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

[m4v3r1ck]

CUDA 6.5 Production Release with Support for GeForce GTX9xx GPUs

Just came across this on the Nvidia website, perhaps this might help the lucky ones with a GTX-9XX GC fixing their CUDA.

cuda-downloads-geforce-gtx9xx

These toolkits contain support for the GeForce GTX980 and GTX970, including compatible drivers. In addition, driver support for older generation GPUs with SM1.x has been deprecated.

Cheers

 

[apphotography]

The GTX 980 look great in the Mac Pro, but is there a glass or acrylic side panel I can buy to show off those lights?

 

[Gav Mack]

The GTX 980 look great in the Mac Pro, but is there a glass or acrylic side panel I can buy to show off those lights?

Image

I have had a client had a whole side panel copied by CNC cutter made out of acrylic but attaching it didn't look that good with sticky Velcro pads at the top spoiled the look of it really. And acrylic doesnt age very well either. Though if you have access to a workshop it wouldn't be that difficult to get a letterbox shape drilled out, the edges countersunk on a clear acrylic or polycarbonate panel inserted in for the window and glued in from the inside. You would lose the whole Apple logo on the side.

Have no idea how much they would charge nowadays, when my brother had his plastic injection mouldings/short run toolmaking business and had all the machinery and materials in the workshop that would have been a Saturday afternoons work to do with him giving me a hand. I used to put clear panels in speaker boxes in the late 80's early 90's to see the woofers with lighting inside too - in the era when I had hair on my head and before loud music gave me tinnitus!

 

[apphotography]

I have had a client had a whole side panel copied by CNC cutter made out of acrylic but attaching it didn't look that good with sticky Velcro pads at the top spoiled the look of it really. And acrylic doesnt age very well either.

Thanks Gav, glass or acrylic won't allow heat to escape well either.

 

[Gav Mack]

Thanks Gav, glass or acrylic won't allow heat to escape well either.

The whole panel did not look very nice to me at all - but a polycarbonate window countersunk and glued from the inside to fit flush with the case panel would. If you wanted airflow out of it you could drill and countersink holes in that but polycarbonate has a habit of going brittle if you drill too many holes in it. Acrylic is easy but degrades with heat cycles. It would be a letterbox shape with curves instead of corners and the only really tricky bit would be countersinking the polycarbonate. If you cut the edges too quickly or the cutter was even slightly blunt the whole thing will crack and you would have to start again. Mind you I am relating this to the materials that were available 15-25 years ago there may be much better alternatives now as brother sold that business 15 years ago and now refurbishes auto transmissions. He has the much of the machinery even now but it's not in a clean enough state to even attempt doing a project like this!

 

[sebseb]

Is there a way to use the 75W offered on the slots 2,3,4 and the 2x 6 pin power cables to have a total of 325W to feed into a graphics card installed on PCIe Slot 1?

 

[Pending]

Anyone bootcamp windows gaming with a GTX970 in their cMP?

 

[MacVidCards]

Is there a way to use the 75W offered on the slots 2,3,4 and the 2x 6 pin power cables to have a total of 325W to feed into a graphics card installed on PCIe Slot 1?

EVGA once offered such a thing I believe.

 

[sebseb]

EVGA once offered such a thing I believe.

Is there a reason they stop making them? Does it harm the computer?

cause theoretically it shouldn't. The only disadvantage is that you can't connect any other card.

 

[davis12]

Mac Pro 4,1 early 09 Compatible card

Hi guys,
There is like 71 pages in this thread and I got all dizzy trying to figure out which card is supported on both 10.10 and the mac pro 4,1 early 09 and also supporting the boot EFI, it have to work 100% like the ATI radeon 5870 that died on me yesterday
I don't really need a monster of a card, 2gb will be more then enough but its all a question of a price, if I can get a bigger card for a bit more or the same price no need to say..
Can anybody be so kind and write an updated list with the card/s needed and the latest software for the flashing?

Thanks a lot guys for this great work you are doing for the Mac community!

 

[sebseb]

Hi guys,
There is like 71 pages in this thread and I got all dizzy trying to figure out which card is supported on both 10.10 and the mac pro 4,1 early 09 and also supporting the boot EFI, it have to work 100% like the ATI radeon 5870 that died on me yesterday
I don't really need a monster of a card, 2gb will be more then enough but its all a question of a price, if I can get a bigger card for a bit more or the same price no need to say..
Can anybody be so kind and write an updated list with the card/s needed and the latest software for the flashing?

Thanks a lot guys for this great work you are doing for the Mac community!

It's been a while that they don't make graphics card for Mac Pro! You can use almost any PC Card and it will work but you won't get EFI and pcie 2.0.

Check MacVidCards, he has a nice selection of Nvidia and amd cards. They are already flashed, they come with a little warranty as well. Many have bought from him and he has been doing it for 5 years now.

You could buy a card and flash it yourself but if you do something wrong and brick it then you loose a lot money!

 

[davis12]

Thank you Sebseb - What about future proofing? If I buy one flashed or flash it my self is it possible for apple to block those through an update?
I have an old ATI radeon 5870 for PC 1GB where can I get the rom+flashing software? and do I have to flash it through a Mac Pro?

 

[sebseb]

Thank you Sebseb - What about future proofing? If I buy one flashed or flash it my self is it possible for apple to block those through an update?
I have an old ATI radeon 5870 for PC 1GB where can I get the rom+flashing software? and do I have to flash it through a Mac Pro?

I've never flashed a card myself so I can't help you much there but about future proofing, well you can get an nvidia GTX Titan and I think it will last pretty long time or wait for a flashed GTX 980 from MVC and the drivers are included in the OS X. I don't think they would block a card but we can't predict what apple does. However MVC uses card that he knows are supported on the Mac Pro and he makes a rom for each card, making sure it works flawlessly.

In case you prefer to have a 5870, you can find second hand on ebay that are Apple OEM that has mini display port.

 

[davis12]

I've never flashed a card myself so I can't help you much there but about future proofing, well you can get an nvidia GTX Titan and I think it will last pretty long time or wait for a flashed GTX 980 from MVC and the drivers are included in the OS X. I don't think they would block a card but we can't predict what apple does. However MVC uses card that he knows are supported on the Mac Pro and he makes a rom for each card, making sure it works flawlessly.

In case you prefer to have a 5870, you can find second hand on ebay that are Apple OEM that has mini display port.

Did I understood you correct that the GTX titan works also with the efi boot without any flashing needed?

 

[sebseb]

Did I understood you correct that the GTX titan works also with the efi boot without any flashing needed?

No not without being flashed. No card will have EFI without being flashed. However you can buy a flashed Titan and Titan black from MVC.

 

[Rootarty]

Installing PC Quadro 4000 into a Mac Pro - troubleshooting

Hi again guys,

I am now at the install/set up step in my quest to use a PC (for Lenovo desktop) Quadro 4000 in my MacPro (5,1 mid2010).

I pre-installed the (I believe) appropriate Nvidia Mac driver for my Mavericks OS (OS X 10.9.5 [13F34]), which is listed in the Nvidia Driver Manager as the 334.01.03f01 version driver. (Though I didn’t install the separate[?] CUDA driver which I thought should be installed after getting the card working)

The Display Port (male) to Mini DisplayPort (female) adapter had finally arrived in the post, so I took out the current card, ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB, and replaced it with the Quadro in Slot 1 (16x). I used the same power cable that the Radeon was using to connect the Quadro to the mother board into ‘aux power 2’ which is where it was plugged in for the Radeon.

I reconnected all the plugs : power, Mini Display Port, LAN cable, keyboard…..and powered up the MacPro but despite the Mac starting up the monitor just showed a black screen.
I opened it all up and double and triple checked and tried again. Still a black screen.

I took out the PC Quadro 4000 and put the Radeon back in and everything works normally. I believe I have followed all the instructions for this ‘PC Nvidia card in a Mac Pro’ install process found here :

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1440150/

Anyone see anything I’m doing wrong or can suggest any trouble shooting ideas?
My own ideas where things might be going wrong :
- The MiniDisplay Port to Display Port adapter just doesn’t work for some reason ?
- The power cable I used from the Radeon isn’t compatible with this PC Quadro card? Though it plugs in fine. Not supplying enough power ?
- The driver doesn’t work ? Wrong version ?
- The Cuda driver also needs to be downloaded before installing the card ?
- Putting the Quadro in the first x16 slot is an issue ?

I would really appreciate any advice here. If, for some reason, this PC Quadro just can’t work, then I’ll have to sell it on eBay or something and buy an expensive Mac version
I'm throwing myself on the mercy of the forums…..Lou, MacVidCards and others.
( I included photos for reference to what I’m describing above )

Wade

 

[MacVidCards]

Hi again guys,

I am now at the install/set up step in my quest to use a PC (for Lenovo desktop) Quadro 4000 in my MacPro (5,1 mid2010).

I pre-installed the (I believe) appropriate Nvidia Mac driver for my Mavericks OS (OS X 10.9.5 [13F34]), which is listed in the Nvidia Driver Manager as the 334.01.03f01 version driver. (Though I didn’t install the separate[?] CUDA driver which I thought should be installed after getting the card working)

The Display Port (male) to Mini DisplayPort (female) adapter had finally arrived in the post, so I took out the current card, ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB, and replaced it with the Quadro in Slot 1 (16x). I used the same power cable that the Radeon was using to connect the Quadro to the mother board into ‘aux power 2’ which is where it was plugged in for the Radeon.

I reconnected all the plugs : power, Mini Display Port, LAN cable, keyboard…..and powered up the MacPro but despite the Mac starting up the monitors just showed a black screen.
I opened it all up and double and triple checked and tried again. Still a black screen.

I took out the PC Quadro 4000 and put the Radeon back in and everything works normally. I believe I have followed all the instructions for this ‘PC Nvidia card in a Mac Pro’ install process found here :

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1440150/

Anyone see anything I’m doing wrong or can suggest any trouble shooting ideas?
My own ideas where things might be going wrong :
- The MiniDisplay Port to Display Port adapter just doesn’t work for some reason ?
- The power cable I used from the Radeon isn’t compatible with this PC Quadro card? Though it plugs in fine. Not supplying enough power ?
- The driver doesn’t work ? Wrong version ?
- The Cuda driver also needs to be downloaded before installing the card ?
- Putting the Quadro in the first x16 slot is an issue ?

I would really appreciate any advice here. If, for some reason, this PC Quadro just can’t work, then I’ll have to sell it on eBay or something and buy an expensive Mac version
I'm throwing myself on the mercy of the forums…..Lou, MacVidCards and others.
( I included photos for reference to what I’m describing above )

Wade

That should work. Power cable is fine. The only slightly off thing is that Mac Q4000 has 1 DP and PC one had 2.

Did you try both ports?

Keep in mind that you need to turn on Auto login and wait as long or longer than it typically takes to get to desktop.

Are you 100% certain the Quadro was fully functional?

Do you have a Mac laptop or other mac that you could use to log in via remote desktop? Could get better answers that way.

 

[Rootarty]

Installing PC Quadro 4000 into a Mac Pro - troubleshooting

Thanks for the ideas, MacVidCards.

I bought this card second hand but basically unused from a source I trust. I can't test it in a PC desktop without going to the trouble of finding someone local who might let me try it in their desktop.I was told it worked perfectly at the time of shipping and it was extremely well packed for protection. Padded boxes within boxes.

I did try both Display Ports ..1 and 2. But this was after booting up plugged into one with a black screen...I switched to the other port. Would I need to actually boot in each Display Port to properly test this?

I waited quite some time to see if anything happened. I believe it was more than long enough for something to happen. The screen would be black the whole time until it finally turns on all of a sudden ?

I already had auto-login enabled but googled it for Mavericks and went back in to be sure it was activated for my regular User Account.

I have an old MacAir I tried to remote access the MacPro with but it is in very bad condition and doesn't seem to be responding to TeamViewer (remote software) invitations. I can borrow my wifes computer (brand new MacBook or PowerBook, forget which) tomorrow night I think which would be far less hassle than trying to get this dying MacAir cleaned up and operational again.

So, what would I do with remote desktop access to the MacPro with the (not working) PC Quadro card inside? Go to System Report to see if the Quadro is being detected at all? Are there any other troubleshooting ideas you have in mind for me to pursue at that point ?

Any suggestions much appreciated !

Wade

 

[apphotography]

Thanks for the ideas, MacVidCards.

I bought this card second hand but basically unused from a source I trust. I can't test it in a PC desktop without going to the trouble of finding someone local who might let me try it in their desktop.I was told it worked perfectly at the time of shipping and it was extremely well packed for protection. Padded boxes within boxes.

I did try both Display Ports ..1 and 2. But this was after booting up plugged into one with a black screen...I switched to the other port. Would I need to actually boot in each Display Port to properly test this?

Wade

My GTX 980 had the same problem when I had Trim enabler installed and kext signing disabled. When I removed the app and restored kext signing the video signal returned.

 

[Rootarty]

I don't have Trim Enabler

My GTX 980 had the same problem when I had Trim enabler installed and kext signing disabled. When I removed the app and restored kext signing the video signal returned.

Thanks for the reply, apphotography. I did a search for Trim Enabler in Activity Monitor and Applications and as I thought, I don't have it on my system. I have a solid state drive in my second x16 slot just as an extra drive, but it doesn't have any such apps associated with it.

As for the restoring kext signing, I wouldn't have a clue if that's the problem or how to fix it if it was. Unfortunately I'm a motion graphics guy and not a techie by any stretch. Is it still something I need to look into considering I don't have Trim Enabler?

Thoughts appreciated,
Wade

 

[apphotography]

Thanks for the reply, apphotography. I did a search for Trim Enabler in Activity Monitor and Applications and as I thought, I don't have it on my system. I have a solid state drive in my second x16 slot just as an extra drive, but it doesn't have any such apps associated with it.

As for the restoring kext signing, I wouldn't have a clue if that's the problem or how to fix it if it was. Unfortunately I'm a motion graphics guy and not a techie by any stretch. Is it still something I need to look into considering I don't have Trim Enabler?

Thoughts appreciated,
Wade

If you didn't install Trim Enabler then your kexts will be fine. Try moving the SSD to the 4x slot, there's more than enough bandwidth there. Or even remove it until you sort out the video.

 

[Rootarty]

If you didn't install Trim Enabler then your kexts will be fine. Try moving the SSD to the 4x slot, there's more than enough bandwidth there. Or even remove it until you sort out the video.

Do you mean to move the SSD to the 4x slot and then move the Quadro to slot 2 (16x).....or to just leave it where it is in Slot 1 (16x). Sorry, if I'm asking things which seem obvious....I'm a total noob.

 

[apphotography]

Do you mean to move the SSD to the 4x slot and then move the Quadro to slot 2 (16x).....or to just leave it where it is in Slot 1 (16x). Sorry, if I'm asking things which seem obvious....I'm a total noob.

I was just trying to see what would happen if your configuration was the same as mine and checking if you have power draw issues. Keep Quadro in the first 16x slot. Move the SSD to the last 4x slot or remove it from the system. I wish you had Boot Camp installed to check things from Windows' end.

 

[Ruce]

GTX750ti and black screen

Hi!

I just buy MSI GTX750 TI OC and put it in my Mac Pro 1.1 Yosemite 10.10.1.
Have new NVIDIA drivers (343.01.02f01) from their site. Try to boot but i only get black screen. 750gtx fans starts spinning so it's properly installed. Try hdmi and dvi ports, but dosnt matter, black screen. OS X boot with NVIDIA drivers. MSI GTX750 doesn't need extra power.

Try also with my old 8600gts and it worked just fine.

What i should do and try?

EDIT: Also ATI Radeon HD5770 (pc-version, no flash) works with my MacPro with default os x graphics driver

 

[keantan]

Hey all,

Just reporting in. I've just upgraded my Mac Pro 5,1 to an ASUS GTX 970 STRIX, used the drivers on the first post, installed, switched the driver (was already automatically selected), swapped the card and it was pretty much plug and play. Im using the Mac Pro's internal PSU.

1 caveat: The STRIX GTX 970 does NOT come with a dual 6pin to 8 pin converter inside the box. I thought it did initially, when I checked the box, it doesn't! Had to go back to the store and get one, the chap behind the counter was kind enough to give me a spare one FOC.

Other than that, installing bootcamp-ed windows now #