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The Golden Guide to Flashing Graphic Cards

apple_iBoy said:
I have the same rig and card, and all was swimmingly plug-n-play.
Click to expand...

Man I'm starting with problems. This really sucks! Why am I not getting an image when using the DVI outs? If I use a DVI-VGA it works, but not with just a DVI-DVI. Do I need drivers after all?

System Profiler shows card as ATI Radeon HD N140 - is that normal ?

Mac Pro 1.1 - 10.6.8 - XFX 6870 ZDFC Double Dispersion version 5
 
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thanks

MacVidCards said:
Get a 6870 and quit jacking around

If you do a search for people with Mac Pros running a 6670 you won't find any

you are trying to swim upstream when for a few dollars more, you could have an easy time with 6870
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OK, I've found a Sapphire hd6870 1gb ddr5 for 133 euro on the net.
Now I have to figure it out how to let it works on my Mac Pro 3,1.
I heard it should work out of the box on Snow Leopard, is it right?
 
it would probably work, seems to be same gpu so...

but really, overclocking rarely give you anything noticeable, especially not on a relatively weak mobility card. we're talking 1-5 more FPS. not worth the risk of flashing since u can't restore a macbook's GPU if something goes wrong. if u want to game, do so in Windows and use the software overclock tool in Catalyst Control Center.
 
Hey all, just wanted to report some success.

I had an evil 4870 ZWFC I flashed for my Mac Pro 4,1. Sadly, it looked like there was no hope to upgrade to lion with that setup. Bought a Sapphire 6870 1GB off Newegg.

Then I installed Cindori's driver package in 10.6.7 and shut down the card. When the computer boot I got a modern art looking box representation of the OS after installing the new card. The OS was working, but the display was pretty wacky.

I reboot with my stock GT120, ran the Lion upgrade from the app store and now everything's working as expected! The lion upgrade even seems to have held on to the aty_init kext because DVD player and Steam worked no problems on my first boot.

I suspect there may have been residual bits of the hacked ATI drivers I had to enable the 4870 and the Lion install cleaned it up

I may look at flashing a little later, but for now I'm happy I didn't have to pay the apple tax on the 5870. I paid $170 instead of $450 and got a newer card!

Thanks guys for this great resource!
 
Hope someone can help?

I bought a Mac Pro in 2008 with a Nividia8800gt graphics card 64bit EFI.

I have since updated the graphics card to an ATI Radeon HD 4870.

I have a friend who would like to use the card (Nividia8800gt) in his MacPro 2007 ver1.1

But apparently the card needs a 32bit EFI to work!

Is there a way to add (Flash) the 32bit EFI to the card using Zeus?

and where do I get the file?

The card is an original Apple card!

Sorry may have been mentioned somewhere before; but my head is smoking from going from one thread to another!:eek:
 
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grogall said:
Is there a way to add (Flash) the 32bit EFI to the card using Zeus?

and where do I get the file?

The card is an original Apple card!

Sorry may have been mentioned somewhere before; but my head is smoking from going from one thread to another!:eek:
Click to expand...

I don't know if Cindori ever fixed Zeus to work with cards where the device id or subsystem id or subsystem vendor id didn't match.

Why don't you try and see what happens?

If I am right and Zeus doesn't let you, I can write a special EFI32 Rom that will work, but I will need your EFI64 ROM to match those fields.

Or maybe Cindori fixed Zeus and it will work just fine. Only one way to be sure. There are some older threads here on flashing 8800, roms are there.
 
That's a fantastic guide. As someone who has only done hackintoshing and who otherwise will only own MacBook Pros from here on out, the modding subculture of modding PC video cards to work in Mac Pro computers is something I've always had an interest in, but never a practical application for. You should definitely update this guide though as there are newer cards out that put the 5770s and the 5870s in the current Mac Pros to shame, and not many might be clued into it. Plus the OP in the "Cheapest replacement GPU (Locally)" thread seems to have found a card that JUST works, which you might be interested in.
 
yup, I actually began a major update (basiacally totally new gudie) for 2012 Mac Pro release, but when that did not happen I put it on ice. Since no one knows what the 2013 mac pro will be like (maybe it wont even have pcie gpu, who knows) I wont be working on it until that is confirmed. :/
 
why, thank you. it's nice to see it's still helpful despite being so old. I might do a revision update with the new content I've written when I get time.
 
I read that more and more stock off-the-shelf PC cards work with OSX 10.6.8+ right out-of-the-box. Not sure I want to risk that but can anyone here confirm this? Thanks.
 
cgc said:
I read that more and more stock off-the-shelf PC cards work with OSX 10.6.8+ right out-of-the-box. Not sure I want to risk that but can anyone here confirm this? Thanks.
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Yup, I just replaced my 4870 with a 6870 and yes it worked right out of the box, you just loose the Apple boot screen unless you flash it.

I had to add a kext file to stop the DVD player crashing.
 
I do not know where to begin...

I feel horribly stupid as I am certain everything I seek is clearly elaborated here however I have read SO much information and download SO many files that would seemingly accomplish the task, I have become throughly confused. Perhaps it is my fear of screwing something up or not quite understanding the steps that I would need to under take so I am finally waving my white fag and seeking help.

I purchased a (flashed) Sapphire 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4870 from amazon that was supposed to be fully operable/functional in my Mac Pro. I had one 6 pin power cable which is already connected to my stock ATI Radeon X1900 XT and acquired another of the exact same cable, took the two cables and made certain that each end clicked firmly in the sockets both on the card as well as the motherboard, firmly seated the card within the first PCIe slot and put the cover back on. I then took the DVI cable from my 20" Apple Cinema Display and plugged it into the appropriate socket on the ATI Radeon HD 4870. Upon booting my Mac Pro, I got the normal chime followed by the logo then my login etc and everything seemed fine. The machine only stayed booted for no more then a minute before it rebooted itself. Then it began the cycle that I have read about here where it would get to a certain point in the boot up and repeat again and again till final it seemed like it booted fully save that there was/is no video output whatsoever and I was forced to manually shut down via the power button.

I have since contacted the vendor I purchased the card from and I have been fully refunded. Surprisingly, he did not want the card returned. My first inclination was to go to Ebay and buy another card. As I have never possessed much confidence in flashed cards and I only have one monitor, I am leaning toward tossing this one in thrash, buying the Apple 4870 version and being done with it.

There is a part of me however that when considering what an ordeal this has been, I feel that I deserve a break while saving some cash and getting this card to properly work. My question is...is a faulty card worth putting any more time into. Is the solution merely to re-flash the card or should this be an indication of future headaches and I would be better off moving on ?
 

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GTX285 video card

Hi, I had tried installing XFX 6870 in slot 1 and the stock 7300 in slot 3 of my mp 1,1 2006 but though it can boot up, when I ran finder or even photoshop, there is no menu bar displayed.
Read some comments about the gtx285 video card so I bought a used eVGA mac edition card. The box that came with it says it is for early 2008 with 800Mhz DDR2. Removed the 7300 and install gtx 285 in slot 1.
Upon bootup I only had the black screen. Removed card and reinstalled my 2 previous cards. Now after bootup, sys profiler reported I have 8GB ram though 16GB is installed. Details in memory show 4 slots as being empty though it is filled.
Any advice would be appreciated as I do not know how to proceed from here.
 
chaozhouzi said:
Hi, I had tried installing XFX 6870 in slot 1 and the stock 7300 in slot 3 of my mp 1,1 2006 but though it can boot up, when I ran finder or even photoshop, there is no menu bar displayed.
Read some comments about the gtx285 video card so I bought a used eVGA mac edition card. The box that came with it says it is for early 2008 with 800Mhz DDR2. Removed the 7300 and install gtx 285 in slot 1.
Upon bootup I only had the black screen. Removed card and reinstalled my 2 previous cards. Now after bootup, sys profiler reported I have 8GB ram though 16GB is installed. Details in memory show 4 slots as being empty though it is filled.
Any advice would be appreciated as I do not know how to proceed from here.
Click to expand...

re-seat the ram, take them all out and reinstall.
 
chaozhouzi said:
Read some comments about the gtx285 video card so I bought a used eVGA mac edition card. The box that came with it says it is for early 2008 with 800Mhz DDR2. Removed the 7300 and install gtx 285 in slot 1.
Upon bootup I only had the black screen.
Click to expand...
NVIDIA GPUs starting with the GT 120 and later models such as GTX 285, 680, and Quadro 4000, K5000 all have EFI64 which is not compatible with the MP 1,1 and 2,1. For unflashed 6870, you probably need to install latest OS X Lion to get it working properly.
 
xcodeSyn said:
NVIDIA GPUs starting with the GT 120 and later models such as GTX 285, 680, and Quadro 4000, K5000 all have EFI64 which is not compatible with the MP 1,1 and 2,1. For unflashed 6870, you probably need to install latest OS X Lion to get it working properly.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the info. Anyway I managed to sell it off on a local user forum. I had installed OS X Lion as you suggested and updated to 10.7.5. On bootup, I see only the wallpaper on my desktop and nothing. After I transfer the DVI to the 7300, I got my main menu bar and dock back. I then transfer to the 6870 and everything is fine. Look like I need to flash the card.
 
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