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    #1

    Video Card Flash Mods

    Hello.

    I've flashed a total of four Video Cards here for repair, update and lastly to modify. The flashmod card being the latest (today)

    The first one was my HIS Radeon HD3850. The card worked OK in a P35-based PC with one exception: No Boot when connected to a 23" Apple Cinema Display. I got around this by having a smaller display also connected.
    Eventually, I found a "Stock" ATI 3850 bios with updated fan settings and repair to the ATI OverDrive feature. This also corrected the No Boot with ACD.

    The second one was a Visiontec Radeon HD2600XT. This card had a factory overclock and would get all artifacty and crash for the hapless owner. I found another "Stock" ATI bios which fixed it nicely. Never any problem at stock speeds.

    Number Three was the stock GeForce 7300 in my Mac Pro. Apple's update manager downloaded the update file which worked perfectly.

    Number Four done just today was to take a perfectly good eVGA GeForce 8800GT and mod it into thinking it's an original Apple-supplied 8800GT for the Mac Pro 1.1 with 32-bit EFI.

    Apple made 8800GT cards for the Mac Pro 1.1 and 2.1 but discontinued these cards last year. The 8800 apparently is the best card for the 1.1 as the Mac Radeon 3870 has a poor reputation and the newest cards only work in 2.1 and up with 64-bit EFI.

    A search of eBay reveals people selling modified PC 8800GT cards for $200 and up.

    So, rather than spend $200 for a known good modified card, I gambled and acquired a used eVGA 8800GT that is reputed to work well for $70.
    I then downloaded the special Mac-specific BIOS and NVFLASH.

    Booting it from floppy on a cheap PC board, the flash worked as advertised.

    Put it in the Mac Pro and.... Perfect!

    Hopefully I get some improvement in Rendering speed.
    If not, well at least the fan is a bit quieter.

    Have Fun,
    Keri
    The More You Learn The Less You Know!
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Video Card Flash Mods

    That's pretty awesome! Flashing a video card's BIOs makes me a bit squeamish, particularly if the card is not based on the reference model.

    Have you ever flashed a video BIOS in a laptop? A lot of Toshiba laptops that use nVidia GPUs are underclocked for better cooling, as well as having some other minor features disabled. I'd like to edit my BIOS and reflash, but I'm afraid of bricking it, and therefore ruining the motherboard.

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Video Card Flash Mods

      Flashing video card BIOS's generally should not be too squeamish if you have a spare PCI video card lying around just in case you hose the BIOS/firmware of the PCI-E or AGP card.

      Generally (from what I have heard), if you flash a different firmware but for the same card, it can be recovered by booting up using the PCI card and re-flashing the firmware back to the original graphics card again.

      At least with AGP cards, the difference between different firmware that can hose the card is mainly with the memory chips on the card. If the firmware is designed for a card with faster memory chips than what is in your card. It is probable that it will not boot. Well that was the danger with my old ATI 9700 Pro. However this kind of problem can be recovered with the PCI card method.

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Video Card Flash Mods

        You're right about "reference design".

        At least three of mine were based on the reference design.
        Both ATI cards were very early production and likely sourced through ATI itself. The 3850 and 2600 cards ID as ATI, not HIS or Visiontec and thus can use ATI's DVD decoder! I once had a Sapphire x1900 that did this too.

        The nVidia 7300 is just the plain vanilla stock Mac Pro 1.1 card probably intended to encourage upgrading to the x1900 or Quadro 4500 (the two possible upgrades in '06).

        I read a lot of advice to stick as close as possible to the reference 8800GT with the green PCB. The blue PCB ones have a lower success rate.

        Cards intended for the Mac Pro have to have a bigger ROM chip as the EFI firmware won't fit on a standard 64kb EEPROM.

        eVGA is reputed to splurge on bigger ROM chips (mine is a 1024kb) while PNY and BFG often use the cheaper 64kb ones.
        My sources were right: The standard eVGA video BIOS was 58kb-ish and the Apple EFI firmware 115kb-ish.

        I once had an eVGA card years ago. It was a good one too. I'm happy to be able to have another one in my Mac. It's nice that it's built for a factory OC but the Apple firmware runs it a stock speeds. This increases stability which is what's important to me.

        Yay! Fasterer graphics for everyone, (including us Mac drivers)
        Keri
        Last edited by KeriJane; 09-27-2009, 07:13 AM.
        The More You Learn The Less You Know!

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Video Card Flash Mods

          Hi Player2.

          Well, there are two tools that may work for your Toshiba.

          You might be able to use NVFLASH to back up your original BIOS. If you completely brick the laptop it might not be any use though.

          You could also try NTUNE or nVidia System Tools to adjust all kinds of stiuff right in Windows.

          Have Fun,
          Keri
          The More You Learn The Less You Know!

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Video Card Flash Mods

            Cards intended for the Mac Pro have to have a bigger ROM chip as the EFI firmware won't fit on a standard 64kb EEPROM.
            You can get shrunken PPC roms for many cards.

            Don't flash the laptop video, you will have a bitch of a time fixing it if you mess it up. Also it might have things disabled because of heat.

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Video Card Flash Mods

              Originally posted by NxB
              Also it might have things disabled because of heat.
              Probably, but I took care of that Lapped and polished the GPU heatsink, wired the fan to stay on at full speed (on a switch), and cut a hole in the bottom of the case for cooling, complete with mesh covering I'll try to get some pics, right now though the lappy is undergoing surgery and is in pieces.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Video Card Flash Mods

                Originally posted by Player2
                That's pretty awesome! Flashing a video card's BIOs makes me a bit squeamish, particularly if the card is not based on the reference model.

                Have you ever flashed a video BIOS in a laptop? A lot of Toshiba laptops that use nVidia GPUs are underclocked for better cooling, as well as having some other minor features disabled. I'd like to edit my BIOS and reflash, but I'm afraid of bricking it, and therefore ruining the motherboard.
                That is because there are a shit ton of defective nVidia GPUs in laptops.
                Too much heat and the substrate separates making for a dead GPU and [if its not a removable video card] a dead laptop.
                .
                Mann-Made Global Warming.
                - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.
                -
                Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
                - Dr Seuss
                -
                You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                -

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Video Card Flash Mods

                  Those NV GPUs fail without even pushing them.

                  Comment

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