[Avon]

Can somone just freeking buy the Built by ATI Retail Box version! I was too cheap to buy it. It's ATIs best card and basicaly what you get in the Mac version. It has to work perfectly, we just need verification.

I bought the Built By ATI LE version clocked at 250/275. Apart from having to use the DVI connector (ghost monior when plugged into vga port only), it works great. No greenies even in DVD. It has the cheap DVD port though, and you cannot use a vga adapter.

[rcpmac]

Originally posted by sirius096:
Would flashing work on an ATi Radeon 8500 64MB DDR TV DVI AGP?

You can't be "sirius" ;0) ! Go back 12 pages in thos thread to AGP500's original posts. That is the card that he started with.

[addiecool]

This thread is incredible. I got myself a Gigabyte AP64D Card based on the Radeon 8500LE with 64MB RAM ans I also got the DVI-VGA Adapter with it. I flashed it with the 230/230 ROM and it worked in one go. Everything worked fine as it should. Then I flashed it with the latest ATI ROM Updater. Now it is running flawlessly at 250/275 like an original ATI Radeom 8500 MAC.

Come to think of it I had an PC Flashed Geforce 3 earlier and somehow my games run better with 8500. Also the display seems much crisper under MAC OSX.

BTW can someone let mw know the basic difference between the 8500 and 8500LE chipsets except the clock speeds?

thanks again guys.....

[reader50]

Originally posted by addiecool:
...
BTW can someone let mw know the basic difference between the 8500 and 8500LE chipsets except the clock speeds?
...

The difference seems to be mainly lower-speed video RAM. And that is what forces us to use the lower clock speeds.

For the adventurous, the GPU and RAM clock numbers do not have to match. You could experiment on an LE by setting the 230 RAM clock, while cranking the GPU up to 275 or higher. Remember that overclocking can wipe out a GPU/CPU though.

[Scotttheking]

I got the firmware from ATI's site.
I get "ERROR programming Devices:

Slot-SLOT-A:R200-A13"

That's when running the restore.

any ideas?

[jasonxz]

Originally posted by addiecool:
This thread is incredible. I got myself a Gigabyte AP64D Card based on the Radeon 8500LE with 64MB RAM ans I also got the DVI-VGA Adapter with it. I flashed it with the 230/230 ROM and it worked in one go. Everything worked fine as it should. Then I flashed it with the latest ATI ROM Updater. Now it is running flawlessly at 250/275 like an original ATI Radeom 8500 MAC.

Addie, can you post the URL of the store you bought this from (if you bought it online)?

[Scotttheking]

Does anyone have a full mac version of the ROM that they extracted?
I think that's my only option left before returning the card

[addiecool]

jasonxz, Although I did not buy the card online, I had seen it in the following web sites for a reasonable price.

http://www.provantage.com/scripts/go.dll/-s/fp_72103

http://www.axiontech.com/dealer/deal...Video+Adapters

Provantage was selling it cheaper at $98 i think.

Oh! and I used the risky intructions at coffehaus.com I think. The link can be found earlier in this story. I just kept the 230/230 updater in the startup itmes. Put the card in the AGP Slot. Booted the Computer, waited for 2-3 mins. and shut down. Next boot I got perfect Video....

Hope this helps

[reader50]

Mac 8500 Roms for assorted speeds: zip file (472KB)

Included are 8 images:
v123 275m 250c Restore unmodified
v126 275m 250c Update unmodified
v126 230m 230c older mod
v126 230m 230c mod
v126 250m 250c mod
v126 255m 255c mod
v126 260m 260c mod
v126 275m 275c mod

Some notes and corrections
It appears that the Mac Restore and Updater contain full ROM images after all. The reason that all the posted roms were 32KB is a copy/paste size limit in OS9/Classic when copying data from ResEdit. The roms come from the "RMDT" resource ID 128, and all are exactly 128 KB (131072 Bytes). Multiple copy/pastes are required to get the entire image into a different hex editor, after which they can be saved.

It follows that the PC 8500 card MUST have a 128KB flashrom chip, or larger. The Mac roms use 120.4KB, so flashing a PC card with a 64KB flashrom chip will fail. Most PC 8500 roms seem to be in the 48-52KB range, so cheap cards may save a few bucks by using the smaller flashrom chip - flash is relatively expensive.

The newegg/Sapphire card we have had such luck with was US$109 for the longest time, now it's US$92. I wonder if Sapphire managed the US$17 price drop by using a smaller flash chip - this would explain why people are having trouble with the card today.

PC flash utilities may object to these roms, along the lines of "this does not appear to be an ATi rom". The flash utility is reading the ATi reference name and data which appear near the beginning of a PC rom file. In the linked Mac roms, this data appears much further into the file. If your PC flash utility objects to the file, you will need to override the objection and flash anyway.

It is suggested that the PC card's native rom be saved first in case of failure. A mac flash can still fail if the PC 8500 card has missing chips, or alternative components not present on a real Mac Edition. It may also be possible to replace a 64KB flashrom chip on a PC 8500 with a 128KB flashrom chip ... but you would need excellent soldering skills, and the card may not work afterwards, even as a PC vid card.

I do not have a PC, so I cannot test these. Please post if they work ... and it would be nice to know if they work on a PC 128 MB 8500 as well.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by reader50:
The newegg/Sapphire card we have had such luck with was US$109 for the longest time, now it's US$92. I wonder if Sapphire managed the US$17 price drop by using a smaller flash chip - this would explain why people are having trouble with the card today.

The 8500 series has been End Of Lifed to make way for the 7xxx and 9xxx series, which would indicate that most places are simply blowing out their back stock. Maybe?

Scotttheking: you did unplug your monitor to do the initial RESTORE flashing, right? It's damn important.


By the way, as I mentioned earlier, coffeehaus's 230/230 ROM Updater is actually 275/230 (RAM/GPU) so don't use that on an LE card, get the Flash Editor to change it to 230/230 first.

EDIT: Did you still want me to write out the instructions, or is everyone cool using coffeehaus'?

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by ReggieX:
Scotttheking: you did unplug your monitor to do the initial RESTORE flashing, right? It's damn important.

EDIT: Did you still want me to write out the instructions, or is everyone cool using coffeehaus'?

Yes, I did.
I need some good PC instructions for how to extract the ROM from the card, then flash the mac rom that reader50 posted.
Every flasher I've found won't flash the mac roms.

[Todd Madson]

Have someone figure out of a Radeon 9700
can be made to work with a Macintosh.

That way when the cards are being end of lifed in a year we can get them cheap and
put them in our machines and get even
better performance.

Heh.

[HoofHearted]

Reader 50 you are an absolute star for posting those ROMs, I've been waiting for someone to do that for ages.

Unfortunately it allowed me to prove that my card can't be flashed to a work with a Mac, but at least I know for sure now!

The card was a A-TEK 64Mb DDR 8500 275/275, and after saving the PC ROM (always flash safely kids...), I used one of Reader 50's roms in a DOS flasher and it reported that there was an error, only 64K of the 128K image had been saved.

So... it must have a 64K ROM - bugger.

At least I know for sure, and with the Mac ROMs I'd be confident in flashing another one if I can make sure it has a 128k ROM.

Is there any confirmation on whether the Sapphire cards have changed in spec/ROM size?

[reader50]

HoofHearted, a couple questions. What is the filesize of your saved PC ROM image file? I expect 64K (65536 bytes). This may be a simple way to check the flashrom chip size.

Also, can you post a link to your flasher utility, the one that accepted the Mac rom images?

[HoofHearted]

What is the filesize of your saved PC ROM image file?

52K (53,248bytes) I noticed that just before I tried to Flash it to Mac and knew it didn't look hopeful. But with the PC ROM saved, I wasn't going to loose anything in trying. Before you posted the Mac ROMs, I wasn't aware that the Mac ROM was 128k.

Also, can you post a link to your flasher utility, the one that accepted the Mac rom images?

ATI Mac Underground it's from way back in the XLR8YourMac "flash your Radeon" thread. It's been modified to specifically install Mac ROMs with the -pm switch. Neat - if you like DOS!

[mr. burns]

so asking for a sapphire card for christmas was a bad idea... :�[

[Scotttheking]

No luck here.
I couldn't even get that PC stuff to work.
Win2k doesn't seem to like booting off it's own repair floppy.
I give up.

If people can't prove that this is still working, I'm going to lock the thread so that more people don't buy cards that are worthless to them.

[justageek]

I've been reading and re-reading this thread over and over again before I made the decision to get a card and try this for myself. And although I have now ordered a card and am waiting for it to arrive I have to say that this thread is getting way too confusing. In particular, there aren't enough details about which cards *specifically* people are getting.

First of all, enetshoponline has two cards available. The first one is at the link that had been previously posted:

http://www.enetshoponline.com/atirad85ddr61.html

That card is spec'd as being a single monitor (single ramdec) Radeon 8500 and the web page states that. Even though it has both VGA and DVI-I output it does not support monitor spanning (you need two ramdecs to do that). The card is stated to be this: "ATI 8500 LE w/ 64MB DDR, DVI & TV Output. Single Monitor Support. Single Ramdec." It is a 250/275 card.

So enetshoponline offers a second card:

http://store.yahoo.com/pcmemory-stor...rad85ddr6.html

This card does feature two ramdecs and dual monitor support. And if you get the retail box (both white box and retail are available) it comes with the DVI-I to VGA adapter. The web page specifically states that this is a dual monitor card. The card is also a 275/275 card: "ATI 8500 w/ 64MB DDR, 275MHZ/ 275MHZ DVI & TV Output option, Dual Monitor Support Dual Monitor Cable included."

Another difference is price. The first card (single monitor) is $72.50 while the second card is $93.00 (white box, not included adapter) or $103.00 (retail box, included adapter). I believe they are both sapphire cards, the second one definitely is, just click on the retail box image (it also appears to be an LE card).

The BIG question is, which card has been successful for folks participating in this thread? To further complicate things, I think there has been at least one person (was it Avon?) that said they had success with the card at the first link. Yet others that have bought that card had nothing but trouble. But was that the wrong link to have posted or did the page/product change?

I'm hoping that the second card will be the right one. Enetshoponline has sent me a tracking number on Dec. 6 but it doesn't look like the card has actually shipped yet and they have declined to respond to my emails. I'm sure they're a flaky outfit but this is what lengths us Mac fans have to go to... Who knows, maybe I'll never get the card!

Just so everyone knows, I did want to order a Gigabyte card from Provantage (a respectable outfit) that had been mentioned in this thread. Unfortunately, they're out and only flaky retailers seem to have a few left at over $100 a pop.

Any comments on the two different sapphire cards?

By the way, I don't think this thread should be locked at all. I think any Mac user who attempts to modify their equipment (whether that's OC'ing or reflashing firmware) does so at their own peril. Just because some people don't realize this and get upset about it doesn't mean that those of us who are willing to take the risk and accept the frustration of failure should have to be shut out.

[justageek]

The weekly CompUSA insert in the Washington Post advertised this...

Radeon� 8500LE Video Card, AGP, 64MB DDR
CompUSA_Price: $69.99 (after rebates)

This card is featured on CompUSA's website:
http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...ct_code=298558

The specs state that the card has dual display support. But the connectors are listed as: 15 pin High-Density D-shell (VGA), RCA Composite Video, TV/S-Video. The manufacturer part number is #100-431038.

So is the situation that LE cards, in general, don't have a DVI-I? It seems that ATI's user guide implies this. Or is it that some do and some don't. Why is it that some people have been able to find non-LE 8500's but then when they actually get them they have LE stickers on them?

[jasonxz]

Originally posted by justageek:
I've been reading and re-reading this thread over and over again before I made the decision to get a card and try this for myself. And although I have now ordered a card and am waiting for it to arrive I have to say that this thread is getting way too confusing. In particular, there aren't enough details about which cards *specifically* people are getting.

First of all, enetshoponline has two cards available. The first one is at the link that had been previously posted... The first card (single monitor) is $72.50 while the second card is $93.00 (white box, not included adapter) or $103.00 (retail box, included adapter)... The BIG question is, which card has been successful for folks participating in this thread? To further complicate things, I think there has been at least one person (was it Avon?) that said they had success with the card at the first link. Yet others that have bought that card had nothing but trouble. But was that the wrong link to have posted or did the page/product change?

I bought the $93 card; it didn't work. Even worse, I am having a LOT of problems getting a refund from Enetshoppingonline; I sent them back my card with an RMA nearly 2 months ago, but have not received a refund. I strongly recommend against buying from this company.

[mr. burns]

update in card prices at newegg.com. looks like everyone that got the original $100+ cards were the lucky ones. i think it's too risky now to chance it so i'm going for the ATi-made cards. those are still pretty certain to work, right?

[CollinG3G4]

crap.... i got the slot-SLOT-1:r200-A13 error when attempting to update too....GD!

[mr. burns]

Originally posted by CollinG3G4:
crap.... i got the slot-SLOT-1:r200-A13 error when attempting to update too....GD!

did you get that error after doing the restore?

[CollinG3G4]

Originally posted by mr. burns:


did you get that error after doing the restore?

Kind of... A window would open with a progress bar and before anything had a change to happen the error poped up.

This was while running the restore.

[milhouse]

Edited for timeliness.

[justageek]

Originally posted by jasonxz:


I bought the $93 card; it didn't work. Even worse, I am having a LOT of problems getting a refund from Enetshoppingonline; I sent them back my card with an RMA nearly 2 months ago, but have not received a refund. I strongly recommend against buying from this company.

Just reread all of your posts starting with 10/19/02 where you wrote that you had flashed a PC AGP Radeon 8500 64MB card and your display prefs thought you had two monitors.

You followed up on 10/23/02 and said you weren't sure whether you had used the correct updater as you didn't know what speed your card was.

Then there was something about having a DVI-D port instead of a DVI-I. This is my primary concern, the port, because there have been reports that enetshoponline hasn't posted the correct information on their site. Two other things.

First, the link that had been posted before now points to a card that mentions it only supports a single monitor. I don't know what the page looked like before, but I'm wondering if they're suggesting that that card (which is now $72 or something) is different. Maybe that card was $93.00 back in October. I don't know. The prices of these cards has been falling quickly if you look through the thread. So who knows...

The thing is, the card that I think I've ordered should be the same Sapphire card that NewEgg is selling for $92. There have been plenty of reports of success with this card so it's totally weird that some people have failed. (I'm sure that's what everyone's thinking!)

[justageek]

One more thing, jasonxz, you might want to call up your credit card company and dispute the charge for the card you returned to enetshoponline. That may be your only recourse at this point since they still haven't responded to my emails regarding the status of my video card shipment. It's been several days now!

[justageek]

Originally posted by CollinG3G4:
crap.... i got the slot-SLOT-1:r200-A13 error when attempting to update too....GD!

Which card was this exactly? Sapphire from NewEgg or what?

Also, doesn't slot-1 refer to your second video card? Isn't slot-0 the first one? Can someone please verify this? And Colin, have you tried flashing without your second card plugged in?

[kalemba]

hello.

i have a g4/400 with 512mb.

i bought an radeon 8500 and followed the procedure for flashing the card. while i initially thought that my flashing was successful, i ended up with a problem...

running OS 9.2.2, i had no problem with the card. everything worked just fine running with the firmware 126 update and the latest ATI drivers, however when i booted into X.2.2, after a short time my screen because a sea of green and black garbage.

occasionally, after a reboot, the screen would return to normal, but would always eventually go back to the green and black mess. i could tell that something was happening when i moved the mouse because a much smaller of green and black mess would move around the screen. none of this ever happened under 9.2.2.

i have tried going back to the 123 firmware and even tried over/under clocking the card, but nothing seems to help.

since the card seems to work with 9.2.2 and occasionally with X.2.2, can anyone offer an opinion on what may be causing these problems???


thanks,

doug

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by kalemba:
however when i booted into X.2.2, after a short time my screen because a sea of green and black garbage.

Same exact thing happened to me. Looks like this, right?


That was happening to my 8500LE card with OSX 10.2, and an OpenGL game called AntHack that runs both in 9 and OSX. From my own informal testing, what's happening is that the memory chips are overheating from using OpenGL. I know it sounds weird, but I could run Unreal Tournament in 9, which is a RAVE game, all day with no problems. 20 seconds of AntHack in either 9 or OSX, and BAM! instant display corruption.

My only solution was to buy a new card.
The new one I got, a non-LE Sapphire of the exact same model number that was at newegg, I've kept underclocked at 250 core/250 memory, and have had zero problems.

[kalemba]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:

Same exact thing happened to me. Looks like this, right?


That was happening to my 8500LE card with OSX 10.2, and an OpenGL game called AntHack that runs both in 9 and OSX. From my own informal testing, what's happening is that the memory chips are overheating from using OpenGL. I know it sounds weird, but I could run Unreal Tournament in 9, which is a RAVE game, all day with no problems. 20 seconds of AntHack in either 9 or OSX, and BAM! instant display corruption.

My only solution was to buy a new card.
The new one I got, a non-LE Sapphire of the exact same model number that was at newegg, I've kept underclocked at 250 core/250 memory, and have had zero problems.

yeah, that's the mess i was talking about. i'm gonna give it one more go at 250/250 and see what happens. i guess X just taxes this puppy a bit too much. i'm wondering if installing a cooling fan in an adjacent PCI slot will help...? who knows. i have a few more days to return it to newegg. if my experiemnts fail i'll just eat the restocking fee and be done with it.

thanks,

doug

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by kalemba:
yeah, that's the mess i was talking about. i'm gonna give it one more go at 250/250 and see what happens. i guess X just taxes this puppy a bit too much. i'm wondering if installing a cooling fan in an adjacent PCI slot will help

I doubt putting another fan will help. I put heatsinks on all the memory chips on mine and it still happened. I'm not too sure of the other models, but on my G4/400 at least, the inside case fan blows right over the AGP slot. You're better off returning it, IMO. I couldn't get anything to work once it started happening.

Good luck!

[Todd Madson]

Sounds to me like the LE cards aren't
really working for people. I managed
to get the non LE version and have had
no issues to speak of.

Maybe we should create a spreadsheet with
what works and what doesn't work? Brand
and model?

[justageek]

Originally posted by Todd Madson:
Sounds to me like the LE cards aren't
really working for people.

Isn't that what the original thinking was, several months ago, at the start of this thread: that LE cards wouldn't work? And so there was a scramble to find non-LE cards but then someone tried an LE card...

But then there are those that thought they purchased a non-LE card and when they got the card it had an LE sticker on it. So then there were the LE cards and the LE-LE cards (I presume the latter are advertised as LE cards).

Originally posted by Todd Madson:
Maybe we should create a spreadsheet with
what works and what doesn't work? Brand
and model?

I've been thinking about this myself. I'm still waiting for my card to arrive and I probably won't have a PC to back up the firmware...I'm a little concerned about that.

In the meantime I've been skimming through this over and over again trying to see a pattern of how people have been going about finding a card that works. Unfortunately, I've found that in most-cases the brand information isn't there. Someone will say "I've got an 8500 LE that I've flashed..." but that doesn't mean which 8500 LE (ATI, OEM, Gigabyte, etc.).

Of course, everything is clouded by the fact that first there were individuals that purchased cards that worked right from the start but then others purchased what they thought were the exact same cards only to find no success whatsoever. And here, I think the problem is that people didn't get the exact same cards because either 1) the specs of the working cards were not described accurately enough other than price (which keeps on changing) or 2) retailers can't seem to get their product descriptions straight or 3) retailers are shipping different cards than they are advertising.

This is tricky territory indeed.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

I'm with you two: a list of 100% working cards would be a good idea.
Heck, a whole new thread for just that would probably be ideal, considering how long this one is.
When I get home I'll type up all the info on my card and which flasher I used, etc. Also would be good to include OS versions.

[dfiler]

IMHO, reports of the popular cards not working are erronious. It is likely that these card will flash just fine if you know what you're doing. I've got degrees in CS, and spent much time researching the flashing process. Yet, it still took days to get the card flashed properly. I thought I was following the all the various instructions to a T but failed numerous times. Then it mysteriously worked after one flashing. If the card's memory has enough capacity to hold the Mac ROM, it will work. Although, most people found the flashing process to be quite aggrevating.

[justageek]

Okay, my card finally arrived from enetshoponline today (they managed to not ship it for about a week...go figure).

I'm posting a picture below but these are the details:

-retail box version, says its called the Radeon 8500LE.
-the box also says its powered by the ATI Radeon 8500 GPU (not LE?)
-sticker on the back of card says: Radeon 8500 64M DDR VO DVI
-PN: 1024-2149-6B-SA
-card has S-VIDEO out, VGA, and DVI-I (not DVD-D as others have reported with the Sapphire cards from enetshoponline...so this is a different card).
-memory is EtronTech 3.5ns.

The picture of the card that is shown on the Enetshoponline site is wrong. The layout has changed for this card. I don't know if that matters; I believe that's routine procedure as components change (improve) during a product's life cycle. The question is: does it have a 64k or 128k ROM for the firmware? Well, I don't know if I'll be able to find out. The only PC I have around is a Linux server that is busy all the time.

I checked the part number at the Sapphire web site and it shows that the card is an 8500 with a 275/275 core/mem speed. So why is it called a Radeon 8500 LE on the package (are all the OEM's "LE")?

I'm nervous to just blindly try and flash this without a backup of the card's current firmware. Can someone post a picture of the Newegg Sapphire card that worked (the $109.00 one)? Or at least tell me if it doesn't look like the pic of my card below?

[Scotttheking]

The one I got, that didn't work came in a white box.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by justageek:
I'm nervous to just blindly try and flash this without a backup of the card's current firmware. Can someone post a picture of the Newegg Sapphire card that worked (the $109.00 one

Do me a favour and hold off for a bit. I want to check the 2 cards I have at home to see how they match up with your part numbers. Since I've been burned once, I figure I'll try to help out when I can on these things.
One thing though: on both of the cards I have, they basicially worked right away after the initial flashing, so I haven't seen any of the problems that some of the other folks have seen with regards to phantom monitors, etc. Both were Sapphires.

Reg

[justageek]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:

Do me a favour and hold off for a bit. I want to check the 2 cards I have at home to see how they match up with your part numbers. Since I've been burned once, I figure I'll try to help out when I can on these things.
One thing though: on both of the cards I have, they basicially worked right away after the initial flashing, so I haven't seen any of the problems that some of the other folks have seen with regards to phantom monitors, etc. Both were Sapphires.

Reg

Cool. Thanks. It is interesting to see that this card has a completely different layout than any of the other pictures I've seen so far. I've been digging around the web a lot to find pictures but what I've found is that most of the pix out there have been supplied by manufacturers and aren't up-to-date; several of the retailers note that the shipping product may differ from the picture and my guess is that it has on several occasions. Still, I don't think layout makes a difference...it's just what happens as these products evolve and efficiencies are found. The critical part, I suppose, is the ROM size for the firmware.

Oh and I checked my Linux box...it's so old it doesn't even have AGP. Forgot how long I've been using that thing! So flashing blindly is my only option.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by justageek:
PN: 1024-2149-6B-SA

According to their product page, http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/8500.asp , that's a PAL card, not NTSC.
I'd be mighty mad if I were you.
You need to return it and get an NTSC card .

[justageek]

Originally posted by ReggieX:

According to their product page, http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/8500.asp , that's a PAL card, not NTSC.
I'd be mighty mad if I were you.
You need to return it and get an NTSC card .

Funny you should point that out. I guess I didn't notice that the other day when I looked at their product page (actually, I looked at this one: http://www.sapphiretech.com/8500/8500-149-0A.htm). I say "funny" because this card happens to have a jumper that allows you to select between PAL and NTSC output. Now, how fancy is that?!

[ReggieX]

Wow, that's strange!

My card
The one that does work (so far!):
the sticker on the back says the following
RADEON 8500LE 64M DDR VO DVI
PN-1024-1149-60-SA
Can't check the memory chips because I glued heatsinks on all of them
It's a 275/275 card that I'm running at 250/250 for the time being.
This one came in a white paper envelope and anti-static bag, with S-Video cable and CD-ROM.

I can't find anything matching my product number on their site, except for reader50's card is the exact same one as mine, and his also works perfectly.

I'd say at this point it's up to you: do you think that you could take the loss of $102 if it doesn't work at all?

[justageek]

Originally posted by ReggieX:
Wow, that's strange!

My card
The one that does work (so far!):
the sticker on the back says the following
RADEON 8500LE 64M DDR VO DVI
PN-1024-1149-60-SA
Can't check the memory chips because I glued heatsinks on all of them
It's a 275/275 card that I'm running at 250/250 for the time being.
This one came in a white paper envelope and anti-static bag, with S-Video cable and CD-ROM.

Although mine came in a retail box, the packing (inside) left a lot to be desired. The card was in an antistatic bag but all the pieces in the box were loose (the s-video cable, the dvi-vga connector, and the card). There was a die-cut cardboard insert that may have been useful to secure the pieces...but it probably would have needed a piece of foam too. Oh yeah, and the box wasn't shrinkwrapped. For all I know, this is a return. The card doesn't say sapphire on it anywhere either, that's when I looked up the PN on sapphire's site to make sure I didn't just get a card that happened to be in a sapphire retail box.

Originally posted by ReggieX:I can't find anything matching my product number on their site, except for reader50's card is the exact same one as mine, and his also works perfectly.

As soon as I got this card, I noticed the PN was different (the 2149 instead of 1149). Does your card have two RAMDACs or just one? Also, I think some (all?) of the LE cards (or is that LE-LE?) support two monitors only if the second monitor is the TV. Also, do you have a DVI-I connector or a DVI-D?

Originally posted by ReggieX:I'd say at this point it's up to you: do you think that you could take the loss of $102 if it doesn't work at all?

Well, I'm starting to conclude that I'm going to have to just try it. I'm really concerned about the ROM size issue though. Clearly, this is a more-recent generation card because of the modified layout and the PAL/NTSC jumper. So if later PC cards really do have a smaller ROM then it is quite possible that this card has that. Especially, when you combine that information with the fact that Sapphire manufacturers ATI's cards as well. This thread has gotten so old that it is likely that those that have met success have earlier cards. Doesn't this just suck?

And of course, if doesn't work I won't know if the card would work in a PC at that point and is returnable or resellable...etc. Unless I buy a new mobo for my linux box.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by justageek:
Well, I'm starting to conclude that I'm going to have to just try it. I'm really concerned about the ROM size issue though.

If you do go for it, do you have all the instructions and flashers, etc?

[justageek]

Originally posted by ReggieX:

If you do go for it, do you have all the instructions and flashers, etc?

Yup. Thanks. I've amassed quite the collection of flashers and firmwares from both this thread and other places on the Web.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Well, if anything goes wrong: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=136913

[Agasthya]

I flashed a newegg Radeon 8500 around 2-3 months ago. The DVD playback has green dots that popup a lot when I use Apple DVD player. I'm running it at whatever the default Mac card should be run at (250/275 I think) even though my card is rated for 275/275.

Would a reflash to 275/275 fix my green spot problems?

[ReggieX]

I followed reader50's advice on my 275/275 card and put mine at 250/250 when I ran the Updater for the first time. You may want to try that. It seems that slower is better for DVD things.

[mr. burns]

well, i finally got a retail ATI-made radeon 8500 off ebay for $82, having been following this thread since it was no more than 4 pages long. the shipping was rediculously priced at $15, considering the seller was only 40 miles from me. anyway, i'll be flashing it on wednesday when i get back into town. since it is the ati version i'm pretty confident about my chances of success. i'll be using it in a dual 500 G4 gigabit and i'm replacing my radeon 7000, which i was rather dissapointed with since it didn't seem to produce any noticable improvment over my stock rage128.

*knocks on wood*