Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

DCfilms

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 28, 2010
65
3
Hi

First off i‘m afraid I’m not very computer literate.

in the process of upgrading my Mac Pro 5.1 2010 6-core 3.33. 5770 GPU.

i recently got a Sapphire 580 GPU - I needed a ‘metal’ card in order to go from high sierra to Mojave. I managed to do the kext thing (following instructions) to get audio working on the hdmi and display ports (which Apple had turned off).

today updated the os from High Sierra 13.6 to Mojave 14.6 (I think there was then a safari and security update that I did).

then I installed 2 PCIe cards above the Sapphire: a sonnet fusion dual card that will hold 2 SSDs (currently it’s empty) and a sonnet ‘cheerful‘ usb-c x4 card.

all seemed to be fine... So, next I tried installing software. I’d downloaded a dmg of Avid Media Composer 8.4.5, opened it and installed. (I’d previously done this on a bootcamp partition I made to test out Mojave Before unleashing it on my mac HD and it installed and worked fine). This time though, the install completed and asked for a restart, so I restarted. Only it didn’t restart....

The Mac started up, but my 2 screens have stayed black. Left it a while, but still black. Pressing cmd-c for recovery mode does nothing - still black screens. Tried replugging, swapping screens.

So I swapped the sapphire GPU For the old 5770. Now I’ve got a screen, Apple logo, but the loading bar takes forever with the GPU fan getting very loud and hot and when the bar loads to the end its stuck there (is this because I’m trying to boot Mojave with a non-metal fan?)

Tried recovery with this GPU but it doesn’t work - same logo and loading bar process. If I hold shift I get the option to choose start disk, but despite having my time machine disk plugged into the new usb-c card it only shows the Mac HD (and it’s back to the logo/loading bar). Im guessing that’s because I can only access a time machine disk via recovery mode (cmd-c).

im totally stuck! Did the Avid software cause a corruption? Was it a virus? Or did my new sapphire die, hence the black screen? Though it’s fans are spinning i can hear the HDDs clicking and doing stuff, as though it’s maybe booted up.

i really appreciate an help!
 
Last edited:

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
Hi

First off i‘m afraid I’m not very computer literate.

in the process of upgrading my Mac Pro 5.1 2010 6-core 3.33. 5770 GPU.

i recently got a Sapphire 580 GPU - I needed a ‘metal’ card in order to go from high sierra to Mojave. I managed to do the kext thing (following instructions) to get audio working on the hdmi and display ports (which Apple had turned off).

today updated the os from High Sierra 13.6 to Mojave 14.6 (I think there was then a safari and security update that I did).

then I installed 2 PCIe cards above the Sapphire: a sonnet fusion dual card that will hold 2 SSDs (currently it’s empty) and a sonnet ‘cheerful‘ usb-c x4 card.

all seemed to be fine... So, next I tried installing software. I’d downloaded a dmg of Avid Media Composer 8.4.5, opened it and installed. (I’d previously done this on a bootcamp partition I made to test out Mojave Before unleashing it on my mac HD and it installed and worked fine). This time though, the install completed and asked for a restart, so I restarted. Only it didn’t restart....

The Mac started up, but my 2 screens have stayed black. Left it a while, but still black. Pressing cmd-c for recovery mode does nothing - still black screens. Tried replugging, swapping screens.

So I swapped the sapphire GPU For the old 5770. Now I’ve got a screen, Apple logo, but the loading bar takes forever with the GPU fan getting very loud and hot and when the bar loads to the end its stuck there (is this because I’m trying to boot Mojave with a non-metal fan?)

Tried recovery with this GPU but it doesn’t work - same logo and loading bar process. If I hold shift I get the option to choose start disk, but despite having my time machine disk plugged into the new usb-c card it only shows the Mac HD (and it’s back to the logo/loading bar). Im guessing that’s because I can only access a time machine disk via recovery mode (cmd-c).

im totally stuck! Did the Avid software cause a corruption? Was it a virus? Or did my new sapphire die, hence the black screen? Though it’s fans are spinning i can hear the HDDs clicking and doing stuff, as though it’s maybe booted up.

i really appreciate an help!
Few misconceptions here.

1) All USB cards you installed are not bootable (including ANY drives that connected to your new fusion card by any means). If you want to boot from your TM backup, you have to connect it to one of the native USB 2.0 port, not via any PCIe card. Of course, in your case, you will need a proper USB-C to USB-A adaptor.

2) To boot recovery partition, you should hold Command + R, but not Command + C

3) Mojave allow audio via DP / HDMI, no extra kext required. You should remove all outdated kext.

4) Your screens stay black because the GPU driver never loaded, not because your RX580 suddenly dead. If you want to see the boot screen, you can install OpenCore. I have a pre-created package posted at here.

5) Since the problem happen straight after you installed new software. 99.99% it's the new software's issue, no virus.

If you want to avoid 3rd party kext, you can simply perform NVRAM reset, that will turn on SIP and disabled all 3rd party kexts.

If you want to avoid unnecessary software to be loaded during boot, you can boot to safe mode.

In you case, you should able to boot to safe mode with the 5770, you can try that. And if success, you should remove the newly installed software, and see if you cMP can boot to desktop normally again.
 

tommy chen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2018
907
390
if the avid MC 8.4.5 is a cracked version > it has a troyaner inside!
but this is not your problem with the GPU > do a SMC and 3-times MVRAM reset
 

MIKX

macrumors 68000
Dec 16, 2004
1,815
691
Japan
NVRAM_PRAM_ResetMac.jpg
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.