MSI Radeon R9 280X + Dell P2715Q = White Screen

[BlueBubba]

Hello,

I've just bought a 12 Core 2012 cMP with an MSI Radeon R9 280X graphics card.
I'm trying to get it to work with a 4K Dell P2715Q display, but having some issues.

1st I tried the supplied DP to mDP first and all I got was a black screen.
2nd I tried an old display and connected it to the DVI port with the Dell P2715Q disconnected and it worked fine.
3rd I tried a mDP to mDP cable and it worked fine.

Then I rebooted to check it wasn't a one off and I got a white screen. So, I swapped the displays over again and the old display worked fine again. The I went back to the Dell P2715Q and it worked fine too. But again on a reboot I got the white screen.

Seems somehow the old display is resetting the graphics card and lets the Dell P2715Q turn on once.
I can't keep on swapping monitors everytime I want to use the Mac Pro. Does anybody have any idea how to resolve this?

Thanks.

 

[h9826790]

Hello,

I've just bought a 12 Core 2012 cMP with an MSI Radeon R9 280X graphics card.
I'm trying to get it to work with a 4K Dell P2715Q display, but having some issues.

1st I tried the supplied DP to mDP first and all I got was a black screen.
2nd I tried an old display and connected it to the DVI port with the Dell P2715Q disconnected and it worked fine.
3rd I tried a mDP to mDP cable and it worked fine.

Then I rebooted to check it wasn't a one off and I got a white screen. So, I swapped the displays over again and the old display worked fine again. The I went back to the Dell P2715Q and it worked fine too. But again on a reboot I got the white screen.

Seems somehow the old display is resetting the graphics card and lets the Dell P2715Q turn on once.
I can't keep on swapping monitors everytime I want to use the Mac Pro. Does anybody have any idea how to resolve this?

Thanks.

A flashed card?

 

[BlueBubba]

Not sure if it's important, but the Graphics Card is a flashed version, I have a boot screen on the old display.
[doublepost=1505320404][/doublepost]Sorry I wrote that response as the same time as you.

 

[h9826790]

Not sure if it's important, but the Graphics Card is a flashed version, I have a boot screen on the old display.

It is important, switch back to the PC VBIOS then your 4k screen will boot fine

 

[BlueBubba]

How do I do this?

 

[h9826790]

How do I do this?

You should able to flip this switch to another position without taking out the card.

 

[BlueBubba]

Will this remove the flashed BIOS and reset the card or just switch it to the PC version?

 

[h9826790]

Will this remove the flashed BIOS and reset the card or just switch it to the PC version?

It won't damage / erase anything (even if you want to).

There are 2 ROMs on your card, most flashed card only flashed one of the ROM, and leave the other one at stock firmware as a fail safe emergency boot ROM.

When you switch to the other one, you card simply boot from one of the stock ROM (which it is designed to do that). It's actually safer than boot from the flashed ROM.

The Mac EFI ROM still there. And when you need the boot screen. All you need is just flip the switch again, and then connect the card to a non 4K 60Hz display (4K is also OK, but cannot be 60Hz).

But if the seller flashed both ROM on your card, then the simplest work around may be keep the 4K screen completely power off until the card boot to desktop. And of course switch it off (completely) after you shut down your Mac.

 

[BlueBubba]

It won't damage / erase anything (even if you want to).

There are 2 ROMs on your card, most flashed card only flashed one of the ROM, and leave the other one at stock firmware as a fail safe emergency boot ROM.

When you switch to the other one, you card simply boot from one of the stock ROM (which it is designed to do that). It's actually safer than boot from the flashed ROM.

The Mac EFI ROM still there. And when you need the boot screen. All you need is just flip the switch again, and then connect the card to a non 4K 60Hz display (4K is also OK, but cannot be 60Hz).

But if the seller flashed both ROM on your card, then the simplest work around may be keep the 4K screen completely power off until the card boot to desktop. And of course switch it off (completely) after you shut down your Mac.

Thank you so much for your help. This seems to have done the trick. I've done a couple of reboots to double check and all seems well.

 

[itdk92]

Also, we had some troubles with a flashed 280X at some point.

Basically what we had to do was to turn on the Mac first and then the screen after 10-20 sec

hope it helps

 

[h9826790]

Also, we had some troubles with a flashed 280X at some point.

Basically what we had to do was to turn on the Mac first and then the screen after 10-20 sec

hope it helps

Why not simply boot from non EFI ROM? or wait for 20s just enough to bypass the issue, but the monitor can still shows the boot screen?

I didn't own a 4k 60Hz screen yet, can't test it myself.

 

[itdk92]

Why not simply boot from non EFI ROM? or wait for 20s just enough to bypass the issue, but the monitor can still shows the boot screen?

I didn't own a 4k 60Hz screen yet, can't test it myself.

Ok maybe it was an exaggeration to say 10-20 seconds. Basically it was needed to turn on the screen after the mac. It was also the 4K cinema display in the signature, which has historically given problems with pretty much all macs but the cMP.

Using it with the regular ROM was not an option.