Can't connect DVI connectors to Power Mac G5 (Late 2005)

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Level 1

8 points

Can't connect DVI connectors to Power Mac G5 (Late 2005)

I have a Problem with connecting a DVI display to the port 1 of the Nvidia GeForce 6600 in a G5 dual 2.3 (Late 2005).
The picture looks as if it is upsampled.
When I connect the DVI Cable to the Port 2 of the GeForce 6600 everything works fine.

I tried two displays with DVI, and both with the same result.

I installed two GeForce 6600 in the G5 (PCIe Port 1 and 3). The same happens with both card - DVI port 2 is usable, DVI port 1 not.

So far I found out that the port 1 is sending an anlog signal to the monitor.
Is there a way to force the card to send a digital siginal?

Does anyone ever had a similar problem?

Here is a picture of what the System Profiler about the connection (Port 1 and 2) and a picture of the display when connected to Port 1:

http://haraldgeisler.com/Media/geforce6600-error.jpg

Thanks,
Harald

PowerMac11,2, Mac OS X (10.5.8), GeForce 6600

Posted on Mar 28, 2011 6:40 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 28, 2011 10:59 AM in response to harald.ge

Hi Harald,

What is the native resolution of the Monitor?

There is one DVI port & one Dual DVI port...

NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE with 128MB of GDDR SDRAM, one single-link DVI port, and one dual-link DVI port

NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB of GDDR SDRAM, one single-link DVI port, and one dual-link DVI port

http://support.apple.com/kb/sp37

Support for digital resolutions up to 1920 by 1200 pixels; dual-link DVI ports support up to 2560 by 1600 pixels

Support for analog resolutions up to 2048 by 1536 pixels

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Answer 2

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 28, 2011 11:13 AM in response to BDAqua

Hi BDAqua,

the native resolution of the monitor is 1680x1050 (Wacom Cintiq 20wsx).

I also tried to connect a Samsung with a lower native resolution. Same result: port 2 of the graphic cards sends a digital signal, port 1 gives me just a strange picture (as seen in the image I linked above). (although the screenshot is crisp)

The cards in the G5 are booth NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB.

…

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 28, 2011 11:41 AM in response to harald.ge

Hmmm, DVI-I should put out both DVI-A & DVI-D...

http://pinouts.ru/Video/dvi_pinout.shtml

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Answer 4

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 28, 2011 12:02 PM in response to BDAqua

The outs at the GeForce 6600 are both 29 pin DVI female connector.
One of them should be single link, the other dual link.

The strange thing is that the effect on both cards is the same.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 28, 2011 12:09 PM in response to harald.ge

Is it the DVI or the DVI Dual Link that works correctly?

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Answer 6

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 28, 2011 12:30 PM in response to BDAqua

It is port 2 - when i look at the backside of the tower in front of me the left one.
Can't really tell if it is the dual or single - link out.

Strange thing:
I just reseted the NV-Ram and then reset-all in Open Firmware.

Then I noticed that when booting into Open Firmware - the display is on both ports is crisp and good.
When i continue booting from Open Firmware (mac-boot) as soon as the screen with the login window appears it the image gets messed up.

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 28, 2011 1:14 PM in response to harald.ge

Is the picture also clear when you Safe Boot? What rez does it say in Safe Mode if so?

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Answer 8

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 28, 2011 1:35 PM in response to BDAqua

wooha…

Safe mode is booting with shift pressed right?

Well what happens then is grey Screen with Apple logo - turning grey wheel.
After 30 seconds - Fans go to full on (jet style)
After another 90 seconds - Fans turn off.
After another 10 seconds - System reboots itself.

Boots normal into the login window - screen is messed up like before.

Seems like no "safe"-mode for me - any ideas?

Thanks.

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Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 28, 2011 2:26 PM in response to harald.ge

OK, we have a problem.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564

We need to repair the Disk.

Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...

/sbin/fsck -fy

Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.

(Space between fsck AND -fy important).

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

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Answer 10

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 28, 2011 2:33 PM in response to BDAqua

Ok. Thank you very much for the fast help.
I will report after the disk repair (which i will start 12 hours) 😉

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 28, 2011 2:36 PM in response to harald.ge

If Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

But others that may work…

Drive Genius…

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php

TechTool Pro…

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

BTW, you might enjoy these DiskWarrior review/recommendations...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9645801&#9645801

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10541019#10541019

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11918925&#11918925

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12684129#12684129

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12744794&#12744794

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Answer 12

Mar 28, 2011 2:51 PM in response to harald.ge

harald.ge wrote:
wooha…

Safe mode is booting with shift pressed right?

Well what happens then is grey Screen with Apple logo - turning grey wheel.
After 30 seconds - Fans go to full on (jet style)
After another 90 seconds - Fans turn off.
After another 10 seconds - System reboots itself.

Boots normal into the login window - screen is messed up like before.

Seems like no "safe"-mode for me - any ideas?

You may have an open firmware password set, which would prevent not only safe boot, but single-user, verbose and optical disc boots. You said that you did an NVRAM reset in open firmware, so if you didn't have to enter the O-F password, then something strange is going on. If you did, then safe boot won't work without resetting the O-F password.

More information here...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1352

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Answer 13

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 29, 2011 12:26 PM in response to old comm guy

Back again:
What i did so far is trying to follow both, BDAquas and old comm guy tips:

Started the G5 in Target Disk Mode.
Connected to a (intel)iMac with 10.5.8 - then did normal Hard-Disk Toolkit maintenance.
Disk seems OK.
(btw. the System is on a two disk raid1)

Then i started Diskwarrior did a "rebuild" and a repair. - Result: Disk OK.

Then disconected the FireWire connection and restarted the G5 - tried to boot in Safe-Mode.
Same as before - gray screen (crispy on both display ports) then after some time the machine restarts.

The gray screen appears crisp - as soon as the login window appears the picture gets messed up.

Next thing i did: started into single user mode.
Works fine, run the fsck -fy repair - that starts with:
** /dev/rdisk2
** Root file system
disk2: ioctl(IOW,'d',24,4) is unsupported.
** Checking…(then everything seems normal)

…

** The volume G5 appears to be OK.

(Did that procedure twice.)
Next: restart with typing exit (twice - the first time it won't let me exit.)
(btw. in single user mode the picture is crisp - after i start "exit" - as soon as the login screen appears the screen gets messed up again on port 1 on both cards)

so until now I found out - i can't boot in safe mode - graphic card works fine until login window.

The next thing i did was booting off Mac OS 10.5 install disc to access the firmware password utility. There was no hook on password protection, i left all fields blank and didn't click the hook for password protection and confirmed - the utility confirms that changes were safed.
Then i continue with Disk Utility Repairing permissions - the log says permissions differ on…
but ends with Permissions repair complete
Afterwards I run Disk Repair - that says G5 appears to be OK.

…Then starting from Disk Warrior (10.5.7) DVD: Grey screen turning wheel - fans on full power - then one minute fan goes down… then Fan up again Speakers pop. Takes about five minutes- finaly Disk Warrior appears: -Rebuilding directory, ( faster than in Target Disk Mode), Files- finds some errors in my Documents Folder and the Hardware check is successful.

Restarting in safe mode doesn't work. But normal mode works, display ports one send out messed image… display ports two work.

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Answer 14

BDAqua

Level 10

250,445 points

Mar 29, 2011 12:42 PM in response to harald.ge

Hmmm, didn't know about the Raid setup, likely the RAID extension is disabled by Safe Boot I guess!?

No Single drive or FW drive you could try Safe Boot from?

Have you tried Thousands instead of Millions of colors?

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Answer 15

harald.ge Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 29, 2011 12:49 PM in response to BDAqua

Sounds plausible that the RAID doesn't work in Safe Boot. Since all the other options (Single, Open Firmware, TDM) worked, I'm not really concerned about that.

I have no single drive i could boot from - I did however when starting from the OS X DVD and the Disk Warrior DVD change the graphic ports - with the same result - one is messed up - one works fine.

I tried thousands - instead of millions - no success.

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