reflashing a pc videocard

[bluekatt]

recently i got my hands on a 2001 QS 733 with a vile ati rage 128 pro card with a piddly 16 mb ram

and the rage 128 just decided to die ...typical

as it happens i actually happen to have four spare video cards 3 agp and one pci

an radeon 7000 32 mb ( pci )

an ati rage 128 pro with 32 mb ram ( agp )

an nvidia geforce 3 ti 200 64 mb (agp)

an nvidia geforce fx 5200 128 mb ( agp)

and a radeon 9600 se with 128 mb (agp)

the radeon is right out the QS wont even boot with it let alone it being usable

ideally the fx 5200 or the geforce 3 will do if not for the fact that the fx 5200 needs physical modification to work in my QS ...nevermind that then

so that laeaves me with the nvidia geforce 3 the rage pro or the radeon 7000

nwo my question is

how the bloody hell do i flash these mongrels for the mac ?

i cant even find the tools or rom dumps i need for the others let alone actually do it

the only one i foudn anything for is the radeon 7000 on cube owners and even that is for the agp card

so am i up a certain creek with out a paddle or can i actually flash one of these ?

(preferbly the geforce 3 )

 

[Sloar]

Do a search online for MacElite, you will find all you need to know.

 

[bluekatt]

they were offline when i searched a few hours ago

they arent any more

QS meet geforce fx 5200 ..play nice

 

[Sloar]

Just tried it, the link seems to work ok , here it is, http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ . Good luck and it does make sense since the PC equivalents are so much cheaper.

 

[bluekatt]

ill probably slice the circuti trace of pin 3 and 11 away on the geforce

the video card is easy to replace ( and i have 4 others )

its not so easy to fish out tiny slivers of scotch tape out of your agp slot

 

[Sloar]

Out of curiosity, is there a chart anywhere on the power draw from Mac components since Macs never came with upgradeable power supplies? The reason I ask is that I feel I was pushing it with a Dual G4 1.6ghz cpu upgrade, a Geforce 6800GT video card, Voodoo 3 PCI card, and M-audio Revolution sound card in my Digital Audio. Are we limited at all when flashing video cards with power requirments for the ones that can be flashed if other upgrades are also installed?

 

[bluekatt]

from what i under stand the reason why we have to hack in tot he video cards is because apple decided to use the then unassigned pins 3 and 11 for their adc protocol

a few years later when agp 8X was released pins 3 and 11 were assigned to draw power

the older powermacs are looking for something on the newer cards thats not there

the psu's in macs are upgradable just dont ask how

 

[MacJunky]

its not so easy to fish out tiny slivers of scotch tape out of your agp slot

So far swapping my 6200 around between my DA and QS many times and the tape is still secure. If you feel uncomfortable then just glue the ends like it suggests on the TME wiki.

 

[bluekatt]

but if i glue it i might as wel scratch out the circuit paths

 

[MacJunky]

Not really, because you are just gluing the very edge of the tape to the very edge of the PCB. You would not be gluing onto any of the traces or pins.