PowerPC G5 & ATI X800 XT: boot troubles

After 2 months of good regular working of an ATI X800 XT Mac Edition video board on my dual 1.8 G5 PowerMac, my Mac began starting up in Open Firmware mode; moreover, waking up from stop mode it suddenly shuts down. Exiting or booting from open firmware makes the Mac working absolutely normally.
Why that??
Apple official support laboratory made several trials including new buffer battery, but no way. At least they took off the X800 XT and changed to native GE FORCE FX 5000, and all turned perfectly well. But they could not give me a reasonable explanation, and i still do need that faster graphic card. I flashed the ATI ROM to the last available upgrade, but no changes. Can anyone solve my problem?
ATI website support was not useful. Note that the ATI card is true native Mac Edition, never been modded.
My Mac profile is:
Power Mac G5
Model: PowerMac7,3
CPU: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
No CPU: 2
CPU speed : 1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus speed : 900 MHz
Boot ROM v. 5.1.8f7
SN: CK443H6ES8H
OSX Tiger v. 10.4.10
ATI X800 XT profile is:
Card#; 109-A35800-00
Card Model; ATY,R420
ROM Name: ATY,Tracer_A
ROM#: 113-A35801-109
FCode Version: 5.00
NDRV Version: 1.1.0f47
VRAM size: 256 MB
Thanks for your kind attention and help!

I had the EXACT same problem.
Dual 2 Ghz G5 PowerMac.
I found it WAS the video card also by swapping in the stock 9650.
I also found that the machine behaved like this only when the 20" ACD was plugged into the X800 Xt.
I am selling this machine and need to get the card repaired.
I agree that the ATI/AMD website is completely worthless for support of the X800 Xt Mac edition cards.

Similar Messages

ATI X800 XT 512MB on MDD dual boot dual 1.25Ghz.... possible?

Hi,
Just looking to see if I can install a Mac version of the ATI X800 XT 512MB on G4 MDD dual boot dual 1.25Ghz machine?
If so... great... I'll go pick it up straight away.
thanks
PS. I know it won't accelerate 9.2.2, but I already have the 9200 PCI card to accomodate that.

Just following up on japamac's excellent response.
ADC presents a seriously limitation on cards since the only two retail cards (no flashing, no fuss) on the market are the ATI 9600 and 9800, both without ADC.
I use a modified 9600 Pro from a G5, which has an unpowered ADC. Unpowered because the the ADC tab doesn't align, although some people have modified the card further to get power to the ADC port. For info on both of those mods, see:
http://www.pistolerapost2.com/viewing/96002g4.html
There is one last card -- extremely -- I can think of with ADC and more oomph than the retail 9600: the Apple OEM 9700. That was a BTO option for the MDD. Here's some info on that card:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Radeon9700PROOEM/index.html
Again it's really rare because it wasn't available even as a BTO option for very long. They fetch a premium on the used market when you find them.
What ADC monitor do you have? I hope an LCD. In which case, something to consider is the Apple ADC-DVI adapter which will set you back $100. It's basically a kind of splitter, with a brink supplying power to ADC monitor while passing the signal from the DVI port. Yeah this adds to your costs, but gives you more options in terms of cards.
Oh more thing about 9.x acceleration which you mentioned. With ATI cards, you might need to pull an extension or library from the Extensions folder to keep 9.x from stalling at boot. I had to do that with my 9600. Sorry, I'm on my MBP now, so I can't tell you which ones. Let me know if you need/want to know which ones I pulled.

Leopard + ATI X800 display issues

I have a G5 Dual 2.7Ghz G5 with an ATI X800 XT, we run the computer as an edit suite and cut TV on it.
I currently have it setup with 2 boot disks with Tiger and Leopard. As its a production machine we have been using Tiger exclusively but I've had Leopard running for testing.
Previously I had noticed a green noise on the right display (both Dell 24's) only in Leopard, that was only in 10.5. Tiger continued to run with out any issues or noise.
Today I booted into Leopard and found, after it fell to sleep and was then woken I got this -
[img]http://www.lotech.co.nz/images/IMG_0035.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.lotech.co.nz/images/IMG_0038.jpg[/img]
It would seem to be driver related as the system is still completely stable. I don't think its overheating, as my first X800 was replaced for that and the noise is very different.

Although I read about problems with this combination and the 30" Cinema Display - I went ahead and upgraded to Leopard. I did see some "pink flashes", until after updating to 10.5.4. Now everything seems fine and I don't see ANY problems. I did not install the ATI Displays software.

OSX 10.5 and ATI X800 any issues?

All,
Wanted to check if anyone has updated their G5 with aftermarket video cards like the ATI X800, 9800 MAC/PC, etc. In the OSX 10.5 forum some users have mentioned that the are having some graphic glitches

I've been having the same INFURIATING problem with my 1.8 dual Tower.
An x800 ATI card (256VRAM) with 2.5GBs of system RAM, and full screen video through Front Row and Full Screen Quicktime is totally unwatchable!
(That same tearing effect about half way through the screen, just as Rob Meyer described. But also the progress bar in Front Row is just a white stripe instead of a blue line with a moving dot.)
But you know what the absolute CRAZY thing is? When I play those very same video files in iTunes full screen, they play flawlessly!
The issue exists ONLY with Front Row or Full Screen Quicktime.
The latest ATI drivers (10.4 was the latest version) made no difference at all. Booting from a Tiger drive still produced the same issue with Quicktime in full screen.
The only thing that did help? Lowering the resolution of my 30" Apple Cinema Display from 2560 x 1600 to 1920 x 1440 (stretched). Which needless to say, is Unacceptable.
I'm not holding my breath for ATI to address the issue. I just PRAY Apple's 10.5.2 update does.
Please Apple!? Please, please, please fix my drivers? I wanna watch my iTunes video with front row!

Does the ati x800 xt run silently?

My current graphics card is quite loud (nvidia 7800 GT) and I am wondering how noisy the ati x800 xt is in comparison. I read another post that said he would only hear the x800 xt when the machine booted up but not after that. His comment is the last comment at this forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=273349&tstart=1125
Could that really be true? I heard someone else say that all fan based cards are loud. I would just like to be able to find a descent performing card to run Adobe CS4 well without tons of noise going on. Is there something that does that? Whenever I use one of the new Mac Pros at the Apple store they seem to run really quietly yet they use cards with fans on them, I wonder how that can be? I mean they are virtually silent.
Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. It is really frustrating with the noise interring with my being able to think while working.
Thanks

The slot is AGP on a June 2004 Dual 2Ghz, sorry about that. I have been doing dozens of posts on another site and forgot to give my specs again when starting this post. I have had a huge confusing issue with this card. An ebay mac graphics card seller called this card an AGP card but then then someone pointed out that it was only for PCI-e. I went to the site and found that the was true.
Another poster then showed me somewhere else on the nVidia site that claimed it could run both. Then someone was saying that they did make a card that did both AGP and PCI-e but was only made in europe. It's all very confusing if you want to read about what I have been going though you can go to this forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1777222&start=15&tstart=0
I saw some articles on the web earlier about using larger heat sinks and big fans. I asked about this in the forum but no could give me in sight on it or tell me if they would even work on the mac. How did your 9800 sound before and after the silencer? I really want to go back to the silence of my nVidia 5200 I loved how there used to be complete silence.
The thing that bothers me even more than how loud it gets is how there is constant noise it never dies down like with the G5s fans. It is so annoying to be, say, watching a DVD and have the fan be running at full speed the entire time.
I have a couple questions about the silencer.
1. Will it let me keep the the card in my top PCI slot? The two PCI slots above the graphics card are empty and I can sacrifice those slots but I would like to keep the top card if I can.
2. Is it hard to install ie require a lot of technical expertise?
3. Would it be easy to make a mistake and mess something up?
I realized that the 9600 is a slower card but having the machine quiet is a lot more important to me than having it super fast. I am also not doing super demanding stuff. I generally spend my day working in Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. So it's not like I am doing the latest games or 3D animation or high definition video or anything like that.

FIX FOR:computer freezes during install of Leopard on a G4 MDD w/ ATI x800!

I had problems with freezing during installation of Tiger & Leopard on my G4 MDD. It took some trouble shooting, but when I installed Tiger I found out that the freeze was from the video card I had installed, an ATI x800 xt 256mb AGP video card. I do not know why this card freezes the installation process, but I found a way to get the installation to complete without freezing. I took an old ATI PCI video card, installed it in an empty PCI slot, connected monitor to PCI card, and then installed Tiger with no problems. After install I hooked the monitor back up to the AGP ATI card and it worked great. So when my G4 froze with the Leopard installation I did the same thing, switched to an old PCI video card and Leopard installed with no problems whatsoever, then I switched back to AGP card after install. I hope this helps someone.
Message was edited by: jdswier

Thanks for taking the time off to share this information.

Fed up with ATI X800. Looking for Nvidia 7800 GT

After weeks of research I've come to learn that the ATI X800 AGP graphics card I have in my (non-PCI-Express) G5 dual 1.8 has serious design flaws that ATI simply isn't interested in addressing.
So since I need a card that will work with my 30" Cinema Display, and I'm use to the power of an X800 with 256 VRAM (when it was working), I don't want to settle for anything less powerful.
Based on my research Nvidia's 7800GT is compatible with my G5's AGP slot, has 256VRAM, and even benchmarks faster than the x800!
Problem is, I can't seem to find a place where I can buy it. At least not for the Mac.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!

Hi-
You will need to "make" your own 7800, or have someone mod it for use in the G5. The Nvidia Geforce 7800 AGP is the best candidate. Check through the site for info on how to mod the card, or, visit The Mac Elite Forums, and check out stuff for sale, or inquire as to having a card modded for you.

CS4 GPU Accelleration and ATI X800

My Photoshop CS4 does not allow me to turn on the GPU accelleration, the checkbox is greyed out. This is on Vista 64 with latest updates and with or without ATI catalyst. My card is ATI X800 PCIe. This card has pretty good 2D performance and I believe it also has OpenGL 2 support, and I don't see why it does not work. Does anybody have similar experience or an idea for troubleshooting? So far I only tried reinstalling drivers.

Running the latest driver? That's the first advice you'll get but that may not help. There are a couple of registry toggles you can to turn on/off GPU features. Here's a link.
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb406921
You'll find these registry toggles disscussed in some forum threads if you do a search.
With 256MB of RAM on your card, you'll be limited in what acceleration features you'll get as well as the number of open files you can run accelerated. See this Adobe Tech Note which has some details on troubleshooting that may or may not help you:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb404898
Here's a list of the cards Adobe has tested (yours isn't on the list):
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405711
Even if you do get OpenGL running with your card, you'll probably want to upgrade to one with more onboard memory. I'm still trying to home in on what cards offer a good price/performance specifically for Photoshop CS4 acceleration.

ATI X800 - no performance increase.

Hi,
Was very excited to receive my ATI X800. Installed it in my Dual 2.0Ghz G5 (original) and was disappointed to not see any increase in performance in any of my apps. Not in Photoshop, Quicktime, Lightwave, nor in any of the various benchmark programs out there (Xbench, Cinema4D.)
I expected a leap in performance...was I wrong?
Thanks
Joe

Greetings,
I don't think you'll see improvement on screen redraw on these apps, as they are not the graphic intensive as compared to games, esp those shoot them up games. Thats why i think there are many more choices and more advance video cards for the windows machine than for macs as there are much more games available for that platform.
So in order not to be downhearted, buy some games and surely you'll see much more improvement from your previous video card. That will certainly makes your upgrade more worthwhile. Smile...

Any help/ideas for ATI X800 XT

Aloha, I've searched & searched so I'm hoping someone here might have an idea where to get an ATI X800 XT card for my G5. I have heard rumors that they have started making/shipping them again. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Mahalo in advance for any tips. JB

OK, so getting an ATI X800 card looks impossible right now, so can anyone point me towards a different card that would make working with Aperture on my G5 a bit quicker/smoother?
G5 Dual 2.3 GHz PPC with 4GB ram and a (AGP) ATI Radeon 9650 video card.
I really love Aperture and it's capabilities, but it's lag with every tweak on RAW files is becoming frustrating. Mahalo in advance for any assistance. JB

I have a powerPC 8500 that will not boot up.

I have a powerPC 8500 that will not boot up. Lights come on, drives spins up and nothing. Any ideas? It has been sitting in storage for years. I would like to get some info off it.

If you wish to do further testing to insure it is the PRAM battery at fault before ripping into the computer, there are a couple of things that always worked for me if the battery was really the problem:
1) Zap the PRAM--cold boot and immediately press and hold these four keys simultaneously:
command
option
p
r
Keep holding until you here a total of three (3) startup chimes, then let go the keys. NOTE: In some Mac models, the second and third start-up chime tone during a PRAM zap can be rather quiet. Either crank up the volume, do the zap when the room is quiet, of use headphones to be sure you are hearing teh tones.
2) See if the computer will boot from a system disk by holding c during boot. The disk can be a full retail install disk, a system restore disk supplied with the computer, or a utility disk like DiskWarrior or TechTools that allows booting. If the computer boots and you get video, you can feel confident that the only thing needed is a PRAM battery. You can do a hot boot back to the hard drive and the computer should work as long as someone doesn't unplug it again.
However, if neither of these work, that can mean something more sinister than a PRAM battery has gone walkabout.

Solution to ati x800 xt related fan noise

i am so happy, that i need to share this with everybody else:
a few weeks ago i decided to upgrade my gpu to tht ati x800 xt. i won't bore you with the fact, that it is a great card, fast and - truely - silent. the problem was that the due to the heat of the card the pci slot fan, just beneath the superdrive, started spinning at over 43% (i am using the hardware monitor tool for measurements http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html).
i looked everywhere for a solution to my problem, which i thought was either
a) replacing the pci slot fan
b) replacing the x800 xt fan
c) lowering the speed of the pci slot fan
d) replacing the gpu
it took me a week, until i bumped into the following page:
http://www.barefeats.com/radx800.html
if you read further down you we will notice that some of the tests were done with an overclocked ati x800 xt. greedy as i am, i forgot about the noise and decided to hunt for even more gpu speed. and there i went to http://thomas.perrier.name/software/ATIcceleratorII.html and downloaded the aticcelarator tool. and there it struck me:
as soon as i increased the speed by increasing the card's clock speed, well, the pci slot fan went to 46%. yes, you read me. if you do the exact opposite, you will lower the fan speed.
and here is the solution that works for me:
to reduce pci slot fan noise, underclock the card to
core 475 -> 445 (-5%)
memory 499 -> 472 (-5%)
and since my powermac g5 2.0 ghz has reached a pci slot fan speed of 41%. just slow enough to be under my annoyance level. you will need to play around with the parameters, since (ati clock speed =) ati heat + mac heat + ambient heat will impact the pci slot fan.
cheers
philip

Hi Tangier,
did you install the necessary drivers? ATI DISPLAYS 4.5.7.
Works perfectly on both my G5/Dual 2.5 and G5/Dual 2.7. If it still does not work try to reinstall the latest Combo update, presently Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Update (PPC)
If this answered your question please consider granting some stars: Why reward points?

Neo2 a64 with new ati x800

Everything is fairly new and I just got thios ati X800. All updated drivers for the board from Nvidia site and vid card from ATIs site. Anyway I do about 27000 in 3dmark2001se but I just ran 3dmark05 and my score was very bad about 3700. Is there something I am missing here?? Or is this card bad even though it does OK in 3dmark2001se?? Thinking fo taking this vid card back. Suggestion??

Quote
Originally posted by thesaucier
Everything is fairly new and I just got thios ati X800. All updated drivers for the board from Nvidia site and vid card from ATIs site. Anyway I do about 27000 in 3dmark2001se but I just ran 3dmark05 and my score was very bad about 3700. Is there something I am missing here?? Or is this card bad even though it does OK in 3dmark2001se?? Thinking fo taking this vid card back. Suggestion??
actually at stock settings that is about right for 3mark05.
i have a 3500 and x800 and at stock got 3850, thats with the latest omegas.
however if you overclock the gfx card to say 530/560 then you will see an increase of about 1k.
3mark05 like 3dmark03 before it are more gpu intensive so the gfx card is generally the weakest link. 3dmark01 is more dependant on the cpu and mem speed with a little of the gfx card hence the big difference in scores.
So in short, no there is nothing wrong and it does not mean an x800 pro is crap.
X800XTPEs and 6800 Ultras are scoring around 6k or less in 3dmark05 and thats mainly due to the extra 4 pipes.

Graphics Problems with Leopard, ATI X800 XT, and Power Mac G5

I just upgraded to Leopard. I'm using a Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 with an ATI X 800 XT graphics card installed, and a Dell 24" monitor running at 1900x1200 resolution. After about 5-15 minutes, the screen starts shimmering with these green lines everywhere. It keeps getting worse to the point where I can't see anything and have reboot. Then, it starts all over again after another 5-15 minutes. The only way to solve this problem is to turn down the resolution to 1360x768. My fan is also running at max speed constantly since I've upgraded. I was hoping that 10.5.1 update would fix it, but it hasn't.
I've spent the last hour reading posts on this forum related to my problem to see if there is a solution, and as far as I can tell there isn't one. Is there something I missed for fixing the display and fan problems? Is there any hope that 10.5.2 will fix this? I've never had problems like this with any of the other OSX upgrades. I'm basically forced to go back to Tiger for now until this problem is solved. I can't believe ATI hasn't updated their drivers for my card since 2005!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Masai,
It sounds like a problem I had when I first got a new ATI X800 XT last October. When I first installed the card, there were what looked like florescent green symbols all over the screen which would get worse if I moved a window around. I ended up returning the card to ATI and exchanging it for a new one.
If you could post a screen shot, I could confirm the similarities in our problems. My problem was caused, I think, by the card overheating . . . which was the result, I speculate, of a disconnect between the X800's memory chips and heat sink.
I got a second card, and it's been working perfectly with Leopard. In my case, the card itself was the problem and not Leopard and/or graphics drivers.
Hopefully that's not the case with your situation. Did the card work okay under Tiger or whatever your previous OS was?
CMF

Any ideas? Boot troubles on a MS-6380

The system posts fine and the LED lights on the MB come up all green, yet whenever I try to boot up the system hangs.
When I try to boot from the HD, it tries to load windows and eventually hangs up. Hangs up in safe mode and normal mode.
When I try to boot from the floppy, it tries to read the floppy and then hangs up. Figured maybe I just had bad luck and the OS got corrupted and the floppy disk as well. So I created a new boot disk and it won't work either.
I've reset the CMOS and that didn't fix the problem, I would flash the bios but I'm unable to get into DOS to do so. I 've never had problems with the board in the past, but I went without using the system for a couple of months and now when I need it I cannot use it. :P
I'm completely out of ideas. I figured it was a bad stick of memory so I tried a different stick and the same thing happens. I'm not getting any beep errors or LED errors so I'm pretty in the dark of what could be wrong.
AMD Athlon 1 ghz
G2 Ultra 64 MB video card
256 MB Crucial PC2100

Hi,
I looks like the CPU cooler gotten into trouble.
Checkout the trouble guide on this matter :D

PowerPC G5 & ATI X800 XT: boot troubles

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