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

Non-EFI GPU's? My BulletProof solution for boot screens.

Dr. Stealth

Dr. Stealth

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 14, 2004
814
740
SoCal-Surf City USA
I've been running non-EFI GPU's for a while now with a GT-120 also installed for boot screens. All was well until I decided to upgrade my Apple LCD Cinema display (2560 x 1440) to either a 5k or 4k display. First I tried a 5k Dell but had too many issues with it so I replaced it with a 4k Dell. It was during this process that I found many 4k or 5k displays can NOT display boot screens in either macOS or Windows. Even running an Apple EFI card will not produce a boot screen on my 4k display. So...... What to do... What to do.....

Well this was my solution. A dedicated 10" 1,920x1,200 display for boot screens, recovery mode, etc... It's plugged directly into the GT-120 and is a bulletproof solution. It works every time! :D

1.JPG
2.JPG
3.JPG
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: theoamoretti, z970, damiadotno and 13 others
Straightforward, simple idea. So many times we get so caught up with always needing the latest and greatest, we forget about simpler solutions. I will be taking this idea to put my original 5770 to work next to my non-EFI GTX 1060. :D
 
Can you mix GPU's? I currently have an RX 460 in my Mac Pro. Can I put a GT 120 in there?

I have an Apple HD 5770. But, a GT 120 would be more ideal just for boot screen purposes due to it needing less juice.
 
namethisfile said:
Can you mix GPU's? I currently have an RX 460 in my Mac Pro. Can I put a GT 120 in there?

I have an Apple HD 5770. But, a GT 120 would be more ideal just for boot screen purposes due to it needing less juice.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can mix and match all you want. The GT-120 won't cause any issues with your other cards.
 
Dr. Stealth said:
Yes, you can mix and match all you want. The GT-120 won't cause any issues with your other cards.
Click to expand...
Not always. I put both a GT 120 and a GTX 970 in a 5,1. Although normal operations seemed OK, benchmark scores on Lexmark went way down when I added a GT 120, so I took it out. I can always quickly put the GT 120 back in on a temporary basis if I need it, but so far I haven't.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Darmok N Jalad
I have a Sapphire Radeon Nitro R9 380X and the original GT120 sitting in my cMP. The GT120 is there for boot screens attached to a 22" 1080p ViewSonic monitor (via DVI-to-DVI), and the R9 380X is attached to a 28" 4K Samsung via DP. However I have some issues.
1. I occasionally get some strange glitches on the 1080p monitor when I use pulldown menus on the GT120 - the items in the pulldown menu suffer the same effect or are completely blank, which means you don't know what you're clicking on.
2. The Menu bar has strange glitchy artefacts (colourful horizontal lines) or the menu names and contents are blank.
3. FCPX won't run (it crashes) when both the R9 380X (4K) and the GT120 (1080p) are plugged into monitors at the time I start up FCP. If I don't have the GT120 plugged in I have no problems.
4. Photoshop CC17 keeps crashing and has issues with 3D effects when the GT120 is plugged into a monitor. No problems if the GT120 isn't plugged in, with just the R9 380X plugged into the 4K.

I have no problems when my R9 380X is attached to by both the DP to 4K and by DVI-to-DVI to the 1080p monitor (i.e. the GT120 isn't plugged into a monitor), so I'm pretty sure it's not a conflict of having 4K and 1080p monitors attached at the same time - it's more an issue of having the 4K (R9 380X) as-well-as the GT120 into the 1080p.

I've swapped out the GT120 in my 12-core cMP for the one in my Hexa-core cMP and I have all the same issues - so don't think it's an issue with the GT120's. And again, I have all the same issues when I have the same set-up above attached to the 4K and 1080p on my Hexa-core cMP so its not just an issue for my 12-core cMP.

Success secret: only attach the GT120 to the 1080p monitor when I need it for boot screens. Otherwise, if I need the extra screen real estate, have both the 4K and the 1080p monitors attached to the R9 380X, and nothing attached to the GT120.
 
Last edited:
h9826790 said:
That’s a 1920x1200 screen, not 4K. OP need that screen because boot screen won’t shows up on 4k screen (@60Hz). If that’s a small 4k screen as well. The whole setup will be meaningless.
Click to expand...

You're joking right?! There is no way you can take everything so literally!:eek:
I'll fix it for you. "OS6-OSX your humor eludes me!"
 
Last edited:
MassMacMan said:
Not always. I put both a GT 120 and a GTX 970 in a 5,1. Although normal operations seemed OK, benchmark scores on Lexmark went way down when I added a GT 120, so I took it out. I can always quickly put the GT 120 back in on a temporary basis if I need it, but so far I haven't.
Click to expand...

Why do you think your score went down? I haven't really had much to do with benchmarks but you mention how your gt120 didn't seem to effect your normal operations. Do the benchmarking scores actually really show much as far as real world performance? Serious question as I really don't know.
 
I'm not sure why the benchmark score went down, but I'm guessing that even though the GT120 wasn't selected in the benchmark app, its presence may have slowed data transfer to theGTX 970.

Someone suggested a worthy approach: leave the GT 120 in the Mac, but don't connect any monitor to it. Only connect a monitor when you need a boot screen. I'll try it out in a while and see how that works.
 
Dr. Stealth said:
I've been running non-EFI GPU's for a while now with a GT-120 also installed for boot screens. All was well until I decided to upgrade my Apple LCD Cinema display (2560 x 1440) to either a 5k or 4k display. First I tried a 5k Dell but had too many issues with it so I replaced it with a 4k Dell. It was during this process that I found many 4k or 5k displays can NOT display boot screens in either macOS or Windows. Even running an Apple EFI card will not produce a boot screen on my 4k display. So...... What to do... What to do.....

Well this was my solution. A dedicated 10" 1,920x1,200 display for boot screens, recovery mode, etc... It's plugged directly into the GT-120 and is a bulletproof solution. It works every time! :D

View attachment 724223 View attachment 724224 View attachment 724225
Click to expand...

Assuming one has a GT-120 and a second screen... Now, could you also make a BulletProof™ solution for setups with a single, Non-UGA GPU?
 
I have the same brand in 8” format as a diagnostic screen. Made my nMP look like a giant tower next to it. Best $60 I ever spent.
 
  • Like
Reactions: inoperable
MarkJames68 said:
I have the same brand in 8” format as a diagnostic screen. Made my nMP look like a giant tower next to it. Best $60 I ever spent.
Click to expand...


I agree. The GT120 and the 10" display together cost LESS than the $225.00 MVC charges to flash one card. Even then he only flashes the reference/founders editions not cards like mine.
 
[EDIT: May have solved my own problem -- disconnecting the monitor from the GT120 after selecting Windows, but before Windows boots and loads drivers, seems to work so far. Still a pain to have to disconnect and reconnect monitors all the time, but much better than removing and reinstalling a graphics card]

I have a non-flashed Nvidia 970 GTX in my cMP 5,1 (2x quad-core 3.46 Ghz), driving three external monitors, but am having no luck with second-card solutions to access Startup Manager (when switching to Windows, etc). The problem started when my primary SSD MacOS boot drive was converted to APFS during HS install, and Boot Camp doesn't recognize APFS drives, so I can't easily get back to MacOS from Windows. I'd rather not reformat the drive and go back to HFS+, but I'm not having much luck with other approaches.

I have a GT-120, but when it is installed along with the 970, it works fine under MacOS, but on booting into Windows, Windows disables the Nvidia driver for the 970 -- because the latest Nvidia Windows driver doesn't support the GT120, so it reverts to the older driver, and I have to reinstall the Nvidia driver to get the 970 to work again. You can have the 970, or the GT120, but not both at the same time. So this solution works on the Mac side, but not in Windows.

So I tried swapping in an ATI 2600XT (it has to be a single-slot card powered via PCI bus due to the other cards I am using), and it worked, for a while...sort of. I've had all kinds of weird glitches under MacOS -- failure to wake from sleep, random system instability and crashes, etc), I am assuming driver incompatibilities. So also no good.

At the moment, I am back to having to install the GT120 only when I need to go from Windows to MacOS, and take it out again, which is a pain. The GT120 solution here would be great, except for the problems with driver support under Windows for the GT120 and GTX 970 under Windows. Any ideas?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Tesseract
Dr. Stealth can you tell me what exact mouse model that is in the picture?
[doublepost=1522351225][/doublepost]
chelidon said:
At the moment, I am back to having to install the GT120 only when I need to go from Windows to MacOS, and take it out again, which is a pain.
Click to expand...

That's crazy. Set MacOS as your default bootup partition and use BootChamp to get from MacOS to Windows.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back