PowerMac 3.5 Quicksilver - 7450 G4 800mhz- ATI 9200 128 mb flashed for mac use :

I boot the live cd, I see the butterfly logo and I reach (well.. almost) the desktop screen but it is somewhat incomplete... it is an empty white/grey screen and there is only the screen bar.

I can move the pointer (that stalls on the white/black one, not the red arrow) but the only thing that work is the eject on screen bar (the cd come out). The clock is stalled, the volume screenbar dont'work...

All I can say is it seems a visualization problem because I seem to ear the cd continue to read when I click with the mouse on the empty desktop.

Can someone help me ?

Thanks.




[ Edited by ZB on 2010/12/3 11:26 ]

Looks like badly recorded CD or problematic (old?) CD drive.

It is a cdrw somewhat old but it seems to work... I ear it reading and there isn't an error message that it can't read something. Shouldn't it give an error message ?

If a read erorr happens too early in the boot process, you won't see an error message. I'd recommend getting CD-R.

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And the pointer will continue to work ?

You exclude that it can be a problem of the re-flashed graphic card ?


Anyway, I will try with a CD-R, thanks.

Yes, the pointer may as well continue to work.

I have the same problem also with a CD-R boot disk...

Again, can someone exclude that it can be a problem of the re-flashed graphic card ?

I have discovered that if I hit the Enter key when on the empty desktop, the pointer become the red arrow but it freeze and after some reading from the cd, the monitor go in "no signal" stand-by...

Is the real video output on a second display maybe ?


PS - On Ubuntu live CD all is ok. On OSX I have some problems with the available resolutions (I have only 640x480) and if I update the mac radeon drivers, I have a similar problem as MorphOS CD... don't know if it can be of help for spotting the problem.

My amount of ram is 1,5 gb.

With OSX if I change the resolution from the one of default, I have similar problems... the screen goes light blue and empty like as the real display could be on another output... the mac continue to work (I ear the hd and the cd working, the keyboard and the mouse works but I can't see nothing).

On Ubuntu live all is well and I can change all the resolutions supported by my monitor (Acer AL 1703 SM).

???

Just a thought: perhaps the downloaded image may be corrupted.

If you check the md5 checksum of the downloaded image, it should be
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(as per the MorphOS team download page)

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The md5 checksum is right... anyway, thanks for the tip.



[ Edited by ZB on 2010/12/6 13:33 ]

Maybe early startup menu can help (rmb+lmb, F1 during boot)

Though my Powermack 3.5 has something wrong (often default catches happen and, sometimes, kernel panics caused by "no drivers for this cpu" error) I noticed that with a flashed Radeon 9250 a default catch with a "stack shrunk by 2 while probing 8000" occours (sometime with an "alloc-mem request too big!" error too). So: did you try a Mac ATI Radeon? And: are you sure the card has been flashed with right bios?

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I tried... and I can change the resolution but the result is the same...


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I have found two bios that should be suited for my card but the result is the same with both... I can't be sure that those are right but I can't find other bios for a radeon 9200 with a size of the bios of 64 kb.

Thanks for the tips but I am loosing hope...

Anyone has flashed a radeon 9200 and are using it with no problems on a Quicksilver 2002 ?

Anyone know if I can flash a radeon 9250 bios on my 9200 (9250 roms are more easy to find) ?


[ Edited by ZB on 2010/12/7 13:37 ]

I have bought a Radeon 9000 (Mac version) to solve the problem.

I fear flashed radeons 9200 are almost impossible to work flawlessy on these powermacs... it seems only linux works as expected.

Anyway, enough hassle with these things... now I have to enjoy MorphOS 2.7 with my little and good 9000pro...

good choice ! I only use Radeon 9000 pro MAC edition. They are more expensive, but on the other hand they keep their value more or less AND most important: they work 100%

I have never had a problem with my re-flashed Radeon 9200 (which I used to replace my Apple Radeon 9000 when it started to act up).
Apples placement of a 24V connection on their AGP slot (to drive ADC connected devices) has always stuck me as a risky design.

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What brand/model is your 9200 ?

[ Edited by ZB on 2011/1/11 14:21 ]

The card has no labels on it, but i believe its a Sapphire card. Even though its a 256 MB card (which of course means MorphOs only uses 128MB) its a very generic layout (no doubt an ATI design). The card looks identical to another 9200 I own.

> a 256 MB card (which of course means MorphOs only uses 128MB)

That's not so "of course" as we thought:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7135&forum=11&post_id=79350#79350