GA-Z97X-UD7 TH + GT 740 FTW = black screen after boot?

[stevej]

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks to Tony, toleda and all the other contributors and builders for your time and thoughts - this website is a fantastic resource!

I recently completed my third hackintosh build, helping a friend build his first hackintosh for a music production system. Yosemite 10.10.1, Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 TH with Thunderbolt enabled (Legacy), i7-4970K, 16 GB RAM, dual Samsung EVO 500 GB SSD. We're up and running with no problems on native built-in video, but when we insert the EVGA GT 740 FTW graphics card, we get black screen after boot.

Things we've tried:

GraphicsEnabler=no (this is default in boot.plist, also tried yes), safe boot, single-user boot, npci=0x3000/0x2000/0x1000. I also played around with PCIRootUID value and dart=0 but not in conjunctions with safe boot. By that time it was getting late and I don't remember exactly what I tried.

Any suggestions or direction I can try? Would installing the nVidia web drivers possibly help?

Thanks!

 

[toleda]

insert the EVGA GT 740 FTW graphics card, we get black screen after boot.

Did you disconnect the display from the HD4600 and connect the display to the 740 to boot?
For 740 only, set BIOS/Peripherals/Intel Processor Graphics/Disabled

 

[mousedown]

Did you disconnect the display from the HD4600 and connect the display to the 740 to boot?
For 740 only, set BIOS/Peripherals/Intel Processor Graphics/Disabled

I too am on the same set up. I must have tried every combination within chameleon boot file. I can confirm that the above works! Thanks @toleda!

GraphicsEnabler No
IGPEnabler Yes
In Bios,

Default output to PCIE Card
Disable Intel graphics.

I'm using a 4K TV as my monitor. Within OSX settings, I needed to enable Overscan, but sadly this card looks like it will only support 24Htz at 4096 x2160. Does anybody know if this is a driver limitation. Perhaps there are newer drivers that can help?

 

[stevej]

You guys are fantastic, thanks for the quick response toleda!

> Did you disconnect the display from the HD4600 and connect the display to the 740 to boot?
yes
> For 740 only, set BIOS/Peripherals/Intel Processor Graphics/Disabled
this one's new for me!

> IGPEnabler Yes
Thanks mousedown, I'll add this as well!

We will try these next time we get together to troubleshoot and I'll post the results. Thanks again!

 

[toleda]

I'll add this as well!

IGPEnabler=Yes with Intel Processor Graphics/Disabled is pointless; delete IGPEnabler=Yes.

 

[stevej]

Hi toleda,

> For 740 only, set BIOS/Peripherals/Intel Processor Graphics/Disabled

We'll be giving this a try tonight and I'll post results.

On the same system, we're seeing an extremely long POST time - well over a minute before we get the BIOS splash screen. The machine has 16 GB RAM; peripherals include Universal Audio Apollo Twin audio interface attached to Thunderbolt port, Apple wired keyboard, Apple bluetooth trackpad talking to USB bluetooth dongle, PCIe Wifi card. I can disconnect all the peripherals tonight and see if it makes a difference.

Any ideas what might be causing such a slow POST?

Thanks!

 

[stevej]

Hello toleda,

> For 740 only, set BIOS/Peripherals/Intel Processor Graphics/Disabled

Unfortunately, this didn't work. We do get the boot progress bar (with or without onboard graphics disabled) but once it kicks over to the login screen, it's black and the monitor goes to sleep.

Will post boot.plist after I try one more thing.

 

[stevej]

Here's boot.plist for the machine:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>kext-dev-mode=1</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
<key>HDEFLayoutID</key>
<string>01000000</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>No</string>
<key>HDAEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>IGPEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
</dict>
</plist>

 

[rael11]

I'm using a 4K TV as my monitor. Within OSX settings, I needed to enable Overscan, but sadly this card looks like it will only support 24Htz at 4096 x2160. Does anybody know if this is a driver limitation. Perhaps there are newer drivers that can help?

If you are using a 4k TV then your resolution is probably 3840x2160. Do you have a very new set that supports HDMI 2.0? If not then the HDMI standard will limit you to 30Hz.

 

[stevej]

We were able to resolve all the problems with this build and it's now running great! I made some changes to boot.plist just before I posted it to this thread, and it looks like I forgot to test those changes with the video card installed and BIOS/Peripherals/Intel Processor Graphics set to disabled. When we came back to the machine and tried it the next time, it came right up!

So the boot.plist in this thread is valid (once you switch over to the video card you can remove the "IGPEnabler: yes" value).

Thanks everyone for the suggestions!