OSX freeze after installing official nVidia Fermi drivers

[sprocket]

I've yet to find a bios config that will stop these for me, but rather than go back to wallsaver or having to start glxgears manually at every logon, I'm trying a less intrusive workaround.
Someone mentioned a while back that they weren't sure if the widget ShowOff was stopping them, so I tried it, but no success. Now I'm trying DashboardAquarium and Earth, which are OpenGL widgets in the top 10 of the Dashboard downloads site. I can hear the fan whirring away at medium speed.
If other people could try this out too, especially those who get frequent kp, that would help out a lot!

 

[hawgguy]

That being said, I do have the opportunity to swap my GTS 450 with a Radeon 5750 (or I'd be willing to purchase a new 5770). Any opinions on whether that's the better idea in the long run or should I try and stick it out with this card?

I think that's a great idea in the short-medium run. Can't say for the long run. Who can predict when Nvidia will be motivated to fix this. From scanning this forum and others, most have had good luck with the ATI 5770. The fact that it is the default card on currently shipping Mac Pros is a plus. It is likely to continue to be supported through 10.7 (Lion) and beyond.

I have recently had a good experience swapping my GTS 450 for an Apple ATI 5770. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/726537-REG/Apple_MC742ZM_A_ATI_RADEON_HD_5770.html

There are cheaper cards that probably work just as well, but I was tired of the hassles and eventually want to drive a 27'' Apple cinema display. AFAIK, this and the Apple sister card (5870) are the only ones that will do it.

 

[tonymacx86]

Title of this thread should change to "Support Group for Troubled Fermi Owners"

Sidenote: Been testing a Zotac 1GB Silent GT 430- and no freezes at all so far in like a week. HDMI only though- but that's what I'm using it for- the Mini- got HDMI audio/video working like a champ. And stable as the 240 I was using before.

 

[mwparrish]

Title of this thread should change to "Support Group for Troubled Fermi Owners"

Sidenote: Been testing a Zotac 1GB Silent GT 430- and no freezes at all so far in like a week. HDMI only though- but that's what I'm using it for- the Mini- got HDMI audio/video working like a champ. And stable as the 240 I was using before.

I posted this in another thread but it might do good to post here too.

The GT 430, GTX 470/480 are probably the best bets. The GTX 460 has too many ridiculous variations and uses a GF104 which has more CUDA cores per SM than the GF100 which is likely why so many have issues. I'm not positive on the GTS 450 but that may be similar as well.

I also use GT 430 (EVGA) 1GB and have no issues at all. Great card. Not especially powerful... but great non the less.

Obviously, GTX 580, 570, 560 do not have QE/CI, video, OpenGL supported... yet. If enough folks beg NVIDIA to update the Quadro 4000 to the GF11x chip the 5xx series should see support come with it.

 

[mds2004]

Just got a GTX470, and it freezes whenever I enter Starcraft2. Blah. Might be worth going to Windows 7 if it keeps freezing.

 

[freedumb2000]

Just got a GTX470, and it freezes whenever I enter Starcraft2. Blah. Might be worth going to Windows 7 if it keeps freezing.

You could try lowering the graphics settings for SC2 and if that works up them one by one until you know what makes it lock up. This works for WOW anyways, it can't deal with certain effects.

 

[karacho]

I also use GT 430 (EVGA) 1GB and have no issues at all. Great card. Not especially powerful... but great non the less.

Full ack

 

[momavujisic]

I haven't tried playing any games on my OS X installation (have a separate HD with Windows), however it seems that my system KP when the graphic card is not being used after a while (ex. just browsing internet, typing documents). Sorry if this is old news, just sharing.

I didn't want to use a "live" wallpaper so I just have iTunes in the back and turn the visualizer on and so far it's working like a charm, not a single KP. While this solution is not a permanent fix obviously, I think it's better than having a live wallpaper.

Using a eVGA GTX 460 1GB.

 

[dmemoryleak]

I removed my 460GTX a week ago because I really needed to run some simulations (a couple of weeks-long) so I could not keep testing my 460. I can't reboot for the next 3 weeks or so.

I came across something in my last few tests that I am wondering if somebody would like to try as I won't be able to for a while. I installed the CUDA driver and all the examples from NVIDIA. I noticed that after running a CUDA example once, my card would remain in high power mode afterward until the next reboot. My MSI N460GTX Hawk has a set of LEDs to check that. Usually I would have somewhere between 2 and 6 LEDs on and it would vary depending on how much the GPU is working. After running a CUDA example however it would stay stuck with 6 LEDs on. I am curious if once kicked in high power mode and stuck there if the freezes would go away. I should say that I use MacPro3,1 and and have NullCPUPowerManagement installed at the moment so I don't think any kext is playing a role in switching the the power mode (except maybe the cuda driver). For those of you using some wallpaper solution or the like, this might do the trick while requiring something to be run only once at startup...

I will probably test this later but if somebody feels like giving it a try, please keep us posted!

I installed the CUDA developer driver, the cuda toolkit and the GPU computing SDK code sample. All can be found here:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cuda_3_2_downloads.html

 

[vinylkid]

i threw in the towel waiting for a magical driver fix and gave my gigabyte GTS450 OC to my brother, put a waterblock on my 4850 and reinstalled it. works like a charm and cinebenches higher then the 450.