"Hide" gtx 460 from Snow Leopard ?? HELP

[SplineO]

HI!

I have a nice working installation of Snow Leopard running on my system (GA-P35-DS4, 8 GB Ram, Core 2 Quad Q9550 and a Geforce 8500 GT).
Now I have gotten myself an upgrade to a gtx 460. I know I can't use it under Snow Leo, which is why I kept the 8500 in my second PCIe slot.
My problem is, In order to boot up Leo I need to unplug the power connectors of the 460. Is there SOME way to tell OSX to simply ignore one PCIe slot when booting up?

Thanks in advance for ANY help,

Alex

 

[benni4u]

Good question. I was looking for a solution for this too but I didn't succeed.

Anyone an idea?

 

[intamara]

Did you try to setup BIOS to use PEG2 (8500GT) first?

 

[SplineO]

Yes! This is actually the only way I can boot at all! I can start up in verbose mode, but nothing more. I have to pull the power to the 460 in order to boot up normally! I'm currently thinking about wiring a switch outside my case to cut the power ... we'll see.

I'd prefer a simpler solution, though!

 

[tstorm2002]

Did you ever figure anything out? I'm in the same boat with a 9800gt and the 460gtx.

 

[tstorm2002]

So i'm down to wire a switch....or at least buy a couple of pci-e 6pin switches....they make those? because it'd be awesome if they did...They make molex switches, but i'd have to use two 6pin-molex adapters...each adapter has 2 molex, so i'd need 4 switches...just to boot into mac, not really worth it, but 2 switches I can do

 

[tstorm2002]

well the 6pin switches don't exist...just google molex switch

 

[Sanatkumara]

Hi Guys!
This apparently is the only solution at this moment, isn't it?
Before checking our forum I had the brilliant idea to implant a Palit GeForce 460 GTX I got for a bargain price, and it works fairly well under Win7 64 where I finally was able to fix a few glitches with Flight Simulator X, but I also discovered I lost my Hackintosh install that was working perfectly with the Asus GeForce 250 GTS I was using before.
Now 'till one solution will be provided by this brilliant community, I would really appreciate if someone may detail a clear explanation on how to install and possibly use the GTS on my Asus mobo in the SL without having to remove the GTX: would this be possible at all? As suggested here by cutting the power to one or the other gfx, or even better switching power from one gfx to the other even if a bit inelegant, that may be a temporary solution, but there would be others too?
In any case I have to check if my mobo supports a second GFX, and if installing a second one, even when unpowered will there be any side effects on the one working?

TIA for any hint or advice!
Cheers

 

[tstorm2002]

no side effects other than having the pain in the neck or opening the case unplugging the card, changing the main card in bios and then putting it all back when you want to go back to windows.

 

[Sanatkumara]

changing the main card in bios

So it's checked you cannot let the card physically installed in the first slot, else it would be read first by the system on boot. I did not change any BIOS setting, nor found any regarding the GFX: am I missing something here?
Anyway,, I don't have enough power-plugs or Watts to add another GFX card in any case, and at the same time it's more essential for my FSX to have the 460 GTX pumping up pixels...
I'm using my real life Mac for all other purposes, but sure enough I was very glad to have the Hackintosh working so well: well, since I have it on another disk, I would have just to switch GFX, enter the bios and change the boot sequence, but I still count on the brave brain cells of some of the brilliant programmer here to finally create a more powerful Mac that doesn't exist for Apple, still...