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Driving a 23“ DVI Cinema Display from a Powermac 8500?
- Thread starter robin-fo
- Start date
A flashed PC Radeon 7000 with 64MB of VRAM will do it... The mac version won't because it doesn't have enough VRAM or some other reason (it should have enough - I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet). The flashed 64MB card only reports 32MB, but works at 1920x1200.
Radeon 9200 just about works in a 8500, with 9.1 and 9.2 only I think (perhaps even 9.2 only - I'd want to double check). Bewarned that the 9200 and 9250 were both sold in boxes that said "9200". Both can be made to work but the 9250 needs a bit more faff. Neither (drivers wise) make great OS 9 cards.
Radeon 9200 just about works in a 8500, with 9.1 and 9.2 only I think (perhaps even 9.2 only - I'd want to double check). Bewarned that the 9200 and 9250 were both sold in boxes that said "9200". Both can be made to work but the 9250 needs a bit more faff. Neither (drivers wise) make great OS 9 cards.
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Thanks a lot! So this one might work?
Can I flash it using a Mac (or maybe with a chip programmer)?
Can I flash it using a Mac (or maybe with a chip programmer)?
That card is a good price, but flashing seems to be a little unreliable with what cards it works with so I can't tell you yes or no sorry. You'll need a new ROM chip because PC cards come with a ROM chip that is too small for the mac firmware.
a number of people have flashed the ROM with a trimmed image.
The down side is that there's no boot screen. You have a blank screen until the drivers load
The down side is that there's no boot screen. You have a blank screen until the drivers load
I can also confirm that a flashed 7000 will happily plug and play with a 23" aluminum cinema display at 1920x1200.
Additional background might be tied to the same issue mentioned in the August 2005 Radeon ROM update documentation.
For the 9000 Pro, 9800 Pro, and 9800 Pro Special Edition, "Fixed hotplug bug with 20", 23", and 30" DVI Apple Cinema Displays" is listed. Unfortunately nothing like that for the 8500 (though not too different from the 9000 Pro, itself.)
In the mode tables section, the doc also mentions "The RADEON card's maximum digital resolution is 1920x1200 (using a reduced blanking interval compatible with Apple's Cinema HD ADC Display, using an Apple or third-party powered adapter)." This isn't directly related to the aluminum models though.
Most other DVI 1920x1200 panels should have better compatibility.
Additional background might be tied to the same issue mentioned in the August 2005 Radeon ROM update documentation.
For the 9000 Pro, 9800 Pro, and 9800 Pro Special Edition, "Fixed hotplug bug with 20", 23", and 30" DVI Apple Cinema Displays" is listed. Unfortunately nothing like that for the 8500 (though not too different from the 9000 Pro, itself.)
In the mode tables section, the doc also mentions "The RADEON card's maximum digital resolution is 1920x1200 (using a reduced blanking interval compatible with Apple's Cinema HD ADC Display, using an Apple or third-party powered adapter)." This isn't directly related to the aluminum models though.
Most other DVI 1920x1200 panels should have better compatibility.
Cool! Let's see how it turns out. Plug- and play might be important for me, as I'm planning to use a KVM to share screen and mouse/keyboard with a Mac Mini G4.
Ok the card arrived, but I wasn't able to flash it with my Powermac 8550. I tried several tools and even installed MacOS 10.3 on it but with no success. The onboard Flash is an AT25F512 so there should be enough space? I haven't got an old PC so can't flash it under DOS. A new 1024K chip is now underway so my next attempt will be to flash the chip directly.
The mac firmware updates don't work on PC cards that I know - how were you trying to flash it?
Cisco Aironet 340
For example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/204096708243
I can send you the Mac drivers if needed. It works in Mac OS 9, not sure how far back, but I think the drivers I have don't support OS 8 sadly.
The 350 should work too.
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