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

Pressure said:
Yes, search in this very thread and you will find the answer but you will still need to do a bit of tinkering with Mac OS X.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what AtiFlash says about my card:

clipboard01vrr.jpg
 
Pressure said:
Yes, search in this very thread and you will find the answer but you will still need to do a bit of tinkering with Mac OS X.
Click to expand...

I tried this but no luck at all. When booting with HD4870 Mac OS X is loading but I got black screen, when started monitor connected to 7300GT it's loading but only blue screen is shown.

It's time to flash :/
 
It works !!! I got HIS HD4870 512 MB working on Mac OS X.

I made a custom BIOS.

Will post details in my thread :)
 
Xfx Hd-487a-zhfc

Just flashed the XFX HD-487A-ZHFC with rhdilinger's rom and used these directions to do it

Works perfectly!

1. Dual DVI running two 23" Cinema Displays
2. 10.5.8 on both monitors and working correctly with FCP 7 using one of the monitors as an HD playback. Couldn't get my 4890 to do this even with a 7300GT card driving second monitor.
3. SL 10a432 sees both monitors and works fine without adding any drivers or modifying kexts.
4. No mouse jumping issues (think this is due to having Apple monitors but am not sure).
5. The card has a pretty good fan and my machine is pretty quiet.

Overall, I'm amazed at how simple it is to do and what a great cost savings this is. I can't recommend it enough.
 
If your ZWFC looks like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436


I would recommend that you switch it out for this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150394

I'm gonna guess that the party is nearly over for easy 4870 1 Gig flashes.

Note that the new one has a VERY inferior fan. It uses two wires and will have less precise speed control (think 3870)

Also notice that while the reference 4870 fans and revision 2 XFX fans exhausted heat directly out the case, working in concert with Mac Pro cooling, the new decontented XFX 4870 is using a scattershot "get the heat away from me" approach that just tosses all heated air into case to be removed by Mac Pro via it's own devices.

So in addition to ROM issue, it looks to be a much inferior product. I would return and grab one with the better fan while you still can.

(rhyme unintentional)
 
HD-487A-ZHFC flashed with success!

Hi!

Just wanted to add another success story: Yesterday I flashed a XFX HD-487A-ZHFC card in my MacPro1.1. (2006).

I have a 23" and a 20" Apple Cinema display connected via DVI. Works without problems as far as I can see. No problems with sleep/wake-up.

The fan doesn't momentarily spin up like my ATI 1900XT did when waking up the machine though.

Also my Northbridge temperature is now around 69 C (156 F) when the machine is not stressed. I of course didn't measure the temperature before I changed the gfx card but I don't remember it as being this high. Is it something to worry about?
 
The Rominator said:
If your ZWFC looks like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436


I would recommend that you switch it out for this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150394

I'm gonna guess that the party is nearly over for easy 4870 1 Gig flashes.

Note that the new one has a VERY inferior fan. It uses two wires and will have less precise speed control (think 3870)

Also notice that while the reference 4870 fans and revision 2 XFX fans exhausted heat directly out the case, working in concert with Mac Pro cooling, the new decontented XFX 4870 is using a scattershot "get the heat away from me" approach that just tosses all heated air into case to be removed by Mac Pro via it's own devices.

So in addition to ROM issue, it looks to be a much inferior product. I would return and grab one with the better fan while you still can.

(rhyme unintentional)
Click to expand...

So there won't be any hope for us with those card at all?
 
fanuelsen said:
So there won't be any hope for us with those card at all?
Click to expand...

Did you try the injector?

I am encouraging future readers of these posts to get the Rev 1 or Rev 2 XFX cards rather than newest one with that god-awful fan on it.

My guess is that if someone (you) goes to trouble to run the Pipolomo42 script:

1. ROM may need additional "finagling"..try script first (GDDR5 table may need to be moved or PC BIOS may be too long)

2. Unlike the previous XFX 4870, I'm gonna guess you'll have 1 DVI only. When all the other cards moved from reference design to cheaper decontented design with 2 wire fan, they became single DVI only when flashed, likely that is the case here.

In any case, rather than wait for someone to spoonfeed you a ROM, do some homework first.

Try the injector, it will predict behavior once flashed.

Try making ROM yourself...many folks have come here and discovered they had more brains than they gave themselves credit for....they wrote their own ROM courtesy of instructions and python script left by our mysterious benefactor, Pipolomo42.
 
The Rominator said:
Did you try the injector?

I am encouraging future readers of these posts to get the Rev 1 or Rev 2 XFX cards rather than newest one with that god-awful fan on it.

My guess is that if someone (you) goes to trouble to run the Pipolomo42 script:

1. ROM may need additional "finagling"..try script first (GDDR5 table may need to be moved or PC BIOS may be too long)

2. Unlike the previous XFX 4870, I'm gonna guess you'll have 1 DVI only. When all the other cards moved from reference design to cheaper decontented design with 2 wire fan, they became single DVI only when flashed, likely that is the case here.

In any case, rather than wait for someone to spoonfeed you a ROM, do some homework first.

Try the injector, it will predict behavior once flashed.

Try making ROM yourself...many folks have come here and discovered they had more brains than they gave themselves credit for....they wrote their own ROM courtesy of instructions and python script left by our mysterious benefactor, Pipolomo42.
Click to expand...

Use your own ROM and just add EFI from original Apple BIOS and you're done. I did that too and my HIS HD4870 FAN EDITION is working great !
 
Spacedust said:
Use your own ROM and just add EFI from original Apple BIOS and you're done. I did that too and my HIS HD4870 FAN EDITION is working great !
Click to expand...

Could you please assist me on how i add EFI to my original ROM? I'm a total newb on this, or atleast point me in the right direction? I would be eternally greatfull.
 
Read this entire thread (at least to pg. 60-61 or so) and you'll find the answer to making a custom rom with the Mac EFI.
 
Snow Leopard Questions

Hi guys!

Some questions about Snow Leopard:

I am running 10.5.7 on my Mac Pro. I have a Sapphire 4870 working with the mini-natit kext. Dual DVI works just fine, but sleep (obviously) crashes the computer.

The ATI4800Controller.kext that I am supposed to modify (read at http://netkas.org/?p=128) isn’t in my Extensions folder, but I’m assuming that’s because it gets installed with Snow Leopard. Will I still have Dual-DVI working if I go to Snow Leopard and add my Device ID to that .kext? Also, where/how do I add it?

Thanks!
 
Really slow result running OpenCL Bench with flashed Sapphire

I bought and flashed the SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB (newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801) which has been working for a lot of people, and it has seemingly been fully functional for me, as well.

This was installed in my Mac Pro 1,1 (2660 Mhz Quad Core)

However, after installing Snow Leopard and running OpenCL Bench V 0.25 by mitch, I'm seeing a surprisingly slow result of 4.195 seconds to run the test, where an old 9600GT is clocked at .93 seconds.

Also - I'm getting a Segmentation Fault error when computing the results for OpenCL Device #1 (my Xeon CPUs) through the same program, and I'm not sure this is related...

Has anyone else seen similar results?
 
I've had those results, almost exactly. don't worry. it's just a synthetic benchmark. give the developers some time to optimize things and release updates.
 
I just wanted to thank everyone who contributed to this thread. Especially Rominator and Netkas. Thank you guys so much sharing your knowledge and contributing such great tools and information to the Mac Pro community.

I am now a happy owner of a flashed XFX 4870 1 GB that works flawlessly in Snow Leopard thus far!

Thanks for saving me $200 bucks. If either of you are ever in San Francisco I owe you a beer or various drink of your choice.

Grim
 
Legolover64 said:
Hi guys!

Some questions about Snow Leopard:

I am running 10.5.7 on my Mac Pro. I have a Sapphire 4870 working with the mini-natit kext. Dual DVI works just fine, but sleep (obviously) crashes the computer.

The ATI4800Controller.kext that I am supposed to modify (read at http://netkas.org/?p=128) isn’t in my Extensions folder, but I’m assuming that’s because it gets installed with Snow Leopard. Will I still have Dual-DVI working if I go to Snow Leopard and add my Device ID to that .kext? Also, where/how do I add it?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

you dont need to edit any kexts with 4870, also no need in mini natit, dual-dvi works for many peoples ion snowleopard
 
ajacocks said:
Actually, I do have a VGA display, and I tested with it. I have 2 24" LCDs, one with VGA and DVI, the other with HDMI, DVI, and VGA. Tried connecting both, via VGA and DVI, and with various adapters.
Click to expand...

I had given up on the 2gb 4870 card, but left it installed in my Mac Pro. However, after installing the 10.6 upgrade, I noticed that something was different. (Screenshot of System Profiler attached)

I then attached a DVI monitor, and voila! The display works, and I'm looking at it, as we speak. Also, when I attach a VGA display, or an HDMI display, the screen now switches on and off, as OS X usually does when a new display is connected. So, it seems like all 3 inputs are recognized, now, though only the DVI input actually works.

Also, the amount of VRAM is obviously wrong, but that's no big deal.

Any suggestions to try to move forward on the last couple issues?

Thanks!
 

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demitri said:
However, after installing Snow Leopard and running OpenCL Bench V 0.25 by mitch, I'm seeing a surprisingly slow result of 4.195 seconds to run the test, where an old 9600GT is clocked at .93 seconds.
Also - I'm getting a Segmentation Fault error when computing the results for OpenCL Device #1 (my Xeon CPUs) through the same program, and I'm not sure this is related...

Has anyone else seen similar results?
Click to expand...
I remember that my 4870 was slower than the 9400M chipset. Go figure.
I wouldn't worry about it. This benchmark app doesn't seem to support ATi cards very well. My 4870 is listed has having 4 cores, for instance.

But I have read somewhere that Nvidia cards have far better openCL support.
 
Ajacocks, have you tried injectors? It's cool that somewhat improbably, SL is making all the 4870s work better, but nobody's gotten VGA or HDMI to work out of the box as ports like that yet. Maybe injectors in SL will enable you to use HDMI?
 
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