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Ridiculously high RPM with Apple Radeon HD 5770

MentalVizion

MentalVizion

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 30, 2013
144
3
Austria
Hey,

3 out of 5 times - when cold booting - I get extremely high RPM on my official Apple 5770.

One way of fixing this is using the "Open GL Extension Viewer" app available in the app store. Running the cube test seems to fix this problem.

I already tried SMC reset - did not help at all!
I also checked if the card is connected to the "A" power socket on the motherboard, as I read that problems could occure if the card is in PCIe slot 1 but power connector B. It was connected to the A connector all the time.

Now I won't dig into this problem to deep as I will upgrade to a GTX 780 in a few days anyways. but I am still eager to fix this :D

Here are some pictures of before, and after the OpenGL test.

Before:



As you can see the fans are running over 2000 RPM!!!

After:



After the test the fans went down to 800 RPM - where they belong to.

What kinda scares me too - is the PS RPM. (I guess this is the power supply?) It also was significantly higher before running the test.

Or was this caused by the high RPM from the graphics card aswell?

I also should mention that I ran no GPU intensive applications etc.
I was simply booting to the desktop and started smcfancontrol.
 
Apple's SMC firmware is bugged.

Suggest you take it up with them, though I already have and they didn't do anything about it. Otherwise, this is normal and widely accepted behaviour.

-SC
 
IIRC a lot of people also solved the problem by moving the card to slot 2.

Doesn't happen with the Apple 5870.
 
ScottishCaptain said:
Apple's SMC firmware is bugged.

Suggest you take it up with them, though I already have and they didn't do anything about it. Otherwise, this is normal and widely accepted behaviour.

-SC
Click to expand...

Hmm, are 2000 rpm "fine" still?
I read alot of people having speeds of around 1800 which was way over the top already.

Like I said, I don't care to much about it as I will upgrade to a GTX 780 very soon, but I was curious.

IIRC a lot of people also solved the problem by moving the card to slot 2.

Doesn't happen with the Apple 5870.
Click to expand...

Thanks, however I am way to lazy to do that right now.
All those cables to disconnect, and that heavy beauty all the way beneath my desk - I'll give it a shot when upgrading my card as I then have to open her up anyways. :D
 
If you haven't tried this, do: Take the card out, inspect and maybe clean its contacts (alcohol or window cleaner if that's all you have - avoid leaving fingerprints), and then carefully re-seat it into its slot.
 
Last edited:
in my experience this is a problem of the MacPro4,1 SMC firmware. to me it looks as if the SMC firmware of the MacPro5,1 "knows" about the 5770 and the 4,1 doesn't...
 
MentalVizion said:
I already did the 4,1->5,1 firmware tool-thingie though.
Click to expand...

yeah, this is not what I'm talking about. the SMC firmware, unfortunately, stays the same even if the EFI is flashed. have a look into the system profiler, in there you'll find "Boot ROM Version" which is the EFI and also "SMC Version".

I never experienced the high RPMs in my real MacPro5,1. in the flashed 4,1 on the other hand, the fans go crazy every now and then...
 
mikeboss said:
yeah, this is not what I'm talking about. the SMC firmware, unfortunately, stays the same even if the EFI is flashed. have a look into the system profiler, in there you'll find "Boot ROM Version" which is the EFI and also "SMC Version".

I never experienced the high RPMs in my real MacPro5,1. in the flashed 4,1 on the other hand, the fans go crazy every now and then...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information!
I just checked it cause - why the heck not - and it says "MP51.007F.B03" under Boot-Rom-Version. Both SMC entries say "1.39f5".

Now I'm no expert, but doesn't that "MP51" seem to indicate it's a 5,1 model?
 
MentalVizion said:
Thanks for the information!
I just checked it cause - why the heck not - and it says "MP51.007F.B03" under Boot-Rom-Version. Both SMC entries say "1.39f5".

Now I'm no expert, but doesn't that "MP51" seem to indicate it's a 5,1 model?
Click to expand...

Nope, that's a 4,1 flashed to 5,1 and it doesn't change the SMC version. He's saying newer SMC knows about 5770.
 
ActionableMango said:
Did you try slot 2? You could just try slot 2 until the GTX 780 arrives.
Click to expand...

Nope, not yet. It's really not fun to unplug all that stuff, crawl beneath my desk and trying to grab that beauty without scratching it :D

I will report back once I got my 780. Will slide the 5770 into slot 2 really quick and restart 5 times. I don't expect anything to change really though.
 
mikeboss said:
in my experience this is a problem of the MacPro4,1 SMC firmware. to me it looks as if the SMC firmware of the MacPro5,1 "knows" about the 5770 and the 4,1 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Yes, the 5770 was never offered by Apple as an 'official' upgrade for the 4,1 Mac Pro. The 5870, on the other hand, was.

That might explain why the 5870 is well-behaved when installed in the 4,1, but the 5770 is occasionally troublesome.
 
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