Confirmed and Possible Flashable GTX 680 Models

[tsialex]

I think I get it now. So reflashing with Mac edition firmware "converts" it to 6+6 edition cards, but because it is overclocked to use full potential you need 2mini6-->6 cable installed on the 6 pin connector or the 8 pin connector of the card.

Like I said on my edit above, this is one of the cards that have short bursts that exceed the 150W+75W.

If you are downgrading it to Mac Edition firmware and not using CUDA, it the power consumption will be downrated enough to not cause problems at all with Mojave.

I like my eVGA GTX 680 FTW+ 4GB a lot, it's the best GTX 680 I ever had and I have one real Mac Edition.

 

[netsrot39]

I just wanted to give a quick update. Flashing of my 02G P4 2683 KR aka 02G P4 2683 B6 card worked wonderfully (can be added to the first post). I've used dosdude1's ROM file (the one he has linked in his Youtube-Video about flashing the GTX 680). The card performs way better than my previous Nvidia Quadro 4000. It is way cooler – about 25°C cooler when at 100% and that even with a lower fan curve – and best of all I can now enjoy Mojave with a real Metal compatible card

 

[streak8047]

@Zeke D MSI Twin Frozr III 2GB GTX680 the display port & hdmi are working ,can you able share the VBIOS

 

[Vademecum]

Hi. I recently flashed the ASUS GTX680-2GD5 following the guide Step-by-Step Instructions for Flashing GTX680 by @ActionableMango. The only extra step that I required was to insert nvflash --protectoff before flashing as I could not without. All the ports (DVI, HDMI, Display Port) seemed to work fine on Mojave (with Bootscreen) and Windows.

My issue is that after keep using the card I noticed that sometimes the gray boot screen only appears for half a second just when the chime (POST) sounds. After that, the screen goes black and just come back before the login in Mojave (10.14.6). Just as it would not have boot screen. Nevertheless, if I press the option key, I would get the boot screen and can select the drive and everything works fine. Maybe on the next restart I still have the boot screen without having to press the option key but after some restarts, the gray boot screen only flashes for half a second just at the chime and then again black screen until the login. Weird...
From the functional point of view, it is not an issue as I can still select the drive and the whole boot screen appears if I press option but it is an "annoying" behavior and I really wonder what could be producing it and if possible fix it.
I searched but could not find anyone with this issue.
Already tried resetting PRAM and SMC.

My Mac Pro is a 5,1 with the boot rom 144.0.0.0.0 booting from a NVMe (clean install of Mojave 10.14.6) and the information on the card appears to be fine (ROM 3731, link speed 5 GT/s) (please see attached file). I have it plugged to a 27 inch Cinema Display (mini display port to the display port on the GTX 680).
The only thing that I noticed different is that in my case it says Metal supported MacOS GPUFamily1 v4 and on someone else screenshot I noticed it says v3.

What could be producing this?

Thank you.

 

[tsialex]

Hi. I recently flashed the ASUS GTX680-2GD5 following the guide Step-by-Step Instructions for Flashing GTX680 by @ActionableMango. The only extra step that I required was to insert nvflash --protectoff before flashing as I could not without. All the ports (DVI, HDMI, Display Port) seemed to work fine on Mojave (with Bootscreen) and Windows.

My issue is that after keep using the card I noticed that sometimes the gray boot screen only appears for half a second just when the chime (POST) sounds. After that, the screen goes black and just come back before the login in Mojave (10.14.6). Just as it would not have boot screen. Nevertheless, if I press the option key, I would get the boot screen and can select the drive and everything works fine. Maybe on the next restart I still have the boot screen without having to press the option key but after some restarts, the gray boot screen only flashes for half a second just at the chime and then again black screen until the login. Weird...
From the functional point of view, it is not an issue as I can still select the drive and the whole boot screen appears if I press option but it is an "annoying" behavior and I really wonder what could be producing it and if possible fix it.
I searched but could not find anyone with this issue.
Already tried resetting PRAM and SMC.

My Mac Pro is a 5,1 with the boot rom 144.0.0.0.0 booting from a NVMe (clean install of Mojave 10.14.6) and the information on the card appears to be fine (ROM 3731, link speed 5 GT/s) (please see attached file). I have it plugged to a 27 inch Cinema Display (mini display port to the display port on the GTX 680).
The only thing that I noticed different is that in my case it says Metal supported MacOS GPUFamily1 v4 and on someone else screenshot I noticed it says v3.

What could be producing this?

Thank you.

HighSierra versus Mojave METAL support.

MTLFeatureSet | Apple Developer Documentation

The device feature sets that define specific platform, hardware, and software configurations.

developer.apple.com

HighSierra

Metal:    Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v3

Mojave

Metal:    Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v4

 

[Vademecum]

HighSierra versus Mojave METAL support.

MTLFeatureSet | Apple Developer Documentation

The device feature sets that define specific platform, hardware, and software configurations.

developer.apple.com

HighSierra

Metal:    Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v3

Mojave

Metal:    Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v4

Thank you for the information.
What could be the reason for the weird behavior at the boot screen that I am randomly having? (on the last restart it did show the gray boot screen normally, it is random). The flashing seems to be correct according to the information displayed on the screenshots.

Any possible solutions/suggestions for fixing it?

 

[tsialex]

Thank you for the information.
What could be the reason for the weird behavior at the boot screen that I am randomly having? (on the last restart it did show the gray boot screen normally, it is random). The flashing seems to be correct according to the information displayed on the screenshots.

Any possible solutions/suggestions for fixing it?

Sorry, never happened to me with my real eVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition or my flashed eVGA, can’t help you.

 

[Vademecum]

Sorry, never happened to me with my real eVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition or my flashed eVGA, can’t help you.

I am wondering if I should try to flash it again or according to the rom info displayed it was successful and the situation would not change...

In case of flashing it again, would I have to follow any different step or following the same steps should be ok?

Thank you.

 

[tsialex]

I am wondering if I should try to flash it again or according to the rom info displayed it was successful and the situation would not change...

In case of flashing it again, would I have to follow any different step or following the same steps should be ok?

Thank you.

Same steps, no change. To me, seems your problems are related to compatibility of your card to the Mac EFI ROM, the Mac EFI ROM is for eVGA cards and have several degrees of problems with cards that are different. Cards that follow the NVDIA reference design usually work very well, cards that differ have problems.

 

[Vademecum]

Same steps, no change. To me, seems your problems are related to compatibility of your card to the Mac EFI ROM, the Mac EFI ROM is for eVGA cards and have several degrees of problems with cards that are different. Cards that follow the NVDIA reference design usually work very well, cards that differ have problems.

I read people having some problems with the different ports or adapters in other models . Therefore, before flashing it again I am going to rule out that it is not a problem related to the connection via Display Port or because of the Display port to mini DP adapter.

I have connected it to a second monitor via HDMI and so far, 3 reboots, 3 boot screens without issues on the HDMI monitor.

My card appears on the confirmed list of this post (ASUS GTX680-2GD5) and its configuration seems the same than the original eVGA one but let's see!

Thank you for your help and suggestions. I appreciate.

 

[ryderpat]

in my case that after Flash the card as the efi bios is "GTX680-4GB.ROM"
some port via LG 34UC79G on 3.1 has issus like ..
* HDMI boot in Desktop will Re-Arrange Desktop Icon. (All macOS)
* System PCI-E Info appear on Maverick but " GTX680-4GB-DVI.rom " are not.
* Display Port Issue on Catalina in Black Screen. then you must change to other port.
* DVI are not work perfect.

most perfectly is HDMI.

but if you flash by " GTX680-4GB-DVI.rom " it will Unbootable Recovery Partition on macOS Mojave, Sierra

 

[kondrat]

Just flashed MSI GTX 680 Twin Frozr 2GB with mac rom. Works fine both macOS Catalina, Windows 10 and Boot.

If someone ever needs original (backup-non-mac) rom, find it attached.

 

[Sandleford]

I am wondering if I should try to flash it again or according to the rom info displayed it was successful and the situation would not change...

In case of flashing it again, would I have to follow any different step or following the same steps should be ok?

Thank you.

I'd say if you get the boot picker and everything else ok I'd leave it. But may be a solution somewhere. Post the outcome?

 

[r6mile]

Hi everyone, is it absolutely necessary to use Windows to flash a GTX 680?

In my iMac I flashed a Quadro K2100M using this USB Linux method - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-175?post=28184981#post-28184981 - and it worked well, it uses NVflash etc. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work with a Mac Pro? I really cannot be bothered to go through the hassle of Windows etc...

 

[FlorisVN]

Hi everyone, is it absolutely necessary to use Windows to flash a GTX 680?

In my iMac I flashed a Quadro K2100M using this USB Linux method - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-175?post=28184981#post-28184981 - and it worked well, it uses NVflash etc. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work with a Mac Pro? I really cannot be bothered to go through the hassle of Windows etc...

i expect nvflash under linux / freedos to also work just fine.

always make a backup of course.. ?

 

[mckyvlle]

I used FreeDOS and an old version of NVflash for DOS (nvflash_5.128.0.1 from TechPowerUp.com) to flash mine. EFI ROM is from a MacRumors thread.

My card is a reference design, made by KFA2.

 

[r6mile]

Hi everyone, is it absolutely necessary to use Windows to flash a GTX 680?

In my iMac I flashed a Quadro K2100M using this USB Linux method - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....1596614/page-175?post=28184981#post-28184981 - and it worked well, it uses NVflash etc. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work with a Mac Pro? I really cannot be bothered to go through the hassle of Windows etc...

I can confirm this works, to flash a GTX 680 on a 3,1 Mac Pro! @z33capt13n managed this (with my modest remote assistance). If people don't want to go through the trouble of installing Windows or something else just for this, this works!

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

Very odd situation for me. So I bought an EVGA GTX 680 card from eBay. The item title said 4G but it is actually a 2G... Okay not a huge deal.

So I went ahead to flash it in my IBM PC compatbile next to the MP. I used a Fedora live USB (safe graphics mode because regular mode wouldn't work) and nvflash for Linux. And I gave "./nvflash_linux --save orig.rom". It worked flawlessly. The size of the file looked familiar, turns out the content of the rom is exactly the same as the content of the EGVA Mac edition rom...

I flashed it anyway (also no fuss). But I don't see boot screen in my 5,1 having the card installed. My monitor is a 4K and it is connected to card using DP if that matters.

 

[r6mile]

Very odd situation for me. So I bought an EVGA GTX 680 card from eBay. The item title said 4G but it is actually a 2G... Okay not a huge deal.

So I went ahead to flash it in my IBM PC compatbile next to the MP. I used a Fedora live USB (safe graphics mode because regular mode wouldn't work) and nvflash for Linux. And I gave "./nvflash_linux --save orig.rom". It worked flawlessly. The size of the file looked familiar, turns out the content of the rom is exactly the same as the content of the EGVA Mac edition rom...

I flashed it anyway (also no fuss). But I don't see boot screen in my 5,1 having the card installed. My monitor is a 4K and it is connected to card using DP if that matters.

I'm not sure a flashed GTX 680 can display boot screen over DP 4k at 60Hz. Have you tried at 30Hz just to test? Or another video input (hdmi, dvi)?

 

[FlorisVN]

Very odd situation for me. So I bought an EVGA GTX 680 card from eBay. The item title said 4G but it is actually a 2G... Okay not a huge deal.

So I went ahead to flash it in my IBM PC compatbile next to the MP. I used a Fedora live USB (safe graphics mode because regular mode wouldn't work) and nvflash for Linux. And I gave "./nvflash_linux --save orig.rom". It worked flawlessly. The size of the file looked familiar, turns out the content of the rom is exactly the same as the content of the EGVA Mac edition rom...

I flashed it anyway (also no fuss). But I don't see boot screen in my 5,1 having the card installed. My monitor is a 4K and it is connected to card using DP if that matters.

also tested with a non 4K display already.. ?
also try with an nvram reset..

as far as I know gtx680 is limited at 30hz on 4K, correct me if Im wrong of course..

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

You are correct folks! Boot screen shows up when connecting to a 1440x900 monitor.

If I boot a Mojave install USB it would refuse to install (claims that graphics is not Metal compatible). I think I saw someone mentioned this Mojave bug somewhere but I cannot remember where now.

 

[FlorisVN]

You are correct folks! Boot screen shows up when connecting to a 1440x900 monitor.

If I boot a Mojave install USB it would refuse to install (claims that graphics is not Metal compatible). I think I saw someone mentioned this Mojave bug somewhere but I cannot remember where now.

Hmm strange about mojave, ive installed it just fine with my flashed gtx680

 

[KeesMacPro]

If I boot a Mojave install USB it would refuse to install (claims that graphics is not Metal compatible). I think I saw someone mentioned this Mojave bug somewhere but I cannot remember where now.

Correct, this is mentioned in the first post of the Mojave thread by @tsialex .

 

[macguru9999]

Hmm strange about mojave, ive installed it just fine with my flashed gtx680

I think the recent mojave installer released no longer has this bug. works fine with the gtx 680

 

[FlorisVN]

I think the recent mojave installer released no longer has this bug. works fine with the gtx 680

perhaps indeed, as far as I can remember there where also some kepler bugs in high sierra and early mojave builds.
correct me if im wrong of course.

But these days with latest Mojave, it runs just fine for me..