big display problems with (dual) 8800GT in SL

[jb044]

hi there,

So I bought myself a new shiny MSI P55-GD85 MB with an Intel Core i7 860 CPU and 4GB 1600Mhz ram. Before I had a nForce 780i based board that wouldn't even boot SL.

The problem though is what ever I try, I always end up with a big colored screen (different color every time) after SL boots up and that's that So I read about other people having problems with the combo SL 10.6.2, nVidia graphics and a HDMI HDCP capable bigscreen LCD. The solution seems to be to replace the SL nVidia drivers with the ones from 10.6.1 that someone graciously provided on the net. I do have my first 8800GT connected to my HDCP capable Samsung LCD and to make matters worse: my main display, an Acer AL2623W, is also HDCP capable via DVI. The big difference is that others report that their screen goes blank after boot, this is not the case: I get a colored screen and HDD activity indicates the system itself runs just fine. Needless to say, that solution did next to nothing The best I got was a colored screen with a messed up "You need to restart the computer" dialog.

Also removing my second 8800GT and disconnecting my LCD TV doesn't make any difference.

Anybody any tips to solve or to further debug this problem?

My hardware:

MSI P55-GD85
Intel Core i7 860 2.8Ghz
4 Gb Corsair Dominator 1600Mhz low latency mem
2x Asus EN8800GT 512Mb (G92)
2x Samsung F1 750Gb Sata
2x Samsung F2 1Tb Sata
1x Samsung F1 1Tb Sata

My Software:

(GUID is no option so a bootstrapped retail install is no option I'm afraid. Did try though on a 500Gig USB drive, but I wouldn't even boot.)
DSDT.aml for this MB (first tried a DSDT.aml for a different P55 MSI board, then created my own for this board)
NVinject/enabler/darwin.kext, Chameleon GraphicsEnabler, EFI string all produce the exact same result: a colored screen after boot
Realtec R1000 nic driver

BTW Leopard 10.5.8 runs just fine with both GPU's, dual monitor setup and CI/QE!

 

[tonymacx86]

Well, first of all you should remove 1 of your graphics cards for the install. Also, you'll definitely need a DSDT fix to make graphics work properly with both displays. Check out the search- there are a few threads dedicated to this very subject.

Also, we seem to have a pretty good handle on the MSI DSDTs- so you should be in good shape!

 

[jb044]

Thank you for your reply and ofcourse for all your hard work

I tried your DSDT tutorials but without much succes also I tried 10.6.3 just to see if it would make any difference but it didn't.

First of all DSDT SE doesn't run on my Leopard install, so I was forced to go the CLI route. SL wouldn't boot with the resulting DSDT, first because I tried your i7 860 patch which caused a KP and then ,after I removed that part, because there was a problem with USB (also with 10.6.2) and SL was unable to find the root device (again also with 10.6.2). So guess my DSDT needs some more work then just your tutorials....

Then I tried a different approach: . So I used that as a basis to apply your patches, this time I just applied the nVidia patch (modified to support 2 identical cards as shown on this forum). SL did boot, but the 8800GT weren't detected so I got VESA mode. As a last resort I tried your multibeast setup to install the NVidiaEnabler for SL, but ofcourse I got the same old colored screen after boot

Aarrgh it just won't work!! No matter what route I take I always end up with the same old display problems

Would it be fair to conclude my DSDT, that I need to be able to boot in the first place, is somehow flawed and needs fixing? Or is graphics enabling via a DSDT just another method that isn' t better or worse then say a injector for SL64 and do I need to look elsewhere for a fix for my problem?

 

[tonymacx86]

Editing the DSDT will be pretty much the only way besides a lot of NVenabler testing. I really have no experience with 2 cards, as I run a mATX system. Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[jb044]

Perhaps I could post my vanilla DSDT for review by some more experiend eyes? I'm by no means an experienced DSDT hacker, but did note some irregularities. Especially in the PCI0 part that looked totally different from what you have in your DSDT nVidia tutorial.

 

[jb044]

So here it is, stuff I noticed:

       Device (PCI0)
        {
            Name (_HID, EisaId ("PNP0A08"))
            Name (_CID, EisaId ("PNP0A03"))
            Name (_ADR, Zero)
            Method (^BN00, 0, NotSerialized)
            {
                Return (Zero)
            }

            Method (_BBN, 0, NotSerialized)
            {
                Return (BN00 ())
            }

            Name (_UID, Zero)
            Method (_PRT, 0, NotSerialized)
            {
                If (PICM)
                {
                    Return (AR00)
                }

                Return (PR00)
            }

 

[jb044]

Yeeeeha!!! So after all I finally got stuff working, guess sometimes not giving up is a good thing And it was so simple, just read the $%^ stickies, this one to be precise:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=102

So here' s what I did:

- Use EFIStudio to generate an EFI string for both GPU's: just select 8800GT G92 512Mb, save the xml file and then edit it to contain 2 device sections, make sure that the device paths are correct for your setup (main GPU is on PCI device 3, second on 5 in my system)
- Use the DSDT hack in the post above: basicly this tells OSX what is the main GPU and not much more then that.

And that's it, now you have 2 fully working 8800GT's. Well almost You see I also have a LCD tv connected via DVI->HDMI and it supports HDCP. Apparently this is a no go with SL 10.6.2 and nVidia hardware. The solution is simple: just replace your nVidia kexts with 10.6.1 ones and all is fine again

One question though, I do seem to have CI/QE (widget ripple effect and all), but this is not mentioned in system profiler:

Schermafbeelding 2010-04-03 om 10.30.54.png

Is this SL specific or did something go wrong after all?

BTW should I post my working DSDT for my MSI P55-GD85 (minus GPU hack)?

 

[tonymacx86]

One question though, I do seem to have CI/QE (widget ripple effect and all), but this is not mentioned in system profiler:

Yeah- they removed it from the Graphics section of Sys Profiler for Snow Leopard. Guess it was too convenient for us.

 

[jb044]

Guess so Want the DSDT.aml I'm using? There is none for my mb so far, MSI P55-GD85.

 

[tonymacx86]

Guess so Want the DSDT.aml I'm using? There is none for my mb so far, MSI P55-GD85.

I'd submit a fresh one to Fat Shenanigans in the AMI DSDT thread.