That SAGA of the used HD 7950 and 4K!!! :)

[James Steele]

Well I finally hit a bump in the road with my new Samsung 4K 43" TV as a main monitor. It seemed to work fine the first time. Anyway... i walked away and left it for an hour or so and came back and both screens were black and tapping the keyboard or moving the house wouldn't wake it.

For background, I have two displays: a 23" Cinema Display that is connected via DVI to my HD7950 graphics card, and then my 43" Samsung 4K TV which is connected via a mDP to HDMI active adapter.

I turned the Mac off by holding the power button down... then started it up again. It chimed... then sat for a few seconds and got into a loop where it just faintly chimed. So I turned it off again. Eventually I discovered my Mac would not boot and just sit there so long as the 4K TV was connected. If I disconnected the 4K TV either by disconnecting the adapter from the graphics card... or leaving the adapter in and disconnecting the HDMI cable, the Mac will boot.

I can get it to work like it is now by disconnecting the 4K TV, booting it up, then hotplugging the 4KTV into the graphics card, but not enjoying this work around. I have tried a restart with the 4KTV connected and that doesn't work either, no boot when it's plugged in. I've just started searching the net for possible fixes to this. My *active* mDP to HDMI adapter doesn't have any power source, so I don't know if that's it. Or perhaps on booting the 4K TV is trying to sense what's connected to it while the graphics card is doing the same and it's messing something up?

I did fine a post on a site that suggested using the TV remote to change the input source to an unused HDMI input, then boot the Mac and then re-select the proper input right after the Mac is booting. I will try that. I messed with the settings on the TV and can't find anything I think will help... or maybe emulate just a "dumb" computer monitor that isn't trying to send messages to the input source.

I also wonder if the DVI is not the primary output and if maybe someone makes a Dual link DVI to HDMI adapter and I should use that although my 23" Cinema (which I plan to retire soon) only has DVI for a connection no other type. The actual physical HDMI output on my graphics card doesn't work as is the case I'm told with PC cards of this type that have been flashed for Mac.

If anybody has any ideas, I'm all ears! Where are you Mike Halloran... the Mac hero who usually saves the day in these weird situations?!! Haha!

[James Steele]

I did a little more experimenting. Setting the refresh rate for the 4K TV to 50Hz instead of 60Hz in the MacOS Display control panel allowed it to boot with the Samsung 4KTV connected. After booting, I could switch it to 60Hz if I want to, but I could forget to switch it back and I'd be dealing with the non-boot next time I came back to it, so 50Hz is a good enough compromise... the mouse tracking across the screen isn't much different than 60Hz.

I do not know if selecting a different color profile than the default will help. I have done that, but I was using the Samsung one that I calibrated a bit and it looked best, but I could switch to a more generic one and tweak. I can't seem to see anything in the profile information as to whether it is using 10 bit color or 8 bit??

I may try 60Hz again and turn of gaming mode as an experiment also.

On thing that does bug me is the TV goes through this "Detecting input" bit when it boots up and I have to use the remote to make it bail out of that each time. So far none of this is a dealbreaker. My other concern and I'm not sure about it, is if the 4K TV doesn't remember what the source is each time whether I have to go back into the TV settings and reset things. Oh well... more experimenting, but the immediate dilemma seems over if I just run at 50Hz.

[James Steele]

Hmmm... I did just learn that the TV seems to reset itself to "Standard" picture mode on the reboot since it hasn't stored the source. It looks best in Dynamic. I believe there's a setting though in the TV that makes it apply the same settings to ALL input sources so hopefully the will force the settings I like as defaults.

[James Steele]

Sorry for the stream of consciousness guys. It helps me gather my thoughts here and if anybody is up right now and chimes in, it helps.

Well, the 50Hz setting wasn't the panacea that I hoped. I think something is going on where this flashed graphics card outputs something this TV doesn't like when the Mac is booting.

I did make a little progress in that when the Mac booted and the TV displayed a notice that it was trying to detect the connected device (which it can't), rather than use the remote to bail out, I let it continue. The next dialog was something about setting up the remote which was where I'd previously bailed out, but I hit next and ended up getting to a menu where it let me tell it what the connected device was, so I chose "PC." Hopefully this will help, although I noticed it took away the ability adjust certain picture parameters.

I'm going to try another restart. I do have a workaround plan. I had a passive HDMI switcher in a box of miscellaneous stuff, and I'm going to put that switcher inline before the input to the TV and see if I can switch to a non-existent source when I first boot and when I see signal on my second monitor, switch it over to connect the TV. What a pain. I'd hate to have to fiddle with it prior to every session, but I'll have to live with it I guess. Hopefully my switch workaround will work. I should maybe try another PRAM zap for giggles. Sigh.

[James Steele]

Well, the Saga continues. Reboot got hung up again, however now that the source is set to PC on the TV, I don't think it's doing any strange handshaking like it used to. Before when I tried just powering off the TV and trying to boot, it didn't seem to make any difference so long as the TV was connected. This time, I could turn off the TV with the remote, boot the Mac, and when the Apple logo appeared and booting began I could power the TV on, and eventually things would come up correctly and the TV even stayed set to 60Hz. Hooray! i can live with that workaround and I won't have to mess with the HDMI switcher.

I'm not exactly sure what Game Mode is buying me yet. I think in order to optimize picture quality, it's something I MAY decide to turn off as I'm not sure I'll need it with DP, especially since I'm running it at 60Hz. Game Mode seems to wash things about a bit. Since I'm using this primarily for DP, I think I'll just pull up a DP project and tweak the adjustments in the TV around DP. I've been using the "Default" DP11 theme, but I may also experiment with Carbon Fiber and others. But I think now that I *may* have solved the booting issue, I'm good. I have NOT YET tried a cold boot from powered down... just restarts... but I think it should still work.

Thanks for bearing with the saga. LOL

ADDENDUM: I used to use an old utility called "Clean Slate" that you could use a hot key and it would hide all the desktop icons, etc. on your screens so you could have a nice clean desktop when running DP, and other apps. Seems that it doesn't like my new setup and when I invoke it I see some heavy processor activity on one of the cores and it takes a good 5-6 seconds or more to switch to the clean desktop. Turning it off brings it back immediately. Maybe it's storing icon locations, etc. Who knows? May just ditch it.

Oh well... long as my boot issue is gone... now the FUN part happens... tweaking the display and building new Window Sets!

[James Steele]

Well looks like I'll just have to boot the Mac, then wait and turn on the TV and it should be good. Ditched "Clean Slate"... they had a more modern app in the App Store. Been a while since I looked. This is pretty good:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hide-icon ... 4057?mt=12

It's nice when you want to just get rid of the clutter on your desktop quickly.

[tremo]

James, just for comparison, I bought a 43" Samsung TV just before the pandemic began, and it's been running fine since day 1, at 60Hz 3840 x 2160. I'm on 10.14.6 like you. One difference is my graphics card -- Radeon RX 560 4GB. Straight (passive) HDMI cable to the TV.

It will be interesting to see what Mike H. says....

[James Steele]

James, just for comparison, I bought a 43" Samsung TV just before the pandemic began, and it's been running fine since day 1, at 60Hz 3840 x 2160. I'm on 10.14.6 like you. One difference is my graphics card -- Radeon RX 560 4GB. Straight (passive) HDMI cable to the TV.

It will be interesting to see what Mike H. says....

I think that's the difference right there... your card. My card HAS an HDMI output, but it was originally a PC compatible card but was flashed so that you get the boot screen on Macs. From what I've read online, when you do that to this particular card, it renders the regular HDMI port useless. Not really a big deal as the two mDP ports and DVI still work. I think, however, if I weren't having to use a miniDisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter, I wouldn't be having this issue.

It's not really a problem though, as I have a pretty easy workaround:

1) Make sure TV is powered off.
2) Boot the Mac and wait for boot screen with Apple logo and progress bar to appear on my secondary monitor
3) Power on the TV

It's that simple, so I'm fine with that. Don't feel like selling this graphics card and trying to find another right now. I just need to ride this out for a year or so till I can make the jump to a MacMini Pro with Apple Silicon.

It was pretty hairy working this all out as a bunch of other issues surfaced that I had to troubleshoot and take care of. Somehow also my MOTU interfaces stop being recognized and I had to reinstall the drivers. But knock on wood... it's all good now. TV retains its settings, picture looks good, and all I have to do is just follow the procedure above when I first boot the system for the day.

What is curious is it doesn't seem like I can boot and THEN turn on my MOTU interfaces. Last time I tried that tonight/this morning, they weren't recognized. So I have to have my interfaces turned on prior to boot, which is how I usually do it anyway, but I seem to recall in a pinch, if for example I wanted to hear a YouTube video through my main speakers, I could flip the interfaces on when they Mac was already running and the sample rate indicator on my interfaces would blink a couple of times and lock and I'd be good.

Oh well... small price to pay for having this size screen and not having to go out and get a different graphics card.

P.S. I'm VERY glad that I got a card flashed for Mac though. Being able to hold down the option key at boot and choose the startup disk saved by butt tonight.

[HCMarkus]

Glad you found a good workaround James.

Begin Rant: It always peeves me when folks make a huge deal out of having to follow a power-on sequence. BFD. End Rant.

[James Steele]

Glad you found a good workaround James.

Begin Rant: It always peeves me when folks make a huge deal out of having to follow a power-on sequence. BFD. End Rant.

Haha... I agree with you. It's such a non-issue to me.

I'm just having a devil of a time tonight getting the studio back up to snuff. It largely sat unused and collected dust (quite literally) while I was busy with a band project and live music and so I'm tracking down cables that don't work and having problems with some old hardware synth/sampler modules I keep out of nostalgia. I have an old EPS-16+ that gave up the ghost last night (I've been up through the night dealing with various issues including some disk corruption). It actually boots from a SCSI hard drive. Well, it's not booting and there's something wrong with the display. Fortunately, I have a business trip to AZ in a couple of weeks and I know a GENIUS tech in Prescott. I'm hoping he can resurrect it. He bought my old Roland MKS-30 back to life. On top of it the old Korg M1-R needs to be pulled from the rack and a new battery put in for backup.

Anyway... people will tell me to use plug ins, but I enjoy having a rack of nostalgic gear that I can draw on "in addition" to the new stuff. I just picked up a U-220 for cheap recently... always wanted one of those.

My second mDP-to-HDMI adapter just arrived from Amazon, so now I'm going to stress test the system a little bit and I've just hooked up an old 1081p TV a friend gave me for helping her move. A cheapo... used to be in her kid's bedroom, but it will be an interesting test. But I have SO much work to do. I have a box of some sound treatment I need to put up. I actually bought ARC2 years ago (before it was upgraded) and never got around to taking measurements and setting it up... I was just too caught up with band practice and focused on that kind of thing.

[James Steele]

Well I'm not out of the woods. I walked away from my system for 30-40 minutes or so and just left DP idling with a project loaded. I come back into the studio and all the screens are black. Mac is on, but it won't wake and come to life. This is what happened last night that started all this. I of course have the Energy Saver settings such that nothing should shut down. What's curious is my Euphonix MC Control was actually seized up. Couldn't turn if off with the power button and still showed tracks on it's display... like it was frozen during playback. I had to disconnect the power to it and plug it back in to bring it back.

I did check TG Pro and it does appear that one of the logic board diodes is running pretty hotter than anything else. 174 degrees F. I've boosted the intake and exhaust fans in TG Pro enough that that diode temp reading is stable at 160 degrees F. I have a hypothesis that perhaps the load being placed on the graphics card by this 4K monitor is causing it to generate a lot of heat inside the case and the intake/exhaust fans aren't ramping up adequately on their own. I think perhaps my Mac just locked up from heat??

Admittedly the 160F reading right now isn't under any load. I'll open DP and load a project and then let it sit like I did and see if the temp ramps up. Also maybe the default color profile I'm using is using 10-bit color and I need to change to another one. My thought is anything I can do to lessen the burden on the graphics card. Probably should open up the case perhaps and start it up and verify the cooling fans on the card are operating properly. Maybe a new graphics card is going to have to be on my list. Sigh. We shall see.

Below is screen cap of temp readings immediately after I came back in the room an rebooted:

[HCMarkus]

James, your machine is running a bit hotter than mine.

Here are my temps, as reported by Macs Fan Control, with DP playing a (50% DP Performance Meter reading) tune under construction:

CPU A Diode. 131F
CPU A Heatink 119F
CPU B Diode 122F
CPU B Heatink 110F

Northbridge (IOH) Diode 152
Northbridge Heatsink 126

Ambient 90F.
HD temps are a couple of degrees warmer than yours.
DIMMs about 15 degrees cooler.

Your GPU may put out a lot more heat than my little RX460 which is running at 115F as I type this with DP running.

I have all my fans running on Auto Mode except Boost A, which is based on the Northbridge Diode temp. I note you have your fans running in "Manual" mode. Might want to let the Mac take control and see what happens. Also, consider removing dust.

[James Steele]

James, your machine is running a bit hotter than mine.

Here are my temps, as reported by Macs Fan Control, with DP playing a (50% DP Performance Meter reading) tune under construction:

CPU A Diode. 131F
CPU A Heatink 119F
CPU B Diode 122F
CPU B Heatink 110F

Northbridge (IOH) Diode 152
Northbridge Heatsink 126

Ambient 90F.
HD temps are a couple of degrees warmer than yours.
DIMMs about 15 degrees cooler.

Your GPU may put out a lot more heat than my little RX460 which is running at 115F as I type this with DP running.

I have all my fans running on Auto Mode except Boost A, which is based on the Northbridge Diode temp. I note you have your fans running in "Manual" mode. Might want to let the Mac take control and see what happens. Also, consider removing dust.

I think I *did* let the Mac take control and that's what got me in trouble. Ugh... Anyway... maybe I should get MacFanControl and try that. I'm using TG-Pro. See what happens. The Logicboard diode is what seemed pretty hot. I set the fans to a faster speed and that diode temp is about 10 degrees F cooler now. I'm walking away and leaving it idling now with a DP project but not playing and seeing what happens. Thanks for the input!

[James Steele]

This is NOT good. Latest test went bad. I don't know if it's because of the inactivity. I walked away again with DP idling and project loaded. Came back and all monitors black (they actually turned OFF) and even MC Control frozen up having to be power cycled by pulling the power cord.

Soon as I rebooted checked the temperature of that one diode that was high and it was 173 F. I'm about to boot from another drive and reinstall Mojave and give that a whirl.

[James Steele]

I disconnected every monitor but the 23" Cinema connected to the DVI output on my card. I'm doing the same test letting DP11 idle with a project open and going to let it sit again for 30-40 minutes and see if it freezes up, because it occurred to me I don't exactly want to risk booting from a different drive and being in the middle of reinstalling Mojave and have the Mac seize up!!

I have two courses of action. If it crashes again, quit various memory resident programs etc. and simplify what is loading at boot, and see if that stops it and then try to isolate it. May also try running DP10 instead and loading a project and do the idle test. Maybe DP11 is corrupted?? Although I believe the system froze up last night when I was simply doing a Carbon Copy Cloner backup... that ended up corrupting the backup drive I was backing up my SSD onto and it was a pain reformatting it and then backing up again. Sigh. It's just a mess.

Maybe the temperature has nothing to do with it. Maybe it's software. I'm hoping if it stabilizes with the one monitor, it might be worth reinstalling Mojave. I can tell you, I did not seem to have this issue with the same graphics card when I was using it with the 23" Cinema connected how it is now, and my 30" Cinema connected with a mDP-to-DVI adapter. Seems all this crud started when I hooked up the 4K TV with the mDP>HDMI adapter and was screwing around with getting it to boot. Sigh.

FYI, I don't know if it's normal or not, but I looked that GPU history while the 4K monitor was hooked up and was playing a relatively light sequence and the blue bars just went all the way to the top of the window whenever DP was playing. I sure didn't need this right now. Ugh.