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Valdaquendë

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2018
113
48
Oregon, USA
I have a refurb'ed cMP (mid-2012, 2x3.46GHz. 96GB RAM, nVidia GT630 GPU), which I want to perform my first OpenCore installation on. The first step was to prepare a backup boot volume. I had Sierra installed on it during the refurb process and it ran quite well. I decided to upgrade it to Mojave as that is the last MacOS that will run on 5,1 sans OpenCore.

I found, though, that when I upgraded I had no video; the system seems to boot up and run normally (it sleeps after a time and wakes when a key is pressed, for example) but the display remains black. The video card I am using is, as mentioned, an nVidia GT 630, which is metal-capable and displays properly when running Sierra or High Sierra. I have tried:

• Upgrading to Mojave with the boot volume installed in the cMP

• Preparing a Mojave boot volume on another system (a 2013 iMac running Catalina, in this case), booting the iMac from it to make sure it is viable and then installing it in the cMP

• I also tried preparing a boot volume on the iMac and shutting down when it reached the setup login screen. My thought (however misguided) was that the installer might install drivers specific to the host hardware and that performing the setup in the cMP might facilitate a functional install.

In no case can I get video output after boot. It is a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, I can't use a stock card like the AMD HD5780, as it has no metal capability. On the other, I can't use this one because it provides no video at all.

I realize that I could just use a Sierra or High Sierra boot disk to proceed with the OpenCore install but I'd like to know why it is behaving this way. The nVidia GT630, while it is not boot-screen compatible, should display post-boot output, as it is metal-capable. Or perhaps I am overlooking some limitation of the this GPU's capability or some other factor.

In any case, I'd like to know. Any advice would be very much appreciated. TIA!
 
Last edited:

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,454
13,601
Did you tried all the GPU outputs? Some GPUs have different addressment for the outputs than what the Apple native NVIDIA drivers expect and the now incompatible outputs are disabled. Check all the outputs.
 
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Valdaquendë

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2018
113
48
Oregon, USA
That was it. I found that video is output through one (and only one) of the DisplayPort connections; the DVI-A and the other DP do not output video. I think that there is a problem with that one working port, as well, as wiggling or moving the DP cable causes the video to drop out. Back in 2022 when you recommended these cards to me, I got two of them. I'm going to try switching cards to see if that helps. I'll report back.

Thanks again!
 
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Valdaquendë

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2018
113
48
Oregon, USA
Very good! With the second nVidia GT630, both DP ports work. There must be a defect in one of the DP ports on the first card. Thanks; I'll keep this in mind going forward.

Now On To OpenCore!!
 
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