10.6.3 nVidia Blank Screen Issue with DVI/HDMI on 9800GT

[Freaky Chokra]

By injecting your own video bios, you tell the OS all the capabilities of the video card, instead of using a generic EFI string.

I agree with el_charlie.

I'm using a modified version of my Video BIOS extracted using NiBiToR from Windows.

Changed all the core clock frequencies. And after making the necessary changes in /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist, booted into Snow Leopard.

And, Guess WHAT!!!!!!

XBench, QJulia, etc. scores rocketed. I've yet to post screenshots.... but it FRIGGING works!

Although I already had my DSDT patched with the GFX0 code for my card, I didn't edit it out. For safety reasons.

However, the only difference I have trouble withstanding is its FAN, which I think is running at its maximum strength that it bloody makes a loud whistle-type sound, even with my cabinet having pretty tight muffling material packed around it to filter micro-dust away.

It also has extra cooling fans and an "aerodynamical" pathway for the airflow.

 

Hmm... Well, if anyone has pointers on the whistling sound issue... I'm just worried that the card shouldn't burn out or the fan!

Regards,

Freaky Chokra

[Beerkex'd]

[Re: why load a non-modified video BIOS ROM]

 

Because it's not the modification of the BIOS, just the injection itself that reports better to the OS than the EFI strings does.

By injecting your own video bios, you tell the OS all the capabilities of the video card, instead of using a generic EFI string.

 

So what you're saying is:

 

If I use a device-properties string or DSDT method and don't use a bootloader that can load a dump of my video card ROM, the video ROM is never accessed by the drivers?

 

You don't use any injection method at all (DSDT, injector.kext, device-properties string), you only load your video ROM via the bootloader, and that's all you need to get full acceleration?

[_Jay_]

I'm using a modified version of my Video BIOS extracted using NiBiToR from Windows. Changed all the core clock frequencies.

So you changed your frequencies correct? WHich means that you are overclocking your GPU, also correct?

If Yes is the answer to those questions, then your fan is whistling to keep up with the heat that your GPU is now producing. You are also shortening the lifespan of you GPu by overclocking it. IF YOU ARE indeed overclocking your GPu, I would suggest downclocking a bit to save some life on it. It should also help with the whistling you hear from your GPu's fan.

 

Also, you guys are saying something about bios from another GPu? I'm a noob at that stuff, but from what I know, doesn't that mean you are taking the properties of a said device and flashing it onto another said device, making that new said device thinking it is the previous?

[Freaky Chokra]

Hey there, Jammol!

 

Heartfelt Thx for the concern. I know it's overclocked. And it would reduce the lifespan of my GPU card.

9800GT in my sig. However, I just got it brand new as a replacement for my 9600GT from XFX, which blew after serving me well for 2 years. And, pice I never overclocked!!!

Yet, it just went out on me, fine fine day!

Ever Since, I know the cardinal rule that most such devices are manufactured to NOT TO last long...

And secondly, GPU and CPU chips are constantly rolled out newer and newer every month.

This would make either of our GPU or CPU obsolete in about a year or so.

 

This one too, I don't expect to last longer. More so, coz when I'd have saved up enough cash, I'd wanna go in for a NVidia 470 or 480...!!!

 

However, the Prime Reason for Overclocking is coz I prefer pretty fast performances for machines I have paid for through my nose! And , then there are loads of times, when I'm converting Videos across formats and encoding and decoding such stuff.

And by using MagicGate, The OpenCL actually is utilized and an Overclocked GPU certainly helps that application.

 

Lastly,

My (factory) GPU Core Clock Speed is 550MHz, Shaders (stream) Processors speed is 1375Mhz, and DDR3 RAM is 700Mhz.

It's overclocked as GPU Core Clock Speed to 650MHz, Shaders (stream) Processors speed is 1650Mhz, and DDR3 RAM is 950Mhz.

 

Regards,

Freaky Chokra

[el_charlie]

You don't use any injection method at all (DSDT, injector.kext, device-properties string), you only load your video ROM via the bootloader, and that's all you need to get full acceleration?

Yep,

 

Only GraphicsEnabler and the video bios. My DSDT contains a fix for my ALC662 codec (although I had to use 10.6.2 AppleHDA on 10.6.3) and my ICH7 chipset (Use the SATA drives without KP).

 

Works for me since 10.6.0. Everything else is vanilla.

 

Cheers!

 

My (factory) GPU Core Clock Speed is 550MHz, Shaders (stream) Processors speed is 1375Mhz, and DDR3 RAM is 700Mhz.

It's overclocked as GPU Core Clock Speed to 650MHz, Shaders (stream) Processors speed is 1650Mhz, and DDR3 RAM is 950Mhz.

Mr Chokra,

 

You should know that injecting a BIOS with the FAN settings edited, won't make any effect on OSX. That's the only thing I couldn't manage to work.

 

The main reason to inject my BIOS through Chameleon was to increase the fan speed of my 8800GT because it ran too hot. On windows, I use EVGA Precision to speed up the fan up to 90% instead of 30% as it regulary runs.

 

Normaly, the card uses its fan at 30% until the temps exceed 70 degrees. I don't like my card run that hot. With my fans at 90% my card runs about 44 degrees celsius. I edited my bios to bump the speeds but it has no effect. Only the overclocking/underclocking has an effect on OSX.

 

I don't care about the noise because my air conditioner is a lot louder than my computer.

 

Something important to note though:

 

If you set a 2D profile (for use when the card is idle) and a 3D profile on your BIOS with NiBiTor, ONLY the 2D profile gets loaded (the slower). Therefore, you get a very slow performance on your desktop (windows animations, the dashboard, exposé, and so on). I didn't try it in games because it looked so slow and used a BIOS with only a 3D profile.

 

Cheers!

[JFLNYC]

el_charlie: I'm intrigued, but still trying to figure things out. Do I need to get my video.rom file from somewhere (GTS 250, 512MB). If so, from where? And, if so, do I need to store it somewhere so my com.boot.plist file can find it. Or will it find it on my video card?

[el_charlie]

You can either dump it with NiBitor/GPUz on windows, nvflash on DOS or from here:

 

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...c,select/id,58/

 

Then you have to place it on the Extra folder of your bootloader and rename it NVIDIA.rom. Note that NVIDIA is on upper case and .rom is on lowercase.

 

Then you have to add the entries on your com.apple.Boot.Plist I wrote before (Vbios=yes and VideoROM=NVIDIA.rom).

 

Cheers!

[Freaky Chokra]

Mr Chokra,

 

You should know that injecting a BIOS with the FAN settings edited, won't make any effect on OSX. That's the only thing I couldn't manage to work.

 

If you set a 2D profile (for use when the card is idle) and a 3D profile on your BIOS with NiBiTor, ONLY the 2D profile gets loaded (the slower). Therefore, you get a very slow performance on your desktop (windows animations, the dashboard, exposé, and so on). I didn't try it in games because it looked so slow and used a BIOS with only a 3D profile.

"Mr" el_charlie.... OKkkaaaayyyy!!!

 

Nice to have an even deeper insight on how the Chameleon bootloader actually supports functioning of the externally loadded video bios .ROM file.

There's a thread (I think this one or another), where I've actually posted the performances differences when had loaded the STOCK BIOS, and the OverClocked BIOS .ROM file.

 

I'll try out what you mentioned, and post newer XBench And Qjulia, etc scores with 2D values changed.

Coz, I followed a tutorial, but forgot whether I've changed them too or not!

 

Just FYI, the fan does startup like an F1 engine.... till it whistles.. then does go slow down again... whenever there isn't any load Or I've put the rig to Sleep. In my observation, It does have a differential fan speed control enabled at least in my System...

Unfortunately, there isn't any tool to measure this... and report.

 

Will keep updated ... so that everyone can benefit....

 

Regards,

Freaky Chokra

[Cyntek]

I too have a evga 9800 GT 512mb card, would like to dual boot win7 !!!

[KiwiSammy]

You can either dumpit with NiBitor/GPUz on windows, nvflash on DOS or from here:

 

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...c,select/id,58/

 

Then you have to place it on the Extra folder of your bootloader and rename it NVIDIA.rom. Note that NVIDIA is on upper case and .rom is on lowercase.

 

Then you have to add the entries on your com.apple.Boot.Plist I wrote before (Vbios=yes and VideoROM=NVIDIA.rom).

 

Cheers!

 

Hi el charlie,

Well I tried your suggestion by backing up my bios from my 9800gtx and placing it in the Extra folder. Also edited the com.apple.Boot.plist as per your instructions. Unfortunately I still get the blank screen when connected via DVI-HDMI adaptor.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

regards

Sammy

[goodbye losers]

for 8800gt (9800gt) and hdmi --> http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=219232

[Ruben-P]

Finaly!

 

PC EFI from netkas (only works and load nvidia.rom) & MacRom8800GT.rom post by bigfish

 

With original 9800gtx+ rom not work, black screen or freeze.

 

Thats problem load 8800Gt rom? Dangerous?

 

Biosmod possibility?

 

[el_charlie]

That's got to be something related with only the 8800GT that works fine with DVI/HDMI.

 

Obviously you can't or shouldn't flash your 9800GTX+ with a 8800GT bios. It may/will brick the card.

 

As you know, the 9800GTX/GTX+ has 128 SP and the 8800GT/9800GT has 112. Even if you succeed, you may lose the 16 remaining SP from being used by the OS (the OS/drivers won't know that the card has 128 SP).

 

Maybe the bios has to be hex edited with the data from the 8800GT bios and the rest with your own card.

 

Ironically, I'm currently using my own bios, not the Mac Pro's one and works fine.

 

The Mac Pro bios is 128K in size whereas the rest of the PC bios are 64K. Some users had succeed flashing their 8800GTs with a MacPro BIOS (128K) only if their EPROM chip has 128K of capacity. They do this because they own real Mac Pros and wanted to upgrade their video cards.

 

Cheers!

[JFLNYC]

You can either dumpit with NiBitor/GPUz on windows, nvflash on DOS or from here:

 

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...c,select/id,58/

 

Then you have to place it on the Extra folder of your bootloader and rename it NVIDIA.rom. Note that NVIDIA is on upper case and .rom is on lowercase.

 

Then you have to add the entries on your com.apple.Boot.Plist I wrote before (Vbios=yes and VideoROM=NVIDIA.rom).

 

Cheers!

 

Tried your approach with my GTS 250. But, unfortunately, still got the blank screen. Glad you have it working with your 8800GT.

[glitchman]

hey all, I am currently running an EVGA 9800 GT with 512mb of VRAM on the chameleon bootloader, and it is pretty much an entirely vanilla system.

 

I need to be able to use the HDMI port on the back of this card, as well as the DVI port. Has anyone been able to get these to work on this card? it worked in 10.6.0, but on 10.6.3 it does not. Does the bios from the 8800gt work with my card? thanks for the help!

[el_charlie]

You can try using it through the Chameleon. It may work. The 9800GT is merely a rebranded 8800GT.

 

As a side note, I have a backup installation of OSX on a external hard drive. I had only 10.6.0 and I updated to 10.6.3 yesterday and still works with HDMI. The funny thing is that I DON'T inject the video BIOS on the external hard drive's bootloader. i just use GraphicsEnabler with Chameleon 2 RC4.

 

Another finding I made is that when injecting a BIOS with 2D and 3D profiles for the clock/memory speeds is that the 3D profile DOES gets loaded but not instantly. It has some delay for turning to the 3D profile that results on sluggishness of the destop while opening the Applications menu, using exposé, etc. In games, the performance is the usual; for example, on Portal I get 60FPS flat at 1920x1200 with all the settings maxxed. The same happens with Bioshock. I returned to my own BIOS with only a 3D profile to keep the top performance all times.

 

There's has to be something else on my system that allows me to use my video card with DVI/HDMI but I can't figure out what.

 

I forgot. I use the -pci1 flag on the com.apple.Boot.plist. The rest of my specs is on my signature.

 

Cheers!

[glitchman]

do you recommend extracting my own bios to use that, rather than using the supplied 8800 bios? because using the 8800 bios is not working for me.

[el_charlie]

You can try it but someone commented that injecting his own GTS250 bios didn't help either.

 

Cheers!

[flames]

positive here!

 

bigfish's method works here with xfx 9800gtx+ 512mb 2xdvi, using the macpro8800gt rom mentioned in his post.

sysprofiler shows 9800gtx+ and not 8800gt! both dvi2hdmi monitors working, qe/ci/cl also.

 

screenshot: http://img52.imageshack.us/i/screenshotcf.jpg/

 

gainward gts250 is working also! sysprofiler shows gts250. 1x dvi2hdmi and 1x native hdmi2hdmi working.

 

i dont know how it comes, that sysprofiler shows info from gfx card and not from the injected rom, but hdmi/hdcp works and i am fine with it. thanks bigfish!

 

with the original rom of my gfx dvi2hdmi adaptors still had black screen. so the difference is not in the method it self, but in the rom. to get perfect hdmi support with original rom of used graphics card we need to feagure out the changes. i guess its not depended to the macpro rom, but into changes that incorporated for using hdcp handshake.

[el_charlie]

I'm sure too that it has to be with the HDCP handshake but as I commented earlier, on my backup installation on a external hard drive I didn't use any bios injection on the Chameleon, just GraphicsEnabler, and I could update flawlessly from 10.6.0 to 10.6.3 without black screen on DVI2HDMI.

 

It must be something else.

 

Cheers!

[JFLNYC]

gainward gts250 is working also! sysprofiler shows gts250. 1x dvi2hdmi and 1x native hdmi2hdmi working.

So you used the 8800GT rom for your GTS 250 also?

[flames]

I'm sure too that it has to be with the HDCP handshake but as I commented earlier, on my backup installation on a external hard drive I didn't use any bios injection on the Chameleon, just GraphicsEnabler, and I could update flawlessly from 10.6.0 to 10.6.3 without black screen on DVI2HDMI.

 

It must be something else.

 

Cheers!

 

the only nvidia+hdmi succeses updating to 10.6.3 i had with 9400gt, 9400gs, 8600gt, 8400gs. all 8800xx+9800xx, gts250 cards had hdmi black screen issue. another cards i didnt tested.

 

maybe your backup installation was booted by the chameleon on the main hdd where the vbios was injected?

 

and like i said before, its strange, that the simple injection of the macpro 8800gt rom solved the hdmi issue (what proves that rom was really loaded) but in the same time systemprofiler shows the info of the built in card and not from the loaded vbios! after i put the 8800gt vbios into extra and com.apple.boot.plist i expected that sysprofiler should show info about the 8800gt

 

only explanation for that is graphicsenabler, looks like it injects the info shown in sysprofiler. i will test graphicsenabler=n and vbios=y + rom. lets see if it still show the real info or the info from rom file, or if it even will not enable qe/ci at all

 

 

@JFLNYC: exactly!

with injectiong the cards own vbios didnt solved the issue, but the good macpro8800gt rom did

so to be clear: macpro8800gt.rom works here for xfx 9800gtx+ 512mb 2xdvi 1xtvo AND in other hackintosh for gainward gts250 512mb 1xdvi 1xhdmi 1xvga. where in both cases the analog (tv out on xfx and vga on gainward) output is disabled. edit: used two hdmi displays at same time to test

[glitchman]

Both can be installed simply by using graphics enabler in charmelion under 10.6.3.

 

Asus EN9400GT silent 512MB

 

and

 

Sparkle GeForce GT 220 1024MB

 

I just purchased a GT 220, and am unable to get it working. what did you do to get it to work?

[Beerkex'd]

where in both cases the analog (tv out on xfx and vga on gainward) output is disabled.

 

The OS X Nvidia drivers support up to two displays at once per video card. You have to unplug one of your monitors if you want to use the analog TV out, you cannot use three outputs at the same time.

 

Previously the only way I could get analog TV-out working on my 9800GTX was with Krazubu's NVEnabler.kext. I found out that the secret is injecting a proper display-cfg value for each output (see the NVEnabler release thread on projectosx for more info) so now I'm using Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler, with the display-cfg value injected via DSDT and it's nearly flawless. The only thing that doesn't work is hotplugging from Analog TV back to secondary DVI display, I have to reboot. Curiously it works fine the other way, unplugging the secondary DVI monitor, plug in Analog TV.

 

I have never tried plugging in anything with a HDMI port though.

[flames]

The OS X Nvidia drivers support up to two displays at once per video card. You have to unplug one of your monitors if you want to use the analog TV out, you cannot use three outputs at the same time.

lol, yea

i wrote a bit wrong, i didnt meant they are not working, but disabled, to underline that two hdmi monitors at the same time working. sorry for missleading formulation and thanks for explaining, for sure it will help some people.