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omar96 · Mar 5, 2005, 09:44 PM

OK, I've read the FAQ on flashing the 9800 right here and I've gotten all the necessary files from here and now I just have a tiny question:

I've popped the (built by ATi 128MB) 9800 Pro into my Sawtooth (including hooking up the external molex for power) along with a PCI Rage 128 that I salvaged from a B&W and turned the machine on. Much to my surprise, it chimed and started to load OS X, and then I encountered a KP, telling me in 4 or 5 languages to shut down the machine. I did so and fired it up again. Froze on load. Crap. What's it trying to tell me? To flash in a PC? That it's too much of a load on my 200W PSU?

I've tried reinstalling the original 400MHz G4, disconnecting all drives (optical and otherwise) except for the one I boot off of, removed everything from the USB bus except my keyboard/mouse, and removed the USB 2.0 card I have installed. Still no joy. I'm afraid to flash this in a PC right now because I'm not sure if it's just not too much for my old Sawtooth. Any suggestions?

BTW, I know the card is good as-is because my wife has logged about 12 hours of The Sims 2 with it in her PC (Athlon64 2800+ machine)

Captain Egotist · Mar 6, 2005, 12:35 PM

I honestly think that card is WAY overkill for a CPU that slow.

yikes600 · Mar 6, 2005, 12:54 PM

Did you try taping the necessary pins? I believe it's 3 and 11. Also, I disagree with Captain Egotist. What if he's driving a 23" display and wants to crank Q3 up to a really high resolution to fill the display? Only a 9800 will let you do this. Here's what someone on XLR8YourMac said about adding a 9800 to a 350MHz Sawtooth:

even at 350, the 9800 will show improvement. I know because I put a 9800 in a 400 while waiting for my dual 1.2 processor to arrive, and it was noticeably faster than the 9000 it replaced.

Captain Egotist · Mar 6, 2005, 08:05 PM

Sweet dude. I got a titanium shift knob for my ford festiva. It helps quite a bit since it's lower weight!

yikes600 · Mar 6, 2005, 10:02 PM

Your analogy sucks because a Radeon 9800 is one of the best upgrades you can do to revitalize an old mac. The other would be a CPU upgrade which he already HAS:

I've tried reinstalling the original 400MHz G4

While adding a Radeon 9800 to machine with a CPU upgrade would certainly yield the best results, it still makes sense for Sawtooth owners with their original CPU. For example, the 9800 is the ONLY option if they want to utilize 10.4's Core Image. If they do decide to go for a CPU upgrade in the future, they'll be glad they went for the 9800. Nothing else really compares.

Captain Egotist · Mar 6, 2005, 11:21 PM

Originally posted by yikes600:
it still makes sense for Sawtooth owners with their original CPU. For example, the 9800 is the ONLY option if they want to utilize 10.4's Core Image.

Oh I totally agree! I mean, it's a good thing my Kia Sophia has a titanium shift knob because if I ever convert the rest of it into a twin turbo road racing machine then I don't have to upgrade the knob! Plus-, this way I get about .00000000001% better performance with my stock kia engine and transmission. It totally makes sense.

yikes600 · Mar 6, 2005, 11:40 PM

Core Image has NOTHING to do with speed, so what's all this kia sarcasm?

Waragainstsleep · Mar 7, 2005, 08:53 AM

Kia doesn't have much to do with speed either. And a twin turbo lump would likely rip one in half.

Captain Egotist · Mar 7, 2005, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by yikes600:
Core Image has NOTHING to do with speed, so what's all this kia sarcasm?

Yes it does. It uses the GPU to take a huge load of the CPU, making the machine faster. HOWEVER, if a vid card is not supported, it will be about as fast as OSX is now..... which isnt' too horrible. My point is that the 9800 is freakin' overkill for a machine like that.

MaxPower · Mar 7, 2005, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by omar96:
To flash in a PC? That it's too much of a load on my 200W PSU?

Quoted for Great Justice. I would say that the psu is not going to give that thing enough juice. I'd also point out that you should check out the xlr8yourmac forums as well for this kind of thing.

Originally posted by Captain Egotist
Oh I totally agree! I mean, it's a good thing my Kia Sophia has a titanium shift knob because if I ever convert the rest of it into a twin turbo road racing machine then I don't have to upgrade the knob! Plus-, this way I get about .00000000001% better performance with my stock kia engine and transmission. It totally makes sense.

You must be a very unhappy person to feel the need to rip people a new asshole for asking a questions such as this. Not everybody has a G5 sitting under their desk. And I mean come on, its the Mac Modification forum!

Its like GrieferNN in here.

Captain Egotist · Mar 7, 2005, 11:14 AM

I don't have a g5 either. I'm just using an analogy... the 9800 is a VERY VERY fast card. Anything remotely slow and it isn't even going to be fed enough data.

- Rob

Lateralus · Mar 7, 2005, 11:23 AM

Is my machine fast enough to have a 9800 Ca$h? If not, I'll be sure to sell it right away.

yikes600 · Mar 7, 2005, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by Captain Egotist:
Yes it does. It uses the GPU to take a huge load of the CPU, making the machine faster. HOWEVER, if a vid card is not supported, it will be about as fast as OSX is now..... which isnt' too horrible. My point is that the 9800 is freakin' overkill for a machine like that.

Wrong, if the machine can't use Core Image, it will turn the shaders OFF. It does not pass it to the CPU. A CPU cannot compensate for the missing hardware shaders.

Captain Egotist · Mar 7, 2005, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by Lateralus:
Is my machine fast enough to have a 9800 Ca$h? If not, I'll be sure to sell it right away.

Yes. You have a CPU that's over 1ghz. But 400mhz?! Come on!

Captain Egotist · Mar 7, 2005, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by yikes600:
Wrong, if the machine can't use Core Image, it will turn the shaders OFF. It does not pass it to the CPU. A CPU cannot compensate for the missing hardware shaders.

!!!!

OMG! YOU ARE SO RIGHT! LETS STICK THAT VID CARD IN EVERY COMPUTER OTHERWISE YOU CANT USE SHADERS! I NEED THE TITANIUM SHIFT KNOB IN MY KIA!

yikes600 · Mar 7, 2005, 01:19 PM

Hey, I'll take a Titanium shift knob for my Kia over the APC-Euro-LED-GeForce4 shift knob you just stuck in yours.

italiano · Mar 7, 2005, 03:13 PM

There are 2 kinds of people - those that have a 9800 Pro and those who wish they did

Captain Egotist · Mar 7, 2005, 06:51 PM

Originally posted by italiano:
There are 2 kinds of people - those that have a 9800 Pro and those who wish they did

True. All I'm saying is that the titanium shift knob belongs in a car with some power, othwerise it looks out of place.

omar96 · Mar 7, 2005, 07:28 PM

Captain Egotist, I'll remember that when you're spending money on a computer for me.

Folks wouldn't have bought ATi's own 128MB Mac Edition if it wasn't worthwhile. It's not like I'm playing games with it, not on this platform...

...it's mostly for higher resolution Expose and core image in the future. Stop living up to your name.

FWIW I went to strangedogs.com's forums and got it sorted out...I needed to use Safe Boot, but then the flasher had errors programming...stuck it in a PC with a blind boot disk (with the right commands in the autoexec.bat file) and it flashed itself without any more intervention from me. working very well now.

danman · Mar 7, 2005, 09:57 PM

why flash a PC 9800? the 9800mac edition is only $200. only a little more for peace of mind and warranty support.

omar96 · Mar 7, 2005, 10:05 PM

because I got it for 30% less than that and figured that for $130 shipped, I can afford to play around.

Besides, if you're using ebay to get that magical $200, they're flashed cards too...that powerbox technologies guy flashes cards and undercuts everyone else. If you want a real 9800 pro, you're still paying $245 to OWC.

danman · Mar 7, 2005, 10:52 PM

Clubmac had them for $200 last week, I pick one up - full retail box. But it looks like their back to $249 now.

omar96 · Mar 8, 2005, 01:24 PM

pretty nice price for brand new...I thought I was getting a steal at $130, and at regular prices, I still am...though had I known about it retail for that price, I might have gone that route.

Lateralus · Mar 8, 2005, 01:27 PM

I picked up my Radeon 9800 Pro on Thursday night at 7pm from OWC for $255 with FedEx Red Overnight shipping.

Had it 14 hours later.

omar96 · Mar 9, 2005, 10:08 AM

now THAT is sweet, when they really mean "overnight" not "maybe in 2 days"

Thade · Mar 9, 2005, 06:46 PM

It's possible that the flash just went wrong somehow. I flashed mine in a pc with a shrunk down rom, taped off 3 & 11, installed in mac then upgraded to latest full blown mac rom. If U have access to a pc, try that method and see if the results are any different

I saw a nice increase in speed by going from a 8500 to 9800 Pro but I also upgraded the cpu to 1.2.

Zubir · Mar 29, 2005, 09:21 AM

Originally posted by italiano:
There are 2 kinds of people - those that have a 9800 Pro and those who wish they did

Not true. There are those of us with Radeon 9700's, who didn't have to pay for the extra 10% performance.