Quadro FX4500, looking for info

[dkeeb]

This note is about a rather odd card a friend of mine came across. It has a label that says:
GainWOOD (not Gainward) Quadro FX 4500 AGP, see attached pictures, below.
I was wondering if anyone knew of such a card, made for Apple, for use in a G4/G5 and claiming 512MB available?
When my friend received the card it was basically DOA, he was able to extract the ROM from the EEPROM. We suspected that a Gainward Bliss 7800gs would be a good candidate for this ROM.
I procured a Bliss 512MB card and he flashed the mystery ROM onto the Bliss card. The Gainward Bliss 7800gs runs great now as a Quadro FX 4500 but only shows 256MB. I've included the OGL scores of the Bliss running as a FX4500, pretty fast.

Any insight would be appreciated,
TIA

[aquamac]

HaHa, that is one of my cards. I made the sticker too (shame about the spelling mistake though). It will have been one of the first cards I made. I sent a number out to the US. I would be quite interested to know where your friend got it from.

[dkeeb]

Aug 18, 2009 5:17:00 GMT aquamac said:

HaHa, that is one of my cards. I made the sticker too (shame about the spelling mistake though). It will have been one of the first cards I made. I sent a number out to the US. I would be quite interested to know where your friend got it from.

That solves that mystery... thanks.
Way back then I sent you one to look at too (twice), it would not work in my 1st Gen G5, you put the FX 4500 ROM on it. Never did work in that early G5 (Mac Firmware issue?).

Any thoughts on making the 512MB show in a G4/G5?

[aquamac]

Unfortunately, it was never possible to get all 512mb working without a kernel panic. We got it to show fine in system profiler if you removed NVDAResman.kext and edited the rom, but then no QE or CI. 3 of us spent a month at weekends on that project and it was also looked at by Arti but we never did get there. Shame.

[dkeeb]

Thanks Steve,
Well, we have a blazing fast Bliss FX 4500 AGP that your ROM is running. That is a happy ending anyway.

BTW, that card was found on Ebay, luckily it was refundable:
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190318692710

Best,
Dave

[aquamac]

Strange that it was DOA, if it was tested in a G4, it would need pins 3 & 11 taping over on the back as the G4 AGP slot was wired differently to the G5. If you boot without doing this, the G4 will refuse to boot. If the tape was on 3 & 11 (I used clear tape you can hardly see) and you put it in a G5 that would not work either!