New Graphics Card Not (Properly) Detected

Hi,

So my main install / system is Mountain Lion 10.8.5 on an HP z800 with Dual Xeon x5670 6-core processors @2.93GHz
48GB ECC Registered DDR3 1333 RAM installed (12 x 4GB sticks).

In an attempt to improve my system, I swapped out the old / underwhelming nVidia Quadro FX380 that I had been using for a Sapphire Dual-X R9 270x card...

Now, after a few boot issues and two audio-related kernel panics (which I'm guessing must be somehow related to the HDMI port's potential for audio output?) I now have the system booting normally again without any special boot flags or -x safe-booting required.

However, the video card (which I am given to understand is at least decently similar to cards that are natively supported by 10.8.5) is not properly detected or at least not properly functioning as what it is and I am unable to use normal resolution and I assume have zero graphics acceleration.

The card shows up in System Information as:
...
VRAM (Total): 3 MB [Definitely not correct]
Vendor: ATI (0x1002) [This part seems correct]
Device ID: 0x6810 [This appears to correctly identify the series]
Revision ID: 0x0000 [Not sure?]
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded [I am assuming this is the primary issue?]



The Questions:

1) Okay, so is this something that requires kext editing / swapping / deleting in order to be corrected... or is this one of those instances where I will have to manually amend various files with hardware-specific information?

2) Up to this point I have been building all my systems by simply selecting EasyBeast. I have yet to ever use a custom or motherboard specific DSDT since I couldn't find any for my HP z800 motherboard and everything seemed to work fine using that method. If this does require that level of attention, I am certainly willing to learn how all of that stuff actually works as I am not shy about advanced level tweaking.. I have just yet to do it.

a) That said, are there any good/recommended tutorials on all of that so that I can learn what I'm really doing rather than simply copy/paste-ing information without any actual understanding?

b) Are there any good resources for card-specific kexts or information that might help?

3) This is somewhat unrelated, but if at any point I chose to flash my system's BIOS to the most updated version, would that break my installs or should everything remain functional (provided that any BIOS-specific settings are set back to what they are now)?


Any help / advice is always appreciated.
Thanks,
-strings

Are you using GraphicsEnabler=Yes, you will also need to apply the Boot 0 gibberish solution - which I see is a thread that you have left a comment on. It works with non UEFI boards just fine. Confirm that you are using Chimera as a bootloader.

Going Bald has already linked to some of the relevant threads in the graphics forum.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/forums/graphics.13/

I do not beleive that you will need a DSDT if your card has reference port layout/board design. Here is a link to DSDT creation (guide is for 5450 - principle is the same with other cards) - I do not think that this is the issue though.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-enabling-ati-radeon-hd-5450.180817/

There should be no issue updating your BIOS. It will only be an issue if you had a DSDT for the board - in this instance you must update the DSDT as they are BIOS version dependent.

Remove GE=Yes or any other graphics related boot-args. Use DPCIManager to repair permissions and rebuild cache. Boot with boot-args

-v -f

only. Report results.

Thanks to both of you for the responses.
So, after a busy weekend of work, I finally have a chance to get back at my system:

Adrian B said:

Are you using GraphicsEnabler=Yes, you will also need to apply the Boot 0 gibberish solution - which I see is a thread that you have left a comment on. It works with non UEFI boards just fine. Confirm that you are using Chimera as a bootloader.

Click to expand...

I have tried both GraphicsEnabler=Yes and GraphicsEnabler=No with no apparent change to the issue. As for the Boot0 / gibberish thing, I've already managed to fix that without moving the boot-loader to EFI (added a small FAT partition and re-ran Multibeast with just Chimera selected).

Adrian B said:

There should be no issue updating your BIOS. It will only be an issue if you had a DSDT for the board - in this instance you must update the DSDT as they are BIOS version dependent.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this info! I have been wondering about the whole custom DSDT thing for a while. Other than sleep (which I have no need of since Pro Tools requires it be disabled), are there any additional benefits to a custom DSDT?

Going Bald said:

Remove GE=Yes or any other graphics related boot-args. Use DPCIManager to repair permissions and rebuild cache. Boot with boot-args

-v -f

only. Report results.

Click to expand...

Followed those instructions, but nothing appears to have changed / fixed itself. I still boot to OS X but with no graphics acceleration and no kext loading for graphics/displays in System Information.

Edit: So I examined the ATI7000Controller.kext and noted that my graphics card's ID wasn't present (despite the fact that I think it should be there by default in 10.8.5?). Anyway, I tried adding it (based on what it looks like other threads / tutorials have shown), repaired permissions, etc... Upon reboot, the Apple loading screen finished and I was moved to a second screen that is either plain grey or maybe white depending.. no cursor, but it appears I've managed to make 10.8.5 mimic the issue I'm having in 10.9.5.. or darn near.

A -x boot and a check of the console messages reveals kernel[0]: considerRebuildOfPrelinkedKernel com.apple.kext.AMDFramebuffer triggered rebuild when the grey screen would be happening. I'm guessing this could point to a next step? or should I just be waiting longer in this instance?

Anyway, sleep now.. back at it after.

I am also wondering if perhaps I am missing some of the default ATI/AMD kexts that should be present as some searches have mentioned things that I don't think are present.

I know that I have ATI7000Controller.kext and something like X4000.bundle, but I don't have anything like AMDSupport.kext and I don't think I have any X###.kext ones.

Is there a full list of the default Mountain Lion kexts anywhere? or at least all of the ATI/AMD one's that I should have with this particular OS?

There is a sticky in the graphics section that gives Radeon compatibility details:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/radeon-compatibility-guide-ati-amd-graphics-cards.171291/

This thread may also be of some use for reference/information:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/a...aphics-cards-framebuffer-personalities.41092/

So as a short update:

So far no combination of edited kexts or DSDT injection has seemed to eliminate the issue.

The one thing that I had not tried to get past the grey/white screen was the whole sleep/wake thing that various posts have mentioned. (I had not tried it because I seem to have absolutely no way to put my system to sleep from said screen. The power button does not put the computer to sleep and I have no other means.)

In an effort to circumvent this limitation I created an Automator app / script that would sleep/wake the system in short succession and set it to run with a launch agent.

This actually worked to get me back to my desktop with somewhat recognized, but still under-performing graphics, however, it worked exactly once and now I just get a blank/black screen after a short while of the grey/white one (as if the display is receiving no input signal) and the system never does actually sleep/wake.

This is definitely frustrating as this system is supposed to be my primary work machine and I only picked up the stupid R9 270X because the radeon compatibility thread said it was natively supported from 10.8.3+ (which a subsequent check of ATI7000Controller.kext seems to indicate was NOT the case)... sigh.. This stuff really does suck sometimes.