GeForce 8600 GT and MAC Support
 

Hi All

i Managed to install IPC 10.5.6 on my Toshiba Qosmio G40 2 weeks ago, almost everything is running fine except :
The Vidoe Card, GeForce 8600 GT 512MB, i tried all the options included within IPC with no success..... all of them are giving me Black Screen.

for 2 weeks looking all over the forums and could not find one straight solution.

i am not here to Ask a solution because seems to me no one knows the answer.
i am just wondering if this Card not working at all with anyone why in the world they include it in the package.

Just make it clear and say GeForce 8600 GT 512MB not supported and whoever got a laptop or a PC with that thing {Do not even try}
Aam i right guys?

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB works just fine, as I have used one in my hackintosh,

BUT, I was using a Desktop PC, with a PCI Express Video Card, and had a
vanilla install from the retail DVD

So there are two things to think about,

(1) Could it be that because its a Laptop IGP and not a regular video card
(2) Could it be the Distro you are using,

Have you tried EFI Studio?

Hi will1384
First Thanks for you reply.

Yes, i tried EFI Studio and i choosed GeForce 8600 GT 512MB from the list and after that i restarted the laptop and booted with -v(and-f) and also started again normally and in all cases what i got is just black screen. the computer is running but with black screen (no mouse pointer shown).

so unfortunatly EFI studio did not work with me.

Also i tried to use ox86 Tools Utility by trying to add EFI and i choosed my card but when i tried to save i...t it gave me this message:
/bin sh not exist

any thoughts.

don't install your video card from within IPC, just use universal osx86 installer
it works great with it . For me, it worked on a laptop with a 8600gt 256mb.

" , just use universal osx86 installer " can you please explain more how to do that as i am not that MAC expert.
thanks

- Also if i installed something (talking video card) and i got black screen. how can i delete that and go back to the previous state? or do i have to make a new installation?

You may end up having to get your NVCAP info, you dump the
Video ROM under windows or dos and run it threw NVCAP Maker
on the mac, I use GPU-Z under Windows to dump Video ROMs

The NVCAP info, its info on the video output ports on you video card,
you will get a set of numbers like this

"04000000 00000300 0C000000 00000007 00000000"
or
"04000000000003000c0000000000000700000000"

Now go into EFI studio and select your video card, click "Add Device"
now click "Save XML" now open that file with ether "PlistEdit Pro"
or "Property List Editor" and add your NVCAP info and save the file
now open EFI studio and click on File then Open XML File, and install
like you would normally with EFI studio,

Or if you are worried about it not working, just edit your
com.apple.Boot.plist file in the /Extra folder, and use Empire EFI
Boot CD or the The myHack Installer installed to a thumb drive
to boot with if you unable to boot after the changes

This way is almost the same as before

Go into EFI studio and select your video card, click "Add Device"
now click "Save XML" now open that file with ether "PlistEdit Pro"
or "Property List Editor" and add your NVCAP info and save the file.

Now copy com.apple.Boot.plist from the /Extra folder to the desktop
open it with TextEdit and add

Like this

now open EFI studio and click on "File" then "Open XML" File, now click
on "Hex String to Clipboard" and paste were "PASTE YOUR HEX HERE"
was.




And now copy it back to /Extra folder

I found some NVCAP numbers for you to try

Dual Display working through VGA and S-video on Go7400 on HP, NVinjectGO did it!

and

[DVI SOLVED] Gainward 8600GT 256mb VGA-DVI-HDMI

oops

i did used EFI Studio to install my graphic card and now i got a blak screen and can not boot

Yea that happened to me a lot, then I learned that trick about only putting
stuff into the /Extra folder and using something like Empire EFI or myHack
to boot.

When you use the CD or Thumb drive to boot it ignores the /Extra folder
on your hard drive, letting you boot if you have messed up.

But if you just install to the "/System/Library/Extensions" and or
"/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration" that boot trick wont help

And EFI studio installs to "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration"

OOOh

easy on me i am lost now, i am not that MAC guru as you..
so now i need to ask you this:
-if i have a black screen like i am having now. can i still boot using any method or i have to reinstall?

- what do you mean by installing to extra folder? how can i do that? i kinda of smart i swear but i am a 20 years PC user and non in MAC so please explain it more to me? for example for the graphic Card where to get the file and where to save it because now i am confused?

sorry for that but thanks
Lorie

you can try, but you may end up reinstalling

I posted it already, read one of my posts above,

I did manage to get my computer to show my Video RAM as 512 which is great thing, but the resolution still at 1024 x 768 and can not change it.

I tried using EFStudio to generate the code and then add it to the com.apple.boot.plist with Graphics properties and resolution 1920 x 1200 (which my screen support) but after reboot nothing changed.

am doing something wrong or is there any other way to fix this.?

Thanks
Lorie

I could be wrong about this but as its a laptop wouldn't that be 8600M GT not 8600GT?

Yep you are correct, But some pages just list it as 8600 GT

but from what I can tell the strings are very generic, and OS X does have
the drivers, its just not using them or not using them correctly


I just went over to the iPC OSx86 page, seams that the installer lists
Nvinject for various Video Ram sizes

You could try one of them, also the NvinjectGo was made for laptops

NVkush will do the trick for Nvidia 8series
 

I'm not sure whether you have tried it already, however I recommend you do a clean install with NVkush, NVinject selected, do not install any other efi strings or enablers other than the two mentioned, just NVinject may help get maximum supported resolution but might not support "quartz extreme" and "core image" which is essential for Apple Front row and many other graphically accelerated apps like the album art browser feature in Itunes and NVkush does the trick, specially for Nvidia 8 series.

I would go with johnnyboys recommendation people seem to have a lot of probs with 8600m main one being no QE/CI, seems that NVKush should do the job though

Thanks i ll try that but can you tell me which NVinject to use, i tried NVinjectGo 0.2.0 512MB VRAM and NVinject 0.2.1 512MB VRAM
as mine is 512 ram and what i got is a black screen?
or do i have to try all of them (they are a lot)

Thanks

You could always try NVdarwin 512MB, there also seams to be a
"Laptop Display "checkbox in the picture on IPC's web page, that
may help also

Try the ones listed for 512MB, and the the Defaults, only one at
a time

NVinjectGo 0.2.0 512MB VRAM - Already tried
NVinjectGo 0.2.0 Default
NVinject 0.2.1 512MB VRAM - Already tried
NVinject 0.2.1 Default
NVdarwin 512MB