files to your desktop.
• Install the "MacOSX_10.5.6_radeon_hd_48x0_drivers.pkg" file.
• Reboot! When you get back into OS X, if you look at your video card under System Profiler, you should see that your card now supports Quartz Extreme.

Finished! The only thing you probably still need to do is install video card drivers in Windows. Those came with your video card's CD.

Hopefully that's concise enough for noobs like me. Many thanks to EVERYONE on the original "Race to dump the 4870 ROM" thread! This is really all of THEIR work, I just tried to get it all in one place in a guide format.

 

[alam]

tnx rew, ur the best
and excellent explanation

 

[lynxmuc]

demitri, the power cable that is/was plugged into your stock X1900 should work just fine. In fact, that's exactly what I did: roll one myself, and take the other from my old, dying X1900.

So, I can finally report success, too, with an XFX HD4870 1 GB card (the standard version, not the XXX one). They're still using the reference design, or a board very close to it. However, this card does not work with Apple's ROM nonetheless, and neither does it work with the ROM yielded by pipomolo42's method without modification. Been there, done that, thought I bricked it. Apparently, XFX's ROM is slighly larger that the others, which means pipomolo42's script overwrites some crucial part. After all else failed, I decided to reread the instructions. On page 20 I stumbled upon the ROM kindly provided by rhildinger, which somehow escaped my memory the first time through. So I flashed that, and, lo and behold, the card works.

Not only that, but I have dual DVI support, on 1920x1200 and 1600x1200. I can't test dual link or VGA, though. Unfortunately, whenever I connect my older monitor, whether as sole, primary or secondary screen, I get the mouse jump issue. I guess we can add the Fujitsu-Siemens P20-1 to the black list. My brand new Iiyama monitor is fine. Too bad I can't test whether the mouse jump issue is absent with two 'good' monitors. Any news on this front?

So, special thanks go to rhildinger for his ROM. Of course, thanks to all the others who made this possible, too, among them pipomolo42 for the hybrid ROM method, netkas for the drivers, v0n for instructions on the power cables, and The Rominator for getting te ball rolling, so to speak. By the way, rhildinger, if you're still reading this thread: am I correct in assuming that the card runs at Apple's lower clock speeds in OS X, not at XFX's overclocked ones, with your ROM?

 

[MacVidCards]

Unfortunately, whenever I connect my older monitor, whether as sole, primary or secondary screen, I get the mouse jump issue. I guess we can add the Fujitsu-Siemens P20-1 to the black list. My brand new Iiyama monitor is fine. Too bad I can't test whether the mouse jump issue is absent with two 'good' monitors. Any news on this front?

This is fascinating.

So mouse jump issue is combo of card/rom/display.

There is a 2 or 3 page thread on Apple boards on this. Several people with OEM card have had to return their entire Mac Pro in attempts to solve this. Hopefully the Apple engineers read this thread too. May help them solve.

And BTW, it is really gratifying that this thread has helped so many people get a working 4870 in their Mac Pro, especially us first gen folks who were told by Apple "4870 isn't for you".

And thanks to rew for condensed instructions. The only thing I might question is inclusion of Natit.....not only is it not needed for basic operation, in some cases it will cause trouble. It is really meant for OSX86 folk who aren't using flashed cards. A fine effort by Netkas but not needed on real Mac Pro.

I have edited my opening post to include a link to these instructions. Will hopefully save lots of people some reading. (886 posts...WOW)

 

[rew]

And thanks to rew for condensed instructions. The only thing I might question is inclusion of Natit.....not only is it not needed for basic operation, in some cases it will cause trouble. It is really meant for OSX86 folk who aren't using flashed cards. A fine effort by Netkas but not needed on real Mac Pro.

Awesome, thanks TR! I've edited the post. If anyone else sees any errors or thinks I should flesh anything else out, let me know and I'll drop the info in there.

 

[milk242]

I was reading a newegg review that a user with the xfx 4870 card had stuttering issues and to resolve this, he updated the bios rom. I was wondering if someone could create a new hybrid rom using this updated bios rom for os x and see if it resolves any mouse jumping.

 

[MacVidCards]

I was reading a newegg review that a user with the xfx 4870 card had stuttering issues and to resolve this, he updated the bios rom. I was wondering if someone could create a new hybrid rom using this updated bios rom for os x and see if it resolves any mouse jumping.

I can't seem to find a newer ROM for these.

If you can find the ROM, Ill try to make one.

XFX doesn't have a "Downloads" page that I can find.

The ATI Bios collection at texhpowerup doesn't have either.

 

[milk242]

Here's the file from XFX website, sadly its in an .exe file and I have no idea on how to extract it besides flashing the card in a pc using the exe file and then backing up the new rom using winflash.

 

[Cindori]

I have a question,

dual dvi is said not to work, but what if I have a TV connected to second dvi but with a converter to vga?

 

[yomibro]

Here's the file from XFX website, sadly its in an .exe file and I have no idea on how to extract it besides flashing the card in a pc using the exe file and then backing up the new rom using winflash.

Is this ROM for the regular card (ZDFC) or the XXX (ZDDC) version? Or does it work for either version?

 

[milk242]

The one I posted is for the ZDDC XXX

 

[waimtrp]

I can't seem to find a newer ROM for these.

If you can find the ROM, Ill try to make one.

XFX doesn't have a "Downloads" page that I can find.

The ATI Bios collection at texhpowerup doesn't have either.

Hello Rominator , i have the 4870 1Gb Board , but i just cant make it to work , can you help ? attached is the pc rom from my 4870 1Gb , you can email me the mod. rom at waimtrp @ gmail dot com , thanks a lot

 

[MacVidCards]

I had a look at the ROM...it's not an XFX(not a recent one anyway)...which board is it?

There should be a brand and part number...if nowhere else on a sticker on the back.

Better to see if we have already got info on that one instead of re-inventing wheel each time.

 

[shroud]

You guys are all awesome! I have been reading this thread for a while and it has been extraordinarily helpful. Too bad Apple doesn't want to show the love like you guys. Oh well.

I don't suppose I can use the instructions from rew (thanks a million for that btw!) on a sapphire 4870 toxic right? I'll probably just stick to rew's card though since I have never flashed a graphics card before.

If Apple decides to use openCL sooner rather than later in Snow Leopard, do any of you think it might have problems with these successfully flashed cards? I'd love for Apple to code in for some speedy video conversions like this for nvidia or this for ATI and don't want to be left in the lurch.

Huge thanks again, especially to you 'The Rominator' for starting this whole thing off, Netkas, Pipomolo42, Spikelite, Rew 'the noob savior' and the list goes on. I love MacRumors!

 

[waimtrp]

I had a look at the ROM...it's not an XFX(not a recent one anyway)...which board is it?

There should be a brand and part number...if nowhere else on a sticker on the back.

Better to see if we have already got info on that one instead of re-inventing wheel each time.

thanks for look for it so fast, the board is from the brand call " Grandmars "

i have tried the XFX 1Gb rom at this thread , not work ..

and the board just like the one as 512mb Red PCB ATi design with the logo " AMD" above the PCI-express slot , thanks .

 

[Matrixfan]

Mac 4870 fan noise

I see that many of us managed to do a successful flash. How noisy is the 4870 with the mac firmware? I am intersted mainly in the ones equipped with the stock cooler. IDLE noise is the most important as I don't want to be annoyed while working with audio.

I really hate how Apple charges a premium for a vanilla 4870. I would gladly pay more for a custom designed cooling system. To date none of the aftermarket coolers are able to cool VRM modules efficiently. Apple could have done a large heatsink with a slow rotating fan taking advantage of the enormous space and slot holders in the Mac Pro.

 

[pastrychef]

I see that many of us managed to do a successful flash. How noisy is the 4870 with the mac firmware? I am intersted mainly in the ones equipped with the stock cooler. IDLE noise is the most important as I don't want to be annoyed while working with audio.

I really hate how Apple charges a premium for a vanilla 4870. I would gladly pay more for a custom designed cooling system. To date none of the aftermarket coolers are able to cool VRM modules efficiently. Apple could have done a large heatsink with a slow rotating fan taking advantage of the enormous space and slot holders in the Mac Pro.

I'm using a flashed XFX XXX Edition. I don't hear it at all under normal use.

 

[thehimay]

I see that many of us managed to do a successful flash. How noisy is the 4870 with the mac firmware? I am intersted mainly in the ones equipped with the stock cooler. IDLE noise is the most important as I don't want to be annoyed while working with audio.

I really hate how Apple charges a premium for a vanilla 4870. I would gladly pay more for a custom designed cooling system. To date none of the aftermarket coolers are able to cool VRM modules efficiently. Apple could have done a large heatsink with a slow rotating fan taking advantage of the enormous space and slot holders in the Mac Pro.

Running on a flashed non-toxic 1GB Sapphire and I don't hear it at all, either. Not even that obnoxious spin-up during boot (bye bye 8800GT). Also, running WoW on maxed-out settings doesn't provoke any noise from it, either.

 

[yomibro]

I see that many of us managed to do a successful flash. How noisy is the 4870 with the mac firmware? I am intersted mainly in the ones equipped with the stock cooler. IDLE noise is the most important as I don't want to be annoyed while working with audio.

I really hate how Apple charges a premium for a vanilla 4870. I would gladly pay more for a custom designed cooling system. To date none of the aftermarket coolers are able to cool VRM modules efficiently. Apple could have done a large heatsink with a slow rotating fan taking advantage of the enormous space and slot holders in the Mac Pro.

XFX-XXX and it's quiet during normal use although my card does spin-up during boot-up for like 3 seconds before going silent.