OSX freeze after installing official nVidia Fermi drivers

[scorcho]

This is a great idea- although wouldn't recommend anyone flashing their card without previous experience.

I'm testing this right now. The default 'low power/idle' settings for the GTX 460 (and i think most fermi cards) is a 50mhz core, 101mhz shader and 135mhz memory clock. i increased the shader and memory to 300mhz, moved the core to 150mhz and stabilized the voltages so that the 'idle' voltage is the same as it's middle setting (used when decoding video, for instance).

i've only booted into the system for 2 minutes, but one side-effect of bumping up the core clock settings is that Expose/Spaces is now EXTREMELY smooth. with the old clock settings it stuttered until i ran a video in the background or used iTunes' visualizations in the background.

i'll report back once things are more conclusive.

btw, i think you can use chameleon to specify a BIOS file, so flashing a card might not be necessary.

 

[tonymacx86]

This is a great idea- although wouldn't recommend anyone flashing their card without previous experience.

I'm testing this right now. The default 'low power/idle' settings for the GTX 460 (and i think most fermi cards) is a 50mhz core, 101mhz shader and 135mhz memory clock. i increased the shader and memory to 300mhz, moved the core to 150mhz and stabilized the voltages so that the 'idle' voltage is the same as it's middle setting (used when decoding video, for instance).

i've only booted into the system for 2 minutes, but one side-effect of bumping up the core clock settings is that Expose/Spaces is now EXTREMELY smooth. with the old clock settings it stuttered until i ran a video in the background or used iTunes' visualizations in the background.

i'll report back once things are more conclusive.

btw, i think you can use chameleon to specify a BIOS file, so flashing a card might not be necessary.

Yeah- you can specify NVIDIA rom file in Chameleon RC5. From Official Chameleon Docs:

GraphicsEnabler=Yes|No Automatic device-properties generation for gfx cards.

UseAtiROM=Yes|No Use an alternate Ati ROM image
(path: /Extra/<vendorid>_<devid>.rom)

UseNvidiaROM=Yes|No Use an alternate Nvidia ROM image
(path: /Extra/<vendorid>_<devid>.rom)

VBIOS=Yes|No Inject VBIOS to device-properties.

 

[Complx]

I have a GTX470 in my system, working flawlessly and I have yet to experience any of the freezing issue as mentioned throughout the thread. I think this might be a hardware issue as well as a software issue.

From some of the research I have done, it seems that the 460 cards and below were developed AFTER the 480. The GTX 480 and 470 use the GF100 Chipset architecture in them, these cards however run extremely hot and extremely loud. (I own one) Later on the 460, 450, etc were developed and a number of the problems were fixed, as well as new chipsets were developed. For example the 460 has the GF104 Chipset and the 430 and 450 have the GF106 chipset.

This may be the cause of SOME of the problems, the minor changes in chipsets maybe be one of the factors that could be causing this problem. As I said above, I have a GTX 470 in my system and everything seems to be working perfectly, no freezes to report at all.

On a side note, this issue of chipsets will be of interest to me in the coming months to see if something is going to be developed in response to the new 5xx cards, they are currently using the GF110 chipsets in them.

 

[elpibe10]

Cool ... so my theory about the gfx card idling too low was right

Gonna try the BIOS fix later today.

 

[scorcho]

Yeah- you can specify NVIDIA rom file in Chameleon RC5. From Official Chameleon Docs:

GraphicsEnabler=Yes|No Automatic device-properties generation for gfx cards.

UseAtiROM=Yes|No Use an alternate Ati ROM image
(path: /Extra/<vendorid>_<devid>.rom)

UseNvidiaROM=Yes|No Use an alternate Nvidia ROM image
(path: /Extra/<vendorid>_<devid>.rom)

VBIOS=Yes|No Inject VBIOS to device-properties.

for some reason injecting the BIOS through Chameleon doesn't change the card's timings. i reflashed my gtx460 to its original bios and verified it defaulted back to 50mhz in Windows. rebooted into OSX with the modified BIOS injected and it was just as jerky as before.

i verified that the modified BIOS was injected through system profiler (showed the BIOS as residing in /Extra/XXX.ROM), then went back and reflashed the card with the new speeds and the changes were evident in OSX. Chameleon might not work for this.

haven't experienced a crash yet, but i've had an uptime total of roughly 30 minutes.

 

[shaithis]

for some reason injecting the BIOS through Chameleon doesn't change the card's timings. i reflashed my gtx460 to its original bios and verified it defaulted back to 50mhz in Windows. rebooted into OSX with the modified BIOS injected and it was just as jerky as before.

i verified that the modified BIOS was injected through system profiler (showed the BIOS as residing in /Extra/XXX.ROM), then went back and reflashed the card with the new speeds and the changes were evident in OSX. Chameleon might not work for this.

I wonder if the option does anything at the moment then? I know the UseAtiROM seems to function properly as I was messing around with it recently....

What you have seen though, shows that the power profiles are implemented differently on OSX. It should be choosing the 2D profile (normally P7 or P8) but is instead choosing the idle settings (P12).

Are there any Fermi cards in real Macs? And is there a BIOS repository anywhere to download a couple for comparison?

After posting my idea, I then thought "hmm, wonder if my 580 would work with a 480 BIOS?"....and tried the UseNvidiaRom option, although I got exactly the same symptoms, thus leading me to conclude that whatever the problem is, it's not in the BIOS.....but after your findings, I am now unsure again!

Don't really want to risk flashing the card as I haven't seen a single report of someone flashing a 580 with the 480 BIOS (who would want to? lol)


Anyone else got any in-sights into the level of functionality provided by the UseNvidiaRom option?

 

[mbg032373]

Having Chameleon load the ROM doesn't do much of anything. I got Freeze/KP within 15 minutes. You can see from the picture below that Chameleon is finding and loading the correct ROM for the video cards.

 

[scorcho]

unfortunately it seems like Chameleon can't be used to inject different clock speeds from a ROM file, at least for the GTX 460. it's either flash or bust!

so far things are very stable, and i'll have ample time to test it tonight as i'm chained to After Effects to finish an overdue project. i've rebooted several times between OSX and Windows (with some added Team Fortress 2 on the latter) to make sure my system wouldn't explode to much success. i'm cautiously optimistic that this could be the fix.

 

[hawgguy]

i'm cautiously optimistic that this could be the fix.

Fix for performance, or for stability? Or both?

 

[scorcho]

Fix for performance, or for stability? Or both?

stability. while spaces and expose feel smoother, i'm still pulling low numbers in cinebench. it seems like nvidia still has a lot of work to do on their osx fermi drivers.