Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Resolved Please Help w/ Video Card Power Connection/AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 work in cMP 5,1?
- Thread starter ZombiePhysicist
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Hello Matty,
I just bought a multimeter to test out each individual connection before I went ahead and bought an external PSU to power the WX9100.
I tested each individual port and found a consistent 12V across each terminal.
I am really baffled now. Not sure why the WX9100 is not getting detected when booted into OS.
With the WX9100 installed in the system, it boots into OS, the fan on the GPU is turning, however, it just does not show up in "About This Mac" or "System Report".
Is there anything related to OS or kexts, that is preventing the GPU for getting detected? I have also tried it in clean installs of 10.13.6 and 10.14 with no success.
I also have an old ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB which has no issues in getting detected.
Last edited:
I don't want to dispute your findings but there is no reason the card should not work if the Pixlas mod is carried out correctly. I have done this mod several times and it always works with any card. Either you have it connected wrong or you have a bad connection. Sorry to be blunt but the Pixlas Mod works no matter what card you have installed.
The only thing which might stop it being detected if its powered up correctly is if at some point its had a bios flash. dump the rom file in windows and check it against one from tech power up for date and time and rom version for that card with matching part numbers.
From my process of elimination, this part seems to be true, because I was using a Titan-X (Maxwell) powered off the PCI-e connectors on the motherboard, which also works when powered using the connectors off the Pixlas mod instead. Even my legacy GPU the ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB powers fine from the Pixlas mod.
So I have a feeling it might not have anything to do with the Pixlas power mod.
I will have to investigate this route instead. I had sent it to my friend in another city, who asked someone else to test it, and according to him it was detected fine in a Windows host, but I cannot be sure if that 3rd person was reporting back accurately.
Unfortunately, I do not have a Windows system accessible with a PCI-e lane to test it here locally. Very low penetration of high end systems here in my city, and I just moved back here, so do not have any local contacts to do this testing.
I did think about booting into Windows in bootcamp, however, because I do not have a legacy DVI-D monitor I am not able to install Windows either.
The monitor I am using just does not display bootmanager even with a GPU with a Mac BIOS like ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB.
I read somewhere that modern high resolution displays do have this limitation in legacy GPUs like the ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB:
Last edited:
I was able to install Windows-10 in BootCamp and checked to see if the card was detected in the Windows installation. Unfortunately: No-go.
The Pixlas mod was working fine. It powered the Titan-X which was detected in Windows-10 just fine.
The WX9100 seems to be running as I can hear the onboard fan spinning.
I loaded up AMDVBFlashWin 3.15 and the WX9100 failed to show up over there as well. The Radeon 57xx showed up in the control panel for AMDVBFlashWin.
Any suggestions on how to take things forward?
The Pixlas mod was working fine. It powered the Titan-X which was detected in Windows-10 just fine.
The WX9100 seems to be running as I can hear the onboard fan spinning.
I loaded up AMDVBFlashWin 3.15 and the WX9100 failed to show up over there as well. The Radeon 57xx showed up in the control panel for AMDVBFlashWin.
Any suggestions on how to take things forward?
Are you sure this card works? just because the fan spins does not mean its functional and working. seems strange its a no go in windows and OSX. you really need to check the card in another computer like a PC just to make sure it actually works.
Turns out that GPU was not recognized in another PC. GPU is faulty. Thank you everyone that contributed.
There has been a new twist now.
The local computer technician who tested my WX9100 asked me to leave it with them while they get it tested. He called back today and lo-and-behold the WX9100 worked on his system as well.
He did not specify how they got it working, because there was another person there, but when I went and checked personally, it was detecting in a PC with a Windows-10 Pro 21H2 install.
He ran a few benchmarks for a few hours and it functioned just fine. I eagerly took the card back home to install in my MacPro (mid-2012) 5,1 with 10.13.6 and once again, it was not detected again.
Tired it in a clean install of Mojave and same issue. I will try upgrading Mojave and see if it recognizes.
I booted into my BootCamp partition, also running Windows-10 Pro 21H2 and still the WX9100 was not detected again.
So I went back to the PC shop to check if the MacPro was corrupting the VBIOS of the WX9100 in some way.
There was no issue, the WX9100 got detected again in the PC.
Now I am back at my desktop to write this reply, wondering how to proceed, as I am really baffled.
Any suggestions?
Last edited:
Older NVIDIA Webdrivers for TITAN cards save blobs inside the NVRAM volume that can make AMD cards to not work, this is know for years with several cases here on the Mac Pro forum.
You can test and confirm if it's what happening to your Mac Pro - you will need to uninstall the TITAN and do a clean install os macOS without any GPU that not need the NVIDIA Webdrivers, you can use a NVIDIA Kepler (even a GT710 will work) that is natively supported by Apple NVIDIA drivers or any modern AMD GPU (Polaris/VEGA/VII) that works with Mojave:
- remove any NVIDIA cards that need webdrivers, do a clean and native install of Mojave 10.14.6 to a spare disk with a Mojave compatible METAL GPU,
- boot your clean install and dump your current BootROM image with ROMTool, save your BootROM back up securely,
- shutdown, enter Firmware Programming Mode, flash 144.0.0.0.0 MP51.fd with ROMTool,
- after the reboot your SSN will be blank with AboutThisMac - all hardwareIDs will be blank,
- shutdown, remove the GPU, install the WX9100,
- if it works, it's your BootROM that is corrupt and you need a professional BootROM reconstruction service.
- if it still don't work, your problem is elsewhere and you can flash back your original BootROM backup.
Last edited:
Thanks Tasialex!! Will try this. Hopefully this should do the trick, keeping my fingers crossed.
I still have my old original Apple ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB card, which I kept to resolve any such issues.
Will try a clean install with that installed as the only GPU and check.
Will using SSD's as my primary boot drive cause any further problems to that install, or potentially to the NVRAM??
As I am currently running all OS (macOS (GUID Partition Map - Mac OS Extended Journaled) & Windows-10 (MBR - NTFS) on two different SSDs)
Last edited:
Tests are non meaningful with an AppleOEM GPU, you need Mojave and a METAL GPU.
Also remove any Windows disk, don’t boot UEFI Windows while you are diagnosing.
I am already on 144.0.0.0.0 (had upgraded the firmware using the Mojave installer a few years back)
Is there a method to re-flash the ROM without loosing the SSNs?
Yes, you can pay a BootROM reconstruction service.
Seems you didn't understand my instructions or I was not fully clear. You are doing a test, after that you will know/confirm that you need a professional BootROM reconstruction service to get your Mac Pro working.
If you still have the same problem after flashing the unserialized BootROM, you just repeat the same steps with your original BootROM backup and you are back at beginning.
I've edited my original instructions to made this crystal clear.
Tried it in the main slot-1 x16 lane (bottom most slot): No-go. Tried it in the slot-2 x16 lane: No-go. Tried it in slot-3 the x4 slot: No-go. Cannot try in the slot-4: physically not possible.
Very baffling.
Upload a DarwinDumper from your Mac Pro, let's see if the card is being recognized in any way.
bitbucket.org
blackosx / DarwinDumper / Downloads — Bitbucket
bitbucket.org
From the biosbackup.rom I can see that you did not flashed the MP51.fd, or flashed back your backup.
Run DarwinDumper again with the MP51.fd flashed to your Mac Pro.
Last edited:
I reverted back, noticing that flashing had not made any difference. Will flash and do a Darwin dump and report back. Thanks for your patience, appreciate you taking the time to address this.
With the MP51.fd flashed back on the motherboard (hope just these two files suffice?):
DarwinDump.htm
DarwinDumerLog.txt
DarwinDump.htm
DarwinDumerLog.txt