7800GS in a MDD G4

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7800GS in a MDD G4

I have a dual 1.25GHz MDD G4 Mac (originally dual 1.0GHz) and a BFG GeForce 7800GS with the copper heatsink.

I flashed the card with the ROM from themacelite.com described as "GeForce 7800 GS generic (nvflash, gotoh), tmeperature sensor removed for G4 running Leo (gotoh) ²" successfully and taped over pins 3 and 11.

I have both OS 9.2.2 and 10.5.8 on my MDD, and have been trying to figure out how to get this card working. I modified NVDAResmanPPC.kext and NVDANV40HalPPC.kext and added my card's numbers (0x00f510de) and repaired the disk permissions both from inside of 10.5 AND from the 10.5 DVD, yet when I reboot with my card installed, I get 2 popups saying (System Extension cannot be used: blah blah blah, was installed improperly and cannot be used"

If I go to System Profiler, the card registers as a 7800GS, but Core Image is "software" and Quartz Extreme is "Not Supported".

If I run a game like Halo Demo, it doesn't open, giving me an error saying "An unrecoverable error has occured, and Halo Demo cannot continue.", which I assume means it found no OpenGL card.

What do I do? Any suggestions? I see japamac has a 7800GS in his QS, and has played with a Gainward Bliss 7800GS too. Help please? Thanks!

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), PowerMac G4 MDD, BFG 7800GS

Posted on Mar 18, 2012 6:23 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Mar 19, 2012 3:10 AM in response to NekoCahlan

Your kext mod isn't taking, likely you didn't clear the kextcache.

Disk Utility doesn't do well with kext permissions. Use Terminal:

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/any.kext

chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/any.kext

kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

Find the following and trash them:

/System/Library/Extensions.kextcache and

/System/Library/Extensions.mkext

After trashing the kexts, restart.

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Answer 2

NekoCahlan Author

Level 1

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Mar 20, 2012 7:31 AM in response to japamac

Thanks, but I actually fixed it before you replied lol

What I did was reinstall Leopard and change the permissions of the Extensions folder and each kext to Read & Write for everyone, then modified the kexts without moving them since I already have original backups, then repair my disk permissions. Worked great!

I love playing Halo, Quake 4, Doom 3, Call of Duty, and more all on High settings now! Thanks for the reply though!

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Answer 3

NekoCahlan Author

Level 1

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Mar 29, 2012 4:24 PM in response to japamac

japamac wrote:

Your kext mod isn't taking, likely you didn't clear the kextcache.

Disk Utility doesn't do well with kext permissions. Use Terminal:
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/any.kext
chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/any.kext
kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

Find the following and trash them:

/System/Library/Extensions.kextcache and

/System/Library/Extensions.mkext

After trashing the kexts, restart.

x_x So everything was working ok until I installed Virtual PC 7, and it broke something in Leopard.

So I reinstalled fresh after erasing the drive, updated to 10.5.8, then changed the kext files again. Upon reboot I was greeted with "System Extension can not be used" etc and did what you said for each of the 3 kext files and trashed the Extensions.mkext. Extensions.kextcache doesnt exist in my Mac, even when showing hidden files. After all that, I rebooted and now Im stuck at a blue screen with only a movable mouse. Safe mode of course still works. Ideas? Thanks.

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Answer 4

NekoCahlan Author

Level 1

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Mar 29, 2012 5:16 PM in response to NekoCahlan

Bump? Please help! 😟

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Answer 5

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Mar 30, 2012 12:25 AM in response to NekoCahlan

Reinstall OS X again.

Once it is working, create a clone backup (SuperDuper) so that you have a fall back system while you try other things/breaking the system......

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