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PCIe 6 pin GPU cables gone bad?

Zorn

Zorn

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 14, 2006
1,144
840
Ohio
My cMP has a GTX 980 in it. Everything was running really well, but today I went to reboot and all of a sudden got no display. I tried everything I could think of, PRAM reset, SMC reset, booting to recovery - nothing. There is just no display at all. I tried testing it with another GPU that doesn't need the 6 pin connectors and the system boots.

Is it possible that the 6 pin connectors plugged into the main board went bad? I can't really think of any other reason I would get no display but it would work with a cheap GPU that doesn't need the 6 pin power. Anyone have any ideas?
 
Zorn said:
My cMP has a GTX 980 in it. Everything was running really well, but today I went to reboot and all of a sudden got no display. I tried everything I could think of, PRAM reset, SMC reset, booting to recovery - nothing. There is just no display at all. I tried testing it with another GPU that doesn't need the 6 pin connectors and the system boots.

Is it possible that the 6 pin connectors plugged into the main board went bad? I can't really think of any other reason I would get no display but it would work with a cheap GPU that doesn't need the 6 pin power. Anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...

We have occasionally had cables go bad, but typically it is on initial install. The little steel piece has barbs on it and if they don't fully engage they can be pushed back.

Take a look at each end of the cables. If there is one particular pin that looks further back grab the wire and push it back into the plug.

Also, make sure that your Nvidia Web Drivers are still selected. Using Non-EFI cards means that if you go back to the Apple ones with no support, you will never know why the card doesn't get to desktop.
 
MacVidCards said:
We have occasionally had cables go bad, but typically it is on initial install. The little steel piece has barbs on it and if they don't fully engage they can be pushed back.

Take a look at each end of the cables. If there is one particular pin that looks further back grab the wire and push it back into the plug.

Also, make sure that your Nvidia Web Drivers are still selected. Using Non-EFI cards means that if you go back to the Apple ones with no support, you will never know why the card doesn't get to desktop.
Click to expand...

Under Yosemite though isn't there basic support to boot 980 cards without the nvidia driver?
 
Turns out it was a 10.10.1 update that caused the nVidia web driver to not be enabled and this made the system display no video at all. This seems like pretty dangerous default behavior - if for any reason the nvidia web driver gets disabled you have a brick system that will not boot. I guess I just need to invest in extra video cards to switch out if this should ever happen.

Is there any way to absolutely force the system to ALWAYS boot with the nvidia driver under all circumstances bar none? There is never any situation in which I would want to boot without it, doing so would render my system unusable.
 
Zorn said:
Turns out it was a 10.10.1 update that caused the nVidia web driver to not be enabled and this made the system display no video at all. This seems like pretty dangerous default behavior - if for any reason the nvidia web driver gets disabled you have a brick system that will not boot. I guess I just need to invest in extra video cards to switch out if this should ever happen.

Is there any way to absolutely force the system to ALWAYS boot with the nvidia driver under all circumstances bar none? There is never any situation in which I would want to boot without it, doing so would render my system unusable.
Click to expand...

Yes, not having an EFI card in a Mac is dangerous behavior. It's great until something happens.

As to your question, I don't know, but I'd say turn off automatic updates. Then do manual updates only after the Nvidia drivers are available for the update.

Then as soon as MVC makes a great 980 EFI, pay him to flash your card. :D
 
ActionableMango said:
Yes, not having an EFI card in a Mac is dangerous behavior. It's great until something happens.

As to your question, I don't know, but I'd say turn off automatic updates. Then do manual updates only after the Nvidia drivers are available for the update.

Then as soon as MVC makes a great 980 EFI, pay him to flash your card. :D
Click to expand...

I most definitely will be having him flash it as soon as that option is ready :) Thanks for the replies guys.
 
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