Problem installing PNY Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card

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Problem installing PNY Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card

I have a 2009 Mac Pro (early 2009 2x2.26 quad) running 10.10.5 with a NVIDIA GT 120 video card.

I downloaded and installed the web driver 346.02.03f01 from NVIDIA and the Cuda Driver 7.0.61.

I installed the card and the two power cables off the main board into the card and restarted the computer only to find the screen black ( no signal).

I saw a post where you can have two cards installed and I tried that with both the 970 and the 120 card but I got the same result.

After pulling out the GTX970 card and restarting the computer boots up fine.

Any suggestions on how to get the new card working on my mac pro?

Thanks.

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), early 2009

Posted on Aug 25, 2015 4:51 AM

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Answer 1

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lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Aug 25, 2015 7:19 AM in response to mycouch

Did you follow these instructions:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/170204-nvidia-releases-alternate-graphics-dri vers-10-10-5-346-02-03-a.html

Have you tried with only the 970 card?

How far does the boot go? Startup chime?

Try resetting the SMC and VRAM/PRAM

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

About NVRAM and PRAM

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Answer 2

Aug 26, 2015 1:59 AM in response to mycouch

A standard PC version GTX 970 does not have Mac firmware on it, this means the screen will be black until the Mac has completely finished booting. You will not see the normal boot progress bar on screen.

How long did you wait after turning the Mac on?

I don't think it will apply here as your post shows you appear to have correctly connected the cables but if the card got insufficient power that would result also in these symptoms. Still might be worth checking all the connections.

Yes it is possible and indeed desirable to have both the GT 120 and in this case the GTX 970 fitted at the same time. If you have not done so try having the monitor connected to the GT 120 with both cards fitted and see if anything appears. (People flashing PC cards via Windows in Boot Camp to Mac firmware would use the GT 120 while doing this, unfortunately the GTX 970 and 980 are not possible to flash ones self, so far only MacVidCards offers this service.)

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Answer 3

mycouch Author

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Aug 26, 2015 4:25 AM in response to John Lockwood

Thanks all for the responses. Even though I downloaded the driver the night before the first time I installed it appears as if the card was looking for an update on both CUDA and NVIDIA. I ran the updates with the existing card, powered down, installed the new card ( GTX970), checked the cables, and viola... it works.

Pretty cool having 4gb of video ram on a 2009 mac pro.

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Answer 4

Aug 27, 2015 2:02 PM in response to mycouch

I agree – it's cool. 🙂

It's important to having it set to use ”NVIDIA Web Driver” though since OS X doesn't have native support for the 9XX series of graphic cards there won't be any video if the setting is changed to ”OS X Default Graphics Driver”.

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