Resolved Black Screen Sapphire Pulse RX560 on 4,1 -> 5,1 f/ware

[marcpro]

Hi everyone,
I've been running a 5,1 upgraded 4,1 Mac Pro. The graphics card in there is the 6870 which has never been perfect but acceptable. It is running High Sierra at the moment. Thinking of putting Mojave on there but no metal. Linux support for 6870 is also not great.

I got a new Sapphire Pulse RX560 4GB. I thought this was a drop in replacement. No joy. I get a black screen at boot. Never comes up in macOs, or in Linux, or in windows..

Do I need to do any weird Clover stuff to get this working? Or is this card just a dud?

I run my machine occasionally in Debian Linux (and even windows sometimes but don't tell anyone). I use reFind to multi-boot. I have three drives in there, and MacOs installed on a PCI-based SSD.

I'm wondering if the problem is that I'm not booting pure Mac. I am on the verge of doing a fresh install to see. Anything else I can try?


Marc

 

[tsialex]

Read here #290, may be a problem with AirDisplay kexts. The simplest way to test the card is doing a clean install of 10.13.6 on a empty drive with the HD 6870, then install the RX-560. If you don't get video after booting the clean install of 10.13.6, you have a dud.

 

[marcpro]

Read here #290, may be a problem with AirDisplay kexts. The simplest way to test the card is doing a clean install of 10.13.6 on a empty drive with the HD 6870, then install the RX-560. If you don't get video after booting the clean install of 10.13.6, you have a dud.

Just when I was going to give up...

I tried reinstalling High Sierra 10.13.6. It said I should first upgrade the firmware. So I did that. Thought I would try the card again, no luck.
Installed High Sierra, but forgot to clean the drive.
Tried card again, no luck.
Wiped drive, installed again.
Popped in the card and bam! Display comes up...

Now tried booting windows... Display comes up, resolution poor. Installed drivers on CD. All good now.

Next to try linux somehow. Not sure it is going to work with Refind / Grub very nicely... anyone have any ideas on this?

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[h9826790]

Just when I was going to give up...

I tried reinstalling High Sierra 10.13.6. It said I should first upgrade the firmware. So I did that. Thought I would try the card again, no luck.
Installed High Sierra, but forgot to clean the drive.
Tried card again, no luck.
Wiped drive, installed again.
Popped in the card and bam! Display comes up...

Now tried booting windows... Display comes up, resolution poor. Installed drivers on CD. All good now.

Next to try linux somehow. Not sure it is going to work with Refind / Grub very nicely... anyone have any ideas on this?

Thanks a lot for your help!

RX560 won't show anything in rEFInd due to lack of EFI UGA.

 

[marcpro]

RX560 won't show anything in rEFInd due to lack of EFI UGA.

Indeed.

Solution for me is simple:
MacOS needs to be clean installed for this to work. I partitioned the drive before installing.
Windows, I already had installed on another drive as a bootcamp partition. MacOS High Sierra picked it up and lets me boot from it.
Thanks to Grub's dumbness, I installed it to the same drive as MacOS and since it installs on the MBR that's what loads up by default.

To switch between Mac and Windows, I hold the Alt key.