AGP 9200 256MB is working in a sawtooth. But how?!

[wrigmatt]

I bought a bulk lot recently and included in it was a surprising find, a sawtooth running this card. It was in a custom case, with a processor upgrade, so I tried it in a couple other older 2x AGP G4s and it worked in them too. I'm fairly sure it's a PC card, but I can't find any info on how it's working/how it was flashed/etc. I'm doubly amazed because I noticed after I switched it around a couple times that the metal on the pins has a couple places that are flaking a little. I'm afraid to remove it from the machine it's in now again if it's falling apart, because it works flawlessly. it's PN8915-981, for reference. I picked up another one for cheap and want to do the same thing to it (if I can find info on what the heck that is).

Any insight appreciated!

[V.Yakob]

Use Graphiccelerator to download the firmware from the ROM of this board.
It will be interesting to compare whether it's firmware from here or some other.
If you can save the firmware, add it here in the archive or somewhere else. And could you post large photos of this board, I'm interested to look at the design of the resistors.

[wrigmatt]

Thanks! Will do. I got the PC version of the card today and it looks identical to the one that's working in the sawtooth. I tried it just to try it and it didn't work, so the one in there must've been flashed. FWIW it reports ROM version 113-A27502-121 in System Profiler. I'll take photos tomorrow and post them of both cards.

[wrigmatt]

I don't want to pull the working card out of the sawtooth, but I took reasonably good pictures with it in there. Also have photos of the unflashed card. To my untrained eye they look the same.

[wrigmatt]

Can't seem to get the multidumper to work, even in safe mode. it just launches and closes itself. I'll keep at it and report back if I find anything. The documentation is a bit thin.

[saturnu]

This looks like my connect3d but with 256mb ram.

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=6499.48620

[alphaTECH]

Is it working with 3D acceleration?

[V.Yakob]

On one of my Macs, I used AGP Radeon 9250 128 MB with taped 3 and 11 pins and a driver installed -- in OS9 this card worked perfectly.

[joevt]

Can't seem to get the multidumper to work, even in safe mode. it just launches and closes itself. I'll keep at it and report back if I find anything. The documentation is a bit thin.

You can try my flashrom fork.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/question-how-powerful-of-a-graphics-card-will-work-in-a-beige-power-macintosh-g3.2303689/post-32937887

Use the anypci programmer to dump the rom.
https://github.com/joevt/flashrom/blob/master/doc/classic_cli_manpage.rst

Load the DirectHW.kext first.

Then do the following command to list pci devices. An ATI device will have vendor ID 0x1002.
sudo flashrom -p anypci

Then do the following command to dump the rom of a pci device:
sudo flashrom -p anypci:pci=segm:bb:dd.f

Some PCI cards hide their ROM after boot. Check the ROM file. The first two bytes should be 0x55, 0xaa. The rom should include text "PCIR" near the beginning.

[DieHard]

Is it working with 3D acceleration?

With DarthnVader 9200 modified drivers, you can get acceleration, use the same drivers that we used for the mini

[DieHard]

I'm doubly amazed because I noticed after I switched it around a couple times that the metal on the pins has a couple places that are flaking a little.

I am just guessing this was intentional and someone razor cut 3 and 11

No reason for amazement... that is making it work

[chrisNova777]

you dont have to cut/modify any pins for compatibility with a sawtooth
they dont have ADC support to begin with

[DieHard]

you dont have to cut/modify any pins for compatibility with a sawtooth
they dont have ADC support to begin with

Yes, you are right, card was probably in a DA or above and then moved to the Sawtooth; so yes no taping needed, I stand corrected, of course no voltage/no ADC