Question about flashing PC cards

[ArmorAlley]

Hi all,

 What is the position on flashing cards made for the PC? Is it forbidden to ask? frowned upon? pointless to ask because it rarely works?

There is a lot of info on the Net about graphics cards but I'm looking to make some PC Adaptec SCSI cards and an FC card useful in my PCI macs.

Thanks for your help,

aa

 

[Unknown_K]

Some Adaptec cards work with OSX and PCs at the same time. Adaptec has firmware for select cards on their website.

 

[trag]

There used to be articles on flashing some of the Adaptec card's on xlr8yourmac.com. they might still be there. I wrote the article about the 2940UW.

I think the 29160 and 39160 were also flashable. Typically, the Mac version needs a larger flash/EEPROM chip to hold the Mac firmware and so one ends up replacing the firmware storage chip, or hunting down hacked firmware which has been reduced in size in some way.

The 2940 became much more complicated after I wrote that article, as Adaptec released a slew of models under the 2940 designation, and some of them did not use their AIC-7880 chip, which is what the firmware supports. As far as I know there was not Mac firmware for the 7895 chip used in models like the 2940UW Dual.

There were also Apple versions of some cards. Any reason you want to use Adaptec specifically? Initio provided some very nice Mac support. Although, I've got to say, the original 2940UW is the most reliable, compatible card I ever used.

 

[johnklos]

I don't get why it'd be frowned upon. You own the card, after all.

If any of the cards are ATTO cards, you can download a Mac version of the firmware from their site and flash the cards with their tools.

 

[Bunsen]

If you want cheap fast storage, flashable SATA cards exist.  The OS treats the resulting drive as a Firewire drive.  SIL-something-something chipsets.  The PC versions of the cards go for a few bucks on ebay and other places.  Once flashed, they work in both OS 9 and OS X.

 

[Unknown_K]

Oh, I am sure using one venders proprietary ROM code with a different venders card to make it work on a mac is illegal in some way shape or form. IP rights and all that.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Hi all,

Thanks for all of your comments. I want a SCSI card for my MDD so that I can plug in a nice scanner that I was given. I need to use Vuescan to access it. I came across some ASC-29160s going cheap and since I had read forum posts on Mac sites of people saying that they had flashed these successfully, I decided that I'd give it a go. The cards are all retail cards, or at least, I see no other manufacturer's name on them other than Adaptec. I also want all of my Macs to have external SCSI access.

I downloaded the appropriate drivers and flash utilities from the Microsemi site and tried to flash the ASC-29160s one at a time in my MDD under 9.2.2. I got an error during the flashing. Hence the initial post. I found very few posts on the site and thought that I'd fill a gap. I am wondering if it is possible to do the flashing on a PC board with a Mac ROM (like with graphics cards).

 

[ArmorAlley]

@johnklos - actually the fibre channel card is an ATTO card - an FC 3300 PCIX card - and its flashing also failed. I had a bad flashing week last week. I was hoping to have a little fabric for my MDD. I have to check it on the PC board to see if it shows up during startup.

 

[johnklos]

Oh, I am sure using one venders proprietary ROM code with a different venders card to make it work on a mac is illegal in some way shape or form. IP rights and all that.

First, nobody said to do that. That wouldn't even make sense. Second, I don't get why there's always someone in every thread who has "don't do that! You might hurt a corporation's feelings!" reaction. Nobody's getting hurt - the products have already been purchased from the manufacturers.

ATTO makes their downloads for all their ROMs available to everyone. I don't know about now, but so did Adaptec back in the day. They WANT you to use their products.

 

[Unknown_K]

Bunsen mentioned flashing a specific chipset PC card for mac use which got my sarcastic reply. I have no issues with these kinds of hacks at all.

ATTO quit updating their cards for the latest OS (mac and PC) but if you want an OS 9 card its not an issue, Adaptec has better support for SCSI anyway.

 

[johnklos]

Perhaps, but the driver / firmware was still written by Silicon Image for Silicon Image based cards. Or are people getting the firmware from somewhere else?

 

[Unknown_K]

I was under the impression people were using Sonnet Tempo Serial ATA firmware (Sil3112 chipset) on cheap generic PC cards. If Silicon Image was writing free Mac firmware Sonnet would not have made up their own cards using those chips.

Back when people wanted IDE/ATA cards on their PCI Macs Promise made a special mac edition of their cheaper PC based card with special firmware on a soldered in chip. So while technically Promise had firmware for Mac, you had to buy their mac specific card to use it.