Trying to flash mac x1900 to work in pc: Anyone wanna test this out?

[willpower101]

So I picked up an extra x1900xt 512mb from doing some computer work.
It's the mac version.

I flashed it to pc, and it kinda works, but there's a bunch of garbage on the screen and I don't have a mac pro desktop to see if this garbage is just a bad card.

So if one of you has a mac pro with an x1900 card, and a pc with a pci/agp/or onboard video card + pci-express port, Could you pop your x1900 out of your mac and try it in your pc?

The proceedure is completley reverseable, so you don't have to worry about bricking it, but only do this if your comfortable in dos or in a console:




1. make a bootdisc. There's a bunch of ways, I just googled bootable usb, and put atiflash on it once done.

2. get atiflash http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1731/ATIFlash 3.79.html

3. reboot your pc with secondary video card and pcie x1900

4. set vid to secondary card and boot from usb and run atiflash -ai

5. make sure you're choosing the correct card, your device idea is prolly 7249 or similar.

6. run command atiflash -s 0 nameofbackup.bin where 0 is the number location of your card from step 2. This backups your stock bios. You can always get the stock bios from here: http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

7. run command: atiflash -newbios -p 0 yourbiosname.bin

8. reboot and select vid in bios to pcie

9. let me know if it looks good or if there's screen garbage

10. Repeat the process with your backup to restore your card and slap it back in your mac.

almost forgot, here's your stock pc bios you'll use http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...facturer=&model=X1900+XT&interface=&memSize=0

 

[chych]

What ROM did you use to flash it? You need a specific ROM for the card. I would have figured a mac x1900xt would just straight work in a PC....

Also some early x1900xt's were junk and had graphics issues, and had to be replaced.


Btw "Macbook" is a laptop, "Mac Pro" is the desktop.

 

[willpower101]

Whoops, been fixing a lot of macbooks recently.

What ROM did you use to flash it? You need a specific ROM for the card. I would have figured a mac x1900xt would just straight work in a PC....

I used the rom in the link at the bottom of that my. It's a pc version of the x1900xt 512mb. Is there a better rom?

Also how do you figure it would just work? The mac card has an efi on it instead of a bios.

 

[Pressure]

Whoops, been fixing a lot of macbooks recently.



I used the rom in the link at the bottom of that my. It's a pc version of the x1900xt 512mb. Is there a better rom?

Also how do you figure it would just work? The mac card has an efi on it instead of a bios.

As the other user said, it works fine in Windows without any flashing.

If you search for it you can even find the information on Microsoft's website saying that it is compatible with Windows in both 32-bit and 64-bit.

 

[Cindori]

As the other user said, it works fine in Windows without any flashing.

If you search for it you can even find the information on Microsoft's website saying that it is compatible with Windows in both 32-bit and 64-bit.

the x1900 contains only a EFI rom. it wont work in a PC.
the reason it works with windows in bootcamp is the Mac pro's carry a bios emulation for it in the mac pro firmware.

 

[Pressure]

the x1900 contains only a EFI rom. it wont work in a PC.
the reason it works with windows in bootcamp is the Mac pro's carry a bios emulation for it in the mac pro firmware.

In which case I stand corrected.

Just weird that the information is available on Microsofts site (in this case I was looking at the Radeon X1900 G5 Mac Edition).
It pertains to the graphic card and not what computer it is inserted into.

 

[willpower101]

Bingo cindori! Man you have had a lot of good posts explaining stuff to people better than i could recently. lol, thank you

Pressure: what link were you looking at?

So yeah, it brings me back to still not knowing if this is just a bad card, or if it needs a modified firmware. I need to eitehr A. get a hold of a mac pro to test on. or B. have someone try to repeat the process themselves.

 

[Pressure]

Bingo cindori! Man you have had a lot of good posts explaining stuff to people better than i could recently. lol, thank you

Pressure: what link were you looking at?

So yeah, it brings me back to still not knowing if this is just a bad card, or if it needs a modified firmware. I need to eitehr A. get a hold of a mac pro to test on. or B. have someone try to repeat the process themselves.

This link but perhaps the Radeon X1900 for the G5 were different than the one for the 2006 Mac Pro.

 

[willpower101]

now that IS weird isnt' it? i figured it'd be the other way around since the g5 is a powerpc and the mac pro is intel based.

 

[milolethbridge]

old old thread, but I tried the flash. It went from doing nothing and fan spinning 100% before the flash to my dell giving me a 'Bios checksum failure' diagnostic noise after the flash.. however the card works in windows if i select multi monitor mode in my bios, booting from onboard graphics but keeping the card plugged in. So it seems to work I just cant use it as my primary display adapter and/or use it from boot which is a bummer.