Radeon X800 XT launches Open Firmware at startup ?!?

nozone

I've recently installed a new graphics card into my dual-2ghz g5 tower (June 2004 model), and whenever I boot the machine (startup or restart), I get an unfamiliar beep, a longish pause, then the 'welcome to open firmware' screen.



As prompted, I type 'mac-boot', the machine starts up, and everything runs beautifully from there, until the machine goes to sleep. When I try to wake it up, it just shuts down completely.



So, as long as I don't mind dealing with the open firmware step at every startup, and never let the machine go to sleep, I've got a pretty sweet rig! Uh, yeah.



I'm running the August 2005 update of the ROM, and ATI Displays 4.5.7. When I installed the card, I was running 10.4.3, but updated to 10.4.4, since there was supposedly an updated ATI driver in there.



At the suggestion from someone on the Macfixit board, I've reset the NVRAM, and the SMU, to no avail.



I've spoken to ATI's 'tech support,' and of course, they've never heard of any problem like this before, and just told me to send the card in for repair/replacement. I'll probably end up doing that, but I wanted to be absolutely sure it was something I couldn't fix first...



Any ideas/suggestions? Should I just give up and send the card back?



Thanks in advance.



Dual 2ghz G5 (June 2004)

3gb RAM

Mac OS 10.4.4

ATI Radeon X800XT Mac edition

mr. h

www.apple.com/support is your friend.



http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642



Does that work?

nozone

Unfortunately, Apple's support site has'nt been much of a friend on this issue. I've been hitting that site constantly, I've posted this same topic in their discussion boards, and still nothing. I've found one other person who claims to have the exact same issue as mine, but no answers.



I figure I'll post to as many discussion boards as I can find, and if I can't find any solutionsthis week, I'll just give up & send the card back.



I understand (vaguely) what Open Firmware is, that's not the problem. The problem is that it's not supposed to be the first thing I see every time I start the machine! Since it never did this before I put the new graphics card in, I'm assuming that the problem lies somewhere in the interaction between said graphics card and my computer...



I've done the NVRAM, reset defaults, reset all thing, and it made no difference.



Thanks, though.

mr. h

Oh, O.K.



Do you still have your old graphics card? What happens if you take the ATI out and put the old one back in?



If Open Firmware comes up with the old card, do what it says in that article. If it still comes up after that, then hmmmmmmm......

nozone

sup, Mr. H.



I'm at work right now, and my machine's at home, so I'll have to wait to try swithching out the cards 'til this evening.



I'll post again with the results.



Thanks for sticking with me on this...