Non-EFI Video Card now shows startup and recovery screens

When I selected a video card for my 2009 firmware upgraded to a 2010 Mac Pro I picked a PC Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 780 card because Apple includes native drivers for the 780 cards. I had just enough knowledge at the time to realize messing with updating video drivers with each update of the OS might be a bit frustrating for me and the card I selected would do the job I needed.

I knew that since it is a PC card it would lack EFI and would show a black screen until the OS loaded. So imagine my surprise when somewhere around the update to Sierra 10.12.4, I noticed when starting my MP I saw the gray startup screen with the apple and progress bar.

I shut my MP down at night because I found since my upgrade to Sierra, if I let it sleep and woke it up I had video jerkiness when I was editing in Premiere. A restart would fix the issue so I just started to shut it down at night which led to me discovering the appearance of the startup screen.

I do have an older Apple GT120 card in it but it is not attached to any monitors - I check just to make sure I hadn't switched and forgotten - nope, only the PC card feeds my two monitors.

So yesterday I had to walk through a set of instructions that I received from the Matias people to try to fix the issues with the wireless keyboard I purchased from them. It involved an SMC reset and PRAM reset - not sure why this one but I gave it a try. I had the startup screen after each reset. Then I thought what the heck, restarted with the CMD + R to get into the recovery screen to check my startup drive - and it worked.

In the past when I needed to get into the recovery screen or did a restart or startup, I had to change to the GT120 card to see the screens. So any idea what had changed? I have not had the GTX 780 card flashed to give it an EFI. I am not complaining - just really curious as to how this has happened.

Lisa

Lisa. Are you saying this only happened (seeing normal Apple logo on booting) after the Sierra 10.12.4 update? If so...nothing else was done (no other app installs or app updates)?

- Nick

I noticed it sometime after the 10.12.4 update. The only apps that would have updated would have been whatever showed up in the app store update list and possibly there have been some updates from Adobe CC. They pretty much do whatever they want since it is cloud but I seriously doubt they had anything to do with it. Also I had a recent CUDA update but I just don't think that would have anything to do with it. I would have to look at recent updates to see what was done and I won't be in front of it until Sunday but I will look.

I waited to post anything about this as I kept thinking I was missing something - especially with the other card that is installed. But I only have one cable attached to that card and the other end of it is NOT attached to a monitor. Both my monitors are connected to the GTX780. One will show a grey screen and the other will be grey with the apple logo and startup bar.

This has never happened until just recently. I always got a black screen until the login screen. It could have started even earlier in Sierra because when I start the MP I hit the power button and then turn on the monitors which might be several seconds later. I caught a flash of the grey startup screen the first few times and thought nothing of it. If I had not been troubleshooting the issues with the Matias keyboard I would have never noticed it.

Keep in mind before I started shutting my MP down at night I use to just let it sleep and do a restart in the morning so the monitors would have been on already and I did not see the startup screen. The totally shutting it down started shortly after I upgraded to Sierra when the video issues started. I kept forgetting the video issues and would get into a project and have to quit to restart so total shutdown took care of my forgetting to restart.

I definitely know the 780 video card has not been flashed. I have never removed it since it was installed in 2015. And it certainly never showed the startup screen until recently.

One interesting thought - a month or so back I did a PRAM reset - the reason why escapes me, but I have always had issues with not hearing the second set of chimes to indicate success. I was always operating blind as I had a black screen until I got a login screen. This last reset of the PRAM I heard the chimes twice and got the grey apple screen, logo and startup bar.

It is baffling to me but I will take what I get. I just wonder why it started working now.

Lisa

lclev said:

It is baffling to me but I will take what I get. I just wonder why it started working now.

Click to expand...

Yes it is curious. Maybe it was a coincidential benefit written into the code of the latest versions of Sierra (not necessarily meant as a purposeful fix when using Windows video cards). Or maybe Apple wrote some code into newer versions of Sierra for compatibility with newer video hardware...and this newer video hardware in some coincidential way...shares something in common with older Windows video cards that can be used in a Mac Pro (just some theories).

Of course "No Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth"! lol

- Nick

From reading what gamers etc post in Insanely Mac the PRAM may have done it Lisa as there was an nupdate from Apple in I think it was the OS X.11.6 update, which required a PRAM restart to activate. Have a look through System Preferences and see if you can find a new entry for nVidia gfx Manager or similarly named.

Yeah Nick, I am not upset AT ALL. If it works I will take it. She is running really well so I don't want to rock the boat.

Harry - I will check tomorrow and see if I can find anything. I don't recall anything like a a nvidia gfx manager but I will check it out. All I recall is the CUDA updater which just did an update with the install of 10.12.5.

At least I have a potential theory to check out.

Lisa