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
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
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.
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