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User profile for user: Scotsbeats
Scotsbeats Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Pc ATI radeon hd 3870 in mac pro 1.1 (monitor shows no signal)

Mac pro 1.1

2x 2.0ghz quad core xeon

20gb ram

OS X 10.11.6 el capitan



I bought a second hand PC graphics card (ATI Radeon HD 3870) as far as I'm aware any pc video card should work just fine with out a boot screen unless it's been flashed. I removed my old video card (nvidia geforce 7300) and put my new card in the same slot, connected the 6 pin power cable and plugged in the monitor lead. Powered on the mac and got nothing from the monitor, mac still chimes fine and as far as I'm aware is still booting up fine, but the monitor is still on standby. I put my old video card back in to another slot and kept the new card in as well. When I booted it up connected to the old card, it came up with the expansion slot utility saying there was two video cards installed and that the new card was running fine. when I open system information and go to graphics and displays it also shows there.. does anyone have any ideas why the monitor isn't picking up the card? I have photos of the screen shots, but too big to upload Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Posted on Jun 5, 2017 4:06 PM

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11 replies
User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
133,363 points

Jun 6, 2017 10:11 AM in response to Scotsbeats

any pc card should work just without a boot screen?

that is the way it is supposed to work. Without EFI firmware, it does not show anything until the driver is loaded, which is at the desktop if you auto-login, or the login screen if you manually log in.


I presume the 3870 would be activated by the "regular" driver for the ATI/AMD 4870 and similar displays, but I am not certain of that.


Safe Mode, Installer, Recovery mode, and Startup Manager (option boot) would show nothing.

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User profile for user: Scotsbeats
Scotsbeats Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jun 6, 2017 11:10 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thats exactly what I thought before I bought it and the person I bought it off is positive it's working fine as he was using it in his pc before sending it to me. It shows up in system information as being there in slot 1. I've check the extensions folder to make sure it does have the right drivers built in and it does have them, so can't understand why I'm still getting no signal.. I can't even go into Safe boot or system recovery because it won't do anything when you press the commands.

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
133,363 points

Jun 6, 2017 11:15 AM in response to Scotsbeats

safe boot and recovery "snag keys" must be pressed at startup, before the startup chime finishes, and require a wired keyboard directly on the chassis, not on a display or other hub to be recognized. Wireless keyboards can be used, but are much more cranky.


With a PC graphics card, the driver is not loaded, so nothing appears on the displays on that card.

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User profile for user: Scotsbeats
Scotsbeats Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jun 6, 2017 11:33 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I've tried many times and the only ones I can do are disk utility and reset PRAM at the start, I've read that macs can be installed without having system recovery with it and I'm guessing that's the case with mine as you can't reinstall my os from recovery cause it wasn't supposed to have el capitan on mac pro and it's a piker boot version. My keyboard is already connected directly to chassis and is wired, so that shouldn't be a problem. So if you can, how do you load that driver for the card?

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Pc ATI radeon hd 3870 in mac pro 1.1 (monitor shows no signal)

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