Black screen when I hold option when booting

[Ravich]

I recently upgraded my Mac Pro's video card to a GTX 570. I did my research and it plays nice with mavericks, so I didnt have any problems until I just tried to boot into my windows partition. It wont even bring up the various partitions. If I hold the option key while my computer restarts, it just stays on a black screen indefinitely. Havent tried waiting longer than 10 minutes or so.

Any ideas?

 

[chscag]

I recently upgraded my Mac Pro's video card to a GTX 570. I did my research and it plays nice with mavericks, so I didnt have any problems until I just tried to boot into my windows partition. It wont even bring up the various partitions. If I hold the option key while my computer restarts, it just stays on a black screen indefinitely. Havent tried waiting longer than 10 minutes or so.

Any ideas?

It sounds like you need to install Windows drivers for the GTX 570.

 

[Ravich]

I considered that, but it doesnt even bring up the partitions. That would make sense if it happened after I selected my windows partition, right?

 

[chscag]

I considered that, but it doesnt even bring up the partitions. That would make sense if it happened after I selected my windows partition, right?

You stated that you're holding down the Option key while rebooting and I assume you're waiting for the partition selection to show up but instead you get a black screen? That could still be related to the absence of Windows drivers. If you simply reboot without the Option key, does the machine boot normally to Mavericks?

Another question: Is the GTX 570 a genuine Mac video card or is it a Windows card re-blown for Mac use?

 

[Ravich]

It boots normally into mavericks without the options key. Not entirely sure what you're asking about the video card, but it works with mavericks by default. No drivers necessary. I dont know if that means it's a genuine mac card though.

Anyway, what you're saying does make sense. I'll give it a shot.

 

[Ravich]

Is there a way to boot windows into safe mode with boot camp? I'm a bit weary of trying the methods I've read up on because the function keys are seemingly fussy with mac/windows stuff variation, and I dont think it's a good idea to make my windows partition the default one if holding the option key prevents it from booting at all.

 

[supermariofan25]

Is there a way to boot windows into safe mode with boot camp? I'm a bit weary of trying the methods I've read up on because the function keys are seemingly fussy with mac/windows stuff variation, and I dont think it's a good idea to make my windows partition the default one if holding the option key prevents it from booting at all.

You can boot into windows by going into Startup Disk in the System Preferences in OS X, this might be risky if you cant get into the OS selection menu, because if Windows doesn't work then you wont be able to easily get back into OS X if not at all, so maybe don't try that. As for getting into the OS selection menu, do you have the startup sound enables and is it audible during startup? If so then wait for the startup sound to play then immediately press and hold the option key, I have found personally that sometimes holding the option key during the whole reboot process causes the computer to have a black screen for a while longer but eventually shows the selection menu. Almost forgot, to get into Windows safemode on a Mac, hold down (or repeatedly tap) the F8 key (only for Windows 7 I think), but this only works on a USB keyboard as far as I know.

You can boot into windows by going into Startup Disk in the System Preferences in OS X, this might be risky if you cant get into the OS selection menu, because if Windows doesn't work then you wont be able to easily get back into OS X if not at all, so maybe don't try that. As for getting into the OS selection menu, do you have the startup sound enables and is it audible during startup? If so then wait for the startup sound to play then immediately press and hold the option key, I have found personally that sometimes holding the option key during the whole reboot process causes the computer to have a black screen for a while longer but eventually shows the selection menu. Almost forgot, to get into Windows safemode on a Mac, hold down (or repeatedly tap) the F8 key (only for Windows 7 I think), but this only works on a USB keyboard as far as I know.

On an after though, maybe the card was supported in a later version of OS X then the manufacturing date of the Mac Pro, Im not sure of this is the case or if this is even possible but your Mac might not have EFI level driver support for your new card. Have you tried with the original card?

 

[pastrychef]

Unless you have a GTX 570 that has modified firmware to give boot screens, it will remain black until drivers are loaded. This means you won't see the screen where you see the various bootable partitions when you boot holding the option key.

How do you get modified firmware so you can see boot screens?
1. Pay someone like MacVidCards to do it for you.
2. Make your own firmware. You may also need to replace the EEPROM so that your modified firmware can fit.

Also, as far as I know, no one has ever made EFI firmware compatible with Mac Pro 1,1s or 2,1s since the 8800GT.

 

[Ravich]

Huh... well that is problematic. I'm currently trying to get back into OSX and it looks like I'll need to pop in the old graphics card.

In theory could I still use the bootable partitions screen even though it isnt displaying? ie press right arrow once, then enter.

Windows doesnt actually recognize bootable partitions that arent windows, so setting the default system startup operating system would only work going from OSX into Windows, and I'd need to swap out graphics cards in order to get back.


I have no idea what making my own firmware would even entail, so I'm assuming that's out of the question.

I'll see what MacVidCards can do for me.

Maybe I'll try booting from an OSX DVD or USB drive and see how that works. Edit: obviously it's not going to work if I try booting from a 10.6 DVD....

 

[hfg]

Performing a PRAM reset at boot should restore OS X booting to your system. I like to hear the chime 2 or 3 times just to be sure.

 

[Ravich]

Whelp, it's doing it again. Last time it suddenly started working after a slew of attempted fixes didnt work. I had the original video card in there, I tried resetting battery thing or whatever it's called, nothing was working. Then I popped in the new video card (GTX 570) cuz why not and bam it boots into windows safe mode.

I couldnt make any sense out of it and assumed that maybe it was running windows updates but wasnt displaying anything.


Anyway, just now I tried holding down the PRAM keys for a solid 40 seconds or so and FINALLY I got the chime. I cant say for certain that I tried for that long the last time this happened but I cant see myself giving up before holding it for quite some time.


Here's a potentially related issue in this thread I made: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ns-can-find-files-fine.1967733/#post-22807442


Cant make any sense out of the symptoms here either. Isnt the hard drive, finder works perfectly fine 20% of the time, files are all accessible through other programs, randomly decides to freeze up. Can still move the window around but cant interact with it.

Guess a fresh install of mavericks seems like the best idea for now. -.-

 

[JOSmith99]

Huh... well that is problematic. I'm currently trying to get back into OSX and it looks like I'll need to pop in the old graphics card.

In theory could I still use the bootable partitions screen even though it isnt displaying? ie press right arrow once, then enter.

Windows doesnt actually recognize bootable partitions that arent windows, so setting the default system startup operating system would only work going from OSX into Windows, and I'd need to swap out graphics cards in order to get back.


I have no idea what making my own firmware would even entail, so I'm assuming that's out of the question.

I'll see what MacVidCards can do for me.

Maybe I'll try booting from an OSX DVD or USB drive and see how that works. Edit: obviously it's not going to work if I try booting from a 10.6 DVD....

once you are in windows, you can look in the task bar icons and click on boot camp assistant, and from there you can change the default boot drive and/or choose to reboot into OSX. Also, if you had to, you could boot into the recovery partition and erase the windows partition if it is useless anyway and that would force it to boot into OSX. However, if you have important files stored in windows, I would recommend first trying to boot to OSX and manually copy your files from the windows partition to the OSX partition with Finder. This should only be a last resort however in the event that you cannot boot into any OS on your computer.

 

[tomd91]

I know this is an old thread but for anyone else reading this I finally found the solution to this problem, the trick was to plug my monitor into the original mac graphics card, I had it installed and in slot 1 but this was no good as my monitor was plugged into the newer GTX card, plugged into the original mac gpu and startup manager now appearing.