<< Solved >> Replaced Graphics Card, Now Doesn't Boot

[12sockmonkeys]

UPDATE:
Long story short, my GPU XFX R9 280X died. I replaced with another that is nearly identical, but the VBIOS doesn't agree with my High Sierra Build. A week of troubleshooting took place, documented in this thread.

Finally it was resolved when I simply bought a replacement graphics card: XFX Radeon RX 570 RS Black Edition. Put it in my computer, with the exact same settings I started out with and it worked without having to do anything else.

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Hi, first post here--

I was running a Hackintosh with High Sierra. My graphics card was XFX R9 280X TDF V3.0. Yesterday the GPU overheated and bit the dust, so I replaced it with an XFX R9 280X TDFD v2.4 GPU. I believed it to be the exact same thing, so I though my system would accept it and boot like normal.

Lo and behold, my computer won't boot. It gets to the apple logo, the bar fill about 1/3 of the way, then it reboots over and over. Can't boot in safe mode.

What is the process for changing the settings to accommodate the new GPU so it will be able to boot?

Would it make sense to just do a reinstall of High Sierra, or would that require me to reformat my hard drive and lose everything?

Thanks

(Verbose boot screen grab attached.)

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hi, first post here--

I was running a Hackintosh with High Sierra. My graphics card was XFX R9 280X TDF V3.0. Yesterday the GPU overheated and bit the dust, so I replaced it with an XFX R9 280X TDFD v2.4 GPU. I believed it to be the exact same thing, so I though my system would accept it and boot like normal.

Lo and behold, my computer won't boot. It gets to the apple logo, the bar fill about 1/3 of the way, then it reboots over and over. Can't boot in safe mode.

What is the process for changing the settings to accommodate the new GPU so it will be able to boot?

Would it make sense to just do a reinstall of High Sierra, or would that require me to reformat my hard drive and lose everything?

Thanks

(Verbose boot screen grab attached.)

Hi there.

You can try booting into safe mode using the "-x" command line argument. Or at the Clover menu press Spacebar and select it.

I think some XFX VBIOSs do not work well with macOS. Perhaps your new card features a slightly different version to your old one.

Safe Mode should hopefully get you to your desktop. Let us know

 

[12sockmonkeys]

Safe Mode should hopefully get you to your desktop. Let us know

Hi there, thanks.

I tried booting Safe Mode via the Clover menu, still no joy. The status bar on the Apple splash screen fills all the way this time, but it just hangs there. Attached are screengrabs of this Safe Mode boot in Verbose Mode.

I suppose a better version of my question might be: I changed out the graphics card for a very similar one, what is the procedure for changing my settings to accommodate the new hardware if I cannot boot into the system at all?

Thank you kindly

 

[12sockmonkeys]

Bump. Please help, I cannot boot into my system, even in safe mode.

Not sure how to tackle without doing a clean install, which I'd prefer not to do because I don't want to lose everything currently in my system.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Bump. Please help, I cannot boot into my system, even in safe mode.

Not sure how to tackle without doing a clean install, which I'd prefer not to do because I don't want to lose everything currently in my system.

Edit: Jump to 4) for a cut to the chase ...

1) Do you still have your High Sierra UniBeast flash drive? If so will that boot the system or not?

2) Did you have the Lilu and Whatevergreen kexts installed previously?

3) Can you boot using the iGPU and disabling PCIe?

4) Try a search here for just "R9 280x". There is a lot of guidance. Worst case scenario is probably the need to flash the VBIOS.

There is a really good explanation about your specific GPU here.

 

[12sockmonkeys]

Edit: Jump to 4) for a cut to the chase ...

1) Do you still have your High Sierra UniBeast flash drive? If so will that boot the system or not?

2) Did you have the Lilu and Whatevergreen kexts installed previously?

3) Can you boot using the iGPU and disabling PCIe?

4) Try a search here for just "R9 280x". There is a lot of guidance. Worst case scenario is probably the need to flash the VBIOS.

There is a really good explanation about your specific GPU here.

1) I do not have my Unibeast flash drive anymore, alas.

2) I did not have Lilu and/or Whatevergreen kexts installed. FakeSMC is the only kext I used, if I remember correctly.

3) I removed the graphics card from my computer and enabled iGPU, can't get it to boot at all (even in safe mode), it hangs on the Apple splash screen loading bar. (Tried with PCIe enabled and disabled.)

4) Is it possible to flash my VBIOS without being able to boot into the computer? I still haven't found any method to successfully boot, even with the GPU removed and plugging the monitor into the motherboard.

Thanks.

 

[12sockmonkeys]

I'm considering doing a fresh High Sierra Unibeast install, and using a Time Machine backup I made about 6 weeks ago in my old High Sierra build.

Sorry if this is a dumb question--

If I do that fresh Unibeast install and use Time Machine, would it be reasonable to expect that'd I'd have everything back again like it was 6 weeks ago? Software licenses and app installs all back again like they were?

(I know that's the idea of Time Machine, just not sure since this is a Hackintosh build.)

Thank you, thank you, fine people.

 

[12sockmonkeys]

Update: I'm attempting a fresh High Sierra install.

First step, I need to reformat my drive, right? But when I try to do that in Disk Utility, I don't get the option to reformat as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Instead it only offers me APFS.


Naturally, I'm a little nervous to delete my entire old computer. (Yes I did CCC backup first.)

Can someone please advise on how best to proceed with the fresh install?

Thank you.

 

[Gigamaxx]

Update: I'm attempting a fresh High Sierra install.

First step, I need to reformat my drive, right? But when I try to do that in Disk Utility, I don't get the option to reformat as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Instead it only offers me APFS.
View attachment 400337

Naturally, I'm a little nervous to delete my entire old computer. (Yes I did CCC backup first.)

Can someone please advise on how best to proceed with the fresh install?

Thank you.

Use the El Capitan backup drive to erase in “Journaled”.

 

[12sockmonkeys]

Use the El Capitan backup drive to erase in “Journaled”.

Sorry, I don't quite follow.

I'm using a different computer to load Disk Utility, but when I select the drive and "erase" it doesn't give the option for "Journaled", only APFS. What am I doing wrong?