Mac Pro :: Can Boot 2006 With Only A PC 4870 Card
Mar 13, 2009
I have a Mac Pro 2006 edition with an ATI 1900XT video card. This is working just fine, and I can boot into Mac OS X and Windows Vista via Boot Camp.
I just purchased a Sapphire 4870 video card. My plan was to remove the 1900XT and plug in the 4870, and always boot into Vista. I realize that since this card is not a "Mac" card I will not be able to use Mac OS X. I also expected from my reading that I would not be able to hold down the option key at boot time to select my boot drive. I figured if I had a need to get back into OS X, I'll put the 1900XT back in for that.
As long as the Mac is configured to boot Windows, I thought that this setup would work fine. With the 4870 I expected that I would hear the bootup gong and then eventually see Vista start to boot up.
So, with that in mind, I performed the switch last night. I removed the 1900XT and installed the 4870. I had to run an additional power lead from the spare molex connector by the DVD drive to the 4870 since it requires two power connections. The 1900XT only needs one.
I plugged everything in, and turned on the Mac. I heard the startup gong. So far so good.
Then, my screen turns almost completely white (a very light gray) and I see a blinking cursor in the upper left-hand corner. The hard drives begin to seek and it sounds like things are booting... however I never get to the Vista boot selection screen (I actually have two Vista installs on two separate drives, so I always get the boot selection screen to decide which drive to boot from.) I also never hear a Vista startup sound... it's almost as if it is booting into Mac OS X instead of Vista.
At this point I am stumped and I'm hoping somebody here in the forum knows what is going wrong. Does my 4870 not have enough power? Do I have to have a Mac-compatible video card plugged in even if I don't plan on using it? Is what I'm trying to do just impossible?
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Jul 29, 2009
I bought HIS Radeon HD4870 512MB DDR5 for my Mac Pro 2006 1.1. The first problem I've found it that card will not fit to slot 1, because of too long screws. So I installed it in slot 2, leaving 7300GT in slot 1. The next problem was how to get rid of these power cables - I've tried the more elegant way taking that molex adapter under HDD trays, but cables where too short So I installed them on the right of Superdrive's tray. Now on Mac OS X I got kernel panic (probably the injector thing). On Windows Vista card is detected, but automatically disabled (probably not enough power or just PCI-EX 1x slot is not compatible). Here are photos from the operation. I'll try to install Accelero S1 rev. 2 with Noctua 120 mm fan and will see how things go I've also ordered two special Apple PCI-EX power connectors from Austria.
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Aug 15, 2009
I had wanted to get a dual 2.66 with the ATI 4870 card. A client ordered it with the Geo 120. One option seems to be to buy an upgrade so here are my questions: 1. Is there anything I can do with the GEO 120? If I leave it in, will it do anything useful? When you have more than one card in, is their a "primary card"? How does the computer know? 2. If I buy another card, should I buy the ATI 4870 or the GTX 285? I've been reading about the 285 here. Will installing either of these cards void my warranty and/or AppleCare? There seems to be a question as to whether the 285 is "supported" by Apple, whatever that means. I do a lot of Photoshop editing and some video -- that's why I wanted the ATI. Suggestions as to what to do will be greatly appreciated.
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Apr 6, 2009
I recently just purchased one of the early 2008 Mac Pro Desktops, model number MA970LL/A and am trying to upgrade the video card in it. It comes standard with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 xt, and I would like to upgrade to an ATI Radeon HD 4870. I don't know that it will work though, I know that the NVIDEA that comes standard in the early 2009 Mac Pro does not work in the early 2008 Model. Does anyone have any information on this or know if that will work?
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May 28, 2010
With the recent Steam for Mac release, I have been thinking about getting a new video card again, however I am looking for reasons to get it. So I am just wondering will I see any speed improvements if I used a better video card on Aperture 3 (running 32bit because I use nik software)? I also use FCP, Photoshop quite often.
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May 5, 2009
I have decided to upgrade the stock 7300GT on my Mac Pro. I have three choices:
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May 11, 2012
I have 10.6.8 running on a 2.66 GHz 4 core machine made in 2006. What is the most current Nvidia card that I can use?
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Jul 25, 2009
I have a 2006 Mac Pro with 7300GT and I'm thinking about upgrading the video card since Photoshop takes advantage of GPU and Lightroom will also in not too distant future. The system is still fast for my needs so all I want is a GPU upgrade What are my options?
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Feb 7, 2010
Long time mac user here. While I like OSX Snow Leopard recently I have switched to Windows 7 as I find the experience superior to anything Apple currently offers. I do however how a question about using my 2006 Mac Pro in Windows
My Mac Pro came with a 7300GT which is barely adequate for anything nowadays. I was wondering is it possible to use a passively cooled ATI Radeon 5450 (DX11 that supports all the high definition video codecs) in my Mac Pro alongside 7300GT? I know it wont be possible to use it while in OSX, but can I run both in my system so when I boot into Windows 7 (majority of the time) I can use the 5450 instead?
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Aug 10, 2010
I have a 2006 mac pro with an x1900xt, I'm looking to get another card to run in Bootcamp (Win 7 32bit) for games. I was looking at flashing a 4870 but it looks like it's more trouble than it's worth (I see a lot of dual monitor issues, for example, and I require dual monitors).
What card should I get with minimum trouble such that I can use it in Bootcamp/Win7? I'll continue use the x1900xt for OS X. Looking for <$150, something like an ATI 4870 or 5750 (preferably without any additional special cables.
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Oct 27, 2009
So here's the deal, I've currently got a 2006 Mac Pro with an ATI X1900XT video card and a 23" ACD.
I'm looking to add two more displays to my setup (most likely 24" Dells) for a total of 3 monitors and would thus require 2 graphics cards.
So here's my question, would I be able to keep my current X1900 card and add a second card? If so, what card would people recommend?
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Mar 25, 2012
I have an iMac that is exhibiting symptoms of a video card going bad. Are video cards replaceable in the 20" white iMacs from early 2006?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 20" iMac early 2006
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Mar 19, 2010
Just wondering what else, if anything else, I can upgrade on my system.I have an original 2006 launch model (2 x 2.66 Ghz Dual Core Xeon, 8GB 667 DDR2 RAM from Crucial, 4 x 1TB Western Digital RE3 7200RPM drives w/ 32MB Cache in a Software RAID)However, I still have the original NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT card in here and I've never been super-impressed nor disappointed.Should I replace it? I do mostly graphics work in Photoshop and writing code as a web-developer but I do occasional gaming so I'd see a benefit there.. I'm just wondering if it'd boost performance in the OS. Honestly, the computer runs fine... I would never replace it unless it had an issue. I'm just thinking about the future.
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May 27, 2012
I have this Late 2006 Macbook, that still runs great and everything, but the only problem iv been running into, is video. So when i watch a video in QuickTime Player, or QuickView, or even YouTube, the video just randomly starts to flip out. So, is it possible to upgrade the Graphics Card?
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Snow Leopard, Original MacBook.
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Aug 11, 2009
I want to add a Airport Extreme card to my first generation (2006) Mac Pro. My serial number is G86380EKUPZ. Which Model #/Part # card would I need and where can I find them? I called my local Apple store and they told me that they could install it for me but they aren't allowed to order the part...? Weird. Also, while I'm asking, I'm interested in upgrading my graphics card. I read somewhere that the ATI Radeon HD 3870 will work. Is there anything else you guys could recommend? I'm gonna be working in Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, etc.
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Mar 19, 2012
Just a white screen after Apple logo and spinner in middle of screen. OS is 10.6.8.Â
Info:
2006 MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.11)
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Jun 1, 2012
I recently got this Mac Pro (Model number A1186, EMC 2113) with two Quad Core 2.66 GHz Intel Xeon 5150 processors, 16GB of RAM (both RAM riser slots completely filled with 4x2GB sticks of 667MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM each), 2x1TB clean HDDs, and an ATI Radeon HD4870 (512MB DDR5 memory) video card with 2 DVI ports and an S-video port. (I bought the HD4870 later after I found that the one that came with it, an ATI X1900 XT, was part of a recall [sadly this recall ended in 2011.] Plus, the fans on the X1900 were revving up REALLY loud.)The reason I'm posting here is because the darn thing will not "boot." The machine starts up fine (HDDs spin up, lights on the RAM risers illuminate momentarily, etc.), but there is no output out of either of the DVI ports. Not even a gray Apple screen. I have tried the DVI cord and the monitor on two different machines and they both work perfectly fine, and now I have no other Mac available to test the video card on. I'll just have to assume for now that it works. The video card, after the machine is turned on, has three of the four diagnostic LEDs lighted.
The ones that light up are D1601, D1602, and D1603; the other one, D603, does not light up. After some searching around on Google for a little while and sifting through forum after forum, they all seemed to agree upon the fact that these lights were from the two internal power cables (D1602 and D1603) not being plugged in and that there was a critical temperature error (D1601). Note that a) both power cables are in both power slots and hooked in securely and b) these lights turn on immediately after pressing the power button. A light tug from both ends on both cables assures that these cables are not going anywhere soon, and I doubt that there would be such a heating issue as soon as I press the power button, especially since all the fans are running fine. My first thought was that maybe the logic board wasn't getting enough power, but I have no idea on how to check this as almost everything besides the RAM risers and the extension slots are covered by something.Another problem I found is that some of the diagnostic LEDs that should be lighting up, aren't. Out of all the lights, the ones that do light up are the TRICKLE light and the EFI light. I guess it's good that the CPU lights aren't lighting up, but what about the the GPU and POWER lights? Shouldn't those be lighting up too?I also tried booting up from a Snow Leopard disc (there isn't any internal CD/DVD drive [the previous owner removed it for whatever reason], so I've been using an external CD/DVD drive).
When I plugged in my Apple USB keyboard, I decided to press the caps lock key and see if it would light up green. No dice. I tried all 5 USB ports on the machine and none of them worked. But how did the CD/DVD drive work? It spun up when I turned the machine on. So since the keyboard can't be recognized I am unable to boot from a CD, or anything else for that matter.One more issue: there is no startup chime! Tried turning it off and on many different times trying some potential solutions out and not once was there a startup chime. I know for sure this is a huge issue.reconfiguring the RAM (which I inserted per Apple's instructions), resetting the SMC, resetting the PRAM (which wouldn't have worked anyways since the keyboard isn't recognized), and resetting the NVRAM (which, again, probably wouldn't have worked since the keyboard isn't recognized.)So here are my problems.
Info:
Mac Pro
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Nov 21, 2010
In retrospect, I should have ignored it when Apple Software Update told me about the Boot Camp 3.2 upgrade for my 2006 Mac Pro running x64 Win 7 ultimate. When I ran it, it overwrote my blue tooth driver and my keyboard stopped working. Thanks for the folks at Mac Rumors forums, I was able to go through the procedure to get it working again, and I also had to update the video driver (again) from ATI for my 3800.
So then I decide to reboot into MacOS and discover that my icon for selecting the boot disk was gone, not to mention any directory or programs in the start menu. This happen to anyone else? Do I have to downgrade to 3.1 or does anyone have a recommendation to get 3.2 working?
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Feb 25, 2010
I have a 13" MacBook (White 2.0GHz/1 GB/80 GB) that will not boot. I've tried the troubleshooting tips on the Apple website to no avail. When I turn it on, the light on the front stays light, I can hear the HD spin up, etc. The screen flickers as if it is getting power, but no chimes or sounds whatsoever. I've also tried to reseat RAM, used different RAM, but no dice. I'm hoping that there are a few other things I can try before I'm left with getting a new logic board.
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Jul 5, 2012
My Mini Mac (early 2006) was working ok till 2 days ago when the boot times went into the 4 minute range with the USB CD printer from primera pluged in. I check the firm ware on both devices and they are current.
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11)
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Jul 17, 2009
In the last 2 weeks before my MP shipped, I've asked 3 Apple Geniuses at Apple stores and Apple Tech support about running dual DVI 23" Cinema Displays with 4870's. They ALL said I would need a second card. When I attempted the install, there were only 2 power cord clips on the back face of the main board. Both being used by the onboard Radeon 4870. What to do next? Another call to Apple support offered me a nice Indian girl who I could not really understand. Finally, I called a local non-Apple shop that I frequent for hardware and service issues. The very nice service tech told me to take the 2nd card back, since that original 4870 will drive 2 monitors perfectly, in my case, with a simple Mini DisplayPort to DVI adaptor for the 2nd 23" display.
how would you install any 2nd graphics card, if a 4870 takes up both power clips?
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Mar 9, 2008
Yesterday my screen (30" Apple Cinema) started showing symptoms of graphics card failure, jagged lines across the screen. I rebooted my Mac Pro and it was gone. Then it happened again an hour later, this time the machine didn't boot, I get the Apple logo, and then it hangs up and the screen is shifted to left (I get apple logo on left side of the monitor instead of the middle) and jagged lines all over.
So the first thing I tested was using Target Disk Mode, it works. I can access my Mac Pro's internal HD's by TDM from my MacBook Pro. Then I tested single user mode, it does boot, I can't read what's written since the screen is shifted to left, but if I type (without seeing) reboot and hit enter, it reboots. So I assume the single user mode is working.
What else can I try to 100% make sure it's my graphics card that failed and everything else is ok with Mac Pro? I already ordered a graphics card replacement but I wouldn't like to be surprised if the Mac Pro still doesn't boot when the card arrives. It won't boot from Apple Startup DVD either. Same thing happens, gray logo then kernel panic with jagged lines all across the shifted screen.
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Oct 2, 2009
Yesterday my screen (30" Apple Cinema) started showing symptoms of graphics card failure, jagged lines across the screen. I rebooted my Mac Pro and it was gone. Then it happened again an hour later, this time the machine didn't boot, I get the Apple logo, and then it hangs up and the screen is shifted to left (I get apple logo on left side of the monitor instead of the middle) and jagged lines all over.
So the first thing I tested was using Target Disk Mode, it works. I can access my Mac Pro's internal HD's by TDM from my MacBook Pro. Then I tested single user mode, it does boot, I can't read what's written since the screen is shifted to left, but if I type (without seeing) reboot and hit enter, it reboots. So I assume the single user mode is working.
What else can I try to 100% make sure it's my graphics card that failed and everything else is ok with Mac Pro? I already ordered a graphics card replacement but I wouldn't like to be surprised if the Mac Pro still doesn't boot when the card arrives.
P.S. It won't boot from Apple Startup DVD either. Same thing happens, gray logo then kernel panic with jagged lines all across the shifted screen.
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Jun 26, 2010
I've a mid-2009 Mac Pro and just saw the new nVidia GTX470-based cards. Awesome card.
Using Boot Camp and Win7, is it easy to rig that card to work?
(I'd put back my ATi card for when I need OS X or use my MacBook Pro for Mac-centric work...)
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Apr 20, 2008
I bought a NVIDIA 8800GTS, since I saw it was possible to flash the card (thread in these forums). So I got the same card and was all excited! Unfortuantely I do not own a PC but I hoped I could flash the card within my MacPro (early 2008). Too bad that the flash utility nvflash.exe has to be run in a DOS environment. After fighting for a while I want to post my findings and maybe somebody know the solution.
Standard Dos BootCD will work on the mac but the USB keyboard won't be recognized :/ After trying the Hiren's Boot cd - I could use the keyboard, but there was no way the Loader could mount a RAM disk - I guess the MacPro handles ram differently than the standard PC. All I wanted to do is to access the NTFS filesystem so I could save my original NVidia ROM. No success I tried the HP USB Flash utility which creates a bootable USB flash drive with DOS on it but the MacPro doesn't recognise the drive as a bootable disk :/ Tried the same with an iPod but no success neither. So all I want is to boot into Dos with my MacPro - have a "writeable" drive so I can save my rom with the nvflash.exe and flash the card with the new and EFI64 rom version (which can be also found within another thread). Any1 an idea ? I think I am at the end of my knowledge... A .dmg that can be used to restore a Bootable DOS FAT32 partition that can be modified via OS X would be the bomb.
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Jun 16, 2009
Has anyone cracked or had success in installing Windows on a SD card via bootcamp?My bootcamp wont see the SD Card. Just keeps coming up with UMBP HD only.
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Jun 23, 2009
Can anyone please suggest a RAID card for a MAC Pro that will also let me get into Boot Camp.
I have a Rocketraid 2644 connected to an external box with a RAID 0 array but it forces me to boot into OS X and nothing else
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Aug 5, 2010
So the other day I came home to find my powermac g5 frozen with the fans going crazy. After a hard reset the machine would no longer boot any further than the grey apple (kernel) stage. After pulling the video card the machine would boot up and I could log in using remote desktop from my laptop.
The machine ran that way for a couple of days until I got a new video card. When I put the new video card in the machine would not boot again.(The new card is exactly the same one as the old one)(ATI Radeon X800 XT mac edition).
After pulling the card the machine still wouldn't boot (exact same behavior as with the card) until I let it sit unplugged for 20 minutes or so. Also when it's not booting I can see that a little red light comes on on the logic board behind the cpu's.
Anyways I'm thinking it may be a power supply issue but if any experts wanna help me out with some advice I'd be very grateful.....
Continued
Well Today I tried using a pci video card from a g5 xserve and it exhibited the same behavior so now I know it's not the agp slot.
When it has the cards in it won't do anything except make the bong and the fans come on and then after a minute or so a red light comes on behind the processor and the fans start revving up super loud.
At first it would display up till the grey apple stage of the boot sequence and then hang.Now the display does not come on at all. When it is doing this the machine will not respond to any keystrokes etc.
When I pull the cards out all is normal and I can boot into target disk ,safe boot,whatever except I need to connect to it via remote desktop to see anything. Like this the machine is stable and will run normally. I also tried disconnecting the optical drive and hard drives and swapping the ram to see if that helped but it didn't. Of course I have reset Pram and the pmu also. Is the logic board toast? I can't run any hardware test or asd's with no video to see if there are any errors...
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Mar 12, 2008
I've got a 2008 Mac Pro with 4 internal hard drives that are in a 0+1 software raid. Unfortunately, this prevents me from using Boot camp on any of these drives.
I'm curious, is there a PCIe card that adds eSata ports that would allow me to put Windows XP on an external enclosure that is bootable?
I've been scouring the message boards and forums and have found cards by CalDigit, FirmTek and Sonnet, but I have no idea if any of these will support with Boot Camp/Windows.
I'm not interested in using the on mobo SATA ports because A) they aren't recognized in Windows, and B) I don't want to put a drive up in the CD drive bays (because of the bad airflow).
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Jun 5, 2010
Can you just install a vanilla PC raid card into a MP, stripe a few empty drives in a RAID 0 config, and make OS X ignore both the RAID card and the NTFS striped drives when switching to and from Leopard?
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