G5 X800XT fan stops

[mikx]

Hi,

I have just joined and am fascinated by the marvellous hacks performed by members here.
reminds me of my Amiga days.

I have a Late 2004 DP 2Ghz G5 with an ATI X800XT 256mb card installed.
=============================================
System Profiler report

ATI Radeon X800 XT:

Chipset Model: ATY,R420
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4a48
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A35801-109
Displays:
Q17 Digital:
Resolution: 1280 x 1024 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 16-bit Color
Core Image: Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Display:
Status: No display connected
===============================
Last week, just by chance - I only had the clear plastic air guide cover on the G5 - I noticed with horror that the X800XT's fan was not spinning. I confirmed through several bootups that the fan stopped spinning around 1 minute after bootup.
This card has ROM 109 and if I remember correctly, the ROM upgrade came with "ATI ROM extender". none of the ROM upgrades are available on the new AMD/ATI site anymore.
I suspect that fan/thermal control was supposedly fixed with this 109 ROM.
After noticing the fan shutdown I initially put a Zalman cooler on the card but even with shorter nuts it still cramps up the PCI bay where I absolutely need to have my Ratoc 4 x USB 2.0 card installed in slot 3.

So . . .out comes the Zalman and I then polished the chip contact surface of the crappy ATI cooler, cleaned the ATI GPU surface and applied Arctic Thermal grease.
Next I removed the onboard fan power connector and ran just the black and red wires to my G5's DVD drive power line.
Everything works but the fan is probably running flat out.

Question : Has anyone else experienced an X800XT's fan stop spinning ?

Question 2 : Is there a cure? I have a nagging feeling that the lack of ATI ROM Extender has something to do with this.


MIKX

Hot and humid Japan.

This is my sole claim to Mac fame : www.hatsuon.net/macstuff/G5_TAKE_APART/Disassemble_G5_DP_2Ghz.html

[aquamac]

Hi Mikx,

Welcome to aquamac forums! Hey, I remember reading that article on the G5 take down, can't remember where the link came from, probably XLR8 your mac or Hardmac or it may have been Reddrag0n who sent me the link. Wow, I could not get over how much muck had accumulated!

The fan problem sounds like bit of a nightmare! Lucky you didn't end up with a damaged card. I would have thought that the rom extender would have been included in OSX or ATI Displays in more recent builds, if I can find a copy I will let you know. I am writing this from a MDD that has a ATI Fire GL X3 in it which has been flashed with the 109 full rom, no problems here so it may be it is only a dodgy fan. By the way, these cards use the same fan as many other cheaper PC cards, in fact I picked one up on ebay for £7 a while ago from someone who had upgraded their card to a dual slot one. It may also be possible to flash the X850 XT rom onto this card, I have done this with X800 GT & SE, and although the Device id's are different (4A 48 800 & 4A 49 850) it still worked, (although I reduced the 850 speed back to the 800 speeds).

If I find anything else out I will let you know.

[mikx]

Hi and thank you very much for your swift and informative reply.

I too will delve into the 100 or so backup disks I have buried under my desk for the ROM extender.

There are three wires on the fan; black, red and white (might have been yellow a while back).
Prior to connecting this fan to the G5 DVD power line and as a test, thinking that the white wire is concerned with fan control, I disconnected only that wire shut down and rebooted.
The fan again stopped around 1 minute after bootup. This leads me to think that either software from the original ROM Extender is missing in my current OSX install (10.4.9) or something in the card concerned with power management is damaged.
On the other hand with the new power arrangement (off the DVD drive power line), the X800XT is running fine. I tested it using Civilization III with the DYP (double your pleasure) mod and in 1280 x 1024 with 'grid' turned on and in large map mode, this really pushes any Mac card over three years old, the X800XT is performing as normal.

Off topic : Yes, I got a few new grey hairs the first time I pulled my G5 down but lately I have gotten to the point where I can have the PSU & MB out within about 10 minutes. putting it back together, I have discovered, is an art.

My latest exploit drew a lot of flack in the macosg.com G5 forums
www.hatsuon.net/macstuff/WashedG5Motherboard/WashedG5Motherboard.html
but was well thought out in advance and the G5 is not only sparkling clean but running like the day I first brought it home.

I live in Japan near Osaka, (Aussie) the summers here are brutal with cramped homes, dust and humidity thrown in.
I lost faith in the local Apple techs after I found a CPU lagshield bolt rolling around in the case after a PSU replacement. Over the past three years I have learned a few G5 secrets. If you think it is worth it I will post in the G5 thread with some of my findings.


Again, thank you for your interest in this X800XT puzzle.


MIKX

[ritalin]

Quote from the 109 ROM update -

"Added built-in Firmware Fan control - Fan control has been implemented within the card's firmware to maintain full fan control with or without the presence of the ATI ROM Xtender file"

So in theory you don't need the ROM Xtender file.

[mikx]

Having had a few days to dwell on my 2 Ghz DP G5 - X800Xt power problem and also having armed myself with some special bolts and virtually the whole range of Arctic Silver cooling solution products I once again installed my Zalman VF700-Cu(AICu) cooler-heatsink, this time taking great care with the thermal grease. I used 3rd party, shorter bolts for the underside connection and it now hasa little space between it and the G5 CPU covers divider.
I alos applied all of the little "stick-on" heat sinks to the various chips on the face of the X800XT.

I opted for 5v power input to the Zalman fan (there are four options 2x12v 2x5v . .why 2 of each, I have no idea) but I also installed an extra, quiet, powerful case fan which sits half way between the PCI bay fan and the end of the PCI slots.

While I was at the Japanese version of Radio Shack I also picked up a temperature sensor which I currently have located (rear end of the G5), it is hovering in front of the DVI connectors, under the rear edge of the Zalman heatsink, above the cluster of condensors on the X800XT. In this position with the G5 under very little load the sensor is showing 37°C ambient. Next I started streaming a long Google video in Safari, started iTunes, started encoding a DVD in iDVD and ran Civilization III DYP version with every graphic option turned on and the sensor still shows 37° after 15 minutes. Rock solid, I am quite pleased with this solution.

Seeing that the sensor is reading only the ambient temp 'near' the card I would guess that the real GPU temp is probably around 41°C but the X800XT is rated up to 100°C so it seems to be operating well within spec.

As an after thought I also connected a mini fan to the X800XT's on board connector with all three pins connected correctly and this time the fan stayed ON . . . for more than 30 minutes but I no longer trust the on board connector.

Thanks to those who responded, I often feel that just being in the company of like minds prompts a solution.

[ritalin]

Nice use of the temperature probe. I wonder if the x800 has a GPU temp sensor built in (I guess it does). If it so, then there maybe software available that could display it in OSX. I think it was posible with it's predecessor 9800XT.

[mikx]

ritalin said:

Nice use of the temperature probe. I wonder if the x800 has a GPU temp sensor built in (I guess it does). If it so, then there maybe software available that could display it in OSX. I think it was posible with it's predecessor 9800XT.

I sent off an email to Thomas Perrier who made ATIccelerator II asking about this. If anyone knows about this, he should.
Earlier tonight I installed ATIccelerator II version 1.0.6b and then immediately got a kernel panic. After a lot of mucking around I finally got it out of my system, (OSX 10.4.9) and things are back to normal.

As I am a complete noob with thermal paste I again - but this time with greater care to cleaning, purifying, amount and application technique - re-applied the Arctic paste.
I moved the sensor even closer to the ATI board - under the rear of the Zalman fin array and about 1 cm above the X800XT board and I am getting 37°C constant ambient even under load at this much closer position.

MIKX

[mikx]

I got a reply from Thomas Perrier regarding ATI thermal readout.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately no Mac program can read ATI cards sensors yet, unlike NVIDIA
ones.

--
Thomas Perrier ICQ: 44560287 ( ) ASCII ribbon
The hardness of the butter is proportional X campaign against
to the softness of the bread. / \ HTML e-mail
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ritalin]

mikx said:

I got a reply from Thomas Perrier regarding ATI thermal readout.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately no Mac program can read ATI cards sensors yet, unlike NVIDIA
ones.

Well it was worth a try.

[mikx]

It seems the X800XT fan problem has fixed itself, I have no idea how but I still don't trust the X800XT onboard power management and certainly not the ATI default fan setup.

I was lucky enough to find a Zalman VF-900 CU heatsink-fan unit at a PC store today. It is a work of art, I have rarely seen such good workmanship and well thought out design. It is dead easy to install even in my G5.
Power management is much easier than the VF700-AlCu, even at full speed it is very quiet.
One thing that struck me straight away was the incredible mirror finish to the primary heatsink area which faces onto the X800XT's GPU. This model also utilises "heat pipes".
Previously I also installed an extra case fan in the PCI are and today got hold of an 8cm x 8cm unit which fits almost perfectly in the PCI bay area. It moves a decent amount of hot air per minute and only puts out 10 db. I placed this new low noise fan above the battery holder using an eraser to hld it firmly in place.
The main weak point in open fan-heatsink units is that they do not remove hot air from the case.
Now with my new arrangement, the VFD 900 CU blows hot air up from the X800XT and the extra fan blows this air out the back of the case. My current ambient thermal reading is 35°C (down 2 degrees) as opposed to 37°C with the VF 700 AICu, with the same room temperature.

Here is the link to the VF 900 CU

As an added bonus the VF 900 CU is almost silent compared to the VF 700 AICu.

Thus happily ends my X800XT saga.

[mikx]

Well, it was all a storm in a teacup, it seems that the last time I removed my G5's motherboard I very foolishly put two of the CPU locator nub bolts in the wrong positions. This resulted in all kinds of erratic behaviour from kernel panics to random shutdowns to interruptions in the power supply to the X800XT. I have since remedied this and all of the above problems have gone away without any apparent damage, Thank God !

My foolishness had a silver lining in that I have learned an awful lot about graphics cards and cooling them. With a Zalman VF900-Cu now installed with Arctic Silver Thermal grease very carefully applied and an extra, 8cm X 8cm low noise (11 db) fan installed as an adjunct to the VF900-Cu I seemed to now have a very quiet, noticeably cooler, fast X800XT.

Here is a pic of the current setup :



Room ambient is 30°C. The thermal probe I have located about 1cm from the root of the VF900-Cu, downwind of the new fan shows 34°C under medium load. Quite nice, in winter I will connect the "FanMate" external fan speed controller that comes with the VF900-Cu to wind down the fan speed a little more.

Many thanks to all who responded to my cry for help. Much appreciated