Radeon HIS7950 - Help with flashing

[hartleymartin]

Hi everyone. I have this graphics card, a Radeon HIS7950 and for the life of me, I cannot manage to flash the ROM to give me a boot screen. I do need the boot screen because I am multi-booting El Capitan, Sierra and Windows 7 on a 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 (I would like to also add a Linux partition in the future).

I have tried several times to flash it using Windows 7 but I keep coming up with various error messages. For the time being I'm back with the old 8800GT, but I would sincerely like to be able to use this card again as I got it for a real bargain off eBay last year.

Any and all help will be much appreciated!

 

[h9826790]

It's hard to help if you did tell us the details about how you prepare / create the Mac EFI ROM, how to flash it, and the error message.

Anyway, Apart from Linux, you can always use boot camp apps (in Windows) and system preference (OSX) to pick your next boot drive. Boot screen will make life easier, but not really required.

 

[owbp]

+1
One more thing - Netkas reported long time ago that reference HD7950 with centered fan won't work (at all) after flashing. I really can't remember if he was talking just about Sapphire or it applies to HIS also.

 

[Filin]

+1
One more thing - Netkas reported long time ago that reference HD7950 with centered fan won't work (at all) after flashing. I really can't remember if he was talking just about Sapphire or it applies to HIS also.

netkas wrote:

The one with fan in center is no good. If you do hybrid rom for it, it will reboot osx once gui loaded.
If you flash saphire's rom on it, no system is able to control fan speed/gpu thermal.

 

[hartleymartin]

Ah drat! The card was a real bargain too! I might sell it on then to fund a better card that can be flashed.

I have a PC 5770 which I might try to flash then.

Otherwise, I will just use the 7950 and live without the boot-screen.

It is very annoying that the old BootChamp utility doesn't work with El Capitan or Sierra. When I was running Yosemite, it worked a treat in letting me reboot into windows!
[doublepost=1492346019][/doublepost]I've also got this in my box of spares, any chance that this card can be flashed?

[doublepost=1492348072][/doublepost]Okay, so I installed the 7950 card once again and the strangest thing happened. I get a partial boot-screen. I get the apple logo and a progress bar for some of the loading of Sierra. I don't get a boot options screen when I hold down the option key though.

 

[Filin]

Okay, so I installed the 7950 card once again and the strangest thing happened. I get a partial boot-screen. I get the apple logo and a progress bar for some of the loading of Sierra. I don't get a boot options screen when I hold down the option key though.

Sierra initialize video driver early at boot. So its normal
[doublepost=1492349927][/doublepost]

I've also got this in my box of spares, any chance that this card can be flashed?

I think so, but better read here
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,692.0.html

 

[hartleymartin]

Well, I must say that Sierra initialising the video drivers early in the boot sequence is good. At least then I know that the Mac is booting properly, even if I don't get a boot menu. I can live with that sort of compromise.