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Apple Cinema Display 27" and Lion: Good and Bad News


Crna Brada
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Summary:

 

Bad news:

Apple Cinema Display 27" (ACD-27) goes black after Lion or Snow Leopard 10.6.8 boot up is finished. Up to that point ACD-27 shows BIOS boot text and Apple logo with the spinning wheel.

This happens with both Sapphire ATI Radeon 5870 Vapor-X (1GB OC edition) and XFX 5770 - Single slot HD-577X-ZMF3 cards. ACD-27 works fine with both cards under Snow Leopard up to version 10.6.7.

(ACD-27 is connected through passive DP->MDP adapter on the Sapphire card and directly into XFX MDP.)

 

Good news:

ACD-27 works properly in all the cases (Lion and SL, any Chameleon, any MB) when connected to either genuine Apple ATI Radeon HD 5870 or Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 Vapor-X.

 

Details:

 

I did numerous tests installing Snow Leopard 10.6.7 and 10.6.8 as well as Lion DP2 and DP3 on two Gigabyte motherboards: GA X58A UD3R (Rev. 2.0 FF BIOS, DSDT from TonyMacx86 DSDT database) and GA X58A UD7 (rev. 2.0 FC BIOS DSDT again from TonyMacx86). Used Chimera v1.4.1 r877 with both Lion and all SL versions. Additionally, to eliminate possible Chameleon problem, used also older version of Chameleon: 2.0 RC5 - ATI Experimental (Kabyl branch) r700 with both 10.6.7 and 10.6.8. Netkas and Andy versions of Chameleon for Lion from May also tested.

 

Here are the test results.

 

1. ACD-27 works fine on both video cards with any Chameleon under Snow Leopard up to 10.6.7 version. All the ports are recognized by OS and Samsung SyncMaster P2370 on DVI port works fine as a second monitor.

2. SL 10.6.8 as well as Lion DP2 and DP3 cause ACD-27 to go black after boot up finishes. This consistently happens on both MB and with any version of Chameleon.

3. Video cards are recognized correctly by SL 10.6.8 and Lion and Samsung works fine as a second monitor. OS is also aware of ACD-27 and allows all its functionality as well as proper resolution and brightness setup to be done, but nothing shows on ACD-27 - black all the time. Using Back-to-myMac, you can also get normal functionality as if ACD-27 si working correctly.

5. Interestingly enough, Samsung DVI monitor (using passive MDP->DVI adapter) works just fine (showing all the contents) when connected to the same MDP where ACD-27 is showing black screen only!?!

6. Genuine Apple ATI Radeon HD 5870 and ACD-27 work properly in any HW /SW setup mentioned above.

7. VBIOS of the genuine Apple 5870 card, renamed for Sapphire 5870 and placed in Extra folder does not make any difference - ACD-27 stays black when attached to the Sapphire 5870 card.

8. ACD-27 works fine when connected to DVI port using active DVI->MDP adapter in all the cases.

9. ACD-27 works OOB directly connected to Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 Vapor-X for SL 10.6.8 and any Lion DP. It also works fine with 10.6.7 as long as ATI kexts from 10.6.8 or new iMac are installed.

 

I hope this would help people to avoid unnecessary frustrations when thinking of buying beautiful and quite expensive Apple monitor.

I don't know if the guys who are working on Chameleon development can fix the issue. If they need any help, I would be happy to do more testing and analyses.

 

Cheers

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thanks for the heads up!

Although its disappointing to hear that I might face trouble with my XFX MDP 5770.

Have u tried using the 10.6.7 kexts in 10.6.8 ? Would be interesting what exactly changes between 10.6.7 - 10.6.8.

 

Here is hope Steve is at least going to release a Lion GM tommorrow so we can keep on testing ;)

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thanks for the heads up!

Although its disappointing to hear that I might face trouble with my XFX MDP 5770.

Have u tried using the 10.6.7 kexts in 10.6.8 ? Would be interesting what exactly changes between 10.6.7 - 10.6.8.

 

Here is hope Steve is at least going to release a Lion GM tommorrow so we can keep on testing :)

 

I didn't try using 10.6.7 kexts in 10.6.8 or Lion during this systematic testing for two reasons. One of the key improvements of Lion over (old) SL is better graphics.

I felt that investing a lot of money into a high quality - high price monitor, and then downgrading graphics would almost defeat the purpose of the upgrade investment. Creating, at the same time, constant OS updating nightmares.

I would guess that it would be more reasonable to invest $200 in Sapphire 6870 on top of a $1,100 for the monitor while selling 5770 for $100 on eBay to a person who runs Windows or a DVI monitor on Hackintosh. 5770 works perfectly in both later cases, OOB!

 

The second, more practical reason is that very early in the "figuring out what a hell is happening here" phase, I did try to move some SL 10.6.7 kexts to 10.6.8 and SL started complaining about unresolved links etc. It could have been that I didn't move all the required kexts.

But again, why then upgrade to 10.6.8 if you retrofit to 10.6.7 a major part of the upgrade - graphics drivers!

 

So my 5770 is gone to eBay or to my cousin as a birthday present. Unless in the next couple of months Apple by chance "fixes" this issue. i wouldn't bet on that since this is not a bug as far as Apple is concerned: genuine Apple 5870 card is working with ACD OOB!

I don't think it is a priority for the Chameleon team to fix it either. i would bet that vast majority of them don't even have ACD and frankly speaking ACD is a luxury that not to many people could afford - why would an average student who wants to get inexpensive Mac surrogate even care about this?

 

The only real hope here is that somebody would want to figure out what the problem is for purely theoretical reasons, trying to understand subtleties of Mac OS, instead of, for example, solving Sudoku.

I will continue reporting new results as new versions come or if I manage to setup an environment for "white-box" testing. I might try to debug the issue - not yet quite sure how to do it or whether you can debug part of the OS.

 

Cheers,

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  • 3 weeks later...
Summary:

 

Bad news:

Apple Cinema Display 27" (ACD-27) goes black after Lion or Snow Leopard 10.6.8 boot up is finished. Up to that point ACD-27 shows BIOS boot text and Apple logo with the spinning wheel.

This happens with both Sapphire ATI Radeon 5870 Vapor-X (1GB OC edition) and XFX 5770 - Single slot HD-577X-ZMF3 cards. ACD-27 works fine with both cards under Snow Leopard up to version 10.6.7.

(ACD-27 is connected through passive DP->MDP adapter on the Sapphire card and directly into XFX MDP.)

 

Good news:

ACD-27 works properly in all the cases (Lion and SL, any Chameleon, any MB) when connected to either genuine Apple ATI Radeon HD 5870 or Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 Vapor-X.

 

Details:

 

I did numerous tests installing Snow Leopard 10.6.7 and 10.6.8 as well as Lion DP2 and DP3 on two Gigabyte motherboards: GA X58A UD3R (Rev. 2.0 FF BIOS, DSDT from TonyMacx86 DSDT database) and GA X58A UD7 (rev. 2.0 FC BIOS DSDT again from TonyMacx86). Used Chimera v1.4.1 r877 with both Lion and all SL versions. Additionally, to eliminate possible Chameleon problem, used also older version of Chameleon: 2.0 RC5 - ATI Experimental (Kabyl branch) r700 with both 10.6.7 and 10.6.8. Netkas and Andy versions of Chameleon for Lion from May also tested.

 

Here are the test results.

 

1. ACD-27 works fine on both video cards with any Chameleon under Snow Leopard up to 10.6.7 version. All the ports are recognized by OS and Samsung SyncMaster P2370 on DVI port works fine as a second monitor.

2. SL 10.6.8 as well as Lion DP2 and DP3 cause ACD-27 to go black after boot up finishes. This consistently happens on both MB and with any version of Chameleon.

3. Video cards are recognized correctly by SL 10.6.8 and Lion and Samsung works fine as a second monitor. OS is also aware of ACD-27 and allows all its functionality as well as proper resolution and brightness setup to be done, but nothing shows on ACD-27 - black all the time. Using Back-to-myMac, you can also get normal functionality as if ACD-27 si working correctly.

5. Interestingly enough, Samsung DVI monitor (using passive MDP->DVI adapter) works just fine (showing all the contents) when connected to the same MDP where ACD-27 is showing black screen only!?!

6. Genuine Apple ATI Radeon HD 5870 and ACD-27 work properly in any HW /SW setup mentioned above.

7. VBIOS of the genuine Apple 5870 card, renamed for Sapphire 5870 and placed in Extra folder does not make any difference - ACD-27 stays black when attached to the Sapphire 5870 card.

8. ACD-27 works fine when connected to DVI port using active DVI->MDP adapter in all the cases.

9. ACD-27 works OOB directly connected to Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 Vapor-X for SL 10.6.8 and any Lion DP. It also works fine with 10.6.7 as long as ATI kexts from 10.6.8 or new iMac are installed.

 

I hope this would help people to avoid unnecessary frustrations when thinking of buying beautiful and quite expensive Apple monitor.

I don't know if the guys who are working on Chameleon development can fix the issue. If they need any help, I would be happy to do more testing and analyses.

 

Cheers

Do you have the IOREG dump of it working on the HD-577X-ZMF3 trough the adapter? Both ACD-27 in dvi adapted and Syncmaster in map adapted.

If you have it working in 6870 also please post the .ioreg dump: I think we might find what is wrong with the 5770, i notice a lot of zeros in the DPCP bytes, we could try some on this. (PS: i have the same xfx as you and also gigabyte mobo and add-27, same problems, already tried Douc, Langur,Zonalis,Alouatta, Hoolock, Vervet (only one working till now, besides seeing 4 outputs instead of 3 like ATY,RadeonframeBuffer and only dvi works), Baboon,Nomascus and Orangutan.... it only lacks Eulemur, Galago, Colobus and Mangabey to test, but i don't think I will have any good result out of them

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Do you have the IOREG dump of it working on the HD-577X-ZMF3 trough the adapter? Both ACD-27 in dvi adapted and Syncmaster in map adapted.

If you have it working in 6870 also please post the .ioreg dump: I think we might find what is wrong with the 5770, i notice a lot of zeros in the DPCP bytes, we could try some on this. (PS: i have the same xfx as you and also gigabyte mobo and add-27, same problems, already tried Douc, Langur,Zonalis,Alouatta, Hoolock, Vervet (only one working till now, besides seeing 4 outputs instead of 3 like ATY,RadeonframeBuffer and only dvi works), Baboon,Nomascus and Orangutan.... it only lacks Eulemur, Galago, Colobus and Mangabey to test, but i don't think I will have any good result out of them

First, my deepest appologies for not responding earlier. I was getting unmanageable number of messages while I was working on a project (the one I work on for living) that had to be finished before I went on vacation. So I had to shut down all the alerts on some ten topics that I was following or I had started. Now I am on vacation in Mexico and I will be back home on Aug 1.

 

So let me give you an update on the issues with 5770, 5870, and 6870 cards and ACD 27".

After numerous attepts to get the things running, I settled with Sapphire Vapor-X 6870 and genuine Apple 5870 that work with both Lion and 10.6.8 OOB (didn't get iDvd to work with either one even with Netkas ATY kext but nit something I really use).

 

My nephew got lucky and got my XFX 5770 as a present (he runs Windows) after I got sick and tired of trying to get it work with ACD. My Sapphire Vapor-X is in my locker waiting for some other relative's birthday to be given as a present.

 

After I get home, if any of you still need some tests to be done on Sapphire 5870, please let me know and I will do it.

 

Kind regards

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I am able to use the old frame buffers with openGL 3.2 drivers in lion. You only have to pick 10.6.7's ATIFramebuffer, ATI5000Controller & ATISupport kexts over lion, letting the new x3000 kexts alone, by replacing only these 3 extensions, it loads the ACD27 thru mdp, and uses the new Lion OpenGL engine perfectly in lion.

(Talking about my xfx 5770, that like yours stopped to play after the ati driver update)

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I'm very keen on tracking anyone else's progress here as I've just been offered a 27" LED ACD for a reasonable price but I'm running the Gigabyte Batmobile 5770.

 

The main issue is that it's quite expensive to get an then find it doesn't work but I take your point that I could fork out for a 6870 to run it . But that will negate cheapness of the screen.

 

Anyways - I will keep on reading and searching !

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Crna Brada this might be of interest to you. Check out the last post on this site by redratto http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=...0&start=130

 

I have my 27 ACD working perfectly with the xfx 5770 single slot now. ;)

 

Same card, same Display, same patch, KP when booting. I will try more later, it is my only install and i have to finish a job in it this week, no much time for tweaking.

But at least it still works with 10.6.7 Support/Frabuffer/Controller kexts together with 10.7 x3000 opengl 3.2 capable driver

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  • 2 weeks later...

PROBLEM SOLVED!! NO HACKS NEEDED.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 11C37 ATI drivers can enable the mdp naturally, but will not work with vervet. Just use GraphicsEnabler=No and the ACD27 will work from the single slot ATI XFX 5770. Other 5000 series MDPs were fixed too! We just can not use Graphics Enabler, the driver will detect the ports for us :-D

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PROBLEM SOLVED!! NO HACKS NEEDED.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 11C37 ATI drivers can enable the mdp naturally, but will not work with vervet. Just use GraphicsEnabler=No and the ACD27 will work from the single slot ATI XFX 5770. Other 5000 series MDPs were fixed too! We just can not use Graphics Enabler, the driver will detect the ports for us :-D

 

Glad something is working again but does DVD Player still crash with GE=No ?

 

Surely with this we can patch the 10.7.2 11C37 connector tables to work again ?

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StarCraft2 runs fine, as so other opengl tests:

OpenGL32.png

But yes, yet problems with Cider, Crossover and DVD Player.

I lost the program that dumped the connector tables, and lost it's thread too (i forget everything).

Can you point the thread where it was being developed? It is already able to read the new driver tables?

Just a note on testing games:

Old Cider Based Games are OK. Crossover NIGHTLY is ok with Dragon Age Origins, and an old port of Assassins Creed 1 in Cider is also running very fine, but Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood, both native cedega games, are not working, so i can imagine that Steam will not work too. Dragon Age 2 does not work also.

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@Carti - Just in case - Thread

Thank you, based on that I was Able to create the following table:

Ati5000-11C372.jpg

And for that the complete bundle of kexts for ZMF3 Mini-DP @11C37 (don't know if it works @10.7.1, but it should) :

 

DIRECT LINK

 

For those interested, I bloged more detailed info on appliances at http://cartri.net/blog/1278 - Nothing new to most people, but may help, I hope.

With this, we can have mDP, Vervet, QE/CI, iDVD/STEAM/DRMedGames running back by putting graphics enabler back in there.

It was tested on a 577X-ZMF3 with mDP and ACD 27"

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  • 1 year later...
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