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Can a Mac Pro boot up to Mojave with a non metal card?

HyperX13

HyperX13

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 3, 2009
351
7
So I installed Mojave on my Mac Pro 5,1 using the Radeon 580 RX video card. Everything works well. I am currently trying to troubleshoot my new Samsung 970 SSD flash drive not booting properly. So I want to see if I can see the boot screen using my old card. Will Mojave actually boot if it was already installed? Anyone tried?
 
HyperX13 said:
So I installed Mojave on my Mac Pro 5,1 using the Radeon 580 RX video card. Everything works well. I am currently trying to troubleshoot my new Samsung 970 SSD flash drive not booting properly. So I want to see if I can see the boot screen using my old card. Will Mojave actually boot if it was already installed? Anyone tried?
Click to expand...

It should boot but will be problematic once booted. There will be no hardware acceleration for graphical desktop and applications.

Booting should work however.

What booting issue are you having with your Samsung 970 SSD?
 
crjackson2134 said:
It should boot but will be problematic once booted. There will be no hardware acceleration for graphical desktop and applications.

Booting should work however.

What booting issue are you having with your Samsung 970 SSD?
Click to expand...


Thanks for the answer. So the 970 seems quirky. Like when I initially formatted to APFS it would not mount until a reboot. Now it just doesnt boot at all (used Carbon copy to replicate my original ssd drive). I have to do the Option Command P and R and then it goes back to the original SSD that was in the mac. I thought it was the controller as I initially used a startech to EVO card. I since bought the Lycom dt120 and still similar issues. I wonder if my 970 is just bad. My mac pro is updated to the 140.0.0.0 firmware.
 
I've had/have booting issues with my 970 Pro for a good while now. It drives me insane trying to figure this out.

You should wipe/destroy the filesystem to raw format. Then reformat to APFS and do a clean install. My 970 Pro seems not compatible with CCC at all. I had to remove CCC and clean all remnants to lessen some of the booting problems. Yesterday I installed a couple more apps and started have booting problems again. The only common factor I could find was that both CCC and the other apps required access to the Privacy tab in the security settings to allow them to "Control" this computer.

I may have NOTHING at all to do with your problem or mine, but rest assured, you're not alone.

Currently, warm restarting doesn't work for me 50% of the time. Only cold boot is working fairly well...

Previously, cold booting was the problem, and only warm booting worked well. This behavior changed after a clean install with no migrated apps. All apps were reinstalled fresh from the MAS or the original installer.
 
crjackson2134 said:
I've had/have booting issues with my 970 Pro for a good while now. It drives me insane trying to figure this out.

You should wipe/destroy the filesystem to raw format. Then reformat to APFS and do a clean install. My 970 Pro seems not compatible with CCC at all. I had to remove CCC and clean all remnants to lessen some of the booting problems. Yesterday I installed a couple more apps and started have booting problems again. The only common factor I could find was that both CCC and the other apps required access to the Privacy tab in the security settings to allow them to "Control" this computer.

I may have NOTHING at all to do with your problem or mine, but rest assured, you're not alone.
Click to expand...

Ah well good to know I am not the only one! LOL. I am literally pulling my hair out. Do you recommend another Nvme drive that is true and tested under the mac pro? I am still within the return window.

I can't even format this 970 right now. It fails within 1 second of trying. When I reboot it mounts itself and I can read and write. It's like it is possessed! I was even trying to see if there was some firmware update. LOL
 
HyperX13 said:
Ah well good to know I am not the only one! LOL. I am literally pulling my hair out. Do you recommend another Nvme drive that is true and tested under the mac pro? I am still within the return window.

I can't even format this 970 right now. It fails within 1 second of trying. When I reboot it mounts itself and I can read and write. It's like it is possessed! I was even trying to see if there was some firmware update. LOL
Click to expand...

I have no recommendation right now. Trying a different NVMe drive MIGHT do the trick but I don't really know. I do know that in my case, there seems to be a relationship between the RX580 / 970 to the problem. Pulling the RX580 and installing my HD7970 completely solves the issue. Booting to a different SSD (conventional SSD in drive bay) also solves the issue.

I've been trying to diagnose and fix this for months. I'm at my Witt's end at the moment too.

As a side note...
There are other's here on MR that have the EXACT same configuration that I have, and no booting issues at all. It seems we are in the minority on this...

I've been through 3 Logic Board, 4 GPU's (2x RX580's), several iterations of BootRom, several installs, striped down hardware to bare minimum and re-introduced one at a time. I'm still working on this but may give up on NVMe or the RX580. I haven't decided as of yet.

I was contemplating purchasing a different NVMe/PCIe carrier to see if that made any difference. Since you are using a simple passthrough adapter like I was considering, it seems it would be a waste of time for me. I may purchase a different brand NVMe with a different controller onboard and see if that helps.

I suppose it could come down to a flaky NVMe stick/Controller, but I have no way to diagnose that without spending money on another 970 and I'm hesitant to be stuck with 2 of them if it doesn't work out.
 
Last edited:
crjackson2134 said:
I have no recommendation right now. Trying a different NVMe drive MIGHT do the trick but I don't really know. I do know that in my case, there seems to be a relationship between the RX580 / 970 to the problem. Pulling the RX580 and installing my HD7970 completely solves the issue. Booting to a different SSD (conventional SSD in drive bay) also solves the issue.

I've been trying to diagnose and fix this for months. I'm at my Witt's end at the moment too.

As a side note...
There are other's here on MR that have the EXACT same configuration that I have, and no booting issues at all. It seems we are in the minority on this...

I've been through 3 Logic Board, 4 GPU's (2x RX580's), several iterations of BootRom, several installs, striped down hardware to bare minimum and re-introduced one at a time. I'm still working on this but may give up on NVMe or the RX580. I haven't decided as of yet.

I was contemplating purchasing a different NVMe/PCIe carrier to see if that made any difference. Since you are using a simple passthrough adapter like I was considering, it seems it would be a waste of time for me. I may purchase a different brand NVMe with a different controller onboard and see if that helps.
Click to expand...


I will keep you posted. I just ordered the 960 and I will let you know if that works!
 
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bsbeamer said:
Is this the EVO 970, the PRO 970, or the EVO+ 970?
Click to expand...


It is the

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB
[doublepost=1551119410][/doublepost]Interesting development. I just decided to leave the Samsung in the Mac Pro and now Carbon Coby reports a bunch of read and write errors. So I wonder if this is just a bad drive?
XBcsYQp.jpg
 
HyperX13 said:
It is the

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB
Click to expand...
Did you tried destroying the partitions with gpt destroy and doing a clean install of 10.13.6? If you did so and still has problems you got a lemon.

Btw, I have the exactly same config as @crjackson2134 to the letter (except that I have a X5680 and he has a W3680) and I never had any booting problem - so this is a strange and difficult to pinpoint problem.
[doublepost=1551119545][/doublepost]
HyperX13 said:
Interesting development. I just decided to leave the Samsung in the Mac Pro and now Carbon Coby reports a bunch of read and write errors. So I wonder if this is just a bad drive?
XBcsYQp.jpg
Click to expand...

Check what DriveDX tells about your blade.
 
You would not be first recent report of 970 EVO+ with issue in Mojave. Nothing I can pinpoint yet, but a few 1TB new drives have random issues as system drives. All appear to work totally fine as "external" media drives. Unsure if it's a drive formatting issue or if there's something else. Absolutely would suggest wiping the drive completely, setting up OS on a SATA SSD then try Carbon Copy Cloner of system drive to the NVMe.
 
tsialex said:
Did you tried destroying the partitions with gpt destroy and doing a clean install of 10.13.6? If you did so and still has problems you got a lemon.

Btw, I have the exactly same config as @crjackson2134 to the letter (except that I have a X5680 and he has a W3680) and I never had any booting problem - so this is a strange and difficult to pinpoint problem.
[doublepost=1551119545][/doublepost]

Check what DriveDX tells about your blade.
Click to expand...

GPT destroy says resource is busy. I ran Drive DX and it didnt list the drive. So I rebooted and the drive showed up and gave me this

EwHPTQy.jpg


So maybe it is the drive? I am not sure.
 
HyperX13 said:
GPT destroy says resource is busy. I ran Drive DX and it didnt list the drive. So I rebooted and the drive showed up and gave me this

EwHPTQy.jpg


So maybe it is the drive? I am not sure.
Click to expand...
You cooked your blade :(

To do a gpt destroy you have boot from another drive and close all apps using the blade/all Finder windows opened before doing it.
 
tsialex said:
You cooked your blade :(

To do a gpt destroy you have boot from another drive and close all apps using the blade/all Finder windows opened before doing it.
Click to expand...


So now it seems the temps are fine. And no, it had no heat sink. Did I just do a rookie move? Am I supposed to buy a heat sink with these?

WXpO2Ye.jpg
 
HyperX13 said:
So now it seems the temps are fine. And no, it had no heat sink. Did I just do a rookie move? Am I supposed to buy a heat sink with these?
Click to expand...

Shut system down and remove NVMe immediately as long as it's cool to touch.
Yes, you need a heatsink.

What PCIe adapter?
 
HyperX13 said:
So now it seems the temps are fine. And no, it had no heat sink. Did I just do a rookie move? Am I supposed to buy a heat sink with these?

WXpO2Ye.jpg
Click to expand...
You shouldn't use any NVMe blade without a heatsink when installed in a Mac Pro. It's even worse with high end ones.

You probably got a lemon and high temperatures aggravated the problem or you cooked the blade when cloning your SSD.
 
bsbeamer said:
Shut system down and remove NVMe immediately as long as it's cool to touch.
Yes, you need a heatsink.

What PCIe adapter?
Click to expand...
It was totally cool to touch... I will buy a heat sink and use it with the 960 that is coming this week.. Hopefully this will be put to rest.
 
HyperX13 said:
I am now using the Lycom dt120. I started with the startech one thinking that was the issue. Neither one has a heat sink.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the PX1 is no longer being sold. It's a solid adapter with heatsink and thermal pads included. Suggest you get ample thermal pads with the heatsink(s) to reduce the chance of this ever happening again. If you're on a budget (and have the space), some of the taller blades styles are cheaper and tend work more efficiently than many of the low profile models.
 
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