[3rdeye]

Hi peeps. I'm new here so I'll take the chance to say hi to your community:

Hi!!

Now on to the dirty stuff.

I bought a used ATI Radon 9800 for my Dual 1.25 MDD G4. I installed the card with care and skill and then powered up the mac.

At first I thought the card worked great. I use a dual display configuration so the System Profiler reported 64 MB of VRAM for each display and everything look cool and sweet.

A moment after that I noticed that some pixels appeared death or stuck, the only thing is that these pixels didn't stay death, instead they would revive everytime the window got redrawn ie:by moving another window on top of it. In fact if I open a picture in preview, then grab the window and shake it for a couple of seconds I get lots of corrupted pixels. This is what it looks like:


Does anyone have any idea why might this happen? Did I get a flawed card?

I'm using OS 10.3.9, on a dual 1.25 MDD G4 with 1.5gb of ram.
Also I'm using a couple of AOC LM720 17" LCD Displays @ 1280x1024 resolution if anyone thinks this might be an issue with the displays.

Thanks for your help guys.

You rock!

3rdeye

[mduell]

Is that a screenshot or a photograph?

[BigBadBiologist]

Did you happen to buy this card off of eBay from someone by the name of imamacuser or something?

One thing you could try is downloading aticellerator and underclocking your core or (more likely) your RAM.
http://thomas.perrier.name/software/...leratorII.html
(if it lets you underclock, I'm not actually sure. If it doesn't, then the process is a little more difficult)

[new newton]

My guess is you've got a flashed card, with the 64k eprom. To use the full Mac ROM, a 128k eprom is required. The reduced ROM isn't ideal, as you're learning.

[3rdeye]

Originally Posted by mduell

Is that a screenshot or a photograph?

It's a screenshot.

Originally Posted by BigBadBiologist

Did you happen to buy this card off of eBay from someone by the name of imamacuser or something?

One thing you could try is downloading aticellerator and underclocking your core or (more likely) your RAM.
http://thomas.perrier.name/software/...leratorII.html
(if it lets you underclock, I'm not actually sure. If it doesn't, then the process is a little more difficult)

I got it from a user named alilvietboi4u

Originally Posted by new newton

My guess is you've got a flashed card, with the 64k eprom. To use the full Mac ROM, a 128k eprom is required. The reduced ROM isn't ideal, as you're learning.

Mmmm that would make sense. How can I check that?

[BigBadBiologist]

OK, that's probably not the guy I was thinking of.

I would try reducing the speed of your video RAM with the software I linked and see if that clears up your issue. It's a nice easy thing to try.

As far as figuring out if your ROM is 128k or 64k, you can download graphiccelerator (also available on that web site) and do a ROM dump. Check the file size and see if it is 64 or 128k.

[new newton]

It's a lot easier than that. Have a look at the card. If it's got a VGA connector, you know it's a flashed card. If the card, not the GPU, is made by a licensee that's also a giveaway.

[reader50]

Don't trust the presence or absence of VGA to tell you if the 9800 has been flashed.

Both retail Mac Radeon 9800s for G4/G5 have come with VGA, DVI, and S-video connectors. The AGP 8x 'Special Edition' retail 9800 for G5-only came with DVI and ADC. I think the OEM 9800s from Apple also came with DVI and ADC.

[new newton]

You're right, I'd forgotten about the ATI 128mb cards. Apple's card has DVI and ADC.

[3rdeye]

Originally Posted by BigBadBiologist

OK, that's probably not the guy I was thinking of.

I would try reducing the speed of your video RAM with the software I linked and see if that clears up your issue. It's a nice easy thing to try.

As far as figuring out if your ROM is 128k or 64k, you can download graphiccelerator (also available on that web site) and do a ROM dump. Check the file size and see if it is 64 or 128k.

I installed ATIccelerator and upon restart I immediately saw improvement. But I'm still getting some corrupt pixels here and there. I lowered the clock and saw improvement but I'm sure that was just placebo.

I'll do the ROM dump to figure it's size.

Originally Posted by reader50

...
Both retail Mac Radeon 9800s for G4/G5 have come with VGA, DVI, and S-video connectors. The AGP 8x 'Special Edition' retail 9800 for G5-only came with DVI and ADC. I think the OEM 9800s from Apple also came with DVI and ADC.

This is a 128mb 9800. It was described as retail.

[3rdeye]

Originally Posted by 3rdeye

I installed ATIccelerator and upon restart I immediately saw improvement. But I'm still getting some corrupt pixels here and there. I lowered the clock and saw improvement but I'm sure that was just placebo.

I'll do the ROM dump to figure it's size.



This is a 128mb 9800. It was described as retail.

Ok, I did the ROM dump and as it turns out it's 64kb so I definitely got a flashed card.

...I guess there's not much to do now.
Is it possible to flash the card for use on a PC?

[new newton]

Sure. The other alternative is to have a 128k EPROM on it in place of the 64k part, and re-flash it with the correct ROM.

[Big Mac]

How is that accomplished?

[new newton]

Soldering.

[BigBadBiologist]

This guy will do it for $25:
http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/i...ead=1106704963

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by BigBadBiologist

This guy will do it for $25:
http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/i...ead=1106704963

Stay away from the Strangedogs people. There are quite a few scam artists there.

[BigBadBiologist]

Really? Name them and/or cite examples. I really doubt that.

[new newton]

The guy that does the mail-in EPROM swap has a great reputation. If you're going to trash somebody, be man enough to provide specific details and sign your real name to it. Otherwise it's just slop.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by new newton

The guy that does the mail-in EPROM swap has a great reputation. If you're going to trash somebody, be man enough to provide specific details and sign your real name to it. Otherwise it's just slop.

Perhaps a few have good reputations, but, you wanted examples, you got 'em:

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...73#post2531984

[new newton]

You might want to take more than one man's opinion into account before you start trashing the reputations of others. Or, at a minimum, see if you can't find the cause of the underlying dispute. I'm fairly sure I know the backstory on what you linked to, and you've certainly only presented one side.

And you still don't sign your name to it. Cowardly and meaningless.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by new newton

You might want to take more than one man's opinion into account before you start trashing the reputations of others. Or, at a minimum, see if you can't find the cause of the underlying dispute. I'm fairly sure I know the backstory on what you linked to, and you've certainly only presented one side.

And you still don't sign your name to it. Cowardly and meaningless.

I don't use my real name on MacNN. My name on MacNN is Person Man. Take that as you will.

I would still use caution in dealing with the Strangedogs people.

[new newton]

And that gives you license to anonymously co-opt a third party's opinion that goes after the reputation of a group of people who've done some really great work for the whole Mac community? That's very bad form. You should be ashamed of yourself. Did your father never teach you the basics of being a man?

[Rumor]

I have a similar problem with funky pixelation but only when viewing a dvd.

[Rumor]

I have a similar problem with funky pixelation but only when viewing a dvd. I'll try to steps mentioned above and report back.

[Zubir]

Partybymarty is straight-up trustworthy. He did my old PC 9700 pro.

[G5s ROCK]

http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/...howtopic=24607

Sounds like the same guy.