Resolved No graphics output on EFI NVIDIA, only on AMD

[Rastafabi]

Hello Community!

I am experiencing a very strange issue. I did not even find anything similar on the web, though this does not necessarily mean anything

I managed to get an Mac Pro in original condition for a very convenient price.
Mac Pro 4,1 - ATI 5770 - 16GB Ram...

I did flash it to a 5,1 and updated the EFI to the latest one from Mojave 10.14.1 though for now I’m stuck on High Sierra... I do not get any graphics when using NVIDIA graphics, and that’s not about the boot screen.
Whenever I put in an original EFI NVIDIA GT 120, which works perfectly fine in another Mac Pro or an GTX 1070 which also works flawlessly in the other one I do not get any video. The graphics is however recognised as I saw using VNC and it signals the monitor that it is in use, though this results in a purely black screen (without a mouse).

I did rebuild the kernelcache and reseted PR-Ram/NV-Ram and SMC several times. A few times without any obvious pattern I saw the boot-selector screen using my GT 120, but whenever I booted anything using this (even an USB installer created via the create command, which has a universal kernelcache) the screen turned black as soon as the OS took over. I’m entirely out of ideas, and hope someone got a clue how to solve this or at least proceed testing...

Actually ones I got to the OS using the GT 120. This was on the Mojave drive from the other Mac and this obviously was not accelerated.

I did test this on various ROM revisions and I updated them to resolve the issue in the first place.
0087, 0089, and 140 have all result in the same issue.

I wish to resolve the issue until my flashed GTX 780 for Mojave arrives early next week.
BTW: @MacVidCards - I saw on your blog that you were moaning about returned GPUs which did work perfectly when you tried. Might this be related?

My best guess right now, is that this specific Mac Pro is somehow imprinted on ATI GPUs and I will try using a RX Vega 56...

@tsialex: I might send you a dump, as this could potentially be a interesting damaged rom. (I would need to be able to disable SIP to do so...)

Best, Rastafabi

PS: Whenever I reinstall the ATI 5770 I get a working screen output immediately without resetting or rebuilding anything. I did make sure that the nvram got purged using nvram -p from terminal via VNC.

Using VNC I could verify that the OS even detects the screen and it’s resolution flawlessly. Changing it did not enable output.

 

[tsialex]

Hello Community!

I am experiencing a very strange issue. I did not even find anything similar on the web, though this does not necessarily mean anything

I managed to get an Mac Pro in original condition for a very convenient price.
Mac Pro 4,1 - ATI 5770 - 16GB Ram...

I did flash it to a 5,1 and updated the EFI to the latest one from Mojave 10.14.1 though for now I’m stuck on High Sierra... I do not get any graphics when using NVIDIA graphics, and that’s not about the boot screen.
Whenever I put in an original EFI NVIDIA GT 120, which works perfectly fine in another Mac Pro or an GTX 1070 which also works flawlessly in the other one I do not get any video. The graphics is however recognised as I saw using VNC and it signals the monitor that it is in use, though this results in a purely black screen (without a mouse).

I did rebuild the kernelcache and reseted PR-Ram/NV-Ram and SMC several times. A few times without any obvious pattern I saw the boot-selector screen using my GT 120, but whenever I booted anything using this (even an USB installer created via the create command, which has a universal kernelcache) the screen turned black as soon as the OS took over. I’m entirely out of ideas, and hope someone got a clue how to solve this or at least proceed testing...

Actually ones I got to the OS using the GT 120. This was on the Mojave drive from the other Mac and this obviously was not accelerated.

I did test this on various ROM revisions and I updated them to resolve the issue in the first place.
0087, 0089, and 140 have all result in the same issue.

I wish to resolve the issue until my flashed GTX 780 for Mojave arrives early next week.
BTW: @MacVidCards - I saw on your blog that you were moaning about returned GPUs which did work perfectly when you tried. Might this be related?

My best guess right now, is that this specific Mac Pro is somehow imprinted on ATI GPUs and I will try using a RX Vega 56...

@tsialex: I might send you a dump, as this could potentially be a interesting damaged rom. (I would need to be able to disable SIP to do so...)

Best, Rastafabi

PS: Whenever I reinstall the ATI 5770 I get a working screen outpu immediately without resetting or rebuilding anything. I did make sure that the vram got purged using nvram -p from terminal via VNC.

Using VNC I could verify that the OS even detects the screen and it’s resolution flawlessly. Changing it did not enable output.

The nvram -p command just prints the content of the user accessible part of the nvram, -c clears it.

Another user had similar problem with high end NVIDIA cards caused by BootROM corruption, maybe it’s worth checking the dump.

 

[Rastafabi]

The nvram -p command just prints the content of the user accessible part of the nvram, -c clears it.

Yes I now. I cleared using cmd+alt+p+r and confirmed that it has been cleared using the -p option. I wasn’t sure wether the -c options works with sip enabled so I went ahead this way.
[doublepost=1543076519][/doublepost]I just tested using the EFI windows disk from the other Mac. The same applies here. (GPU recognised but black screen.) As it’s OS independent and the GPUs can be excluded as the source it must be related to the Mac Pro and it’s low level Software. As the mac does post and does not need more time or anything striking I assume it’s EFI related. I still gonna test the RX Vega 56 and also another CPU tray, though I do not expect anything here.

 

[Rastafabi]

I did not mention, that running the apple hardware test (AHT) did terminate without any detected issues.
[doublepost=1543080377][/doublepost]

[…] Another user had similar problem with high end NVIDIA cards caused by BootROM corruption, maybe it’s worth checking the dump.

Thank you for the lead! I will dump it and, as I do not not what to look for PM you, if this is okay to you.

 

[Rastafabi]

I am receiving support from @tsialex. Once I can flash a corrected ROM I will report back. THREAD ON HOLD.

 

[Rastafabi]

Who would have thought this?…

First of all: @tsialex send me a corrected boot rom to flash back to my Mac. He's doing a very great job for all us Mac Pro owners, doing his research. It might only be due to the popularity of the original bootrom thread that we even received official NVME support for those trusty old machines.
Flashing work fine just as it is supposed to. However I did not receive any graphics output from my NVIDIA cards thereafter either. Being puzzled I changed the last component I hadn't thought of yet, that is involved in showing display output. (No, not the cable…) Here you have it.


So in case anybody else would ever run into such an unlikely scenario: This might help you, too.