Radeon 8500 Mac/PC in Dual 867 help...
Hello... I'm generally fairly knowledgeable about Macs but before going out and spending some cash, I was wondering if anyone knew how to go about flashing the ROM on a Radeon 8500 video card... I bought a dual 867 g4 with nvidia geforce 4mx, but I want to go dual monitors, and have svideo out for dvd's.... thus, i need a radeon 8500 or 9700.... 8500 has similar performance and twice the ram so its better for dual monitor...
the pc version costs about ~$85 while the mac version is ~$185... i had heard whispers about the hardware being identical, i mean its just an AGP slot... right? so can i just buy a pc card? flash it? etc?
any help would be great!!!
// michael
the pc version costs about ~$85 while the mac version is ~$185... i had heard whispers about the hardware being identical, i mean its just an AGP slot... right? so can i just buy a pc card? flash it? etc?
any help would be great!!!
// michael
Comments
i'd tell you to search around, but i think the search function is broken now. it's gonna be fixed soon hopefully.
best of luck!
<a href="http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=332e28fb23943d91388d71839e4d6536& threadid=20531&highlight=flashed+ati+cards" target="_blank">http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=332e28fb23943d91388d71839e4d6536& threadid=20531&highlight=flashed+ati+cards</a>
Here are the steps I used (gleaned from MacNN & xlr8yourmac forums):
1. Bought PC 8500 Radeon card from Newegg.com rated at 275/275 for $109.
2. Booted into OS9.2
3. Installed Firmware RESTORE (from ATI firmware downloaded)into startup folder.
4. Shut down. Removed original ATI card, installed Radeon 8500.
5. Restarted leaving CRT unconnected, waited 5 min, shut down.
6. Replaced Radeon with original card. Restarted, replaced the FIRMWARE RESTORE with Firmware UPDATE. Shut down.
7. Reinstalled the Radeon 8500. Restarted. Waited 5 min. Shut down.
8. Reconnected the CRT. Restarted and reset the PRAM (Waited for 5-6 chimes ... lost count{sheepish grin})
9. Installed the drivers in OS9. Booted into OSX Installed he drivers and everything is working great.
Download;
<a href="http://ati.com/support/drivers/mac/ati-radeon8500-mac-rom-126.html" target="_blank">http://ati.com/support/drivers/mac/ati-radeon8500-mac-rom-126.html</a>
Steve B.