5870+Quadro in my Mac Pro -- not quite working

[100Years]

Well, I decided to pick up a Quadro 4000 for the CUDA, and add it to my Mac Pro. Unfortuneately, it's not quite working...I'm hoping it is someting basic, and you guys can help me out here.....

So, I already had a 5870 in the lower-most x16 slot, and added the Quadro card to the x16 slot right above it. Connected up all the PCIe power cables, and fired it up. That's were the problem is....

My display is connected to the DVI port of the 5870 -- when I power up, I get the white screen and chime, and then the display goes black (and stays like that) -- no more signal to the display.

Next, I disconnect the display from the 5870, and connect it to the DVI port of the Quadro card --- when I power up now, everything works great.

In other words, it appears as though when I have both cards installed, I can only get a display signal from the Quadro card. Any thoughts as to what is going on?

I hope there is a workaround for this -- if not, I'll just return the Quadro card.

Thanks in advance for any help here....

 

[100Years]

Tried a couple of other things....even tried the Quadro in conjunction with a GT120 (to rule out a power supply issue). Same results: when the Quadro is in there (regardless of which x16 slot), I have to connect my display to it in order to successfully boot up. I'm not sure what else I can try

 

[Umbongo]

Not sure these forums would be my first point of contact. Nvidia and Apple should be your first port of call.

 

[Transporteur]

AFAIK, the member trancepriest successfully runs a Quadro 4000 in conjunction with a Radeon 5770.

Concerning the 5870 + 4000 problem, how did you solve the power supply issue? Additional PSU in the optical bay?

 

[100Years]

I just used a PCIe power Y-adapter for the power -- works fine. Also, I just discovered something else:

Connecting my display to the Quadro, I let my machine boot all the way up -- by default right now, I bdefault to BootCamped Windows 7. Then I went into the Windows Device Manager; both video cards show up as working properly. So, then I disconnect my display from the Quadro, and connect it to the 5870. Wham! It works, and my desktop is there.

I'll have to see if I need to do this when booting into OSX as well....

 

[100Years]

Okay -- I made some more progress. I tried booting my machine into OSX with my display connected to the 5870 -- worked perfect -- OSX recognized both cards.

So, the problem seems to be strictly when I want to boot into Windows 7. What I'll try, is to completely reinstall Windows 7, and see if I still have the problem...

 

[Umbongo]

Wait, so there was no problem with both cards in OS X, just windows 7? There are well known issues with running Nvidia and AMD cards alongside each other in Windows 7.

Have a look at this thread - specifically Gorune's posts.

 

[100Years]

Well, after some more testing, I'm not yet seeing any problems once I am actually booted into Windows. I have run a couple of apps that make use of CUDA cores, and all seems well so far....

As to why I still can't boot into Windows with the 5870 (after installing the Quadro), I have no idea. Maybe something in the Mac firmware? Either way, it shouldn't be too big of a deal, as I don't reboot my machine often at all.

 

[Umbongo]

Well, after some more testing, I'm not yet seeing any problems once I am actually booted into Windows. I have run a couple of apps that make use of CUDA cores, and all seems well so far....

As to why I still can't boot into Windows with the 5870 (after installing the Quadro), I have no idea. Maybe something in the Mac firmware? Either way, it shouldn't be too big of a deal, as I don't reboot my machine often at all.

I think it is more likely due to the way in which Windows 7 is loading your graphics drivers that anything to do with the Mac side.

 

[100Years]

Just for the heck of it, I tried out a GT 120 in place of the Quadro today...interestlingly enough, I had no issues with this card booting into Windows (the way I did with the Quadro card).

So, I think I'll just keep the GT 120; for the CUDA stuff I play around with, it will be plenty.

 

[IceMacMac]

Just for the heck of it, I tried out a GT 120 in place of the Quadro today...interestlingly enough, I had no issues with this card booting into Windows (the way I did with the Quadro card).

So, I think I'll just keep the GT 120; for the CUDA stuff I play around with, it will be plenty.

This thread very much caught my attention as I've been interested in pairing these two GPUs.

So please keep us posted as you make your final conclusions/decisions.

Not sure these forums would be my first point of contact. Nvidia and Apple should be your first port of call.

Apple likely won't offer much help since this combination of cards is not supported by Apple--it exceeds power recommendations. As for getting help from Nvidia or ATI...they'd likely just shrug and point the finger elsewhere. I think this forum might be one's best bet for ideas/help.

 

[100Years]

One other thing I've noticed, is the noise level and heat of the system. When I had the Quadro 4k in there, my system got louder -- not annoyingly loud or anything (at least to me), but definitely louder. Another thing I noticed, was heat. When I had the Quadro 4K in there, you could feel really hot air being exhausted from the card -- even when it was not under load. By contrast, you don't have this with the GT 120.

So, I'm definitely going to stay with the GT 120. Even with its limited 32 CUDA cores, it's still plenty powerful enough for my CUDA needs.

One last thing I can say, is that so far, everything has been working perfectly now. Like I said earlier, I no longer have the Windows booting issue that I had with the Quadro card. Beyond that, even under substantial loads (3D game action using my 5870, while CUDA work runs in the background off the GT 120), the system is perfectly stable -- no lags, hiccups, or anomalies of any kind.

 

[Umbongo]

Apple likely won't offer much help since this combination of cards is not supported by Apple--it exceeds power recommendations. As for getting help from Nvidia or ATI...they'd likely just shrug and point the finger elsewhere. I think this forum might be one's best bet for ideas/help.

That is was not an officially supported combination completely slipped my mind, but Nvidia would likely have provided help as it was Windows that was causing the issue.