Graphics Card Woes

[loony636]

Well, I installed Mac OS X 10.4.8 JASS SSE2 + SSE3 on my (very) old Inspiron 8200 with the following specs:

 

1.6 Ghz Pentium 4

784 MB RAM

20 GB HDD

Nvidia GeForce 4 440 Go 64 (or 32) MB

etc, etc

 

Well, when I first installed it, I used the Titan drivers for NVidia supplied in the image. When I first started it up, I had the old Kernel panic error. So I removed the appropriate files and the error stopped. Which I thought was good...until it froze on the Apple screen. Yet the welcome music played, so it was working. So I'm stuck now. How to I get my graphics card to work? Should I try Natit, MacVidia, or am I doing something wrong with Titan?

[riws]

Only with MacVidia you get "something". Titan/Natit wont help. Its one unsupported Graphic Card

[loony636]

Oh joy. So, how would I go about installing the MacVidia drivers? Bearing in mind I have no access to the OS...

[riws]

Can you access Safe Mode or Single User Mode?

[loony636]

I can only access the dos-type thing before OS X loads. I press F8, it comes up with 'boot mode', I type -v -s, etc. How would I access safe mode?

[riws]

-x for Safe

-s for Single

[loony636]

Ah well then, yes for both. As far as I can see, the MacVidia website is down, and I managed to find an old beta version lying around on the internet somewhere. Now what do I do?

[riws]

This is an Install Manual from Macvidia Site:

 

1) Take a piece of paper and a pencil

 

2) Download the complete driver package, you can find this at the new MacVidia?s File Repository ( http://macvidia.starchaser.org )

 

3) Close all screens, click on the apple logo in the left uper corner.

Click on About this Mac, System Profiler. Then select Graphics/Displays on the left panel

At the Right some information about the Graphics Card is displayed. Look for the Device ID.

It shoud be displayed in this kind: 0x0250. Write down this on the piece of paper without the 0x (so: "0250")

Why we need this, I explain below.

 

4) Goto Applications | Utilities | Terminal

Terminal is a Console for Mac OSx. If you can work in DOS or Linux you can use this aswel. If you have questions about options and things, just type man tool. Replace tool with the utility you want. (man rm will display the manual about rm (remove)

 

5) Type sudo -s and enter your password to gain all (root) access.

 

Now we are going to move some old Driver files and make a backup on your desktop.

 

6) Run the folowing commands in terminal

 

mkdir ~/Desktop/NVOriginals

mv /System/Library/Extensions/NV* ~/Desktop/NVOriginals/

mv /System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGA* ~/Desktop/NVOriginals/

 

Leave the terminal screen open. Go back to the desktop

 

7) Mac Os X is kind enough to extract the driver zip file on your desktop. So enter the Folder on the desktop

8) On your desktop you find your harddrive, click it, go to /System/Library/Extentions/

9) Copy the files from the Folder on your desktop to the /System/Library/Extentions/ location

Mac OSX will prompt you for the unlock password.

 

Now we have all the files in the right location and we will working on editing the files. For your information, we need to edit a file so that Mac OSX can detect your NVIDIA device. This is done by giving the kext file (Like a driver) some plug and play information. (DeviceId is a part of the PnPID). This part will not work for people with an NForce Chipset Controller! Read below.

 

10) Type cd /System/Library/Extensions/NVidiaHAL.kext/Content

11) Type nano Info.plist

12) Look for :

 

<key>IOPCIMatch</key>

<string>0x00f910de&0xffffffff</string>

 

Replace 00f9 with your noted down DeviceID

 

13) Save the file (CTRL X), and press Y

 

Now we are setting some permissions right:

 

14) Run the folowing commands in terminal

 

 

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/NVidiaHAL.kext

chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/NVDriver.kext

 

chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/NVidiaHAL.kext

chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/NVDriver.kext

 

Flush the kextcache, so Mac OS X is aware of new kext files (is this line correct?)

 

15) Run the folowing commands in terminal

 

rm -r /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache

rm -r /System/Library/Extensions.mkext

kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions/

 

Now we are done with the most important thing. There are some issues we are going to fix now.

 

Clear out resolution information left by other applications

 

16) Type the following in terminal,

 

rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver*.plist

rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.preference.displays*.plist

rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver*.plist

rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.preference.displays*.plist

rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver*.plist

rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.preference.displays*.plist

 

Note: If the information below isn't in the file, it's not a big deal.

 

17) Run the folowing command in terminal

 

nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

Look for:

 

<key>Graphics Mode</key>

<string>XXXxXXXXxXX</string> (XX can be anything)

 

Delete both lines.

 

18) Save the file (CTRL X), and press Y

 

Now we must edit a file so that the drivers are running at startup. If you reboot now most likely you will get a 'hanging' system. If you use safeboot (-x) it will work. To enable the kext files in normal boot do the following:

 

19) Run the folowing command in terminal

nano /etc/rc

 

Enter the following lines, at the top of the file, below the lines that are commented out with #

 

kextload /System/Library/Extensions/NVDriver.kext

kextload /System/Library/Extensions/NVidiaHAL.kext

 

20) Save the file (CTRL X), and press Y (if nessesary)

 

Again repair Permissions

 

22) Run the folowing command in terminal

 

diskutil repairpermissions /

 

23) Type: reboot

 

Cross your fingers.

 

What if everything is going wrong

 

1) At the darwin boot loader. Press enter and type -s followed by enter

2) Wait until system is booted

3) In console: Type mount -a

4) Type rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/NVidiaHAL.kext

5) Type reboot

 

 

 

+ AGPGart will give some Quartz & GUI Boost, but lack of Hardware Acceleration will be the most annoying thing

[loony636]

After reading the instructions, there's only one thing that I think raises a problem:

 

3) Close all screens, click on the apple logo in the left upper corner. Click on About this Mac, System Profiler. Then select Graphics/Displays on the left panel. At the Right some information about the Graphics Card is displayed. Look for the Device ID.It shoud be displayed in this kind: 0x0250. Write down this on the piece of paper without the 0x (so: "0250") Why we need this, I explain below.

 

I can't do this. How can I find out my Device ID?

[riws]

After reading the instructions, there's only one thing that I think raises a problem:

I can't do this. How can I find out my Device ID?

 

From System Profiler under Graphics

[loony636]

But I can't get into OS X. So I can't get into System Profiler. Is there another way?

[riws]

Safe Mode?

[loony636]

Okay, I'm the biggest retard of all time. Here's my current situation:

 

I cannot, under any circumstances, access my OS. Not in safemode (which I said I could earlier, but now realise that I didn't know what that actually was), not anything. So I need a way of installing MacVidia drivers without using my OS AT ALL, except in the Dos mod thing. I suppose I could get the Device ID from someone else who uses the same graphics card, but there aren't that many of us. So, help?

[riws]

Go into Single User Mode and to the 6th part:

 

6) Run the folowing commands in terminal

 

mkdir ~/Desktop/NVOriginals

mv /System/Library/Extensions/NV* ~/Desktop/NVOriginals/

mv /System/Library/Extensions/GeForceGA* ~/Desktop/NVOriginals/

 

And remove Titan/Natit form Extensions Folder.

 

It should go then only into VESA Mode.

[loony636]

YES! It worked. Thanks for that. I'm into OS X and I'll now work on getting MacVidia installed.

 

EDIT: I got MacVidia working. Quite simple really. Now I've just got to get the other drivers installed... I should probably post up a guide of exactly what I did for people in the same position as me...

[Ishmael]

Please do post your step-by-step. I've having a similar issue.

 

I've tried several nVidia drivers (Titan, nvtat(sp), etc.) and have had the following results:

 

Boot straight = lockup, no screen, just a light blue field with distortion (sometimes), and some mouse movement (sometimes)

Boot in safe mode (-x) = works, but I lose my audio drivers

 

So....

 

Any thoughts on how I can fix this?

 

Specifics of the machine:

 

Intel P4 2.4c

ABIT IC7-Max3

1gb ram

PNY nVidia 6600 (Device ID: 0x00f2, Revision ID: 0x00a2)

UpHuck 10.4.9 1.4i r3

 

I'm not adverse to using terminal, but I want to know how to remove drivers if they screw up the machine. I've done a reformat/reinstall about a dozen times now, and I don't want to have to do it again if I can avoid it.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Ish