[Dave the Embalm]

Hey, I'm going to attempt flashing a PC Radeon 8500 card on my mac via the risky way metioned at http://www.coffeehaus.com/radeon8500.html

My one question is which card? Its going to need to be an online source, I don't want an LE, and I want to make sure it will work. Anyone have someplace they've confirmed cards work from? Does this look like a likely candidate: http://www.a2zcomp.com/buy.asp?SKU=089782&ref=1

Thanks for your help!

[Edit]Link fixeroo[/Edit]

[davidflas]

Might I refer you to this thread. I contains the experiences of myself and others with getting PC Radeon 8500's to work in our Macs....

[Dave the Embalm]

Originally posted by davidflas:
Might I refer you to this thread. I contains the experiences of myself and others with getting PC Radeon 8500's to work in our Macs....

I noticed that thread. Was a specific place to purchase a confirmed card ever mentioned, however? I scanned some of the pages (not all 12 however!) but the most I got was a model name, which didn't show up in price watch anyway, so...I do know the LE version from nitcx.com or something like that works but LE just isn't my style

[tr]

Originally posted by Dave the Embalm:
I noticed that thread. Was a specific place to purchase a confirmed card ever mentioned, however? I scanned some of the pages (not all 12 however!) but the most I got was a model name, which didn't show up in price watch anyway, so...I do know the LE version from nitcx.com or something like that works but LE just isn't my style

i was one of the first people to post on the 'PC 8500 Flashing Success' topic (actually, i'm the second person posting on that topic )...that card you found looks like it would work. it's just an 8500 64mb that's OEM. the one i flashed was a retail ATI PC 8500 64mb. i know people have had success flashing the LE's, but there were quite a few that i remember (from the xlr8ourmac forums) that didn't have success with LE's; personally, i wouldn't try an LE, then again,, like you, LE's aren't my style!

i flashed the exact way that's listed on your link (which doesn't work, by the way, you forgot an 'e')

http://www.coffeehaus.com/radeon8500.html

worked like a charm. although, i waited like 5-10 minutes after i booted with the ROM in the startup folder, just to be on the safe side didn't bother OC'ing like some people have, too risky for me for just a few ticks faster.

tr

[Dave the Embalm]

Originally posted by tr:
i was one of the first people to post on the 'PC 8500 Flashing Success' topic (actually, i'm the second person posting on that topic )...that card you found looks like it would work. it's just an 8500 64mb that's OEM. the one i flashed was a retail ATI PC 8500 64mb. i know people have had success flashing the LE's, but there were quite a few that i remember (from the xlr8ourmac forums) that didn't have success with LE's; personally, i wouldn't try an LE, then again,, like you, LE's aren't my style!

i flashed the exact way that's listed on your link (which doesn't work, by the way, you forgot an 'e')

http://www.coffeehaus.com/radeon8500.html

worked like a charm. although, i waited like 5-10 minutes after i booted with the ROM in the startup folder, just to be on the safe side didn't bother OC'ing like some people have, too risky for me for just a few ticks faster.

tr

Ok, thanks! I think I'll try that one out then. The main reason I considered it was is product code was ATI's official product code for the PC Radeon 64MB card. I bought another card a while back (from newegg) but it didn't work. Turned out to be a sapphire card. However, the product code reflected this. I have high hopes for this new card!

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

There's one problem with CoffeeHaus' instructions: they neglect to mention that you HAVE TO DISCONNECT THE MONITOR before bootong for the initial Restore flashing.

[Dave the Embalm]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
There's one problem with CoffeeHaus' instructions: they neglect to mention that you HAVE TO DISCONNECT THE MONITOR before bootong for the initial Restore flashing.

Yeah, I did that. I hooked up an old Ixmicro card I had laying around, and used the ol' CRT on it.

[Eriamjh]

There was a card from Newegg.com that is mentioned in that thread. I bought that card and have been using a flashed radeon for several months now.

Disconnecting the monitor is better safe than sorry. If you read just the first 5 or six pages of the other thread, you should have all the info you need.

So was it a success?

[jasonxz]

I bought the NewEgg card about two months ago and had no luck. it was the second PC 8500 that I tried. I've just given up. It seems quite hit & miss. Please post if it works for you and where you bought, though.

[justageek]

I'd do a lot of finger crossing on this one. The other thread is very old, dates back to Spring 2002. It seems that the cards have changed. Sapphire actually makes all of ATI's cards but Sapphire also runs an OEM business and makes their own cards. At least the Sapphire OEM cards have changed and we've been trying to pin this down. The video bios almost definitely has changed to the smaller 64k size which offers plenty of room for PC firmware but not nearly enough for Mac. Other changes to the Sapphire card includes a PAL/NTSC jumper for video out. My card is the latter and does not work when attempting to flash.

The question is, how many of these changes made it to other Radeon 8500's?

Also, it is important to note that all OEM cards are LE cards, but this does not mean they have an 8500LE GPU. It just means than only genuine ATI cards could be non-LE. It's a confusing naming scheme because it suggests that only ATI cards are rated at 275/275. But that's not the case. Anyway, that's off-topic.

Finally, you should be aware that pictures of cards on the 'net are rarely accurate. They're usually just the same old product picture supplied by ATI eons ago. In short, don't trust the pictures.

Best of luck. Let us know how it turns out.