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A Beastly MacBook (4,1) and MacBook Pro (3,1): Fun with entirely unsupported external GPUs

A

Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Original poster
Oct 28, 2015
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The MacBook lacks a discrete GPU (always has) and you cannot add one, right? :D

My MacBook4,1 would like to disagree.

DSC_0501.JPG


The AirPort card is removed (hello USB WiFi dongle — yay!) , and a mPCIe-to-PCIe adapter (a GDC EXP Beast v8.5c) is connected in its place.

DSC_0502.JPG


The whole setup, with an unflashed graphics card, an ATX PSU to power it and my “4K” display.

The machine boots up normally, then the login screen appears on the external display. The internal one just sits there showing all the glitches you get in Mavericks due to no acceleration on the GMA X3100.

And it's nothing short of phenomenal. HiDPI is freakin' addictive. :D

eGPUbeast.jpg
 
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RhianB said:
Super cool! Love all this sort of stuff. Great job :)
Click to expand...

Thanks :) I'll say that I have been knocking myself out over the past few days two weeks trying to get this to work on an MBP2,1 to no avail, and this thread is the result of me finally giving in and switching to a newer machine. Oh well, this having a Penryn CPU means I can try Mojave on there and see what it thinks of this.
 
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Just thinking loudly:

1. By "going backwards" and using e.g. a 7300GT from a Mac Pro; it may be possible to get Tiger running with accelerated graphics on newer MacBooks such as mine.

2. There are many 2009/2010 27in iMacs with defective GPUs. An external GPU could be attached using the AirPort/MiniPCIe slot and the cable that connects to the full-size PCIe slot routed through the RAM door. Now for the crucial part: the external GPU could drive the iMac's internal display in Target Display Mode via DisplayPort.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
2. There are many 2009/2010 27in iMacs with defective GPUs. An external GPU could be attached using the AirPort/MiniPCIe slot and the cable that connects to the full-size PCIe slot routed through the RAM door. Now for the crucial part: the external GPU could drive the iMac's internal display in Target Display Mode via DisplayPort.
Click to expand...

Good thought, however I think Target Display Mode requires a bootable System with a functioning GPU.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
Just thinking loudly:

1. By "going backwards" and using e.g. a 7300GT from a Mac Pro; it may be possible to get Tiger running with accelerated graphics on newer MacBooks such as mine.

2. There are many 2009/2010 27in iMacs with defective GPUs. An external GPU could be attached using the AirPort/MiniPCIe slot and the cable that connects to the full-size PCIe slot routed through the RAM door. Now for the crucial part: the external GPU could drive the iMac's internal display in Target Display Mode via DisplayPort.
Click to expand...

Awesome stuff on the mPCIe eGPU :)

its something iv been wanting to test out myself, specifically with my AppleTV1,1 :D

one thing im curious about is if you use a Mac GPU, will the EFI Firmware initialise it properly like in a Mac Pro?

its worth noting anyone does try this out, that you need to use the correct EFI32 or EFI64 card for the mac your using

or use an AMD card, as they work across both EFI32 and EFI64 machines most of the time

(the 7300 GT is an EFI32 card so would not int in a MacBook4,1 as thats a EFI64 machine)
 
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Let's up the ante given the 660 sports four outputs...

dualhead.jpg


While it may seem pointless to run the ACD in the HiDPI mode equivalent to its native resolution and have the GPU deal with a framebuffer four times that size, fonts do look noticeably nicer and cleaner, especially the larger one in the menu bar.

For those who don't find the equivalent of 86 ppi too disagreeable, 1680×1050 in HiDPI is also nice on the 23in.

Tests with four displays to come :)
 
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AphoticD said:
Good thought, however I think Target Display Mode requires a bootable System with a functioning GPU.
Click to expand...

I've come across a handful of reports, e.g. here, saying TDM works even with a bad GPU as long as OS X still boots (Safe Mode is sufficient). Having seen affected iMacs that displayed nothing at all, displayed artifacts only when booted normally but not in Safe Mode, or displayed them in Safe Mode as well, I wonder to what extent the GPU must be functional for TDM to work.

TDM can also be activated when running Linux on the iMac: https://floe.butterbrot.org/matrix/hacking/tdm/
[doublepost=1554801450][/doublepost]
LightBulbFun said:
its worth noting anyone does try this out, that you need to use the correct EFI32 or EFI64 card for the mac your using

or use an AMD card, as they work across both EFI32 and EFI64 machines most of the time

(the 7300 GT is an EFI32 card so would not int in a MacBook4,1 as thats a EFI64 machine)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the hint, so an X1900 or HD2600 should fire up in the 4,1 running Tiger. I also wonder if I could use a "PC" 7300 with Natit - what do you reckon to that?
 
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Aye yeah X1900 should work in theory

the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT is an unknown when it comes to tiger, and is something iv wanted to personally test myself :)

the Tiger ATI Radeon 2xxx drivers have its device ID but I dont know if it has its frame buffer personality

the 7300 may work with Natit or some other injector kext however while iv tested that on PC hackintosh setups, iv not tested it in your specific use case

another card iv wanted to test in tiger is the Quadro FX 5600

this is a G80 card, and tiger does support G80 cards, but i dont know about the FX5600 specifically

it would be fun to Multi-boot a MacPro3,1 with every intel version of OS X :)
 
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LightBulbFun said:
the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT is an unknown when it comes to tiger, and is something iv wanted to personally test myself :)

the Tiger ATI Radeon 2xxx drivers have its device ID but I dont know if it has its frame buffer personality
Click to expand...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-mac-pro-8-core-and-tiger-10-4.413958/#post-4775039 says the 2600 XT works in Tiger. Skimming through the thread, the crucial thing seems to be using the build shipped with an Aluminum iMac, as using a non-iMac build and manually installing that "iMac Software Update" didn't work.

There's a Mac 2600 XT on eBay, hmm...
 
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oh very cool to see that it does work :)

im pretty sure you can use a non iMac build, as people with 2007 iMacs have done so when running Tiger on their iMacs (as the restore disks are hard to find these days), you might need to edit the package of course if it checks for model identifier, but thats not hard to do

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL179

its also worth noting that if your system reports "iMac7,1" software update will also pop up and say "hey we have a graphics driver update for you"

you can do this easy enough with a Virtual machine in VMWare fusion :) (by adding hw.model = "iMac7,1" to the vmx config file)

(and then move the drive back to the system your playing with)



the same is true if you want the GeForce G8x drivers but in this case MacBookPro3,1

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL180
 
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Just tested an unflashed X1800 GTO in Tiger. Using NatitX1800.kext, I get:

natit.png


...but my ACD isn't recognised and never wakes up (I tried both DVI ports, and the display and adapter are fine). Without Natit, the card just shows as a generic "Display" with very little information. I also added its device ID to ATIRadeonX1000.kext and it's shown as loaded but still nothing. FWIW, the card's fan is always running at full speed.

UPDATE: Kernel messages generated by NatitX1800.kext:

Code: 
NatitX1800: Starting.
NatitX1800: Setting @1,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting device_type=ATY,*Parent
NatitX1800: Setting @1,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting @0,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @0,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @0,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @1,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting @0,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting ATY,EFIOrientation=02
NatitX1800: Setting @0,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting model=Radeon X1800GTO
NatitX1800: Starting.
NatitX1800: Setting @1,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting device_type=ATY,*Parent
NatitX1800: Setting @1,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting @0,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @0,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @0,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @1,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting @0,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting ATY,EFIOrientation=02
NatitX1800: Setting @0,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting model=Radeon X1800 Series Secondary
NatitX1800: Starting.
NatitX1800: Setting @1,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting device_type=ATY,*Parent
NatitX1800: Setting @1,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting @0,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @0,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @0,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @1,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting @0,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting ATY,EFIOrientation=02
NatitX1800: Setting @0,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting model=Radeon X1800 Series Secondary
NatitX1800: Starting.
NatitX1800: Setting @1,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting device_type=ATY,*Parent
NatitX1800: Setting @1,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting @0,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @0,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @0,fboffset=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,compatible=ATY,*
NatitX1800: Setting @1,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
NatitX1800: Setting @1,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting @0,name=ATY,Alopias
NatitX1800: Setting ATY,EFIOrientation=02
NatitX1800: Setting @0,device_type=display
NatitX1800: Setting model=Radeon X1800GTO
 
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interesting results :)

does anything show under PCI Cards?

did you try a VGA monitor?

I wonder if theres a framebuffer to actual card ports miss match

(although the ATY,Alopias framebuffer personality is a Dual DVI one used with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT in the MacPro1,1 and the X1900 (GT?) G5 Mac edition card)

(you could also test the ATY,Sphyrna (single, single Link DVI AFAIK) and ATY,Wormy (LVDS and single link DVI) frame-buffer personalities as well just on the off chance one their DVI ports matches up with your 1800 GTO)
 
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Will you try installing Mojave and let me know? I had a 5,2 board blow up on me and I’ve been stuck using a 4,1 with ML. I can get around, don’t get me wrong, I just want to see if converting it to a desktop would be more sufficient.
 
Amethyst1 said:
External GPU working in Snow Leopard :D

View attachment 832491

ATY_Init.kext was necessary to initialise the card even though this is a 2600 XT pulled from a Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

very cool and interesting results :)

so you did not get a boot screen with the ATI Radeon 2600 XT?

is this with or without the delay thing set on the external graphics dock your using?

i could see the delay thing being set, preventing boot screens
 
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ahh thats a shame, was hoping you would get boot screens, still very cool to see it works with ATY,init however, does it work in tiger with the iMac drivers? :)

you have verified it is a Mac card right?

I recently gave my MacPro2,1 to a friend but kept my ATI Radeon HD 5770 from it, so ill still be able to test this stuff out myself when i can afford to get a eGPU Dock :)
 
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Update...

It turns out I did use the iMac 10.4.10 disc to install Tiger. Thus the ATI Radeon 2600 kexts (dated 2007-07-12) are there and I didn't install the iMac update for now (but all the other available updates have been applied of course).

Using Natit.kext dated 2008-01-15, System Profiler shows (nothing in the PCI Cards section):

tiger-natit-2600xt.jpg


Relevant kernel messages are:
Code: 
Alkor: Setting @0,compatible=ATY,Lamna
Alkor: Setting @0,ATY,EFIDisplay=TMDSA
Alkor: Setting @1,display-type=NONE
Alkor: Setting AAPL00,blackscreen-preferences=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting @0,display-connect-flags=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting @0,display-type=LCD
Alkor: Setting ATY,PCIConfigSpace=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting model=ATI Radeon HD 2600
Alkor: Setting ATY,MRT=
Alkor: Setting ATY,EFIDriverType=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting AAPL,aux-power-connected=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting ATY,HWGPIO=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting ATY,bin_image=<data not shown>
Alkor: Setting ATY,EFIVersionBios=113-B14801-023
Alkor: Setting ATY,EFIVersionBios=113-B14801-023
ATY,Lamna: Not usable
ATY,Lamna: Not usable

Nothing on either DVI port. :( http://netkas.org/?p=52 suggests a newer version of Natit is necessary but I've only been able to find the one I'm using right now or even older versions, and mine does have the 2600 entries in Info.plist.
 
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very interesting stuff :)

did you try ATY init in tiger?

its a 32bit kext so might work in tiger, depends how it was compiled.

id also try install the iMac graphics update too :)

(I do wonder what the ATY,Lamna not usable is about, looks like its referencing each port, ATY,Lamna is the framebuffer personality for the ATI Radeon 2600 XT)
 
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