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The Golden Guide to Flashing Graphic Cards

hwojtek said:
I have a card with these specs...
Click to expand...

thanx hwojte, i've some more info:

I/O Output: Dual DL-DVI-I+HDTV
Core Clock: 750 MHz
Memory Clock: 900 MHz, 3.6Gbps
PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
1024MB /256bit GDDR5 memory interface
Dual Slot Active Cooler
HDMI compliant via dongle
7.1 Audio Channel Support
Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 support
Shader Model 4.1 support

PN:288-20E85-130SA
OR
PN:11133-04-20R


same spec than yours?
 
Does this guide apply to Radeon 5770 HD as well? I know apple sells them, but I found a much cheaper version on another website. Would I have to flash that too, i.e., follow the guide, or because another version is sold by apple would it work without altercation?
 
Ill ask this on this forum as well as there is more traffic here. I am trying to flash my Sapphire 5770 Vapor but I didn't realize I need a 6 pin to 6 pin PCI power cable. Can someone post a link as to where I can get one? I have a 4,1 MP.
 
capitanbuzo said:
Ill ask this on this forum as well as there is more traffic here. I am trying to flash my Sapphire 5770 Vapor but I didn't realize I need a 6 pin to 6 pin PCI power cable. Can someone post a link as to where I can get one? I have a 4,1 MP.
Click to expand...

Found one.
 
Hey Everyone!

I'm new here to this forum and have been trying to flash my graphics card and get it working properly these past few days without any success.

First a little background on what I have done:

I have a XFX HD4870 ZWFC running OSX 10.6.7

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.7f10
Serial Number (system): YM64909TUQ2
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2053FF2



I could not flash my card using Zeus as I would get a kernel panic while trying to boot into OSX but I did manage to dump my bios with gpu-z send it to OSX, remove my 4870 and patch it with zeus. After reattaching my 4870 I used the dos bootcd and atiflash to flash my card with the patched bios.

Now I was able to boot into OSX with the flashed card. However only one DVI port was working and I had the power error warning. Also the QECI drivers were not installed. I used zeus to disable the warning which worked but It was not able to solve the QECI drivers even after downloading and installing them for my OS version. It didn't have any effect.

I found out about Cindori's dualdvi and mapp/ny mapp fixes and tried installing them. First I installed the dualdvi kexts and rebooted. It worked and I was able to boot into OSX with both monitors working. I did however notice that my mouse started to glitch slightly, where it would lag and jump around slightly.

Then I tried installing the mapp kexts and rebooted. However once this was installed, I was unable to startup OSX again. After the apple screen, both monitors would just turn blue and flash in different shades. I had to connect my monitors to my old 7300GT to reboot into OSX. Then I tried installing the ny mapp kexts, but had the same results, a flashing blue screen. I also tried the ATI10.6.4Patch.pkg that was mentioned a few times in the forums but that did not help either. (I tried booting into windows as well without success. After the windows loading screen the monitor would just display a black screen)

By the way I tried running some games without the QECI drivers but they would just crash instantly, so the card is kinda useless at the moment.

So right now I am stuck and pretty confused on what I should do next. Is there any way to revert the mapp/ny mapp kexts so that I can at least boot into OSX with my 4870?

Any help would greatly GREATLY appreciated as I am at my wit's end about how to solve this and get it working.

Thank you Cindori for writing this great guide and everyone else who posted their experiences here. They have been a great help in getting to this stage.

EDIT: I just installed the dualdvi kexts again and am now able to boot into OSX with both monitors. However I still do not have QECI and my mouse still glitches
 
Last edited:
:D Thank you so much Cindori. You've put a big smile on my face. I just installed Keita's patch and rebooted into OSX. It worked! My 4870 now has the QECI drivers working with both DVI monitors. I started up a game to test it and it seems to be working very nicely!

My mouse still glitches and is jerky but its a minor annoyance since getting the card to work. If you do have any idea on how to fix this though that would be awesome.

Thanks again Cindori!!

edit: reading this thread here. Will try out the suggestions!
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/807376/

edit2 : I've found a temporary solution to the mouse jumping problem. For anyone wondering, apparently the issue happens with certain brands of monitors with the 4870. I have a cinema display and a Phillips IPS monitor. Turning off the Phillips causes the problem to completely disappear. Apparently the problem can be solved by connecting the phillips through vga instead of dvi. However my monitor didn't want to work through vga so I tried connecting it to my old 7300GT in slot 4. The problem stopped after this! I guess I didn't really have to worry about dual dvi not working in the first place haha. Hopefully I'll find a solution to run both monitors off the 4870 in the future but for now I'm happy to have a working flashed 4870!
 
Last edited:
Sorry for the gravedig!

I have the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Mac Edition which was given to me by my company..

Will I be able to flash this to BIOS and then use the card in my PC with the Mini display ports?

Regards
Daniel
 
i'll paint the picture, literally:


firmware.png


as you can see, the only desirable flash is from PC to Mac.


a side note:
modding a PC firmware is basically filling those holes with EFI.
sometimes the holes are too small, then you can't mod the firmware.
which is why it's important to get a normal, reference model if you plan to flash something.
because if you buy a overclocked or special-fan-version, chances are that those holes are filled with special firmware functions.

dam that picture was kinda nice.
 
Thankyou so! Much!

Amazing drawing :p thanks.

So i guess i need a mini dp converter to hdmi and it should work?
 
if your monitor only accepts HDMI connector, then yeah.

DVI>HDMI adapter might be cheaper tho.
 
If the ports work, i'm more than happy. I can get any converter I want.

My main worry is that it wont work on my PC.

Just saying.

AMD Support said:
The Mac version of the card would fit in a PCI Express IBM Compatible PC but the BIOS on the card is Mac specific and the drivers would not install for the card in Windows.

There are no Windows based drivers for the Mac Edition cards.
Click to expand...

Are they wrong?
 
Hi Cindori :

I'm writing from India. The graphic card of my 2007Mac Pro 1,1 Nvidia 7003Gt gave away a few days back and having scanned this entire forum - I went ahead and purchased the Ati Radeon HD 4870 XFX 512MB card :)

Now, I've got a few questions after which I would be flashing the card to work on my mac.

1. I don't have bootcamp - but I do have a secondary Windows desktop. Can I install the ATI and the drivers (via CD) onto that and then use GPU-Z to save my firmware? which I'll transfer to the mac pro hard disk.

2. Once done, I need to install my card into the MAC PRO PCIe slot 1, connect one DVI to the 7300GT, start OSX and then --Zeus --firmware -- browse for firmware --select card model --apply.

3. Zeus -- ATI -- OS -- Browse for ROM -- click 'flash'

4. Shut down, disconnect 7300GT, connect DVI to ATI and then restart the mac pro

These are the correct steps, right? I've already downloaded the 10.6.6 patch - that should be installed before installing the card, right?

Can you please guide me on this because there's no one here who has any idea as to what I need them to do :S
 
The Vaas said:
1. I don't have bootcamp - but I do have a secondary Windows desktop. Can I install the ATI and the drivers (via CD) onto that and then use GPU-Z to save my firmware? which I'll transfer to the mac pro hard disk.
Click to expand...

yes.

The Vaas said:
2. Once done, I need to install my card into the MAC PRO PCIe slot 1, connect one DVI to the 7300GT, start OSX and then --Zeus --firmware -- browse for firmware --select card model --apply.
Click to expand...

Zeus can only make firmware for 1GB 4870. for 512mb, try the roms in the roms.zip in the golden guide, or search the forum for your card model (YDFC as per your email)

The Vaas said:
3. Zeus -- ATI -- OS -- Browse for ROM -- click 'flash'
Click to expand...

yes.

The Vaas said:
4. Shut down, disconnect 7300GT, connect DVI to ATI and then restart the mac pro
Click to expand...

yes.

The Vaas said:
These are the correct steps, right?
Click to expand...

yes.

The Vaas said:
I've already downloaded the keita 10.6.6 patch - that should be installed before installing the card, right?
Click to expand...

only needed on some cards, i'd try without the patch first, so you know if you can skip it in the future.

The Vaas said:
Can you please guide me on this because there's no one here who has any idea as to what I need them to do :S
Click to expand...

You seem to have done proper research.
 
@Cindori:

Thanks so much for your reply :) So from what I gather -
1. I just need to GPU-Z my firmware for backup (in case of reverting back to Original state).
2. I don't need to do the "Apply Firmware via Zeus" step since that works only for 1Gb cards.
3. All I need is to find a .ROM that is compatible and just "Browse/Flash the ROM using Zeus" , Correct?

the ''ROMs.zip'' file has an "original.rom" for an xfx card. Is that the one to use for 'flashing via Zeus'?
 
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