2009 MacPro 3,1 - Radeon R9 card

Question

2009 MacPro 3,1 - Radeon R9 card

Hi, I have a 2008 MacPro 3,1 running 10.10.3 and with upgrade video card being Radeon R9 R270X bought from a professional Service, Upgrades and Repair company in the UK; it's flashed to run in OS X.

It runs beautifully, increasing function and performance over the old Radeon 2600 several fold.

However, for OS X to recognise it on start-up, I have to disconnect the connector from my 20-inch cinema display and then re-attach to the R9 card. Otherwise, after boot-up (progress bar is visible) the screen goes black when OS X is fully loaded.

Does anyone know of a workaround to this physical disconnection/reconnection please?

Posted on Jun 3, 2015 5:57 AM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 3, 2015 6:04 AM in response to Tony Goldenfeld

Advice on flashing and other matters with R9

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/flashing-r9-280x-for-boot-screens-pci-system -information.1808938/

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Answer 2

Jun 3, 2015 6:10 AM in response to The hatter

...on the case, though on quick check I couldn't see my problem addressed there. However, thanks for your fast reply 😁

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Answer 3

Jun 3, 2015 6:16 AM in response to The hatter

Hi, mine is a different card (spec below) and though we have EFI screen, it's the need to disconnect and re-connect that I'm looking to address. maybe a peculiarity in Apple 20inch cinema display firmware?

AMD Radeon R9 270x:

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon R9 270x

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 2048 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x6810

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-E2080C-101

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.624

Displays:

Cinema:

Display Type: LCD

Resolution: 1680 x 1050

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: 2A7451LDXMM

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

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Answer 4

Jun 3, 2015 6:22 AM in response to Tony Goldenfeld

oops, try again:

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 3, 2015 6:57 AM in response to Tony Goldenfeld

The 2600XT is rather old, not supported by Yosemite much if at all, and trouble.,

Is that where the video out comes from? It is likely a source of trouble.

And to troubleshoot run w/o it, you don't need or want it.

Many AMD cards seem to have dual-BIOS already for PC legacy and UEFI mode.

The search feature on MacRumors is good, search thread or all threads in a forum.

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Answer 6

Jun 3, 2015 7:34 AM in response to The hatter

Hi, thanks for your reply.

To be clear, the 2600 works OK most of the time, struggles with heavy graphics. Otherwise is fine.

The R9 upgrade is the one that is flashed for OS X compatibility which works well once disconnected/reconnected after the logo and progress bar goes.

Searching on MacRumours, btw.

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Answer 7

Jun 3, 2015 2:29 PM in response to Tony Goldenfeld

May have nothing to do with your problem, but my 2 cents, NOT all Radeon R9 270x are UEFI compatible I got a Sapphire model for my PC only to find out it did not support UEFI and Sapphire were no help at all either as they had no plans to make a UEFI Bios available !

I know you are talking about a Mac and a card flashed to EFI firmware (Bios) but may still be your problem as the legacy video Bios kicks in after boot.

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