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Nvidia 320M in Windows 8 BIOS & EFI boot

S

sejong

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 13, 2009
8
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A Mid 2010 Mac mini with an NVidia 320M graphics adapter using the NVidia driver has normal video when Windows 8 Consumer Preview is installed and booted from a hybrid MBR, but not from EFI boot. With EFI boot, but there is no video signal received by the monitor (except during the pre-OS - Betta fish - part of the boot).

When Windows default video is used, video is normal with an EFI boot, although device manager shows a warning that the Microsoft basic video drive could not be loaded.

I'm wondering if this is an Apple EFI, an NVidia driver, and/or a Windows 8 video problem.
 
Last edited:
sejong said:
A Mid 2010 Mac mini with an NVidia graphics adapter using the NVidia driver has normal video when Windows 8 Consumer Preview is installed and booted from a hybrid MBR, but not from EFI boot. With EFI boot, but there is no video signal received by the monitor (except during the pre-OS - Betta fish - part of the boot).

When Windows default video is used, video is normal with an EFI boot, although device manager shows a warning that the Microsoft basic video drive could not be loaded.

I'm wondering if this is an Apple EFI, an NVidia driver, and/or a Windows 8 video problem.
Click to expand...

I have the same problems, it seems it's caused by NVidia driver. Each time, when I tried to install Nvidia driver, it turns to black..
 
I think the thread you referenced, which I posted in, is more about getting Windows 7, as opposed to Windows 8, to install and run when booted from EFI. I'm writing this post from a 2011 MacBook Air where Windows 8 is installed and run from EFI boot, so in that regard it's further along than Windows 7/EFI. The problems are the drivers and stability when Windows 8 is running, rather than getting it installed.
 
I decided to look into the issue on my 2010 MacBook Pro 13-inch. I enabled remote desktop, installed the R285 drivers, then rebooted. I was hoping to gain some knowledge by reading the event log and looking at device manager to determine the cause. On reboot, I got the black screen, as expected, but then as I activated the remote desktop connection, it hard locked the MBP. I confirmed by using the Caps Lock key. Before attempting the remote desktop connection, I confirmed the computer was still alive by pressing caps lock and noting the LED changing. After the remote desktop connection, the caps lock key had no effect and the RDP client on the connecting computer just showed a black screen. After I disconnected the RDP client manually and attempted a reconnect, I got no response which further confirmed that the computer was hard locked. I'll have to do some more research when I get the time, but I figured I'd dump what I found here.

I also ran without a 3rd party video driver installed for a while but I kept getting WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR BSODs which was quite strange and indicates a hardware problem. I think either my 320M is defective or the 320M in general is just a weird chip. I have issues post-R285 on Win7 (and Win8) which cause VIDEO_TDR_ERROR BSODs when I watch a flash video or run the WEI test.
 
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Update?

Any news here? I'm still getting this problem also with Win8.1, and the problem is really the Nvidia driver.
Whenever I activate the driver in Device Manager I get a BSOD.
I then have to fail-start Windows 3 times to get into safe mode and deactivate the driver, then it starts working again.

Isn't this also something to be posted in the Nvidia forums?
 
hup007 said:
Update?

Any news here? I'm still getting this problem also with Win8.1, and the problem is really the Nvidia driver.
Whenever I activate the driver in Device Manager I get a BSOD.
I then have to fail-start Windows 3 times to get into safe mode and deactivate the driver, then it starts working again.

Isn't this also something to be posted in the Nvidia forums?
Click to expand...

Same issue here. Were you able to resolve after all this time?
 
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