Solving NVIDIA Driver Install & Loading Problems

[Fendrik01]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

Hi everybody,
my name is Mike and this is my first post. i like the enthusiastic and helpful work of Tony and all of you. Thanks for that and the many hours of helpless fumbling you saved me from.

Seems I have the same problem on my Hackintosh. Nvidia ran fine with 10.11.0, but after update to 10.11.1, the new installed driver 346.03.03f01 sent the screeen to darkness during boot.
First I tried to reboot with Clover arg "nv_disable=1" to reinstall the driver with no Nvidia running, but that did not work. The screen still went black after booting bar reaching about 3/4 of its length.
Then I saw that the system profile under "about this Mac" showed a generic Nvidia graphics card in slot 0 withh 0MB VRAM. The card was not recognized in the Nvidia control panel in System Preferendes. All slots were shown "empty".

I found this kinda strange. So I investigated in this direction. I opened Clover Configurator and saw that the machine profile was set to "Imac 8.1". After changing this to "Imac 14.1" and booting with "nv_disable=1", the graphics card was correctly shown as Geforce 750 ti in the system profile. Also in the control panel the card was shown in its slot.

After setting the boot back to "ndrv_enable=1" the hackintosh booted cleanly to the desktop and has full Nvidia card support with 10.11.1 El Capitan.

Board: GA-H97N-WIFI
CPU: Intel 4590 Haswell
RAM: 8GB dual
HDD: Home-brewed Fusion Drive SSD Evo 850/WD EARX 2TB
Graphics: Intel4600 and PCI Nvidia Geforce 750 ti
Screen: LG 27MU67-B (DP-connected)
System: El Capitan 10.11.1
Boot: Clover
Nvidia driver installed: 346.03.03f01

I hope this is helpful fo one or the other...

 

[jonstreet]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

What boot flags are you using?

Umm... At boot i get,

Boot args dart=0

With no flags in the injector menu,

Heres the graphics section from my config.plist

<key>Graphics</key>
<dict>
<key>DualLink</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>FBName</key>
<string></string>
<key>Inject</key>
<dict>
<key>ATI</key>
<false/>
<key>Intel</key>
<true/>
<key>NVidia</key>
<false/>
</dict>
<key>InjectEDID</key>
<true/>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<string>0000000000000000000000000000000000000000</string>
<key>NvidiaSingle</key>
<false/>
<key>PatchVBios</key>
<true/>
<key>VRAM</key>
<integer>4096</integer>
<key>VideoPorts</key>
<integer>5</integer>
<key>display-cfg</key>
<string>0000000000000000</string>
<key>ig-platform-id</key>
<string>0x0000</string>
</dict>


(vram value, port value, injectedid, patchvbios are values i have entered / changed trying to fault find.)

thanks again

 

[slim.jim]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

Umm... At boot i get,

Boot args dart=0

With no flags in the injector menu,

Heres the graphics section from my config.plist

<key>Graphics</key>
<dict>
<key>DualLink</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>FBName</key>
<string></string>
<key>Inject</key>
<dict>
<key>ATI</key>
<false/>
<key>Intel</key>
<true/>
<key>NVidia</key>
<false/>
</dict>
<key>InjectEDID</key>
<true/>
<key>NVCAP</key>
<string>0000000000000000000000000000000000000000</string>
<key>NvidiaSingle</key>
<false/>
<key>PatchVBios</key>
<true/>
<key>VRAM</key>
<integer>4096</integer>
<key>VideoPorts</key>
<integer>5</integer>
<key>display-cfg</key>
<string>0000000000000000</string>
<key>ig-platform-id</key>
<string>0x0000</string>
</dict>


(vram value, port value, injectedid, patchvbios are values i have entered / changed trying to fault find.)

thanks again

In order to use the Nvidia Web drivers you must have the boot argument nvda_drv=1.

 

[jonstreet]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

In order to use the Nvidia Web drivers you must have the boot argument nvda_drv=1.

unfortunately that causes a reset halfway through boot, even in verbose mode i can't see whats causing the panic.

Managed to boot in safe mode
and by
adding nv-disable=1

??

 

[slim.jim]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

unfortunately that causes a reset halfway through boot, even in verbose mode i can't see whats causing the panic.

Managed to boot in safe mode
and by
adding nv-disable=1

??

You need to figure out what is causing the kernel panic because without nvda_drv=1 you will never get your GTX 960 working.

What kext are you injecting or have installed to S/L/E?

 

[jonstreet]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

You need to figure out what is causing the kernel panic because without nvda_drv=1 you will never get your GTX 960 working.

What kext are you injecting or have installed to S/L/E?

none that I'm aware of
where would i check? clover configurator?

here is the end of my config.plist which seems to deal with kexts...

</dict>
<key>KernelAndKextPatches</key>
<dict>
<key>AppleRTC</key>
<true/>
<key>AsusAICPUPM</key>
<true/>
<key>Debug</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelCpu</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelHaswellE</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelLapic</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelPm</key>
<true/>
</dict>
<key>SMBIOS</key>
<dict>
<key>BiosReleaseDate</key>
<string>10/07/10</string>
<key>BiosVendor</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>BiosVersion</key>
<string>MP51.88Z.007F.B03.1010071432</string>
<key>Board-ID</key>
<string>Mac-F221BEC8</string>
<key>BoardManufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>BoardType</key>
<integer>11</integer>
<key>ChassisAssetTag</key>
<string>Pro-Enclosure</string>
<key>ChassisManufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>ChassisType</key>
<string>06</string>
<key>Family</key>
<string>Mac Pro</string>
<key>Manufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>ProductName</key>
<string>MacPro5,1</string>
<key>SerialNumber</key>
<string>G80270R8EUH</string>
<key>Trust</key>
<false/>
<key>Version</key>
<string>1.0</string>
</dict>
<key>SystemParameters</key>
<dict>
<key>BacklightLevel</key>
<string>0xffff</string>
<key>CustomUUID</key>
<string></string>
<key>InjectKexts</key>
<string>Detect</string>
<key>InjectSystemID</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

 

[slim.jim]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

none that I'm aware of
where would i check? clover configurator?

here is the end of my config.plist which seems to deal with kexts...

</dict>
<key>KernelAndKextPatches</key>
<dict>
<key>AppleRTC</key>
<true/>
<key>AsusAICPUPM</key>
<true/>
<key>Debug</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelCpu</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelHaswellE</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelLapic</key>
<false/>
<key>KernelPm</key>
<true/>
</dict>
<key>SMBIOS</key>
<dict>
<key>BiosReleaseDate</key>
<string>10/07/10</string>
<key>BiosVendor</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>BiosVersion</key>
<string>MP51.88Z.007F.B03.1010071432</string>
<key>Board-ID</key>
<string>Mac-F221BEC8</string>
<key>BoardManufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>BoardType</key>
<integer>11</integer>
<key>ChassisAssetTag</key>
<string>Pro-Enclosure</string>
<key>ChassisManufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>ChassisType</key>
<string>06</string>
<key>Family</key>
<string>Mac Pro</string>
<key>Manufacturer</key>
<string>Apple Inc.</string>
<key>ProductName</key>
<string>MacPro5,1</string>
<key>SerialNumber</key>
<string>G80270R8EUH</string>
<key>Trust</key>
<false/>
<key>Version</key>
<string>1.0</string>
</dict>
<key>SystemParameters</key>
<dict>
<key>BacklightLevel</key>
<string>0xffff</string>
<key>CustomUUID</key>
<string></string>
<key>InjectKexts</key>
<string>Detect</string>
<key>InjectSystemID</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

The kext you would be injecting won't be in your config. They would located in the EFI/Clover/kext/10.11 folder. If you don't have FakeSMC.kext installed in /System/Library/Extensions then you should at least have that kext in that folder. That is a required kext for all builds.

Also don't use MacPro5,1 SMBIOS. That machine uses ECC ram and will cause issues with your build since you are not. Your best option is iMac14,2.

 

[Zgens]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

Hi, I've the problem 4. The fix worked for me (MacPro 6,1).
But, it seems to be impossible to use this kext from the Clover kext injector. It only works placed in S/L/E
Is there a solution to use it from EFI (to prevent future updates)?

 

[slim.jim]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

Hi, I've the problem 4. The fix worked for me (MacPro 6,1).
But, it seems to be impossible to use this kext from the Clover kext injector. It only works placed in S/L/E
Is there a solution to use it from EFI (to prevent future updates)?

No, this must be done for each update unfortunately. Only option is to not use MacPro6,1 or iMac15,1.

I am not familiar enough with Clover KEXT patching but that might be an alternative.

 

[Zgens]

Solving NVIDIA driver install problems

No, this must be done for each update unfortunately. Only option is to not use MacPro6,1 or iMac15,1.

I am not familiar enough with Clover KEXT patching but that might be an alternative.

Yes, I know that MacPro6,1 causes problems, but I like the adventure...
Thanks for your answer, I'll dig this KEXT patching alternative...