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

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What is the remedy if someone updated from 10.10.3 to 10.10.4 and now only gets a black screen? The Mac has a GTX 960 in it (non-flashed). Is there a way to enter boot args at startup to disable the nvidia drivers so he can load the new web drivers? Or, is he out of luck and needs an old Apple video card to install and boot with?

Or, any other solutions?
 
dmylrea said:
What is the remedy if someone updated from 10.10.3 to 10.10.4 and now only gets a black screen? The Mac has a GTX 960 in it (non-flashed). Is there a way to enter boot args at startup to disable the nvidia drivers so he can load the new web drivers? Or, is he out of luck and needs an old Apple video card to install and boot with?

Or, any other solutions?
Click to expand...

You can attach to the system via screen sharing or VNC, but yeah, the simplest solution is to just boot up with a card with an EFI on it.
 
Asgorath said:
You can attach to the system via screen sharing or VNC, but yeah, the simplest solution is to just boot up with a card with an EFI on it.
Click to expand...
They have a Macbook Pro. Is that what you mean by screen sharing? Connect the Macbook Pro and boot it somehow to see the screen on the Mac Pro?
 
dmylrea said:
They have a Macbook Pro. Is that what you mean by screen sharing? Connect the Macbook Pro and boot it somehow to see the screen on the Mac Pro?
Click to expand...

Right, boot both machines, connect to the Mac Pro from the MacBook Pro via Screen Sharing (or VNC). If you haven't enabled Screen Sharing on the Mac Pro, you're pretty much SOL.
 
Asgorath said:
Right, boot both machines, connect to the Mac Pro from the MacBook Pro via Screen Sharing (or VNC). If you haven't enabled Screen Sharing on the Mac Pro, you're pretty much SOL.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking I'm in the SOL boat because I don't think screen sharing is enabled, unless that is the default.

Can the Mac Pro be booted into Recovery mode and the terminal app run from there, and then the boot-arg command (sudo nvram boot-args="nv_disable=1") entered, then reboot?
 
dmylrea said:
I'm thinking I'm in the SOL boat because I don't think screen sharing is enabled, unless that is the default.

Can the Mac Pro be booted into Recovery mode and the terminal app run from there, and then the boot-arg command (sudo nvram boot-args="nv_disable=1") entered, then reboot?
Click to expand...

If you don't have an EFI on the card, the screen won't light up at all until the system successfully boots to the desktop. The stock Apple drivers (both in the regular OS and recovery OS) will kernel panic if you are using a Maxwell card. So at this point, you'll need an EFI card to do anything. Do you not have your original card?
 
Asgorath said:
If you don't have an EFI on the card, the screen won't light up at all until the system successfully boots to the desktop. The stock Apple drivers (both in the regular OS and recovery OS) will kernel panic if you are using a Maxwell card. So at this point, you'll need an EFI card to do anything. Do you not have your original card?
Click to expand...
I do, but the problem is the person that has the Mac Pro is in another state and they don't. Ugh...
 
dmylrea said:
What is the remedy if someone updated from 10.10.3 to 10.10.4 and now only gets a black screen? The Mac has a GTX 960 in it (non-flashed). Is there a way to enter boot args at startup to disable the nvidia drivers so he can load the new web drivers? Or, is he out of luck and needs an old Apple video card to install and boot with?

Or, any other solutions?
Click to expand...

Until Apple gets off their butts, there is no way to use a Maxwell card without an EFI backup card or some other pre-planning.
 
dmylrea said:
I'm thinking I'm in the SOL boat because I don't think screen sharing is enabled, unless that is the default.
Click to expand...

I'd boot up in safe mode (should prevent the default Nvidia kext to load thus avoiding a kernel panic; won't give you any video output though) and try to enable screen sharing via command line blindly.
Opening up the terminal is easy (Cmd+Shift to open Spotlight, "Terminal", <Enter>), the command to enable screen sharing might need a few tries (don't know it by heart but it's rather long).

Maybe it's even possible to boot the MacPro in target mode and manipulate some .plists form your MacBook to enable file sharing. Chances are that this will mess up file permissions though.
 
I remember back in the day when I was doing Hackintoshes, that I could boot in verbose mode and it would let me enter boot args during boot. That's not possible with OSX?
 
MacVidCards said:
Until Apple gets off their butts, there is no way to use a Maxwell card without an EFI backup card or some other pre-planning.
Click to expand...
Even with an integrated graphics card? Does it panic when it realizes that it has a non-EFI Maxwell card?
 
jblagden said:
Even with an integrated graphics card? Does it panic when it realizes that it has a non-EFI Maxwell card?
Click to expand...

Are you talking about a Maxwell card connected to a MacBook Pro as eGPU?

AFAIK if OS X drivers are loaded, and if KEXTs are edited for eGPU (PCI-Thunderbolt tunneling), yes it panics. If they are not edited for eGPU they will not recognize the external Maxwell card, and OS X will start fine.
 
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People are reporting that the Safari and Messages crashes are fixed by the f03 driver, so I'd suggest giving that a spin if you were affected by those issues.
 
dmylrea said:
I do, but the problem is the person that has the Mac Pro is in another state and they don't. Ugh...
Click to expand...

It is possible he is close enough to someone on this list that one of us could help him? I suspect stranger things have happened...

Other thoughts:

You could get a cheap SSD and USB3 external case, set it up, and mail it to him. He could then boot and fix.

You could make a bootable USB stick and mail it to him. He could then boot and fix.

He could pull the Apricorn card, mail it to you for you to fix after connecting to it via something like NewerTech's Universal Drive Adapter. Mail it back and he pops it in...voila!

This list of possibilities likely goes on and on. I keep an extra drive with a safety OS for this very reason.

-Saint
 
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