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Release: Zeus Flashing Tool

So, I upgraded my desktop Mac Pro with 10.6.3 last night, and now it boots to a black screen just after the Apple logo vanishes.

I have a Sapphire 4870 w/512MB that I'd previously used this tool to Flash (the prior version, before Zeus). I had to build my own firmware for the card with instructions I found on these forums because the included firmware was incompatible with my specific part. But once I'd done that and flashed in my ROM, everything seemed to be great. The Apple firmware likes it (still), so I can Option boot and everything. 10.6.2 was happy with it and worked great, and Windows 7 is also (still) happy with it.

So, I'm not sure what the deal is. Where do I look? Did 10.6.3 break something for anyone else? I assume the black screen (it's not hung, the machine is running, it just seems to think it's 'headless') is an indication that the ATI driver is no longer loading, but I thought flashing the card meant I didn't need to modify the stock driver anymore? Is that wrong? I didn't think I was using a modified driver under 10.6.2, but I can't be 100% sure because I had tried a few tricks before I learned how to make my own ROM....

If I boot to command line (single user) is there something I can do to see how the card is identified vs what's in the driver's plist? I do get video at that point, so it wouldn't be tough.

Thanks for any pointers.
 
Cindori said:
do this

download zeus

open Driver tab

Select card and OS and then Download. install that PKG

now try reboot.

If that does not help:

install this:

http://groths.org/dualdvi.zip

you can do all this in Safe Boot (holding cmd S when booting I htink)
Click to expand...
You are almost correct. ;) it starts with "S" ... for "Shift". cmd-S is single-user mode i think.

To perform a Safe Boot, hold the Shift key as your Mac starts up.
Click to expand...
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564

Update: Startup keyboard shortcuts
For those who are interested, here's the link
- http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
 
So i've been trying to flash my Sapphire 4870 1GB for some time now, the ATi Flasher didn't work, so I got the idea of using atiflash on my pc to try and flash the card with a modified rom.

Well it worked.

Then I found out that ATi Flash is now no more and there's this Zeus thing. I'm sure that would have worked for me.

Im running os 10.6.3 and had my 2nd display not working.

I tried the dual display fix and it works perfect now.

well... I get a power cable warning at boot in os x.

is that normal? anyway to disable that?
 
Zeus tested with 5870

And the news isn't good.

First I tried just changing a byte in the ROM. It wouldn't flash. Then I tried a completely different 5870 ROM for a Powercolor card.

Then I tried using the older ATI FLash tool.

It still just bounced in the dock for a minute and vanished. :-(
 
Thank you!

Thank for this great tool!

I just flashed my new card and everything appears to work perfectly, although I haven't tried it in Windows yet. The computer is a little louder but not intrusively so. Only noticeable change is a slight increase in HDD temperature (I have all four bays filled), probably due to slightly constricted airflow.

I am getting the no power cable message.

I am running it alongside the original 7300GT, each card driving a separate monitor.

Card: XFX Radeon HD 4870 ZWFC Ver. E.0, 1GB VRAM
MP: 2006 2x2.66 Dual Core, 9GB RAM, OS X 10.5.8

Thanks again!
 
Sapphire 11133-04-20R + DOS BOOT + ATI Flash = Working

Great reference before asking any questions: The Golden Guide: http://www.groths.org/?page_id=74

As a follow up to my issue: Zeus + Sapphire 11133-04-20R + No BIOS = ???

After flashing my ATI card with nothing, I tried to boot into Boot Camp on the Mac, or even DOS. No go, just a series of repeating boot up chimes.

So, I created a DOS boot CD and borrowed a PCI-Express PC. Installed the Sapphire as secondary and booted off the DOS CD. Used the DOS ATI flasher to flash the card with BIOS from the forum.

It now works as Cendori predicted. In general everything is great on my 2006 Mac Pro 2.66 running 10.6.2, expect for, in a few pictures there are a few pixels that are off color.

I will be contributing to the cause soon. Thanks Cendori! I just saved $200!
 
XFX Radeon HD 4870 ZWFC Ver. E.0, 1GB VRAM

Fotog, what rom did you use? I have the exact same card and tried flashing using Zeus 1.2 with osx 10.6.3 with the zwfc/zwfl rom from http://groths.se/atiflashingtool/ROMS.zip

Is that what you used? Any tips to your process? Also screwed saving my original rom if you should happen to have a copy.

I get flickering lines and tons of artifacts.
 
kwestergaard said:
Fotog, what rom did you use? I have the exact same card and tried flashing using Zeus 1.2 with osx 10.6.3 with the zwfc/zwfl rom from http://groths.se/atiflashingtool/ROMS.zip

Is that what you used? Any tips to your process? Also screwed saving my original rom if you should happen to have a copy.

I get flickering lines and tons of artifacts.
Click to expand...

I used the latest Zeus, as well as the ROM from that zip. However, I am on 10.5.8.

I should have the original saved, although I cleaned the directory once everything checked out and was working fine. Drop me a PM and I can e-mail you the file.
 
Dang, rechecked my card and I actually have a XFX Radeon HD 4870 ZWFC Ver. V.0, 1GB VRAM.

So thx fotog but I would guess your orig rom not going to do a lot for me.

Never realized there was that many varieties of cards around. I'll hunt around and see if anyone has a rom or flashed that version correctly.

Thx for your reply too Cindori. Might try a flash with that rom just to see how it goes.
 
cindori,

i am currently on 10.6.2 w/xfx card mentioned in other post (HD-489X-ZSFC) which works great in both quartz extreme/core image/vga. If I upgrade with zeus tool will i lose these features, or should i just wait. I don't want to hose my video.


Thanks for the response.
 
nothing to wait for as there wont be any more qeci patches

it should work fine with either qecipatch form zeus or, if that doesnt work, the dualdvi zip.
 
Kernel Panics

Hi all,

I've got a Sapphire 4870/1gb in a 1.1 Mac Pro (10.6.3 fully up to date), but before I even get to the flashing stage (or even the desktop), I find it causes a Kernel panic. I've got the standard X1900 in there too.

I've tried swapping the cards around, and various permutations of the drivers with Zeus etc, but no joy.

Not had a chance to do a bootcamp/windows route, and was kind of hoping to avoid that route to be honest.

It panics on safe mode as well, so I'm kinda stuck.

Any ideas how to fix?
 
So following the directions in this thread, I was able to restore video operation under 10.6.3 with my flashed Sapphire 4870. I'd tried installing the drivers with Zeus unsuccessfully, ultimately I had to resort to using DualDVI.zip to get things running. But there are some significant drawbacks to that. Here's what I've found:

* I think my problem with Zeus's drivers were due to my use of the 64bit kernel. I noticed in Console that it was complaining the netkas driver isn't available in 64 bit and was skipped.

* I'm assuming that the drivers included in 10.6.3 are back-leveled compared to 10.6.3. While they do make my 4870 work, they break many other things, including the ATI 2600 driver (causes linker errors), and thus my computer can no longer enter sleep mode. (I still have the 2600 installed as a backup)

* I know that new OpenGL functionality was added in 10.6.3, and although I haven't tested this, I wouldn't be surprised if using older drivers hinders them.

Under 10.6.2, I didn't need any hacked drivers once I'd flashed this card, so I'm curious if anything is known about what changed in 10.6.3 - and can normal operation be restored without using out of date drivers that break other functionality?
 
Zeus and Netkas' ATY_init...first Nvidia PC to Mac Flash in OSX !!! (in a long time)

Yay !!!

We have not been able to flash PC Nvidia cards in OSX...basically EVER.

There were 2 exceptions to this...

1. Early G4s could run PC GeForce 2 cards natively, apparently Apple had included the Mac F-Code ROM in the G4 Boot ROM. Since these were "mac" cards as far as system OS was concerned, we could reflash them with real Mac ROM using Nvidia F-Code updaters in OS9. This was of limited use, obviously.

2. The mysterious genius, Arti, who handed us MANY Nvidia PPC cards had figured out a way to use Open Firmware boot commands to enable. Complicated and messy, don't think anyone but he ever got this to work. SInce we don't have OF anymore, of no use now.

Fast forward to today. Zeus uses an Apple supplied EFI ROM updater for Nvidia cards. Since it requires the card to be id'd as a Mac one at boot, it can't flash a PC card...right ? I figured out a work around !!!!

This again will be of limited use but if we got another clever person on here, maybe we could expand functionality.

Here is what I did. I have a PC 8800GT from XFX and a Mac 7300GT. Using Netkas' ATY_init installed the 8800 fires up at final boot screen, running with PC ROM on it. With latest version of Zeus I was able view the card. Something even Cindori doesn't know is that NVFlas base has an "Auto Index" feature that will FIND the right card to up[date, even if you have multiple Nvidia cards. WHat it does is look for a card that matches on 3 point:

1. Device id
2.Board Id
3. Subsystem id

If it finds a card with al 3 of these matching, even if there are other Nvidia cards, it will flash the one that matches.

So, I just changed the Mac ROm to match the id numbers of the existing PC ROM...and BINGO !!! Zeus flashed a PC 8800GT with Mac ROM in OSX. I am about 99% certain this is first time this has been done since the GeForce2.

So, picture this. If an addition were written to Zeus to compare the ROMs and mod the Mac id's to Match the PC id's, or ...even better, to ignore the mismatches (the -4 -5 -6 switches properly inserted) then there would be a way to easily flash 8800GT and other Nvidia cards in OSX.

I believe that the "-5" switch does not work in OSX version...ie, the device id HAS to match. This is probably why Zeus works with 7300GT in.

If anyone is interested in replicating this, please let me know. Obviously, you will need a Mac 7300 and a PC 8800GT.

Biggest problem is that 50% of PC 8800GTs have 64K EEPROMs. So, you would need an EVGA 8800GT, they are almost always 128K.
 
here is the line that zeus executes on flash:

nvcmdflasher -A -4 -5 -6 flashrom.rom

you think that the -A option might be why the number options don't work?

much goodies could be added to zeus with some simple coding. like ati firmware crafting: check for 7C, 7E, 7D in beginning and then cut accordingly and run Pipo's script on the rom. that check is something pipomolo42 could do easy probably but I have no skills in Python.
 
Cindori said:
here is the line that zeus executes on flash:

nvcmdflasher -A -4 -5 -6 flashrom.rom

you think that the -A option might be why the number options don't work?

much goodies could be added to zeus with some simple coding. like ati firmware crafting: check for 7C, 7E, 7D in beginning and then cut accordingly and run Pipo's script on the rom. that check is something pipomolo42 could do easy probably but I have no skills in Python.
Click to expand...

Yes, can you do one with the "-a" removed?

I just tried in terminal and all "-a" does is same thing as "-v"...it shows the Nvidia cards that are in system. If I am right about this, will make flashing 8800GTs much easier, at least for Mac folk who have a 7300GT or a GT120.

Cindori, do you have Nvidia cards to test with? I probably have a mildly flawed 8800GT I could send you to test with if that would help future endeavors.
 
First time Flasher ;)

First thanks for all the info and Zeus thanks to all the people that have helped develop this app and the roms.

I have a MP 1,1 2006 10.6.3 original gfx card

I was experiencing major sound issues using optical out and needed to update my gfx card as yesterday it broke (started flickering after about 3 minutes of booting then constantly for about 2-3 seconds on then the screen off again) so it was time to take the plunge and a 512mb card for £300 is a rip off when the same card is £100 and gain some more Mac knowledge and a 1GB card, well that done it for me.

Any way as I understand it

1, install Zeus
2, install natit
3.remove broke card install new 4870 ZWFL with both power cables (bought separately)
4, boot and run zeus
5, Select 10.6.3 and browse for rom which i found HERE
6, Click flash and reboot when finished.

Is it really that simple :rolleyes: ? Which point do I uninstall natit?

I also read about re-flashing to adjust the fan setting but that only mentions the XFX 4870 ZDFC series cards HERE


So i take i dont need to do that with my ZWFL as the latested rom is ok?

One last question when the next update is available, I take it i wait till zeus is updated then install natit run softwae update and then reinstall the rom.

Once again thanks to everyone that helped.
 
Spacedust said:
Apple ScriptError on Driver page on ATI 4000 Series + OS 10.6.4.
Click to expand...

Instead of posting the same obscure complaint in multiple threads, why not spend the time to actually explain what the problem is?

No one here is a mind reader.

The Applescript error would have shown more info, take 15 seconds to actually type it out and maybe someone can help.
 
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