Graphics card issues

[geminii]

So I am having some slight issues with my graphics. I notice some really annoying pixelation especially on any web text or documents where the text is set against white. I thought maybe it was just my monitor (New HP 2509m) but I hooked up my genuine G5 PPC to this same monitor and didn't experience this same problem. Is my video card just not being utilized properly?

I also noticed that under the display settings it gave me an option for Millions of colors, but this was not present on the Hackintosh display settings for this same monitor.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[thelostswede]

Either your graphics card memory is on the fritz (unlikely if it works in widows) or you haven't got the drivers working the way the should.

 

[geminii]

Yeah, I don't think my graphics card is installed right. I have been researching on how to fix this over at insanelymac, but it looks like the osx86 tools was what everyone used and that is not online anymore.

My card is not being detected right.

Here is what I get in my display section:

 

[thelostswede]

Neither is mine, but it still works as intended. Not sure what's going on as the card you have should work just fine. However, if you're using the kext free CD image you might have the edit some of the files to get the card ID right, as it might differ. Try using nvenabler64.kext as that should fix the problem without any file editing.

 

[geminii]

Well, I went and did it now...I used a tutorial on insanelymac that had a method for installing the drivers using 0sx86tools...well now I am stuck at the apple load screen with the spinning wheel...

Can anyone help? Is there anyway to do a safe start or some kind of safe boot mode that will let me back into the OS? I have read about using -s but I am never given a prompt to try that because I only get the grey apple screen.

 

[Jocelyn84]

If you used the USB method, use that drive to get in just like the first time you booted into your install.
If you used the CD method, same as above.

 

[geminii]

Hey Jocelyn84,

Yeah I used the CD and was able to boot up that way. I went the launched my SL DVD and went to the utilities. I did a repair on the permissions and still nothing.

Do you know what kext files I would need to remove and or fix to get this back to normal. At this point I am not sure. Could it be my apple.com.Boot.plist? I think that is the main file that got modified.

Here is the tutorial I followed to try and get my video card correctly installed:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... 6168&st=20

The post with instructions is about half way down in that thread.

As a workaround (don't know what else to do) I am installing everything all over again on a different HDD so that I can atleast get into the other drive afterwards.

 

[Jocelyn84]

Yeah I have no idea what you did or didn't install. I try to keep kext installs to a minimum ie; my D-Link G520 and VoodooHDA kexts, and that's it. I was just saying if you use the cd, and I'm sure you know this, you can get back into your install to fix/play around with it.

 

[thelostswede]

OSX86tools does not work with Snow Leopard, so please stay away from it. It's not being developed any more and it can as you noticed, damage your Snow Leopard install.

Make sure you read the Snow Leopard instructions on insanelymac (two different forum parts), not the Leopard instructions. This might be confusing to new people, but the two operating systems differ in how things are done, so please be careful out there.

 

[geminii]

Yeah I am learning some valuable lessons. I failed to realize that the OSx86tools was doing things differently than the Kext Utility app under SL. I had assumed it was a GUI version of the same tool.

After struggling to get things working for several hours, I went to a bit of extreme measures. I ran to Frys and bought a new HDD and also picked up a 9500GT video card. After running through the install three times and continually getting kernel panics, I realized that I had been leaving my 8GB of ram installed. I dropped back down to 4GB and the install went fine and I was able to get into SL on the new HDD. I then spent a couple of hours doing some trial and error with the original drive connected.

I tried removing all the Nvidia driver bundles that I previously installed and tried redoing most of the kext files and then running the kextutility to fix permissions. I then rebooted into SL boot disc and ran disk utility repairs. Basically I am now able to boot into OSx on both drives but my original drive is still pretty hosed up. The system profiler doesn't recognize much of anything anymore so the video card doesn't show up properly and the display is all cropped really small. It also is back to showing unknown for the processor.

On the new HDD I was able to test everything, install 10.6.2 and run the rest of the kext fixes per the tutorial and it all seems to be working fine. The 9500 GT shows up properly as nVidia 9500 GT but CI/QE still doesn't show as being supported. I most likely will begin migrating all my apps onto this new drive today.