62 replies to this topic

[Carstiman]

Gringo Vermelho, on Apr 1 2011, 09:48 PM, said:

I forgot to mention that I've had freezes during browser use as well. It happens in exactly the same way as you described earlier in the thread, except I use Firefox.

For me the browser freezes became a lot less frequent since 10.6.7/latest nvidia drivers/Firefox 4. Can't say which because I updated all three at pretty much the same time, but the freeze is rare enough now that I've stopped running VLC in the background.

I was using Left 4 Dead 2 for testing your BIOS because it is a much more reliable way to make it freeze. I can use Firefox all day and night without anything happening, so I decided that it would take too long to get a reliable test result that way.

/edit

FWIW, that unlimited love qt video runs fine for me in Firefox on 10.6.7 already.

for me exactly the same. just another game

[HBP112358]

I would be more then happy to try the drivers from DP2, I just got my GTX460 tonight and fell into the problem with it freezing.

I have my 9800GT as a backup, but I also have DP2, installed on my macbook so installing it on a spare SATA drive the easy way(Macbook then install boot loader/Extra folder and FakeSMC) I'll report back on how it runs under DP2.  I also am a Microsoft developer (have windows 7 on a different partition) if you need folks to test Roms.


HBP

[momavujisic]

I have the freeze happen to me regardless whether I'm browsing the internet or not. Pretty sure it all comes down to the GPU falling into a lower power state (typing a Word document, browsing Safari) and when it needs to go back into a higher power state it freezes.

[icebirdro]

Hey Rominator!
I've been following this forum for quite a while, I decided yesterday to install OS X on my PC and after one and a half day of tries it's stable with a video loop playing in the background. I've used the iBoot + Multibeast method. I have a msi GTS 450 OC CYCLONE card. Can you modify the bios on this one? From what I know it uses a custom msi BIOS for that OC stuff. Can you give me some instructions on how to get the BIOS from it? I remember using GPU-Z but I don't have any Windows installations atm and I don't want to install one but if I have to then I will. Hope this freeze problem will get fixed xD

[cure72]

In general, for 4 days happened as much as 5 KP. Somehow, even more than before.
Maybe someone already have the whole package of drivers from the 10.7 dp2 / 11A419?
Please place them somewhere, I'll be with them to try.

[elitee]

cure72, on Apr 6 2011, 02:37 PM, said:

In general, for 4 days happened as much as 5 KP. Somehow, even more than before.
Maybe someone already have the whole package of drivers from the 10.7 dp2 / 11A419?
Please place them somewhere, I'll be with them to try.

Are these drivers newer?

[cure72]

elitee
Yes,r270.

[fixxxer2012]

i have a gts 450 with snow leopard and it occasionally freezes. id be willing to try anything at this point. please pm me on here.

[fixxxer2012]

momavujisic, on Apr 2 2011, 08:07 AM, said:

I have the freeze happen to me regardless whether I'm browsing the internet or not. Pretty sure it all comes down to the GPU falling into a lower power state (typing a Word document, browsing Safari) and when it needs to go back into a higher power state it freezes.

seems like thats the issue. i read one thread where it suggests bumping up the pci express voltage to 101mhz. but i read thats unsafe? it seems to me if the card ran at a constant voltage it wouldn't crash the pc.

[fixxxer2012]

not trying to hijack this thread but i think i have an idea for a solution for the crashes on 10.6.7 with the gts 450 models. okay, most report no crashes if you play a low res video in vlc looping. this is becuase your gpu is using more power and clocking higher. the crash happenes when the card settles down then needs to become active again.  in my bios i can change the voltage/clock speeds to have the card run at a set speed all the time. i went ahead and spent time in windows using gpuz to monitor my temps and voltage as i played several games and videos. the highest voltage i got was to 101mhz. in leopard this should be about the same readings. problem is there's no concrete solution to read gpu temps on this card within osx nor to be able to clock the fan speeds at all.

" this only works in windows" with the evga precision tool. there are several programs out there that can allow you to modify your gpu rom bios files as far as voltage, fan speeds...etc. problem is i do not feel like being a guinea pig and destroy my card since i cannot monitor temps within osx. so i think the solution would be to set a stock voltage of at least 100mhz and overclock the fan speeds to compensate. it's either we do this or wait for nvidia to distribute updated drivers.

im not sure if this is the "fix" the op has for his card but i think this idea would work for us, at least as a temp fix.

[Gringo Vermelho]

fixxxer2012, on Apr 9 2011, 11:25 PM, said:

the highest voltage i got was to 101mhz.

Dude, get your terminologies straight!

fixxxer2012, on Apr 9 2011, 11:25 PM, said:

set a stock voltage of at least 100mhz and overclock the fan speeds

You cannot "set a stock voltage of at least 100 MHz".

Voltage is measured in Volts, not MHz. You might as well be saying "Hi my name is Frank and I'm 27 kilos old".

When talking about clock frequencies, "stock" means whatever clock frequency the card shipped with from the factory. Therefore, if the frequency was set by you, it is no longer "stock".

Also, I'm excited about your new technology - here on planet Earth, we cannot overclock fans yet.

Your idea will not work if the problem is with the transition from one power state to the other.
It's possible that voltage and frequency don't matter at all - maybe something wrong happens when a command is issued to make the transition itself.
This theory could be tested easily - if someone made a patched BIOS where all power states are identical.
I have already tried a modified BIOS with the lowest power state set higher on my GTX 460 and it still froze.
I've seen the thread where someone suggested bumping the PCI-E voltage - it didn't work, in the end it still froze.

[cure72]

In general, I realized that everything is signed NDA. Well to hell with it, I put to download the whole image, a couple of weeks with my Internet download. While reported that what he did.
I once scratched my bios and made a small downclock (initial frequency of 800 \ 1600 \ 4000) and at the same time reduce all voltage

To those on which graphics card with such frequencies is absolutely workable and passes all the tests on the stability of Windows. Today we went to the third day, as in OS X does not have any problems. But as shown by past experience, you need to wait much longer times.

[fixxxer2012]

Gringo Vermelho, on Apr 10 2011, 04:06 AM, said:

Dude, get your terminologies straight!

You cannot "set a stock voltage of at least 100 MHz".

Voltage is measured in Volts, not MHz. You might as well be saying "Hi my name is Frank and I'm 27 kilos old".

When talking about clock frequencies, "stock" means whatever clock frequency the card shipped with from the factory. Therefore, if the frequency was set by you, it is no longer "stock".

Also, I'm excited about your new technology - here on planet Earth, we cannot overclock fans yet.

Your idea will not work if the problem is with the transition from one power state to the other.
It's possible that voltage and frequency don't matter at all - maybe something wrong happens when a command is issued to make the transition itself.
This theory could be tested easily - if someone made a patched BIOS where all power states are identical.
I have already tried a modified BIOS with the lowest power state set higher on my GTX 460 and it still froze.
I've seen the thread where someone suggested bumping the PCI-E voltage - it didn't work, in the end it still froze.

no reason to be rude to me as i was trying to give ideas. im not talking about overclocking the fan. i meant if you bump the voltage up you will need to increase your fans speed to compensate for the higher voltage to keep it running cool. im not a noob when it comes to computers. i do not see why my solution would not work, if running a video in the background fixes this issue then so should my theory. as of now it seems there is no possible fixes until nvidia gets off their rears and updates the driver.

it's a shame too because my osx install is flawless aside from the crashes. as of now i cannot run it as my daily driver until this gets fixed properly.

cure72, on Apr 6 2011, 03:37 PM, said:

In general, for 4 days happened as much as 5 KP. Somehow, even more than before.
Maybe someone already have the whole package of drivers from the 10.7 dp2 / 11A419?
Please place them somewhere, I'll be with them to try.

so the nvidia drivers for lion could fix our issues? why hasn't it been posted anywhere yet to try?

[fixxxer2012]

ive been told the gts 450 works fine with the lion install. i may give it a go. does anyone know if it's stable enough to run yet? seems like a difficult install to take on.

[fixxxer2012]

id like a status update on this fix the OP mentioned. this seems to be sorta a stalemate/dead issue right now. if i cannot find a solution i will have to purchase another gpu this week.

[Kyfho]

rominator, on Mar 29 2011, 12:20 PM, said:

Okey Doke,

After spending a couple weeks jacking around with 3 different 6xxx series cards and then seeing all my findings posted on various Mac news sites with all of the credit going to Bozo & Clarabell at TinyMac86, I have learned some lessons. So I am not going to just post useful info for all and expect everyone to behave like honest adults.

First and foremost, I am looking for people with the ability to use NVFlash to reflash their Nvidia cards. If you are unfamiliar or unwilling to do this, hit the "Back" button now and move on to next thread. The idea that a GPU can be "bricked" via a BIOS flash is an old wive's tale. They can ALWAYS be reflashed back to working state, worst case scenario you may need a different MB to flash in or an ATI card to flash from but cards can always be restored to their original BIOS. If by some MIRACLE OF CHRIST you can't, I will offer that you can ship the card to me and I will revive it should you be so woefully incompetent as to need that. (Offer only applies to Closed Beta testers)

I need 1 or 2 people with a GTS450 and 1 or 2 with a GTX460.

Hi Rominator    I was not sure if you are   looking for more testers I have an Asus ENGTS 450 card that seems to   have the fermi freeze.    My rom file is attached if you need it.

Attached Files

•  rom.zip   44.24K   6 downloads

[fixxxer2012]

on tonymacx86 a member suggested writing a script that will load on startup to keep the gpu running at maybe 1% to prevent the freeze. same as running the video in the background fix. can this be done?

[rominator]

Guys, I am sorry that my fix hasn't worked out so far.

I was trying to edit the power states to match those in Quadro 4000 ROM on the theory that Fermi drivers are REALLY only for that card.

Unfortunately, the Fermi ROMs are much more complicated than before. Ideally we would just make them only have 1 power state, which would have been possible on previous cards, but I see no way to do this with Fermi.

I will try a GTX460 ROM where all 3 states are the same. I tried this before and card wouldn't boot but I may have not done it right.

The Quadros don't dip as low in lowest state, so I was trying to move lowest state up to that level but you have all reported same issue.

SO far, running Lion DP2 with the Nvidia 270 drivers seems to be a fix. So it may be that no amount of ROM fiddling can fix GF104 cards if the flaw is in fact in driver.

I have run the issues by Netkas, his reply was "bug in driver"

I will try one more time with ROM.

I would also suggest this...have a look at that AGPM thread, in theory you could write an AGPM that was always triggered into "high". If that works, we would know that a ROM could be made to work.

But this whole issue will be a piece of quickly forgotten history when next Nvidia drivers come out. (in theory)

[fixxxer2012]

im hoping the new drivers come out soon. i hate having to buy another card.

[rominator]

fixxxer2012, on Apr 11 2011, 11:56 PM, said:

im hoping the new drivers come out soon. i hate having to buy another card.

Hey, you seem eager to be a "fixer", why not try modding AGPM and tell us if that fixes Fermi Freeze?

Either keep card in low state or high state.