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

Ha !!!

If VGA works at all it's a miracle.

Try putting a DVI to VGA adapter on the other DVI port...used to be the trick to get it working.

We never claimed to have VGA working except in a very rudimentary sense.
 
I can absolutely confirm that VGA is working, although not as perfect as I would've hoped. I do know that I saw some reference to VGA not working somewhere in the topic, but as it is 82 pages and I've googled all over net information tends to be lost in the hive... Miracle? Maybe, or just some really smart guys doing a very, very good job here (kudos to you all).
 
Cindori, i found a place to buy an XFX 4870 ZDFC. I'd like to use the flashing app you created. Before i take a leap of faith and buy this thing, i wanna make sure i know how to back up the ROM. I know you mentioned earlier in the thread that your 4870 app does not back the ROM up. How would i do this? or where can i go to learn?

thanks
 
thanks.

I'll be needing some sort of newbie guide to go along with it. Could you give me all the steps ? or direct me somewhere i can read on how to do it?
 
Ok, first and foremost, this is not the usual stuff to do with computers, if you go along with this, you really should have someone more experienced sitting next to you. I don't want to offend anyone, but when you flash something and it goes all wrong and the cold sweat starts to run down your spine, it really helps with a pro by your side. If you still want to continue by your self, do this to back up your ROM.

1. Boot into windows with bootcamp.
2. Download http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1665d/GPU-Z.0.3.6.exe
3. Start it
4. On the first tab (called Graphics Card) locate the row where it says BIOS Version.
5. On that row, on the right side of it, there's a small symbol wich is a black thingy with a blue arrow on top, this is the save ROM button.
6. Click the button, choose "Save to file..." from the popup menu.
7. You'll be presented with a regualar "Save as" dialog, hopefully you'll manage from here.

As a final word of warning, please, flash it with someone a bit experienced as a helping hand.
 
Unfortunately, i know no one that is familiar with this, so idk. I wanna make sure i can accomplish this before i shell out the cash, so i don't brick the thing.

Thanks for instructions
 
The Rominator said:
Ha !!!

If VGA works at all it's a miracle.

Try putting a DVI to VGA adapter on the other DVI port...used to be the trick to get it working.

We never claimed to have VGA working except in a very rudimentary sense.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid this trick works only in OS X 10.5.
Since 10.6 the analog signal of my card is turned off as soon as the system finishes loading... and I did not manage to get it back even after having tried every possible adapter combination including these which used to work in 10.5...
 
If the ZHDC/FC you are getting is from one of those two links, I would be concerned.

The 1st Photo one says it is "Special Order" item. I'm gonna guess they will order a ZWFL from Newegg and charge you $50 to put it in their box and send to you.

If you can't talk to the person holding the item in their hand, or see an actual photo of item being sold, I'd pass. To the PC crowd, the difference in these cards is somewhat negligible, to us it is a different matter.
 
I talked via online chat to a representative from the second link. They said it would be the ZDFC, but i still don't really know for sure. They said i could put in a note with the order that it must be a ZDFC, but that just leads me to believe that the one for sale isn't a ZDFC. *shrug* idk

Every aspect of this operation is very risky, lol.
 
I must report on my success today. I plugged in a DVI monitor instead of my very, very old Lacie 19" CRT monitor... and it worked like a charm! Once again, the card I'm using is a XFX-HD-487A-ZWFL card. I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.1 on a Mac Pro 1.1. I haven't tried dual screen yet as I only have one DVI monitor. The only issue is the power cable warning, and that I can live with as I've saved a few bucks not buying the Apple 4870 card (why do they overcharge so much for it???). I first flashed with WinFlash from Bootcamp and later with Cindoris app. I guess both of them worked, but at the moment it's the flash made with Cindoris app I'm using. Which way to go is probably up to what kind of preference one have :)

Thanks to all on this forum for the information and help making this work, you're awesome!
 
Glad to hear it worked. I got a ZWFL just to write the ROM for it. May put more time in and try to refine, may not. Anyone else is welcome to try to improve it. But I am very glad that it is working for people.
 
pipomolo42, Rominator, Cindori or whoever else might be able to help... I really need some help please!

I'm trying very hard to do this myself but I guess I just don't have the experience. I received my XFX HD 4870 model HD487AYHFC from TigerDirect today. This is a 512MB card, not 1GB. It is a slightly older card. The "companion" 1GB card to this card is the ZHFC. (Z for 1GB, Y for 512MB.) The ZHFC has been successfully flashed by numerous people. But I don't want to try the XFX ROM (rhildinger's ROM) for fear his custom ROM for a 1GB card won't be compatible. So.....

I installed Boot Camp with Windows XP on my Mac Pro 1,1, shut down, and then installed the XFX 4870 512MB in Slot #1, moving my Radeon x1900 to slot 2. After restarting in Windows, I installed the driver's included with the XFX card. After that, it was easy to use GPU-Z to dump the original XFX PC ROM. I then rebooted into Mac OS X (Snow Leopard 10.6.1) and put these three files in a folder on my desktop named "Flash":

• pc4870.rom (the file I dumped in Windows using GPU-Z)
• 4870.ROM (the ROM dump from the Apple 4870 card)
• fixrom.py (the file I downloaded from pipomolo42's attachment in message #344 of this thread)

Then I ran Terminal and changed the directory to the Flash folder (cd /Users/Mark/Desktop/Flash). Then I carefully copied each command line from pipomolo42's message and pasted them into Terminal (I figured copy/paste was safer than typing it). But, unfortunately, I ran into some errors. I've tried multiple times and, though the first few commands seem to work OK, I'm concerned about the errors. Here is a copy/paste of the Terminal window:

Last login: Wed Oct 28 00:41:05 on ttys000
Marks-Mac-Pro:~ Mark$ cd /Users/Mark/Desktop/Flash
Marks-Mac-Pro:Flash Mark$ dd if=4870.ROM of=efi.part bs=1 skip=63488 count=49152
49152+0 records in
49152+0 records out
49152 bytes transferred in 0.266352 secs (184538 bytes/sec)
Marks-Mac-Pro:Flash Mark$ blocknum=`printf %d "'\`dd if=pc4870.rom bs=1 skip=2 count=1 2>/dev/null\`"`
Marks-Mac-Pro:Flash Mark$ size=$(($blocknum * 512))
Marks-Mac-Pro:Flash Mark$ dd if=efi.part of=pc4870.rom bs=$size seek=1 conv=notrunc
dd: bs must be between 1 and -1
Marks-Mac-Pro:Flash Mark$ python fixrom.py pc4870.rom pc4870.rom
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "fixrom.py", line 103, in <module>
f=file(sys.argv[1])
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'pc4870.rom'
Marks-Mac-Pro:Flash Mark$
Click to expand...

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I've checked and triple-checked the spelling and case of the filenames. Yet, I'm getting errors.

pipomolo42 or Rominator, I would REALLY appreciate it if one of you fine gentlemen wouldn't mind taking my ROM dump (attached below) from my HD487AYHFC, add the EFI, and give me back a custom ROM.

Cindori, I'd also REALLY appreciate if you wouldn't mind then taking the new custom ROM (once it's been created) and putting it into the 4870 Flash App.

Honestly, I had every intention of trying to flash this thing tonight without bothering you guys anymore. It's past 1am and my goal before I went to bed was to post a "success" message. But I can't even get past the Terminal commands. HELP PLEASE!

RV770.bin (dumped ROM from my XFX HD487AYHFC) attached below!

Thanks!! Mark

P.S. For the record, the BIOS Version listed in GPU-Z for the XFX HD487AYHFC was: VER011.010.000.002.029896
 

Attachments

  • RV770.bin.zip
    46 KB · Views: 98
HI Team,

This is my first post. I bought a XFX 4870 ZWFK in Australia, with plans on flashing it like the rest of you successful people.

But realised I had a lemon after having the same problems as everyone else with this card (power issue on boot up OS X). Does anyone know if the ZWFK are like the ZWFL that a few of you are talking about?

I would like to know if there is hope of flashing this card properly or should I fall on the sword and try sell it.

I have noticed a few are looking into it.

I have read through most of the posts since page 61 and it is 1AM and I am about done........any help would be super.

Cheers:)
 
Cindori said:
sounds like thesims/ati driver issue

I would try another 3d game with the 4870
Click to expand...

I have tried other 3D games and the 4870 seems to work ok. Can anyone confirm that their *flashed* 4870 works with the Sims 3? If so, then I will have to pursue getting a better rom for my card, as right now I have it sitting on a shelf, and am using the 8800 instead...BTW same results with both Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Thanks!
 
merneric said:
I have tried other 3D games and the 4870 seems to work ok. Can anyone confirm that their *flashed* 4870 works with the Sims 3? If so, then I will have to pursue getting a better rom for my card, as right now I have it sitting on a shelf, and am using the 8800 instead...BTW same results with both Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Nope, haven't tried the Sims, but I have not gotten any rendering issues/weirdness with any of the couple dozen PC/Mac games I've played with mine (XFX 1GB 4870).
 
Can anybody confirm pinots of the power cable?
Is another end (mother board's) has same pinots (upper:ground, bottom:12V)?

post an image like this plz.
 

Attachments

  • Video Power cable.jpg
    Video Power cable.jpg
    43.3 KB · Views: 105
I just finished re-reading the first 10 pages of this thread and I'm itching to just go ahead and flash my XFX 512MB card with the straight dump of the Apple 4870 rom (4870.ROM). Folks definitely had success with it. What I don't know is if my card is too new to be able to work with it. I think it was mostly Sapphire 512MB cards that worked with it.

The other thing I noticed re-reading the first 10 pages was how anxious and excited a lot of you were about getting your hands on the first dump of the Apple 4870 ROM. You guys sat by the computer, waiting for it to show up. There was a bit of begging too. :)

Well, I know exactly how you all felt. I've been checking the thread on an hourly basis to see if there is a response to my message #2042. So far, I feel like the invisible man.

Hey, I understand how people are busy with their lives and have other things to do. But I am asking one of you excellent ROM experts to PLEASE take pity on someone who actually TRIED (desperately) to do it on his own. I'm stuck and I can't move forward. Heck, I'll do the flashing the good old fashioned way (DOS CD). But I need what I believe will be a working ROM before I tackle that.

Please?!?!

Mark
 
Mark Booth said:
I just finished re-reading the first 10 pages of this thread and I'm itching to just go ahead and flash my XFX 512MB card with the straight dump of the Apple 4870 rom (4870.ROM). Folks definitely had success with it. What I don't know is if my card is too new to be able to work with it. I think it was mostly Sapphire 512MB cards that worked with it.

The other thing I noticed re-reading the first 10 pages was how anxious and excited a lot of you were about getting your hands on the first dump of the Apple 4870 ROM. You guys sat by the computer, waiting for it to show up. There was a bit of begging too. :)

Well, I know exactly how you all felt. I've been checking the thread on an hourly basis to see if there is a response to my message #2042. So far, I feel like the invisible man.

Hey, I understand how people are busy with their lives and have other things to do. But I am asking one of you excellent ROM experts to PLEASE take pity on someone who actually TRIED (desperately) to do it on his own. I'm stuck and I can't move forward. Heck, I'll do the flashing the good old fashioned way (DOS CD). But I need what I believe will be a working ROM before I tackle that.

Please?!?!

Mark
Click to expand...

reread your terminal session

you are very close, a very helpful tip would be that if you DRAG the roms into terminal window AT THE POINT YOU WANT THEM USED..the path will be correct for sure.so at place where script calls for "pc4870.rom" you delete that and physically DRAG your ROM into the window with cursor at the point you want the ROM path

As far as whether the card will work with OEM ROM....it is likely but if you can't find a post about it...you can be first.

I thought someone said he was going to write this for you? should be relatively easy...just make sure to do the "mcuc twice test" in Hexedit before flashing
 
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