[G4] Re: identifying a Radeon 8500

[Eric Volker]

To me, the simplest way to determine this would be to look at the 
connectors on the card. If it doesn't have an ADC connector, I'd say 
it's probably a PC card. The GeForce 3 card in my Quicksilver is a 
flashed PC card, and it only has a VGA connector. That said, it's 
performed flawlessly for the past year or so.

Eric

On Dec 9, 2004, at 8:23 PM, Mel Krewall wrote:

> Actually, the Radeon 8500 for Mac was discontinued quite a while ago. 
> The current low-end AGP card is the Radeon 9000. You can't find a new 
> 8500 in the retail channel.
> Mel
>
> "They say golf is like life, but don't believe them. Golf is more 
> complicated than that."
>  ~Gardner Dickinson
>
> On Dec 9, 2004, at 10:24 AM, Sean Collins wrote:
>
>> 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
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>
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