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ShadowofBob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 24, 2011
10
0
Palo Alto, CA
So I recently got an eVGA 980 Ti SC from someone that has a genuine MVC flash on it. I am trying to to use it on my 2010 5,1 but no matter the mac OS revision and matching webdriver version I get a kernel panic on boot resulting in a boot loop. Resetting the nvram breaks it out of the loop as that clears the nvda_drv = 1 argument. Card works great in Windows 10, but also wanted to use it in mac OS.

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro5,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3.33 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 12
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB
Memory: 48 GB
Boot ROM Version: 144.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 1.39f11
SMC Version (processor tray): 1.39f11
512GB NVMe boot drive
Mac OS 10.13.6 (17G14042) and (17G14033)
nVidia web driver 387.10.10.10.40.140 and 387.10.10.10.40.139
eVGA 980 Ti SC ACX 2.0, no backplate

So far I've done the following.
1. Tried an unflashed 780 Ti and K620 with the same webdriver/OS combinations and had no issues booting.
2. Moved the 980 Ti to another 2010 5,1 w/ Single CPU and saw the same error on the same and different boot drives. Pretty much isolating this to the 980 Ti.
3. Played games and used the 980 Ti under Windows 10 for hours with no issues.

At this point I'm almost certain it is tied to the 980 Ti, but I'm not sure how to move forward with further diagnosis or solutions. The previous owner said he had no issues in High Sierra, but didn't have the latest updates. I've contacted MVC to see if they can assist, but haven't heard back yet. I've attached the output from the kernel panic below.

I can only think to try an earlier version of High Sierra/webdriver combo or find an original unmodified card firmware to try flash if I can backup the MVC one and see if that resolves it somehow.

Would appreciate any thoughts or ideas.
 

Attachments

  • 980crashlog.txt
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ShadowofBob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 24, 2011
10
0
Palo Alto, CA
Tried swapping BIOS to the factory EVGA one and still got boot loop only now without EFI.:( Restored the MVC one.
Also gave an earlier High Sierra Build a try 17G6030 with no change. Really out of ideas now other than there is some specific hardware item on the card that the nvidia webdrivers don't like.
 

ShadowofBob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 24, 2011
10
0
Palo Alto, CA
So I figured this out! I game on a CRT and was using the 980 Ti's built in DVI-I output to a DVI to VGA adapter. For some reason using this output causes a kernel panic on the nvidia webdriver, but not when using the built in EFI driver. Switching over to a Displayport or DVI-D cable works fine. Even booting up with Displayport and trying to add the DVI-VGA output as a second monitor immediately causes a kernel panic in macOS.

This same adapter did work on the original ATI HD 5770 that came with my 5,1 in High Sierra so the functionality works at an OS level and w/ the included native ATI driver, but I guess it isn't implemented on the nvidia webdriver.

If anyone else has gotten analog output w/o an active converter (I have one I can use in place of the passive DVI-VGA to avoid this crashing) to work on an nVidia card w/ webdriver I'd be interested to hear how you got it working.
 
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