MP 1,1-5,1 Apple EFI RX480 from MVC not working, no support

[rstreber]

Hi all, first post here... sorry for starting out on a negative note.

I can't get an Apple EFI AMD RX480 ("new" - :/ - from MacVidCards, advertised as plug and play for my setup) to get beyond the grey boot screen / progress bar without either freezing there or going dark. I'm running a 2012 Mac Pro 5,1 on High Sierra. I updated the Boot ROM to version MP51.0089.B00 and confirmed that the update was successful. I've tried running it with all other PCIe removed. Tried resetting PRAM, etc. Nothing works. Any suggestions?

As an aside, I've tried emailing MVC multiple times now to get their input but have received nothing from them (him?) I'm kind of desperate to get this thing working since, from what I've read, returning it to MVC is probably not going to be a whole lot of fun.

FYI, this machine runs a Pro Tools system with an Avid HDX PCIe card, and that severely limits my GPU options because of the HDX's power requirements. This RX480 with its single 6-pin power seemed like a good solution given all of that. Am I just barking up the wrong tree here?

 

[startergo]

Hi all, first post here... sorry for starting out on a negative note.

I can't get an Apple EFI AMD RX480 ("new" - :/ - from MacVidCards, advertised as plug and play for my setup) to get beyond the grey boot screen / progress bar without either freezing there or going dark. I'm running a 2012 Mac Pro 5,1 on High Sierra. I updated the Boot ROM to version MP51.0089.B00 and confirmed that the update was successful. I've tried running it with all other PCIe removed. Tried resetting PRAM, etc. Nothing works. Any suggestions?

As an aside, I've tried emailing MVC multiple times now to get their input but have received nothing from them (him?) I'm kind of desperate to get this thing working since, from what I've read, returning it to MVC is probably not going to be a whole lot of fun.

FYI, this machine runs a Pro Tools system with an Avid HDX PCIe card, and that severely limits my GPU options because of the HDX's power requirements. This RX480 with its single 6-pin power seemed like a good solution given all of that. Am I just barking up the wrong tree here?

The card has nothing to do with the booting process. Whether it is an MVC or a regular GOP RX-580/480 you should be able to boot to the operating system. The MVC card has an advantage of the Apple boot selector, which you get by holding the option key during boot. Can you get to the Apple boot selector while holding the option key pressed during boot?

 

[rstreber]

Thanks! I'll try that. The reason I'm assuming that it's an issue with the card is that everything works perfectly with my trusty 5770.

 

[rstreber]

I should add that as far as I know the computer itself may be booting up just fine with the RX480 installed. But the display goes dark after either parital grey screen / progress bar or is just dark from the get-go. I hear the start-up chime, but without any video output from the card I can't really tell what it's doing.

The one time it did something different and for sure didn't boot was after doing a full PRAM reset. Then it displayed grey screen and progress bar which got to 100% and then just hung there. I finally did a hard shutdown after about 30 minutes. After that it went back to the same thing - chime, grey screen / partial progress bar, then darkness.

 

[startergo]

I should add that as far as I know the computer itself may be booting up just fine with the RX480 installed. But the display goes dark after either parital grey screen / progress bar or is just dark from the get-go. I hear the start-up chime, but without any video output from the card I can't really tell what it's doing.

The one time it did something different and for sure didn't boot was after doing a full PRAM reset. Then it displayed grey screen and progress bar which got to 100% and then just hung there. I finally did a hard shutdown after about 30 minutes. After that it went back to the same thing - chime, grey screen / partial progress bar, then darkness.

You can boot into Mac OS X verbose mode just once, meaning on that specific boot, by holding down Command+V immediately after powering on a Mac (or immediately after reboot).

The exact steps to boot a Mac in Verbose Mode are as follows:

1. Boot the Mac as usual by pressing the Power key (or restart the Mac)
2. Immediately start holding down Command + V keys as soon as the Mac boots or when you hear the boot chime
3. Continue holding Command + V on boot until you see white text against a black background appear on screen, signifying Verbose Mode is active on that system start

 

[rstreber]

Sorry if this is an incredibly stupid question, but what should I do once I'm booted into Verbose mode? I won't be able to try this until after my session ends this evening, but I'd love to know what I'm trying to achieve with this. Thanks!

 

[startergo]

Sorry if this is an incredibly stupid question, but what should I do once I'm booted into Verbose mode? I won't be able to try this until after my session ends this evening, but I'd love to know what I'm trying to achieve with this. Thanks!

you may find out what is holding the boot process.

 

[rstreber]

Ok, I'll try that and see what happens. I guess the question is whether in most instances the machine actually was booting up but the GPU wasn't outputting anything to my display. Is that something you've heard of before? FYI, I'm using the HDMI port on this card. I did try using one of the display ports on the card with a DP-HDMI adapter in line. I just got a display with a DP input and can try that next (haven't even taken it out of the box yet...)

 

[bookemdano]

Are you on High Sierra 10.13.4 or later? I think the Polaris cards like the RX480 weren't supported natively until that version.

Edit: Also, what graphics output are you using? HDMI? DisplayPort? When you get the black screen try different ports on the card if possible.

Edit2: Just saw your previous reply. Definitely try all of the outputs on the card.

 

[rstreber]

Hmm interesting - I'm on 10.13.1. I can see if I can update to the later version. I was running Sierra on this machine until fairly recently and I had assumed that since I downloaded the High Sierra installer from Apple after they had already discontinued that OS that what I was downloading would be the ultimate version. But obviously not!

 

[bookemdano]

The installer should have been 10.13.6 as of last November. Unsure why yours was 10.13.1. Was it perhaps already in downloaded in your Applications folder from much earlier and you just recently installed it? That's all I can think of.

Anyway, yes once you update it via the App Store Updates tab, your RX480 should work fine.

 

[rstreber]

Amazing - that worked. So obvious, yet I managed to completely miss it. Anyway, thank you for the quick help, and I'm just so relieved to have it working. Next challenge is to figure out how to get four discrete outputs from this card to monitors that are all at least 30 feet from the Mac... I've got two running fine so far but haven't yet figured out how to get a third going.

 

[rstreber]

I'm reading different things about whether it's possible to actually get more than two display outputs working on an RX480. I've ordered an active DP - HDMI adapter to see if that works, but I'm curious if anyone else here has any experience with this. Most of what I've found online seems to be from Hackintosh boards. I spent almost an hour on chat support last night with a nice guy from AMD, but in the end all he could suggest was that I go with an RX580.

 

[visusest]

Amazing - that worked. So obvious, yet I managed to completely miss it. Anyway, thank you for the quick help, and I'm just so relieved to have it working. Next challenge is to figure out how to get four discrete outputs from this card to monitors that are all at least 30 feet from the Mac... I've got two running fine so far but haven't yet figured out how to get a third going.

IIRC the output port mapping in the Apple drivers doesn’t enable all ports. You’ll need to look around on Hackintosh forums on Lilu configurations to get the rest of the ports working. If the graphics requirements on 2 of the monitors are pretty low, consider adding a GT710 DDR3 in slot 2 to avoid having to mess with Lilu. DVI and HDMI should handle 25 foot connections without issue but 10~15 feet is the practical max for DisplayPort.

 

[startergo]

GT710 DDR3 in slot 2 to avoid having to mess with Lilu

Having AMD and NVIDIA cards connected to 2 displays in HS kicks you back to the logging screen. In later operating systems NVIDIA drivers take over so any display connected to an AMD card disconnects from the card.

 

[rstreber]

Also, I have the Avid card in slot two as well as a USB 3 card in slot 4. One of those two electrolytic capacitors near slot 3 broke off of my board, so I'm unclear as to whether that slot works or not. Despite the break, the machine has been working fine with nothing in that slot, and I'm reluctant to push my luck!

But I'll look around for more info on Lilu configurations to see if I can find out more. Thanks for the suggestion!

Curious, is this same 2-monitor limitation in place with something like an RX580? Or are other / more powerful cards more "plug and play" for a situation like this?

 

[visusest]

Having AMD and NVIDIA cards connected to 2 displays in HS kicks you back to the logging screen. In later operating systems NVIDIA drivers take over so any display connected to an AMD card disconnects from the card.

My bad, I thought I remembered using a GT710 with an RX 570 in Mojave, but I was probably using 2 NVidia cards.

Also, I have the Avid card in slot two as well as a USB 3 card in slot 4. One of those two electrolytic capacitors near slot 3 broke off of my board, so I'm unclear as to whether that slot works or not. Despite the break, the machine has been working fine with nothing in that slot, and I'm reluctant to push my luck!

But I'll look around for more info on Lilu configurations to see if I can find out more. Thanks for the suggestion!

Curious, is this same 2-monitor limitation in place with something like an RX580? Or are other / more powerful cards more "plug and play" for a situation like this?

The broken cap is likely a non issue. It might not even be for the PCIe slot and most decently designed PCIe cards will have their own e-caps onboard for power supply filtering.

Take a look at this thread for multi monitor support: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/which-video-card-support-3-monitors-under-mojave.2166902/

 

[rstreber]

Unsurprisingly, I just received and tried out an active DP-HDMI adapter, and of course it doesn't work. It's kind of crazy to me that this is such a mysterious subject, but I'll look a bit more into the lilu configuration threads to see what I can find.

 

[rstreber]

Do you suspect that I could successfully run a GT710 in slot 3 or 4 along with the RX480 and PTHDX cards in slots 1 and 2 respectively? Ideally I'd really like to keep the Sonnet USB 3 card in there as well, but I don't know if there's room or bandwidth for this. Thoughts?

 

[rstreber]

Oops, sorry I missed the post from Startergo about nvidia and AMD cards not working together. Is there an equivalent AMD card that could do the trick?

 

[startergo]

Oops, sorry I missed the post from Startergo about nvidia and AMD cards not working together. Is there an equivalent AMD card that could do the trick?

According to this you can connect 3 ports at once:
Solved: Three 4K screens on RX480 - AMD Community
You have to look at the MAX display output resolution and add the resolution of the 3 displays making sure you do not exceed it.

 

[rstreber]

Interesting. None of my displays are 4k. The two that are working are basic Viewsonic 27" displays, and the third is an HP 24" display. I've got them set to 1080p / 50hz. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to convert the third output via HDMI to SDI so that I can split it out to multiple larger displays in my recording room (for recording to picture for film scoring sessions.) But for the time being, I don't need anything higher than HD / 1080p. From what I'm seeing the RX480 should work with this, right?

 

[startergo]

Interesting. None of my displays are 4k. The two that are working are basic Viewsonic 27" displays, and the third is an HP 24" display. I've got them set to 1080p / 50hz. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to convert the third output via HDMI to SDI so that I can split it out to multiple larger displays in my recording room (for recording to picture for film scoring sessions.) But for the time being, I don't need anything higher than HD / 1080p. From what I'm seeing the RX480 should work with this, right?

Yes sure. Can you output from the 3 displays individually? Or say you have 2 connected, disconnect one and connect another one?

 

[rstreber]

So far, I've only been able to get any output from the right two connectors (the HDMI on the far right and the right-most DP.) I only tried doing DP only with the passive converters. I'll try with the active converter and see what I find. But as of earlier, I couldn't get anything out on the left two ports even if I disconnected one of the others. It seems like nothing is routing to them regardless of what else is plugged in?

 

[startergo]

1080/50Hz? Is your electrical frequency 50 or 60HZ?