[G4] Re: identifying a Radeon 8500

[Sean Collins]

Kevin & Jim:

I've been running a Radeon 8500 Mac Ed. in my G4/AGP for 2+ years and 
have never had a problem.  I have never upgraded the firmware 
(reported as: 113-85710-123).  I believe in the "if it ain't broke, 
don't fix it" principle.

>I found a number on the card itself that is PN 109-85700-00.

That's the part number for the printed circuit board.  But since the 
same board was used for PC & Mac, it doesn't help.

>Is the PC version of the Radeon 8500 sold under a different name?

Not really. It was called the " Radeon 8500 64MB" vs " Radeon 8500 
Mac Edition".  The boxes had different graphics.

PC box: http://www.ati.com/designpartners/media/pc/popups/r850064mbbox.asp

Mac box: http://www.ati.com/designpartners/media/mac/popups/r8500mebox.asp

Interestingly, the PC version is a discontinued product, but the Mac 
version is still current product.

>A radeon 8500 will show up as R200 in the system profiler of an apple machine.

I may be mistaken about this, but I believe that system profiler 
simply reports what it finds from the firmware.  So, once a PC card 
has been flashed w/Mac firmware, system profiler will report it as a 
genuine Mac card.  It can't distinguish further than that.

>there is no
>real difference except that the PC card had a faster core clock speed
>(275 v. 250 MHz).

I wasn't aware of that.  Depending on how ATI implemented the core 
clock, a flashed PC card may or may not still run at 275.

If the clock multiplier is coded in the firmware, then the flashed 
card will run at 250.  If it is hard coded on the circuit board, or 
w/in another chip, then the flashed card will still be running at 
275.  If it IS a flashed PC card, and still running at 275, that 
could be the cause of the problem.

Neither System Profiler or the ATI Utility reports clock speed.  I'm 
not aware of any utility that will report video clock.

There's only one clock oscillator on the board, 27 Mhz, same for both 
PC & Mac.  It doesn't translate to a very clean multiplier though.

>If the card isn't stable in your machine then you might have gotten a
>bum card or perhaps your machine is having a hard time dealing with the
>8500 for some other reason.

Kevin, if you're willing, you can send one of your problem cards to 
me, and I'll run it in my machine for a couple of days.

If it's problematic for me, then it's a bum card (or flash).  If it 
runs OK for me, then there's an issue w/your computer config.

Sean