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Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards

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sirfaliq said:
I found a post somewhere saying that this particular card..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127783

..will work for my mac pro 3.1, complete with the apple boot screen, thanks to the hybrid bios feature on this card (legacy and uefi mode).
Can anyone confirm this?
Click to expand...

It seems you are confused UEFI with the Apple EFI, there is basically no relationship between them. UEFI will do absolutely nothing in a 3,1.

And this card will not work OOTB until Nvidia web driver installed and activated. Before that, only black screen avail, and may cause boot loop.

Unless, it's a flashed card brought from MVC. If not, almost all 750Ti are the same, should work in the 3,1, but no boot screen, and won't show anything until Nvidia web driver activated.
 
orph said:
id gess the display driver is not for your version of osx so will not install >.< seems simple whats the problem?

Astro7x what gpu are you on now, will a GTX970 give you any speed up and what for?
Click to expand...

I have the stock 2009 Mac Pro GPU. Using it for Adobe Premiere rendering for color correction.

I found a good deal on a refurb GTX970, though price wasn't too much of a concern.
 
pastrychef said:
You are not going to get Apple boot screen unless the card has Mac EFI firmware.
Click to expand...
Noted. Thanks.

h9826790 said:
It seems you are confused UEFI with the Apple EFI, there is basically no relationship between them. UEFI will do absolutely nothing in a 3,1.

And this card will not work OOTB until Nvidia web driver installed and activated. Before that, only black screen avail, and may cause boot loop.

Unless, it's a flashed card brought from MVC. If not, almost all 750Ti are the same, should work in the 3,1, but no boot screen, and won't show anything until Nvidia web driver activated.
Click to expand...
I see.. thanks for the explanation. This is where I got that idea (that it will work with boot screen and all) from:
http://imgur.com/gallery/HtlgP

This is what he said.. lol :
The primary reason I use this card.
The most important reason though is what MSi calls Hybrid BIOS. Legacy mode, switch position 1, is called Legacy mode, and works as you would expect on a Mac with no Apple Boot logo or startup screen. You eventually end up on your chosen desktop, but you do not have access to your Startup Disc screen. Switch position 2 enables UEFI support and gives you the full Apple Boot experience. No more flashing headaches or injecting UEFI into the BIOS.

Anyway, I've purchased a 750ti from mvc, waiting for it to arrive. :D
 
sirfaliq said:
This is what he said.. lol :
The primary reason I use this card.
The most important reason though is what MSi calls Hybrid BIOS. Legacy mode, switch position 1, is called Legacy mode, and works as you would expect on a Mac with no Apple Boot logo or startup screen. You eventually end up on your chosen desktop, but you do not have access to your Startup Disc screen. Switch position 2 enables UEFI support and gives you the full Apple Boot experience. No more flashing headaches or injecting UEFI into the BIOS.

Anyway, I've purchased a 750ti from mvc, waiting for it to arrive. :D
Click to expand...

This is possible... Some AMD cards have this ability. But the the second switch position still hast to have Mac EFI, not UEFI.
 
sirfaliq said:
Noted. Thanks.


I see.. thanks for the explanation. This is where I got that idea (that it will work with boot screen and all) from:
http://imgur.com/gallery/HtlgP

This is what he said.. lol :
The primary reason I use this card.
The most important reason though is what MSi calls Hybrid BIOS. Legacy mode, switch position 1, is called Legacy mode, and works as you would expect on a Mac with no Apple Boot logo or startup screen. You eventually end up on your chosen desktop, but you do not have access to your Startup Disc screen. Switch position 2 enables UEFI support and gives you the full Apple Boot experience. No more flashing headaches or injecting UEFI into the BIOS.

Anyway, I've purchased a 750ti from mvc, waiting for it to arrive. :D
Click to expand...

He is definitely wrong and don't know what he was saying. There are lots of UEFI card out there, if UEFI can provide boot screen, no one need to flash their card. Also, if UEFI can provide boot screen, why any Mac Pro user want to boot from the legacy BIOS?

AFAIK, NO card has Mac EFI + Legacy ROM from factory. Even the Sapphire HD7950 Mac Edition card is shipping with Mac EFI + UEFI, but not Mac EFI + Legacy.
 
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And you can only can modify a rom to flash it , if the rom is Legacy. You cannot modify a UEFI rom to EFI rom. It will not work. There are sellers on ebay say lies.
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neonart said:
Are there any other cards besides the GTX 680 that are user flashable? What are considered better cards for the money if you are ok without the boot screen?

Seems like GTX680s demand a premium...
Click to expand...
The better card for the money right NOW (prices change every day...) is AMD RX 470. Absolutely brilliant card. Low consumption, tons of strength, perfect open CL for FCPx You just have to patch the frame buffer. Better of nvidia at price. But consider to buy a non reference card with 4GB. 8GB is overkill.
 
Hello. I purchased a Nvidia GTX 680 to replace the default Nvidia GT 120 on my late 2009 Mac Pro 4,1. I purchased a Mini-Displayport to Displayport adapter to connect it up to the Apple Cinema Display monitor. Also, I purchased two 6-pin Molex cables to power the GPU. I inserted everything carefully and correctly, and installed the latest CUDA drivers and appropriate Web drivers for my 10.11.0 El Capitan OS. But I am getting no response from the card. When I power up the computer, the fans spin into action, and the Nvidia Web driver recognizes that there is a card in PCIE port 1 (although it is not labled GTX 680, but a string of characters). I don't know what could be wrong or how to troubleshoot this issue. Could I have installed the wrong drivers for the wrong OS? Could any of the three physical components be broken? Do I need an 8-pin power cable instead of two 6-pin cables? I don't know. Do you have any suggestions? I will provide more details if requested.
 
Quick question. I have a Mac Pro with a non flashed 970 in it. Will I be able to install Windows 10 on bootcamp or do I need the boot screens to see the install process? Also why is my mac 5870 also not showing any boot screens? (I have a 1440p monitor running on DisplayPort if that is relevant)
 
mgmtm3 said:
Quick question. I have a Mac Pro with a non flashed 970 in it. Will I be able to install Windows 10 on bootcamp or do I need the boot screens to see the install process? Also why is my mac 5870 also not showing any boot screens? (I have a 1440p monitor running on DisplayPort if that is relevant)
Click to expand...

Your 5870 is the Apple stock 5870, but not a flashed card?
 
I don't know. It came with the computer and has the extended mount specifically made for the Mac Pro but I never get the boot screen. The screen only turns on when I get to the OS.
 
Morgan Stack said:
Hello. I purchased a Nvidia GTX 680 to replace the default Nvidia GT 120 on my late 2009 Mac Pro 4,1. I purchased a Mini-Displayport to Displayport adapter to connect it up to the Apple Cinema Display monitor. Also, I purchased two 6-pin Molex cables to power the GPU. I inserted everything carefully and correctly, and installed the latest CUDA drivers and appropriate Web drivers for my 10.11.0 El Capitan OS. But I am getting no response from the card. When I power up the computer, the fans spin into action, and the Nvidia Web driver recognizes that there is a card in PCIE port 1 (although it is not labled GTX 680, but a string of characters). I don't know what could be wrong or how to troubleshoot this issue. Could I have installed the wrong drivers for the wrong OS? Could any of the three physical components be broken? Do I need an 8-pin power cable instead of two 6-pin cables? I don't know. Do you have any suggestions? I will provide more details if requested.
Click to expand...
It's just possible that the card or the power cables are not properly seated/inserted so I would try taking everything out & carefully putting it all back again. The installed software is irrelevant as the GTX680 is supported natively in OS X.
I assume that it's a used card you purchased as new GTX680s are all but unavailable now. If reseating everything doesn't work then I suspect that the card itself is defective. Can you check it in a PC?
 
Sorry for ATI/AMD related question, but I read few years ago that I get boot screen from 5770 with vga from one of those dvi ports. Where was that info? old-macs.com? macvidcards?
 
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nigelbb said:
It's just possible that the card or the power cables are not properly seated/inserted so I would try taking everything out & carefully putting it all back again. The installed software is irrelevant as the GTX680 is supported natively in OS X.
I assume that it's a used card you purchased as new GTX680s are all but unavailable now. If reseating everything doesn't work then I suspect that the card itself is defective. Can you check it in a PC?
Click to expand...

True it's a second-hand GTX 680. I'm fairly sure everything is connected properly. I have no idea if the power cables are doing anything. The card fans spin into action without the need for the power cables. I don't have a PC to check it in, unfortunately. If I installed a Windows partition, would that count? The only thing to my eyes that seems off, is that the CUDA driver gives a message saying it needs updating. I installed the latest version from the NVIDIA website though. I don't have Internet access at home to perform the update though. I presume it's a message that always appears unless the 'check update' button is pressed.

Check out these screenshots here.
http://imgur.com/a/V3JaC
 
Morgan Stack, hay thats vary odd which model of gtx680 is it? (what dose the sticker at the bottom say?)
the webdriver is not needed on the gtx680, have you tried using it with the web driver set to of? (ie use the 'osx default graphic driver")

can you try using the CUDA-Z app http://cuda-z.sourceforge.net/ and post a screenshot of what it says.

it may be something simple like dust in the pci slot have you tried swapping the cards so the 680 is in the bottom slot and the GT120 is in the second slot?

and yes if you can install windows (the 30 day demo is fine) on a partition that is a valid way to test the card, use GPU Z https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ to get info on the card.
 
Agonising over upgrade options to my mid-2010 6 core 3.33ghz. I'm not sure if I'm going to move totally from FCP7 on OS10.8.6 to Premiere, FCX or even Resolve (for editing and colour). So thinking about simple upgrade from Radeon 5870 1gb to 4gb GTX680. That ought to cover me for those CUDA/Open CL applications, right? Or I could go hard for a GTX980Ti if I thought it would speed things up. I'm also planning to upgrade my processor for the same purpose. Any advice welcome.
 
Morgan Stack said:
True it's a second-hand GTX 680. I'm fairly sure everything is connected properly. I have no idea if the power cables are doing anything. The card fans spin into action without the need for the power cables. I don't have a PC to check it in, unfortunately. If I installed a Windows partition, would that count? The only thing to my eyes that seems off, is that the CUDA driver gives a message saying it needs updating. I installed the latest version from the NVIDIA website though. I don't have Internet access at home to perform the update though. I presume it's a message that always appears unless the 'check update' button is pressed.

Check out these screenshots here.
http://imgur.com/a/V3JaC
Click to expand...
Installing a Windows partition is pointless as this is almost certainly a hardware problem so you need to check whether the card works in another system. To complete the troubleshooting you ideally also need to install a known working dual slot dual power supply card into the Mac. Which slot was the GT120 in?

As I mentioned earlier the software installed has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the card will work or not. The CUDA driver doesn't have anything to do with display it's regarding offloading some CPU work to the graphics card for those programs that support CUDA.
 
orph said:
Morgan Stack, hay thats vary odd which model of gtx680 is it? (what dose the sticker at the bottom say?)
the webdriver is not needed on the gtx680, have you tried using it with the web driver set to of? (ie use the 'osx default graphic driver")

can you try using the CUDA-Z app http://cuda-z.sourceforge.net/ and post a screenshot of what it says.

it may be something simple like dust in the pci slot have you tried swapping the cards so the 680 is in the bottom slot and the GT120 is in the second slot?

and yes if you can install windows (the 30 day demo is fine) on a partition that is a valid way to test the card, use GPU Z https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ to get info on the card.
Click to expand...

I used CUDA-Z and was given a peculiar error.
http://imgur.com/a/g3EAO
 
when you say every combination the only correct one is with both power cables plunged in.
it will not work with any combination except all plunged in (ie 2 power cables).

im tempted to say return the card if it's not working with both power cabled plugged in before you cant return it to be safe
 
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