Trying to get my old machine running. After 3 days of struggling and searching.

[djmichaelbasic]

Hey all,

A bunch of years ago, I set up a hackintosh with Yosemite, and it worked for a long time, but the room it was in turned into a storage room and I stopped using it in favor of laptops. It also developed an issue after years of working where it wasn't saving stuff from boot to boot. Things like system preferences, etc.

I decided that since it was old, the best thing to do would be to start fresh. I wiped all the hard drives, installed catalina, and then realized that nvidia wasn't supported anymore. If I understand correctly, after 2 days of trying different things, Sierra is basically the last OS where I can get my 650TI Boost cards working properly.

So here's where I'm at...

I've successfully installed Sierra, run multi beast to get some stuff working - I have internet, and audio. One problem is, I can only boot from my USB. When I try to boot from the hard drive, I get a kernel panic (attached - sorry its a little blurry, my iphone camera is messed up, hopefully all the necessary info is legible.)

Second, I've installed the nvidia web drivers and CUDA, but I can't get it to recognize my video card.

In clover configurator I've done the following:

ACPI:
Fixes: FixRTC
DROP OEM_DSM: ATI, IntelGFX, IDE

Boot Arguments:
dart=0
nvda_drv=1
-v
darkwake=0
slide=0

If there's any other info I can share, I'm happy to. Thanks in advance!

 

[trs96]

Your 650 Ti is Kepler based so it should work without the web drivers installed. It is GK106 though so it could have some graphics glitching problems. Should be ok with Sierra though. Probably not Mojave or Catalina.

Remove the Nvidia Web drivers and the nvda_drv=1 boot flag and see if you can get it to work with native drivers within macOS Sierra.

 

[trs96]

One problem is, I can only boot from my USB. When I try to boot from the hard drive, I get a kernel panic

Try copying the whole EFI folder from the USB drive. First back up, then delete the EFI folder on the hard drive. Drag and drop in the USB's EFI folder to the hard drive and it should boot up.

 

[djmichaelbasic]

Thanks for the reply, the EFI folder move worked...so now I'm able to boot from the hard drive...so half way there.

I uninstalled the web drivers, and by virtue of replacing the EFI with the one from USB, got rid of the nvda_drv=1 but I'm still getting a really low res display, and only 1 of my displays is working. Interestingly, when I first started, and installed catalina, I natively got high res on both of my displays without really doing anything, but lots of glitches. I'm using the DVI ports on the back of the card if that makes a difference...but I don't think it should. I'll keep working at it.

 

[trs96]

I'm still getting a really low res display, and only 1 of my displays is working.

You might try removing Inject Intel from your config.plist. You could also disable integrated graphics completely in the BIOS and see if that helps get the graphics card working.

 

[djmichaelbasic]

I think removing Inject Intel did it. Thanks so much for the quick help! There are so many little things that can go wrong, and its been so many years since I last did this, a few things slipped through the cracks. Thank you!