MP 1,1-5,1 Where has my bootpicker screen gone?

[AJ16S]

Slightly different from the other Bootpicker threads, hence the new one. I have two MP5,1's: a single chip model ("single"), running one of tsialex's superb "never-booted" ROMs (with GOP enabled), running dosdude Catalina but with OC configured so I can move to Monterey and a dual chip model ("twin"), running vanilla Mojave. Both have a Sapphire HD 7950 graphics card and both booted up fine with the Bootpicker, until yesterday. So yesterday I finally got around to upgrading the wi-fi and Bluetooth (Broadcom bcm94360cd card, adaptor card and some soldering).

The good news is that both boot up and I have 802.11ac and BT4 - yay! The bad news is I've lost the Bootpicker on "single". "Twin" is fine and boots exactly as before. I took all the disks out of single and put my vanilla Mojave disk in and still no Bootpicker. I tried reseting NVRAM 3 times and reset the SMC, but still no joy. If I try any key combination during boot it simply doesn't boot - I assume it's stuck on a boot screen that I can't see. Even Cmd-R doesn't work because I don't have a recovery partition. I tried taking the Broadcom card out but no change either.

I know the graphics card in "single" is unflashed as I bought it new. I don't know about the one in "twin" as it was there when I bought it I haven't tried switching the cards over yet).

Any ideas on how to figure out what I might have inadvertently changed with the wi-fi/BT upgrade that would have caused this to happen to one of the machines but not the other? And more importantly, any suggestions on how to get my Bootpicker back would be appreciated (preferably without having to flash the graphics card since it was fine before)

 

[tsialex]

First thing, AMD HD 7950 is a GPU that was produced for a number of years, the first cards made are not UEFI GPUs, but BIOS ones - UEFI was ratified late in 2013, cards made before are not UEFI. These first made cards are not compatible with UEFI and do not work with EnableGop. To get pre-boot configuration support working with the BIOS cards, you need to add GOP support to the GPU firmware (not easy) or flash it with the macEFI extracted from Sapphire HD7950 Mac Edition (easier than to add GOP to the GPU firmware).

Second thing, not all output ports can provide pre-boot configuration support, so, a card that is UEFI or even flashed with a macEFI, can have boot screens when connected to one of the DP ports but not the other, same for HDMI/DVI. This is very difficult to determine and can change even between revisions of the same GPU model, you have to test all ports.

If you are sure that your card is one that already had a UEFI compatible firmware, check if the card have a dual ROM/firmware switch, maybe while manipulating it you changed the switch position.

Also, change the GPU between Macs and check the behavior.

 

[AJ16S]

Finally got time to try things out:

I checked the bios switch on the card and it was set to '1', so I tried rebooting with switch set to '2' but no change (so I set it back to '1'). I switched the graphics cards and "twin" still gives me the Bootpicker and "single" still does not.

I have three monitors connected to "single" (2 x MDp, 1 DVI) and none of them light up until after the boot completes. I'll need to find an HDMI lead to try that port, but the machine has only ever shown the bootpicker on MDp 1 so I doubt that that's changed.

Tomorrow I'll put the BCM94322mc wi-fi card back in and reconnect the old BT card (I didn't take it out of the logic board) so that everything is back the way it was before the wi-fi/BT upgrade and see if the bootpicker comes back.

 

[tsialex]

Did you reflashed the EnableGop injected BootROM to the Mac Pro?

 

[AJ16S]

Yes, after I tested the standard and EnableGop_1.3 BootROMs I stayed with the EnableGop version. I thought about going back to standard, but CSR is enabled and I can't get to the pre-boot terminal to disable it. I'm hoping that reverting the wi-fi/BT changes will do the trick. If it doesn't I can use the dual proc machine to create a new boot disk with a recovery partition so I can try booting with Cmd-R to get to the terminal utility.

 

[AJ16S]

No joy reverting the wi-fi and BT changes. I'll build a new boot drive so I can reflash with the standard BootRom and see where that gets me.

 

[tsialex]

Will get you nowhere.

If you install the GPU that is not working to the Mac Pro that currently have pre-boot configuration, BootPicker works?

 

[AJ16S]

On the twin proc machine, when I boot with either graphics card I get the white boot screen with the the grey Apple logo. If I hold option key then it displays the boot selector.

Before I did the wifi card swap (which I did to both machines, with identical cards etc) the single proc machine would give me the OC Bootpicker or, if I held the option key, I'd get the white screen/grey logo and the Apple boot selector.

Now the single proc machine shows nothing at all until the login screen and if I hit any key at all during startup it just hangs indefinitely (I left it for 90mins last night). I've tried with both graphics cards, in both BIOS 1 & 2 on each, I've tried unseating the new wifi card and even reinstalling the old wi-fi/BT setup. I tried all of these options with my hybrid dosdude Catalina/OC boot drive and with my virgin, clean Mojave boot drive and I can't get any kind of boot selector to come up.

I keep going back to trying to figure why the boot has changed simply by upgrading the wi-fi/BT and why it didn't change on the other machine.

 

[tsialex]

From what you describe, the only thing that I can think of is that your problematic GPU is not Gop compatible and you got the OC bootpicker and not EnableGop native one working with this Mac Pro.

Anyway, I've updated your EnableGop and EnableGopDirect BootROM images to version 1.4.

 

[AJ16S]

Installed Windows (no PC I could use) and flashed the graphics card. Hey presto! I have pre-boot and Bootpicker screens but only if I disconnect the DP connections and just have the DVI lead connected. Not sure I understand why I lost Bootpicker from the DP outputs when I did the wi-fi upgrade, nor why I still get Bootpicker on the dual processor machine, but I'm happy anyway.

 

[ironmanny1]

Thanks @tsialex , So, I flashed my 5,1 with EnableGOP. I get the grey apple screen with my reference 6950xt (Flashed to 6900xt with syncretic patch.) However, after installing Martin's open core 0.9.3 config for open core, I seem to lose the screen. just a black screen, then the open core bootpicker comes up.

When I removed my SSD7102 card and my usb open core flash drive. My boot picker returns. Is there a setting on the config.plist I need to adjust?

Any thoughts on this?

 

[tsialex]

EnableGop enables the Apple native BootPicker, long before OC is loaded, so OpenCore config have nothing to do with the native BootPicker.

There are some OROMs that block the Apple native BootPicker to work, like several PCIe SATA controllers (Tempo is the most known offender). Maybe it's one of your PCIe cards.

 

[ironmanny1]

EnableGop enables the Apple native BootPicker, long before OC is loaded, so OpenCore config have nothing to do with the native BootPicker.

There are some OROMs that block the Apple native BootPicker to work, like several PCIe SATA controllers (Tempo is the most known offender). Maybe it's one of your PCIe cards.

Make sense, it’s probably my ssd7102 raid card, that is the only other pcie card I have in my system. Slot 1 is the ssd7102, slot 2 is the 6950xt.