GTX 970 and GT 120 under Win 7 = Fail

[Chocomonsters]

I was able to run GTX 970 and old Apple GT 120 (for boot screen) under Win 7 up to 340.52 Windows driver. I was unable to update to GeForce 344.11 Windows driver as support for GeForce 9 series (Apple GT 120) is dropped.

I can run GTX 970 and Apple GT 120 under Yosemite fine without any problem (Thank you Nvidia for 343.01.01f01 web driver).

Unfortunately, I am unable to run both GTX 970 and Apple GT 120 under Win 7 as GTX 970 requires at least 344.11 or 344.16 driver which no longer supports GT 120. Unlike Old XP which supported two separate drivers for two separate video cards, Win 7 wants to assign one driver for both video cards.

Now it seems that I have to either ditch GT 120 and forgo boot screen. Or get Apple AMD EFI card just for boot screen.

Am I missing simple solution?

 

[MacVidCards]

I was able to run GTX 970 and old Apple GT 120 (for boot screen) under Win 7 up to 340.52 Windows driver. I was unable to update to GeForce 344.11 Windows driver as support for GeForce 9 series (Apple GT 120) is dropped.

I can run GTX 970 and Apple GT 120 under Yosemite fine without any problem (Thank you Nvidia for 343.01.01f01 web driver).

Unfortunately, I am unable to run both GTX 970 and Apple GT 120 as GTX 970 requires at least 344.11 or 344.16 driver which no longer supports GT 120. Unlike Old XP which supported two separate drivers for two separate video cards, Win 7 wants to assign one driver for both video cards.

Now it seems that I have to either ditch GT 120 and forgo boot screen. Or get Apple AMD EFI card just for boot screen.

Am I missing simple solution?

We will hopefully be offering a GTX970/980 EFI card in next few months. Until then, we have a GT640 already available with boot screens. And as I watch my Yosemite installer boot on my GTX750 EFI card with full boot support I can tell you that MacVidCards will continue offering EFI cards for cMP.

 

[boborambow]

I was able to run GTX 970 and old Apple GT 120 (for boot screen) under Win 7 up to 340.52 Windows driver. I was unable to update to GeForce 344.11 Windows driver as support for GeForce 9 series (Apple GT 120) is dropped.

I can run GTX 970 and Apple GT 120 under Yosemite fine without any problem (Thank you Nvidia for 343.01.01f01 web driver).

Unfortunately, I am unable to run both GTX 970 and Apple GT 120 under Win 7 as GTX 970 requires at least 344.11 or 344.16 driver which no longer supports GT 120. Unlike Old XP which supported two separate drivers for two separate video cards, Win 7 wants to assign one driver for both video cards.

Now it seems that I have to either ditch GT 120 and forgo boot screen. Or get Apple AMD EFI card just for boot screen.

Am I missing simple solution?

I've been building out a Mac Pro and I have my GTX 970 and GT 120 working great in Yosemite as well. I currently installed Windows on a PCIe slot and it works great. But I have the same exact issue as you. I can't get windows to use both GPUs. If I pull the GT 120, it would fine with just the GTX 970 and vice versa. But I like to keep both in the computer for ease.

Did you ever get Windows to recognize both the 120 and 970?

 

[MassMacMan]

I've been building out a Mac Pro and I have my GTX 970 and GT 120 working great in Yosemite as well. I currently installed Windows on a PCIe slot and it works great. But I have the same exact issue as you. I can't get windows to use both GPUs. If I pull the GT 120, it would fine with just the GTX 970 and vice versa. But I like to keep both in the computer for ease.

Did you ever get Windows to recognize both the 120 and 970?

I have both a GTX970 and a legacy GT120. While they play together quite well in Yosemite, under Windows 7 only the GT120 worked. The work-around for me was to remove the GT120 and keep it in a drawer nearby for emergency use. I drive four monitors with the GTX970. If I want to run Windows as a virtual machine, I use VMWare Fusion and Windows runs under one screen. If I need to run Windows natively, I use BootChamp to force a reboot of my machine in Windows, and all four screens are active. A reboot cleanly brings up Yosemite.

Finally, if I get stuck after a MacOS update and the system reverts to the OSX default driver, no monitors work. I then use TeamViewer to remotely log into my machine from a nearby laptop, install the new Nvidia web driver and restart. Voila!

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

For Windows 7-8.1.

Nvidia dropped support for the GT120/9x00 in their Windows drivers over a year ago before Maxwell came out. This means if you install both cards at the same time Windows will attempt to install and run a driver for the older card that isn't compatible with the newer card.

The solution is to use the generic Windows driver for the GT120 and the newest Nvidia drivers for the newer card. Don't allow Windows to install the driver for the older card. This can be done by disabling the download in Windows Update.

In Windows 10 you can't disable the Windows Update from installing the older driver. You must only have the newer card installed.

 

[boborambow]

Ah cool. Thanks for the tips!

I am running Windows 7 so I'm also going to give the generic drivers a try. That sounds like a great idea. I just like the GT 120 for the bootup screens. I have my drives encrypted and in Yosemite, you need to type your password in during that bootup screen phase. I can fudge it with the screens off, I just wait a couple seconds then press the left arrow key then wait a couple seconds, then type in my password.

BootChamp sounds like it might fix my other issue though. For some reason, my computer always selects the wrong drive when I switch from Windows to Mac. I have a partition for a Yosemite clean install and a backup HD. It seems to select one of those at random. But BootChamp might solve that issue. I'm entirely sure why it does that, but I think it has something to do with the encrypted drives. I'm going to try decrypting and seeing if it changes.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

For Windows 7-8.1.

Nvidia dropped support for the GT120/9x00 in their Windows drivers over a year ago before Maxwell came out. This means if you install both cards at the same time Windows will attempt to install and run a driver for the older card that isn't compatible with the newer card.

The solution is to use the generic Windows driver for the GT120 and the newest Nvidia drivers for the newer card. Don't allow Windows to install the driver for the older card. This can be done by disabling the download in Windows Update.

In Windows 10 you can't disable the Windows Update from installing the older driver. You must only have the newer card installed.

Sorry to reply to an old thread's old comment, but I have the opposite issue with my Mac Pro: I fitted it with an RX 580 8GB, and I went to boot into Windows so that I could install the proper drivers. Sadly, the OS wasn't detecting the card, so I decided to plug in the GT 120 to use temporarily, in order to install the AMD driver. With the GT 120 in there, I was able to install the drivers for the AMD card and then switch the cables over to it. Now, the RX 580 works... HOWEVER, it only does so if the GT 120 is running alongside it - even if simply headless. When I remove the GT 120, the RX 580 goes back to keeping its fans blasting and not giving me a signal.

I went and removed all the NVIDIA drivers I possibly could, leaving the GT 120 essentially 'naked,' so as to start fresh. I watched as Windows installed its generic driver for the GT 120, and I made sure that the Windows Update wouldn't present me with a download for an official, updated driver. My RX 580 started working as soon as the GT 120's generic driver was installed / the system restarted.

BUT, when I take the GT 120 out, the RX 580 still acts as though its drivers aren't installed whatsoever. I do not understand it. Should I try this with a Radeon 4870 instead of a GT 120?

 

[GuiPol]

Hello Guys,
I'm new to this forum (as a "writer", but an old reader we might say).
Got the same issue as OP but was never able to resolve it.

-Mac pro (with high sierra) and windows 7/bootcamp on another hard drive (SSD).
-GT120 and a GTX 970 (pc version with no mac EFI) installed together...
=> Fail : can't get it to work !

what i've done so far :

-at first i had my GTX 680 mac edition with bootcamp it worked flawlessly wth the latest nvidia drivers (390.XXX.XXX...).
-Then i bought a gt120 and a PC GTX 970
-removed the GTX 680 and instead put the 2 cards together.
-Wired the gt120 (DVI) to another screen and the GTX 970 to my main screen (hDMI)

=> on boot i can see bootscreen on the gt120 screen and black screen on the GTX 970 screen = normal
-I choose Bootcamp and only the gt120 is "active" on windows. As OP said the GTX 970 IS seen by device manager but the screen stays black.
-UNinstalled all nvidia drivers with "display drivers uninstaller" in safe mode.
-Blocked the GT120 to "standard microsoft display adapter", prevented windows to ever install update (disabled windows update PLUS put a special group policy to prevent driver installation for this device in particular (gt120).
-Reboot
-Installed GTX 970 latest driver which installed flawlessly
-But the screen connected to the 970 stays BLACK on windows (whereas on mac osx all work together real well)...
-The GT120 doesn't EVEN appear anymore in the windows device manager (i've also "disable" this device in addition to the above steps.. just in case ! )
-The GT120 still continue to provide minimum picture as a generic device on its own screen but the GTX 970 screen stays black .. forever.

I've read from SoycapitanSoycapitan that you have to boot with ONLY the GTX 970 instead, install it, reboot, and THEN put back the GT120.. then (i can imagine) force the newly installed gt120 with basic drivers.. (am i right ?)

Well, how am i supposed to do that if i dont have a bootscreen... Cause on high sierra you cannot select bootcamp from the boot disc preference it cannot "see" bootcamp with windows 7.. (probably because high sierra installs windows 10 by default or maybe because it's on a SSD, i don't know).

Anyway thanks guys for your input !!!
Cheers !

 

[ActionableMango]

Well, how am i supposed to do that if i dont have a bootscreen... Cause on high sierra you cannot select bootcamp from the boot disc preference it cannot "see" bootcamp with windows 7.

Don't connect the High Sierra drive? Use BootChamp?

 

[h9826790]

Hello Guys,
I'm new to this forum (as a "writer", but an old reader we might say).
Got the same issue as OP but was never able to resolve it.

-Mac pro (with high sierra) and windows 7/bootcamp on another hard drive (SSD).
-GT120 and a GTX 970 (pc version with no mac EFI) installed together...
=> Fail : can't get it to work !

what i've done so far :

-at first i had my GTX 680 mac edition with bootcamp it worked flawlessly wth the latest nvidia drivers (390.XXX.XXX...).
-Then i bought a gt120 and a PC GTX 970
-removed the GTX 680 and instead put the 2 cards together.
-Wired the gt120 (DVI) to another screen and the GTX 970 to my main screen (hDMI)

=> on boot i can see bootscreen on the gt120 screen and black screen on the GTX 970 screen = normal
-I choose Bootcamp and only the gt120 is "active" on windows. As OP said the GTX 970 IS seen by device manager but the screen stays black.
-UNinstalled all nvidia drivers with "display drivers uninstaller" in safe mode.
-Blocked the GT120 to "standard microsoft display adapter", prevented windows to ever install update (disabled windows update PLUS put a special group policy to prevent driver installation for this device in particular (gt120).
-Reboot
-Installed GTX 970 latest driver which installed flawlessly
-But the screen connected to the 970 stays BLACK on windows (whereas on mac osx all work together real well)...
-The GT120 doesn't EVEN appear anymore in the windows device manager (i've also "disable" this device in addition to the above steps.. just in case ! )
-The GT120 still continue to provide minimum picture as a generic device on its own screen but the GTX 970 screen stays black .. forever.

I've read from SoycapitanSoycapitan that you have to boot with ONLY the GTX 970 instead, install it, reboot, and THEN put back the GT120.. then (i can imagine) force the newly installed gt120 with basic drivers.. (am i right ?)

Well, how am i supposed to do that if i dont have a bootscreen... Cause on high sierra you cannot select bootcamp from the boot disc preference it cannot "see" bootcamp with windows 7.. (probably because high sierra installs windows 10 by default or maybe because it's on a SSD, i don't know).

Anyway thanks guys for your input !!!
Cheers !

High Sierra can see (and select) Bootcamp partition. This is how I dual boot Windows after Nvidia web driver installation require SIP to be enabled.

If fact, if you only need the GT120 for dual boot, you may better remove it, and simply use the 970. Keep the GT120 at a safe place and make sure it’s ready as a rescue tool.

 

[GuiPol]

Don't connect the High Sierra drive? Use BootChamp?

Thank you for answering to my question !
yes i guess you're right, i'll leave only the drive with bootcamp on it and it will boot on it eventually i guess.
But how come i can't select bootcamp in the system settings and "boot disc" option.. i can see all my disc except the ne formatted in NTFS with windows 7 on it... frustating.. and bootchamp is giving me an error when i tell him to bootin bootcamp for the next restart... (??). i've installed this bootcamp disc with a bootcamp found in snow leopard that i have on another drive. Because High sierra wouldn't let me install "his" bootcamp version stating that the machine was too old for that.. maybe it's because of that high sierra cannot "see" the boot camp drive on my ssd..?? what would be your opinion on this matter ?
[doublepost=1519972985][/doublepost]

High Sierra can see (and select) Bootcamp partition. This is how I dual boot Windows after Nvidia web driver installation require SIP to be enabled.

If fact, if you only need the GT120 for dual boot, you may better remove it, and simply use the 970. Keep the GT120 at a safe place and make sure it’s ready as a rescue tool.

Hello h9826790, thank you for answering to my question too !

i cannot see, well high sierra, cannot "see" the bootcamp partition in the disc selection screen (ive uploaded a picture to show you what it can actually see). I really don't know why it's that way but for me the ONLY way to go into my bootcamp installation is to use the "alt" key at the start up.. hence the NEED of a bootscreen...:/

it sees it's own disc and another one called "head" which has snow leopard on it.. but not the bootcamp disc.

i'll add to that, in windows, the bootcamp app which normally gives you the option to boot back to mac os is absent too...
it can only see the disc "head" with snow leopard on it..

thank you for your input on that...

ps: sorry the pictures are in french but i guess you can tell i was in system settings-> booting order

 

[h9826790]

Thank you for answering to my question !
yes i guess you're right, i'll leave only the drive with bootcamp on it and it will boot on it eventually i guess.
But how come i can't select bootcamp in the system settings and "boot disc" option.. i can see all my disc except the ne formatted in NTFS with windows 7 on it... frustating.. and bootchamp is giving me an error when i tell him to bootin bootcamp for the next restart... (??). i've installed this bootcamp disc with a bootcamp found in snow leopard that i have on another drive. Because High sierra wouldn't let me install "his" bootcamp version stating that the machine was too old for that.. maybe it's because of that high sierra cannot "see" the boot camp drive on my ssd..?? what would be your opinion on this matter ?
[doublepost=1519972985][/doublepost]

Hello h9826790, thank you for answering to my question too !

i cannot see, well high sierra, cannot "see" the bootcamp partition in the disc selection screen (ive uploaded a picture to show you what it can actually see). I really don't know why it's that way but for me the ONLY way to go into my bootcamp installation is to use the "alt" key at the start up.. hence the NEED of a bootscreen...:/

it sees it's own disc and another one called "head" which has snow leopard on it.. but not the bootcamp disc.

i'll add to that, in windows, the bootcamp app which normally gives you the option to boot back to mac os is absent too...
it can only see the disc "head" with snow leopard on it..

thank you for your input on that...

ps: sorry the pictures are in french but i guess you can tell i was in system settings-> booting order

Did you really install Windows via Bootcamp App? If you install Windows in EFI mode, you won’t see that in system preference.

On the Windows side, you can’t see High Sierra most likely because you upgraded to APFS. If you stay with HFS+, the option should be there.

 

[GuiPol]

Did you really install Windows via Bootcamp App? If you install Windows in EFI mode, you won’t see that in system preference.

On the Windows side, you can’t see High Sierra most likely because you upgraded to APFS. If you stay with HFS+, the option should be there.

yes from the windows point of view i can understand why it cannot sees the APFS disc, that makes sens to me..

but high sierra "should" see the bootcamp. i've installed bootcamp from my disc "head" which has snow leopard on it (you can see this disc on the picture) because high sierra wouldnt want to install "his" bootcamp" stating my machine was too old. So the only way i found was to boot on my disc "head" which has snow leopard on it and install bootcamp from this.. Which went really smoothly.. (so i guess i've done things right ? no ? )

 

[h9826790]

yes from the windows point of view i can understand why it cannot sees the APFS disc, that makes sens to me..

but high sierra "should" see the bootcamp. i've installed bootcamp from my disc "head" which has snow leopard on it (you can see this disc on the picture) because high sierra wouldnt want to install "his" bootcamp" stating my machine was too old. So the only way i found was to boot on my disc "head" which has snow leopard on it and install bootcamp from this.. Which went really smoothly.. (so i guess i've done things right ? no ? )

Is your Mac a 5,1? Did you install High Sierra by yourself?

 

[GuiPol]

yes it's a mac 5,1 (2010) and i'v installed high sierra by myself with a bootable usb that 'ive done with "install disk creator" and it worked well once the flashing phase was over (which was a pain at first i might say..)

i was wondering though.. what is the "last" mas os version from which you can install a bootcamp on 5,1 ..? High sierra is clearly a no go. And on apple site they confirm that it's impossible. too old machine. Maybe sierra can install bootcamp on mac pro 5,1? or maybe el capitan ? clearly snow leopard worked for installing bootcamp but there seems to be a hiccup.. high sierra cannot see the bootcamp disc which is really depressing to say the least ahahaha



by the way : An interesting point is that guy : (that's what i was trying to achieve).

he manages to install BOTH cards at the same time on a windows 10 bootcamp (but the process is the same on windows 7 , the trick was to install the GT120 with a microsoft standard display driver (and prevent windows from installing anything else with group policy cleverly edited) and the GTX 970 with the latest nvidia drivers of course, so no conflict whatsoever...

What he says makes sense. But even by following his steps i cannot get the GTX 970 to even "display" something on its own screen.. it seems as if once windows has "elected" a card as its "main card" it won't change nevermind the drivers and the tweaks you can throw at it... must have done something wrong ! grrrrr

i'm doing this for fun though, i like challenges !!! ahahah but yes it's frustrating when it fails miserably like this ahaha

 

[GuiPol]

ok i've found the "mystery" behind this bootcamp issue....after days of research google finally decided to bring me to that page : https://kb.paragon-software.com/article/204 which explain WHY bootcamp disappear from boot disc selection in high sierra.

Truth is if you have an NTFS driver like paragon or tuxera or whatever it disables your ntfs drive in boot selection screen. They say Osx is at fault here not their driver.. hum.

Anyway. Mystery solved but my problem is still here because if i install "only" a non flashed card i can boot to windows now from mac (by disabling the NTFS driver) but i can't go back to mac osx (it will always boot to windows first) and windows 7/10 cannot see APFS drive so no boot selection in bootcamp app on windows... argh too bad.

 

[ActionableMango]

but i can't go back to mac osx

You have boot screens with the GT120. Just hold OPTION key and select MacOS.

 

[GuiPol]

yes indeed.
Problem is : i wanted to have a good GPU on my windows bootcamp (for that i've bought a PC version of the GTX 970).
On mac os no problem i can use the GT120 and the GTX 970 alongside (i have bootscreen and multiscreen and everything works like a charm).
But for bootcamp. Nope. GT120 and GTX 970 can't stay together in the same machine.. (even with the clever trick the guy on youtube *see above for his video* manage to pulloff) i can't get them to work together under windows.
That's why it has been suggested to ditch the bootscreen and install only the GTX970. And switch mac os to wind and vice &versa with system settings..

Good idea !!

But apple and their new file system is a huge pain ! Because it cannot be seen under bootcamp so you loose the ability to "restart under mac osx" ...

See, it's a dead end or a snake that bites its own tail if you prefer. Maybe i can force install a new high sierra drive with HFS+ instead of APFS and then i'll have all drives visible form every OS and no need for bootscreen !! ^^ but i dunno how to do that (yet)

 

[devon807]

I had the same issue, but with Windows 10 and a GTX 980. The drivers would crash each other out. What I had to end up doing was reinstall W10 with only the GTX 980. Also, Win 10 never properly recognized the GT 120.

 

[GuiPol]

yes you're absolutely right. (unfortunately ! i wish you weren't though, in this case ahaha)

I know how to make the GTX 970 work under windows (with your technique indeed it works !). But since i can't switch back and forth between OS it's useless cause i need MAc os and Win to be perfectly functional...

I *know* there must a simple trick to do it. At least make the GT120 and GTX XXXX work together under bootcamp, if that Hrutkay guy did it (and he prooves it on his video) then it's doable...

 

[ActionableMango]

But since i can't switch back and forth between OS it's useless cause i need MAc os and Win to be perfectly functional.

Selecting Windows in Bootchamp is a 1-time boot selection, not a permanent change. So if MacOS is your default boot drive, then use Bootchamp to select Windows. From Windows you don't need to select MacOS because it will be the default on next boot instead of Windows anyway.

If Windows is the default boot drive, then you need to change it to MacOS. From then on do the above. But I assume Windows is NOT your boot drive, since earlier you said you couldn't get into Windows, which implies MacOS is your boot drive.

 

[GuiPol]

ActionableMango, good idea. I did try that 2 days ago but didn't work at that time ..

But 2 days ago, i hadn't found yet "why" bootcamp was not selectable in system settings->boot disc. And bootchamp was not working (it said it couldn't find the disc and displayed one page of log errors..undecipherable for me lol). But know that i've disabled NTFS driver it should work (hopefully!).

I dunno why but since it didnt work 2 days ago i've probably "erased" this solution from the list.. which is stupid indeed because now the situtation has changed quite a bit thanks to paragon warning on their driver...
Ill try that right away.

 

[ActionableMango]

But know that i've disabled NTFS driver it should work (hopefully!).

Oh, you don't even need BootChamp then. That's deprecated software anyway.

Why did you disable the NTFS driver? If you have Paragon NTFS installed, just select the boot drive in the Paragon preference pane.

 

[GuiPol]

yes indeed, i saw this on paragon own page : https://kb.paragon-software.com/article/204
but i can't seem to find that preference pane (i have paragon 15 not 14 ... maybe they ditched it on the last version ?)
Do you happen to have this software installed and verify this by any chance ? i have the same version (15) on all my macs and i can't seem to find this pane for the life of me...:/

ps: i can't remember if i did so i'm doing it right now : thank you my friend to take the time to answer me

 

[Dr. Stealth]

yes indeed, i saw this on paragon own page : https://kb.paragon-software.com/article/204
but i can't seem to find that preference pane (i have paragon 15 not 14 ... maybe they ditched it on the last version ?)
Do you happen to have this software installed and verify this by any chance ? i have the same version (15) on all my macs and i can't seem to find this pane for the life of me...:/

ps: i can't remember if i did so i'm doing it right now : thank you my friend to take the time to answer me