Mac Pro 3.1 problems

[f3bio]

Hi to all,
I'm new and I've searched for something similar without -apparently- any luck.
I have a mp 3.1, with patched High Sierra, Win 10 Bootcamp (not anymore, tbh)
2x 2.8 GHz, 48 Gb of 667Mhz RAM, EFI GT120 and non EFI GTX970.
I managed to get the gtx as a functional primary card with windows by disabling / uninstalling the gt120 and then by preventing driver install via gpedit.
Everything worked for some months, then decided to give me the "Bad Handle" message before log in; tired of the continuous updates of win 10 and, de facto, unable to use the bootcamped win10, I erased, via Bootcamp tool, the partition and installed windows 7.
The mess worsened, now I am completely unable to get my GTX970 working again. Tried anything. Reinstalling OS, disabling, physically removing the gt120.. no luck.
Oh, and to add insult to injury, now I had two windows boot options.
Thanks in advance for any help and sorry for the rusty english.

 

[orph]

you cant get your 970 to work in win 7?
have you installed the nvidia drivers? is there any display out from the card?

 

[f3bio]

have you installed the nvidia drivers? is there any display out from the card?

Sure. I’ve tried every combination with disabling, uninstalling, leaving as is the other card (gt120). No output.
The other card works flawlessly and I am sure that the 970 works too because in High Sierra I can use it.

I am really thinking about trying vmware for windows (Used mainly with games) if it hasn’t hardware limitation like parallels (no graphics beyond 1gb). Could it be an idea? Maybe this will work around the bootcamp bottleneck on pcie?

 

[h9826790]

Sure. I’ve tried every combination with disabling, uninstalling, leaving as is the other card (gt120). No output.
The other card works flawlessly and I am sure that the 970 works too because in High Sierra I can use it.

I am really thinking about trying vmware for windows (Used mainly with games) if it hasn’t hardware limitation like parallels (no graphics beyond 1gb). Could it be an idea? Maybe this will work around the bootcamp bottleneck on pcie?

You can forget about VM if the main purpose is gaming. VM can’t do anything better than the host OS. Your GPU won’t able to perform in a VM.

 

[f3bio]

You can forget about VM

That is sad.

But I'd rather stayed with bootcamp if only Windows 10 wouldn't have messed everything up.
I forget to mention that now with seven, looking at device manager, the 970 seems to be installed and working. But... it doesn't see the monitor (cinema display hd 23). I see only the generic monitor (I can only work on bootcamp with teamviewer, or with the gt120 installed).

I'll try with another monitor, then update.

P.S.: I also have the doubled windows boot entry

 

[orph]

simplest thing to do may just be a format and clean install (i keep my win 7 install on it's own SSD so i can nuke it as needed).
from my win 7 use i know, dont mix cards only 1 will work (i assume older cards use different drivers? found that out with my gt120+gtx770) dont change the pcie slot or you will need to re install drivers (moved my gtx770 to second slot to see if it helps with cooling).

may be worth checking you have not disabled the gpu or display by accident, you did it once so maybe win 7 got confused?
may be worth seeing if you can trouble shoot the problem with a VM (a demo may do it)

the doubled boot entry (i think) will be from the extra partition windows makes when you install, think it's for boot/update data. (stuck some screen shots of my win 7 one)

 

[f3bio]

Let me forget about windows for a moment. I’ve cleaned my bootcamp install with bca on high sierra, and this is what I have if I press “Option” during boot.
Disturbing!
Maybe I’ve previously messed up something and Windows boot manager stucked somewhere (maybe in the vm or preboot partitions?).
I left some screen.
How can I solve this other than blank it all?
I also noticed that when erasing bootcamp from osx, also the boot patch will be erased. And every time I have to reinstall it from the osx-usb.

 

[orph]

whats 'bca', boot camp assistant?
can you boot in to the recovery partition? that may be the simplest way to see whats happend.

in the screen shot the only partition is called windows, can you boot in to it ?

was windows on disc 2 and osx on disc 3?

 

[f3bio]

whats 'bca', boot camp assistant?

Yes

can you boot in to the recovery partition?

Maybe my fault, but I couldn’t create it while installing High Sierra with patch, I think due to the apfs file system

in the screen shot the only partition is called windows, can you boot in to it ?

Nope. But I found where the “extra” Windows bootloader was (mechanical drive)

Was windows on disc 2 and osx on disc 3?

Bootcamp and apfs container with high sierra were on the same drive (ssd, boot)

Anyway I blanked everything and revert with time machine and now.. tada. I can’t even install windows with bootcamp. Stuck with the blinking underscore.
I am really wondering why I sold my Thunderbolt 2 egpu set

EDIT

nothing to do. I tries almost every kind of dvd, optical drive, usb drive .. even rEFInd. No way of rebooting in windows install after partitioning/creating.
Stuck at windows logo or that damn freaking underscore blinking.
I am really tempted to burn everything on the main drive and install the last canonic osx allowed by my machine (El Capitan) and restarting from there.
Non efi gpu.. not supported os.. too geeky for me.
Anyway if I could have done anything dumb that could be solved, any help is appreciated.

 

[orph]

mm sounds complex, i gave up on bootcamp assistant never worked for me with more than one drive.
i always stick windows on it's own independent drive so maybe that's the solution ?

 

[f3bio]

mm sounds complex, i gave up on bootcamp assistant never worked for me with more than one drive.
i always stick windows on it's own independent drive so maybe that's the solution ?

My huge fast 525 gb solid state could be offended by seeing a jurassic 640 gb with its own OS maybe but yes, I've considered that as an "extrema ratio"

So, briefly, to do this I've just to create the bootable drive, partition the target drive, and install windows normally as a PC? That would not mess with the "central" efi because it's all on another physical disk, right?

Thanks

 

[orph]

it's a tad of a pain without boot camp i gess
grab your install media, if you use boot camp drivers grab them too
pull all drives but the win drive (and any extra PCI cards, only 1 gpu tends to be best)
install win
then re insert all your normal drives

(so simply pull every HD except your drive for windows, install, then you can stick them back in)

you only need to do it once, i have my windows on a 120GB SSD + a partition on a normal HD (made in osx with disc utility for my steam games seems to work well for me.

i like that it keeps everything isolated from windows

win 7 seems ok (but tight) on a 120gb drive (thanks to my ram taking up 32GB of space on the drive plus all win 7 stuff, disable hibernation helps a lot with win 7 think win8/10 are a lot lighter on space)

 

[f3bio]

pull all drives but the win drive

this saved my day!
I finally managed to install Windows 10 with bootcamp. I think my superdrive is not working properly, because I burnt the same rewritable with an external burner on my mbp and everything worked. When I first launch the installer it prevented me from go further, but when I remember to pull the other drives away, it went on like a charm. Thanks !
I would be happier to install it on a physically separate drive but I haven't another, except the 640 gb rotating one that I use as data storage.

thanks to my ram taking up 32GB

Before the big mess, I disabled the paging file to save 48 GB. Do you keep it for a specific reason?

I'll update the thread as soon as I put my hands on the 970 install.

Little OT. Am I the one with patched-HS who have a quite slow boot? I noticed that at the first run it was faster

 

[orph]

>.< emm was a while ago there's both the page file & hibernation file in win 7 that eats the space, not shore how it changes in win 10. I killed my hibernation file but left the paging as im bad at windows and it seemed safer (i saw reports of crashes?, but maybe with 32GB of ram thats less of a problem playing games on windows 7 not seen it use more than 10GB of ram yet)

relay i got it working on a 120GB ssd then just left it and go as far as booting in and playing games or checking websites on windows browsers past that it works so im not messing with it.
(tho having my games on a HD makes loading a pain)