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p11hlf

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 27, 2018
69
44
Southampton UK
Hey Guys

I have a modified 2010 Mac Pro, is has a i7 980x and a GTX 980 MVC card.

since a few updates ago I have had a black and white dos screen with lots of text on boot.

Any ideas what this is? where can I find the log of this and ideally remove it?

Thanks in advance!

Phil
 

bookemdano

macrumors 68000
Jul 29, 2011
1,512
843
A flash of text at the beginning of the boot process is normal for MVC cards with Sierra/High Sierra (and harmless aside from being ugly). It's due to the changes Apple made to accommodate APFS volumes. MVC is planning to make an updated firmware for their cards that eliminates the text. They say they are going to let existing customers send in their cards to be flashed with the new firmware (for a fee). Of course, who knows if they will follow through. Here is a blog post about it:

http://www.macvidcards.com/blog/mvc...nvidia-uefi-updater-on-your-mac-flashed-cards

If you're talking about lots of other DOS-type text and if your system isn't working, then maybe it's some other problem.

Also, if you use FileVault and MVC cards I have seen a block of harmless text show up instead of the Apple logo during boot. As soon as the OS loads it goes away.
 

bsbeamer

macrumors 601
Sep 19, 2012
4,311
2,704
Any APFS formatted drives in the system?
Your easiest way to capture is take a photo or video.

As mentioned above, but more so with the latest update, there is pre-boot code for APFS added and some security "stuff" that a lot of people with flashed cards are seeing. Previously removing APFS drive (cloning to HFS+ SSD) would remove the majority of this since no APFS was detected, but looks like the APFS drivers are loading regardless in the new updates.

Any other system issues, or just this visual annoyance?
 

p11hlf

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 27, 2018
69
44
Southampton UK
Any APFS formatted drives in the system?
Your easiest way to capture is take a photo or video.

As mentioned above, but more so with the latest update, there is pre-boot code for APFS added and some security "stuff" that a lot of people with flashed cards are seeing. Previously removing APFS drive (cloning to HFS+ SSD) would remove the majority of this since no APFS was detected, but looks like the APFS drivers are loading regardless in the new updates.

Any other system issues, or just this visual annoyance?


No APFS drives on the machine, but I will post a photo of what im seeing...... ill also try the older card in there to see if it disappears....

Thanks all for the help so far.
[doublepost=1532713614][/doublepost]Hi All,

So it appears that Bookemdano is correct, its the MVC card causing the text on start up.

attached is a potato photo of the text on boot.

its annoying, but I don't have any other issues so ill deal with it for now......

Thanks all!

Phil
 

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