( Almost RESOLVED ) : AMD FirePro v7900 not booting into Mac OS HS

[MIKX]

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EDIT : I don't initially want the EFI bootscreen for this card - just want to get it booting into HS.
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Bought a cheap, used FirePro v7900. 2 gb 4 x Display Port here in Japan today because it is a single PCIe slot and only one 6 pin for power = would be a useful adjunct for flashing other cards in Win7 ( 6 pin ).

It's device ID is listed in Win7 GPUz as 1002 6704 and also the same in High Sierra's AMDLegacySupport.kext so I expected that using ACTIVE DP to DVI adapter that it would boot into High Sierra 10.13.6.

Tried DVI to DVI. & DVDI to HDMI cables with the TWO active adapters I also bought.

TDP is 150w. I tried BOTH ( 1) 2 x SATA to 6 pin &. (2) 1 x cMP onboard mini 6pin to 6 pin with no luck.

It DOES boot into Win 7 but after installing the AMD Catalyst driver it is still showing as GENERIC GPU in GPUz.

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Does anyone know which equivalent 6xxxx AMD card the FirePro v7900 is based on ?

eg : would flashing the Cayman 6970 or Cayman 6950 rom with this FirePro v7900's correct device ID 6704 get it booting in HS ? EDIT The reference HD 6970 has 2 x mDP. . . I would be happy with one mDP working ( no EFI ).

Seeing that I've seen vids of other FirePros running in cMPs .. this one SHOULD run in HS too.

Any advice, suggestions, ideas gratefully appreciated.

 

[LightBulbFun]

First thing is, try getting it working in Windows first, this is so you can rule out defective Hardware

keep in mind since its a FirePro card you need to use the proper FirePro drivers, not regular consumer drivers

second thing is, keep in mind no Cayman GPU was ever used in a a Mac officially, as such I have heard the drivers can be a bit dodgy

3rd thing, in OS X, can you setup remote desktop and login remotely? if so what does it show up as?

4th thing is, what Mac Pro are you using? if its a MacPro3,1 then the card wont work in High sierra because the AMD 5xxx and newer drivers need Nehalem CPUs or newer

as for flashing, you MIGHT be able to flash it, but you prolly wont get much in the way of working outputs as the ROMs port layout probably wont match, and neither will the framebuffer personality thats in the ROM

 

[MIKX]

All my cmp info is in my .sig. ( bottom of post #1 )
As I used GPUz ( graphic in post #1 ) to get the card's initial info . . I was in Win7 .
Downloaded the ROM

The odd thing is I downloaded & installed the latest FirePro. v7900 AMD drivers - and after a Win7 re-boot the FirePro STILL showed us as a GENERIC VGA card in GPUz.

If I can't get it to boot in HS it's no great loss as I just really want to use it as a 2nd. card when flashing other cards ( eg: R9 280X ) because it only requires a single 6 pin power cable.

 

[LightBulbFun]

All my cmp info is in my .sig. ( bottom of post #1 )
As I used GPUz ( graphic in post #1 ) to get the card's initial info . . I was in Win7 .
Downloaded the ROM

The odd thing is I downloaded & installed the latest FirePro. v7900 AMD drivers - and after a Win7 re-boot the FirePro STILL showed us as a GENERIC VGA card in GPUz.

If I can't get it to boot in HS it's no great loss as I just really want to use it as a 2nd. card when flashing other cards ( eg: R9 280X ) because it only requires a single 6 pin power cable.

did you check that aero/3D acceleration was working in windows 7?

 

[MIKX]

did you check that aero/3D acceleration was working in windows 7?

No.
2am here now. I'm off to bed. I think I'll take the card back tomorrow.
[doublepost=1556211726][/doublepost]. . .forgot to include this from the 2nd. paragraph of this story on https://www.geeks3d.com/20110521/amd-firepro-v7900-cayman-based-professional-graphics-card/

" A Radeon HD 6970 (Cayman) has 1536 SP, while a HD 6950 (Cayman) has 1408 SP. The difference between HD 6970 and HD 6950 is 128 SP or 2 SIMDs (one SIMD = 64 SP). The same kind of difference exists between the HD 6950 GPU and FirePro V7900 GPU: 1536-1280 = 128 = 2 SIMDs. At first approach, you can consider the V7900 like a limited version of HD 6950."

Good night to all.

 

[MIKX]

SUCCESS. . kind of . .the two "ACTIVE" Display Port to HDMI adapters I bought didn't work with the FirePro v7900 but I had a "made in Japan" DP to HDMI adapter lying around so I tried it . . .

FirePro DP to Japanese DP-HDMI adapter to HDMI DVI to DVI to monitor.

it worked but it looks as if the cMP booted up in Safe Boot .. .

This is not a fast card but it is a SINGLE SLOT card + only requires ONE 6 pin for power = useful spare and will come in handy when I EFI flash my soon to be bought R9 280X.

EDIT : No bootscreen of course but it could be that the HD 6970 rom with the FirePro's ID might work. . time will tell.

EDIt #2 Actually the purchased ACTIVE DP to DVI DO work .. . it's just tha tbootup time is longer .. about one minute.

 

[LightBulbFun]

very cool stuff!

did you check if the device ID was in the AMD kexts responsible for GPU acceleration?

I have seen it where the Device ID for a an AMD GPU, is in the kexts that handle basic initialisation and framebuffer support, but not in the kexts that handle GPU acceleration

(id check AMD6000 and X3000 kexts for the cards device ID IIRC if its not there you can try add it to the right section )

 

[MIKX]

LightBulbFun

Yes, I will do that, thanks for the advice but I'll have to really bone up on EFI flashing.

As it stands the Firepro v7900 is working in High Sierra; un-accelerated, boots into Safe Boot always despite my running " sudo nvram boot-args="" in Terminal.

Glitches when moving some apps GUIs. Slow.

If it eventually lives up to it's "FirePro" name and CAN be flashed for EFI and seeing that it is a rare single PCI slot & ONE 6pin for power .. it would be a very handy spare card.

I have a tiny flashed XFX HD 5770 which works very well when a "two card" flashing operation is required in WIN7. I'll never throw that one away.

Where is Fl0r!an when you need him ? I'll pester Netkas . . . . .

Currently I'm running a very nice Sapphire Dual-X 7970 powered by eVGA PowerLink which fulfills all my needs ( I rarely do any video editing. ).

At least Step 1. . . .getting it working in High Sierra is done.

 

[MIKX]

The FirePro v7900 seems to be either an upgrade or downgrade from either the HD 6950 or the HD 6970.

I have this card booting in High Sierra 10.13.6 - Display Port to DP ACTIVE adapter to HDMI or DVI on monitor but . . it boots via Safe Boot.= no acceleration.

I just looked in the High Sierra Sys/Libs/ Extensions/ AMD6000Controller.kext and found this ..
<string>Safe Boot</string>

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EDIT​

Just found the same "Safe Boot" entries in the
AMDLegacyFramebuffer.kext & the AMDLegacySupport.kext​

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QUESTIONS:
1.
If I remove this line. will the FirePro v7900 still boot up ?

2.
Also, is there a SWITCH for this "Safe Boot" setting ?

( at the bottom of the following text in RED text )

<key>OSBundleLibraries</key>
<dict>
<key>com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily</key>
<string>1.2</string>
<key>com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily</key>
<string>1.3</string>
<key>com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily</key>
<string>1.2</string>
<key>com.apple.kext.AMDLegacySupport</key>
<string>1.6.8</string>
<key>com.apple.kpi.bsd</key>
<string>8.0.0</string>
<key>com.apple.kpi.iokit</key>
<string>8.0.0</string>
<key>com.apple.kpi.libkern</key>
<string>8.0.0</string>
<key>com.apple.kpi.mach</key>
<string>8.0.0</string>
</dict>
<key>OSBundleRequired</key>
<string>Safe Boot</string>
</dict>

Any help, suggestions, advice greatly appreciated.

 

[LightBulbFun]

the safe boot entries are not why you have no GPU acceleration,

as I mentioned before, check that the Fire Pro V7900 Device ID is in the AMD6000 and AMD X3000 kexts

(specifically its X3000 that handles acceleration for the Radeon HD 6xxx IIRC)

so if the device ID is missing from X3000 but is present in AMD6000 and Legacy support, then the card will work, but without any 3D acceleration if that makes sense

 

[MIKX]

LightBulbFun ( thanks by the way ! )

Do you mean this : the FirePro v7900's Id ( 6704 ) is present in the AMD6000 kext
=========================AMD 6000 kext
<key>IOPCIMatch</key>
<string>0x67681002 0x67701002 0x67791002 0x67601002 0x67611002 0x67501002 0x67581002 0x67591002 0x67401002 0x67411002 0x67451002 0x67381002 0x67391002 0x67201002 0x67221002 0x67181002 0x67191002 0x68401002 0x68411002 0x67041002</string>
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But not present in the AMDRadeonX3000X kext

<key>IOPCIMatch</key>
<string>0x68D81002 0x68C01002 0x68C11002 0x68D91002</string>


Do I just paste " 0x67041002 " into the AMDRadeonX3000 kext ?

There are FIVE entries under <key>IOPCIMatch</key>. of course all FIVE entries must be changed to add the FirePro's Id ?

The X3000 info.plist file zipped =
[doublepost=1556481191][/doublepost]BUMPED due to major EDIT

 

[LightBulbFun]

Ok I see the issue, the entire Cayman section from the X3000s plist has been removed at some point

Im not sure when Apple removed it, but its there in 10.11.6,

you might be able to add the section back but its not something iv tested

you could also try 6704 to the Barts section but that may or may not work and you may not have all the GPUs compute units enabled

 

[MIKX]

Do you think that ( as a step 1. ) if I add the Firepro Id. 6704 it will crash High Sierra if I simple add the 0x67041002 entry to the X3000 kext ?

I really do not want High Sierra to go down over this

 

[LightBulbFun]

Do you think that ( as a step 1. ) if I add the Firepro Id. 6704 it will crash High Sierra if I simple add the 0x67041002 entry to the X3000 kext ?

I really do not want High Sierra to go down over this

you could try add it to the "barts" section of the X3000 kext but again this is untested

(if you look at the kext, inside the plist is sections for each type of GPU, and at some point after 10.11.6, apple removed the Cayman section hence why you have no graphics acceleration)

 

[MIKX]

Thanks muchly . . . bedtime again. and it's a hassle to remove my eVGA PowerLink-7970 . . I'll look at the problem again later today after a refreshing sleep.

Note : Actually there is precious little regarding the FirePro v7900 on AMD's site.

Note 2 : It might be worth installing Mavericks or El Capo on a spare spinner first.

ZZZZzzzz ......

 

[MIKX]

LightBulbFun

I'm going to install El Capitan 10.11.6 and install the FirePro v7900.

Seeing that ( in Post #12 ) the HD 6950 Id= 6719. + HD 6970 Id = 6718 + FirePro v7900 Id = 6704 are THE ONLY Cayman chip cards listed in AMDCaymanGraphicsAccelerator . . . , my current FirePro v7900 should run normally in El Cap 10.11.6
EDIT : . . or Mavericks 10.9.5
I'll do the El Cap ( or Mavericks. . ) install sometime today or tomorrow & report results.

NOTE : Seeing that both the HD 6950 & HD 6970 have the same ports ..
.. . .
1xDisplayPort
1xDual-Link DVI-I
1xSingle-Link DVI-D1xDisplayPort
1xHDMI 1.4a . . . .

I just want ONE ( accelerated ) out of 4 working Display Port in High Sierra

The next obvious but foolhardy step would be to work out which one the FirePro v7900 ( 4 x DP ) was derived from or inspired by and then flash it with that rom with the 6704 Id = Kamikaze technique.

 

[MIKX]

LightBulbFun

Could not boot into Mavericks 10.9.5 The Mavericks AMD6000 kext only lists Muskgrass chips - the FirePRo v7900 is definitely Cayman.

Also tried listing the FirePro in Barts . . booted up in High Sierra but . . . Safe Boot always.
Deleted the "Safe Boot" string. . it still booted up in Safe Boot. I can see I still have a lot to discover re: FirePro v7900 & AMD6000.kext & AMDRadeonX3000.kext

I have a really busy few days coming up so my next attempt will be with a full, clean install of El Capitan 10.11.6 next week. I'll save copies of the relevant virgin kexts and experiment with the originals a bit more systematically.

Target : Boot the FirePro v7900 into HS accelerated via any of the 4 DP's without Safe Boot.

Thanks for you giving attention to this project thus far. Much appreciated..

 

[MIKX]

LightBulbFun

Did a clean install of El Capitan 10.11.6.

Both the El Cap. AMD6000Controller.kext & the AMDRadeonX3000.kext list the FirePro v7900 ( ID 6704 ) but no matter the connection to an iiyama monitor eg: DP to active adaper to HDMI or DP to active adapter to DVI = no boot up at all, in fact in El Cap. my 4,1>5,1 goes into a re-boot cycle. I tried all of the 4 Display Ports too and also tried booting with two monitors connected.

Of course re-set NVMe and SMC in each bootup attempt.

The really strange thing is that this FirePro boots into High Sierra 10.13.6 but in Safe Boot which I have not been able to disable.

In any case, I can use the card to assist in flashing in Windows 7 as it is single 6 pin powered and is definitely single PCI slot - that's enough for me.

Putting it away until needed.