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Radeon 7850 drivers for 10.8.3?

L

lobrien

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 29, 2012
15
0
I have a Sapphire HD 7850 that I'd love to put into my early-2008 Mac Pro (my 3870 runs hot driving my 2560x1440 monitor). I'd heard that there were Radeon 78** drivers in 10.8.3, but I'm not having any luck with "plug-and-pray."

I plugged in the card, and it shows up as a "GPU" in the System Report, but doesn't load any drivers.

Any advice?
 
No, it's not working.

No. The only way that I can see it as a GPU is if I hook up a screen to my old card (that is, have 2 graphics cards plugged in). If I plug directly into it, I just get a black screen.
 
Power's in: Is there manual driver selection/download?

Yes, the power's in and the fans spin. The fact that you have a 7870 going relieves me of one concern, which was the amount of power. Hmm...

Is there any way to manually download and install graphics drivers?
 
Maybe you just got a bad card.

Just to eliminate software issues, try it in a PC. If you don't have a PC handy, try a clean install of ML updated to 10.8.3 on a separate disk and boot from it.
 
Nope.

Works like a charm when I use Bootcamp to boot in Windows 7.

Now that I've rebooted and put in my 2nd (old) graphics card, I can see it again, seemingly driverless...

Sitting there now as:
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-2
PCIe Lane Width: x16
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6819
Revision ID: 0x0000
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded
 
lobrien said:
Works like a charm when I use Bootcamp to boot in Windows 7.

Now that I've rebooted and put in my 2nd (old) graphics card, I can see it again, seemingly driverless...

Sitting there now as:
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-2
PCIe Lane Width: x16
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x6819
Revision ID: 0x0000
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded
Click to expand...

Go to S/L/E and drag ATI7000Controller.kext to desktop, this will create a copy

Then delete the one in S/L/E and replace it with this one.

You will need to then run a "repair permissions" and restart with the 7850 in.

Might work.
 

Attachments

  • ATI7000Controller.kext.zip
    667.5 KB · Views: 816
Straight kext replacement didn't work...

@MacVidCards Thanks for that, but it didn't work for me.

@Attanar: Will try those steps and report back.
 
The rampagedev technique is too risky for me...

The rampagedev steps look pretty risky. DSDT injection is not really end-user friendly and I am not interested in putting my system into a state that would be hard to recover from.
 
lobrien said:
The rampagedev steps look pretty risky. DSDT injection is not really end-user friendly and I am not interested in putting my system into a state that would be hard to recover from.
Click to expand...

Try what AMango suggested above, maybe for whatever inexplicable reason, your current OS X install isn't playing nice. If it works on a clean OS install, problem solved.
 
The device id for 7850 isn't in the main kext.

The version above I posted has it added.

If it doesn't work with that after a permissions repair, then the device id must be missing from another place in driver.

No magic here, if the device isn't listed, the kext doesn't match and load.
 
Desperately seeking id...

@MacVidCards: OK, just to make sure: When you say "Repair permissions..." you mean "Disk Utility/Repair Permissions," right? I did that, it did indeed manipulate permissions in the kext you provided. Tried a couple reboots, no change in status.

I checked the info.plist in the kext you provided (now in S/L/E) and see 0x68191002 in the IOPCIMatch key, which to me looks like it matches the values in my System Report/Graphics Displays/ value.

Any other thoughts?
 
I found another place with device id

try these

If you already added the fixed 7000 kext, you just need to add the other one.
 

Attachments

  • AMDRadeonAccelerator.kext.zip
    1.8 MB · Views: 724
  • ATI7000Controller.kext.zip
    670 KB · Views: 595
MacVidCards said:
I found another place with device id

try these

If you already added the fixed 7000 kext, you just need to add the other one.
Click to expand...

This did the job for me! The MSI HD 7850 2GB I bought works fine in my 2009 Mac Pro. It is virtually silent relative to the rest of the machine (which was my goal as the 4870 I had in there before was the loudest component and I do some recording).

Works with only one of the existing (two) power connectors my old card used.

Came with DVI->HDMI and Mini-displayport to full displayport adapters, which seem nice. Both MDPs work with my 27" cinema display.

Stability seems fine.
 
You are welcome.

Keep in mind that the next time there is an OS update run, you will need to repeat this if Apple/AMD haven't decided to include it.

Glad it worked out for you.
 
Slight addendum. After I went through the above steps my internal sound devices stopped working (optical, internal speaker, line in/out, and headphones). They didn't show up in System Preferences > Sound, or anywhere else they usually are. External like Display Audio and various recording devices were fine.

I rebooted, repaired permissions, etc. What finally fixed it was zapping the PRAM. Held down Command-Option-P-R on boot for about 30 seconds to a minute (screen is black, or maybe has a tiny unix-like white cursor in upper left) during this time but finally heard the startup chime and all is resolved.
 
MacVidCards said:
I found another place with device id

try these

If you already added the fixed 7000 kext, you just need to add the other one.
Click to expand...

hi this fix do not work for my mac pro 3,1 2008 . with 10.8.3 osx
i have a sapphire hd 7850 2g overclock dual-x
and i has black screen afte it logs in the descktop
any ideas ?

thanks
 
I have a big problem.. I installed the video card and placed the kext files but I can't repair permissions. I don't have a working video card because the 5770 that came with the MP is dead. How can I go about this? I can connect my MP to my laptop through firewire or access it's files through the network but I can't repair disk permissions through the MBP. :( Is there a keyboard shortcut or a way to force the MP to repair permissions without a display? :(
 
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