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2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and macOS Sierra

F

F1Mac

macrumors 65816
Feb 26, 2014
1,283
1,604
hrutkaymods said:
Well guys I finally broke down and bought a 2.8GHz 3,1... I think it's official, maybe I'm wrong, but I finally agree with the rest of you that El Capitan is probably the last of the line for our 1,1/2,1s. It's been a great ride and it still makes one killer 64-bit Windows 10 computer.
Click to expand...

It actually makes one killer OS X computer :) Just because it can't run the latest OS doesn't mean it can't run at all. El Capitan will get Security updates for another 2 years. My wife now uses my 1,1/2,1 and of course I'm the only one who cares about the fact that it's still a pretty powerful Mac for what she does with it, but well, that's another story... :p ...Being stuck at El Capitan is really not a big deal - iOS 10 can even sync on Mavericks with the latest iTunes.
 
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haralds

haralds

macrumors 68030
Jan 3, 2014
2,993
1,259
Silicon Valley, CA
Morpheo said:
It actually makes one killer OS X computer :) Just because it can't run the latest OS doesn't mean it can't run at all. El Capitan will get Security updates for another 2 years. My wife now uses my 1,1/2,1 and of course I'm the only one who cares about the fact that it's still a pretty powerful Mac for what she does with it, but well, that's another story... :p ...Being stuck at El Capitan is really not a big deal - iOS 10 can even sync on Mavericks with the latest iTunes.
Click to expand...
It does not run Xcode 8 - an that's a killer.
 
Y

yagocs

macrumors newbie
Jun 24, 2017
12
0
Hello Everyone,
Have been reading this topic and I have a question (please excuse my hardware ignorace).
Can you add SSE 4.1 instructions to processor?
Thing is, long time ago I had a typical pentium D, socket 775. One day a friend told me about replacing the old pentium with a better Xeon, specifically e5420, so I bought it and we did the socket 775 to Xeon trick.
When i decided to sell it, buyer asked me if I could upgrade it to windows 10, so I tried, and windows 10 upgrade assistant told me Computer was not upgradeable, aparently because of a lack of instructions(error code).
So I burned out my brains trying to check if this could be solved and I remember downloading a file specifically for that xeon, modyifing a ROM file(tutorial by, not a genius myself), loading through de BIOS and voila! Old Xeon E5420 runs windows 10 flawlessly..... so (here is where my ignorance asks)
Could this be done with these processors? Could you, for example, place them into some mod 775 socket, do the trick thing, place them again into a Mac Pro and try out Sierra install? I mean I may be saying all of this and it could be a nonsense... or whatever (about the xeon, now a friend owns it so in case you want pictures or anything i may ask him to send me some)

Thanks
 
M

MSSC

macrumors newbie
Mar 21, 2017
6
0
So...
I bought my Mac Pro 1.1 like 2 years ago for very VERY low price. I used to pimp it up with dual X5365's, 16gb of RAM, SSD, hd5770 AND recently r9 270x. I also installed macOS 10.11 using tutorials on the web. Im very happy with that piece of hardware, but I think that we should TRY to give the 10.12 (or the new 10.13) a shot. I've come thru every page and every post that mentions why its impossible or very hard to do, and i think that the easiest solution will be sse4.1 emulator, running on lower level than kernel (i'm not very into smc, uefi and stuff like that on macs). But, i'm a developer and i know that its possible. I made a quick research on the sse4.1 iintruction set and found out very good informations:
"SSE4 does not introduce new data types, it uses data types defined in SSE and SSE2"
That makes it possible to write the code with less effort, SSE4.1 introduces 47 new instructions that can be also used as a mix of other instructions that are present in our wonderful mac pro's 2.1 cpus. I also found out a piece of software called "Intel Software Development Emulator" that brings the sse4.1 instructions to older cpus, but it works on different level that we need. It goes between software that need these instruction set and the kernel of os (idk if i understood it right). I havent looked deeper into it, but its available for download as source code (also for macos) and its propably possible for someone with big developer skills (not me ;c) to convert it to use on lower level, required to run osx newe than 10.11. Maybe I just make myself a hope and its impossible, but i really want to see sierra on these babies and i will help with that as much as i can.

Edit: Link for ISDE https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-software-development-emulator
 
D

Draeconis

macrumors 6502a
May 6, 2008
987
281
MSSC said:
So...
I bought my Mac Pro 1.1 like 2 years ago for very VERY low price. I used to pimp it up with dual X5365's, 16gb of RAM, SSD, hd5770 AND recently r9 270x. I also installed macOS 10.11 using tutorials on the web. Im very happy with that piece of hardware, but I think that we should TRY to give the 10.12 (or the new 10.13) a shot. I've come thru every page and every post that mentions why its impossible or very hard to do, and i think that the easiest solution will be sse4.1 emulator, running on lower level than kernel (i'm not very into smc, uefi and stuff like that on macs). But, i'm a developer and i know that its possible. I made a quick research on the sse4.1 iintruction set and found out very good informations:
"SSE4 does not introduce new data types, it uses data types defined in SSE and SSE2"
That makes it possible to write the code with less effort, SSE4.1 introduces 47 new instructions that can be also used as a mix of other instructions that are present in our wonderful mac pro's 2.1 cpus. I also found out a piece of software called "Intel Software Development Emulator" that brings the sse4.1 instructions to older cpus, but it works on different level that we need. It goes between software that need these instruction set and the kernel of os (idk if i understood it right). I havent looked deeper into it, but its available for download as source code (also for macos) and its propably possible for someone with big developer skills (not me ;c) to convert it to use on lower level, required to run osx newe than 10.11. Maybe I just make myself a hope and its impossible, but i really want to see sierra on these babies and i will help with that as much as i can.

Edit: Link for ISDE https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-software-development-emulator
Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain the amount of effort involved required for this outweighs the benefits of running Sierra. Is there something Sierra provides that you require? Even if you did get it working, running an entire OS through a software emulator would be an incredible bottleneck, don't you think?
 
T

trickbox

macrumors newbie
Feb 24, 2008
22
7
Has anyone looked into this for the Mac Pro 1,1/2,1


Looks like running High Sierra on unsupported Macs
 
W

weckart

macrumors 603
Nov 7, 2004
5,976
3,697
trickbox said:
Has anyone looked into this for the Mac Pro 1,1/2,1

Looks like running High Sierra on unsupported Macs
Click to expand...

The bootloader is the least of your issues for running past El Capitan. Getting past cpu incompatibility takes more than Clover to fix.
 
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HenryMacPro

HenryMacPro

macrumors newbie
Aug 5, 2017
4
2
Until this morning I used a Mac Pro 1.1 which I bought new in 2006. I had upgraded it over the years (2 quadcores, more RAM, SSD, newer GPU).
But this morning I bought a 2009 Mac Pro. It's all ready has the 5.1 firmware, 2 quadcores, 12 Gigs of RAM.
So, Sierra problem solved.
 
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splifingate

splifingate

macrumors 68000
Nov 27, 2013
1,918
1,709
ATL
HenryMacPro said:
Until this morning I used a Mac Pro 1.1 which I bought new in 2006. I had upgraded it over the years (2 quadcores, more RAM, SSD, newer GPU).
But this morning I bought a 2009 Mac Pro. It's all ready has the 5.1 firmware, 2 quadcores, 12 Gigs of RAM.
So, Sierra problem solved.
Click to expand...

I still have my 2006 1,1 (purchased in Nov. 2006), but I now use (as my #1) a 2012 5,1, 2 x5675 (upgraded), 96G RAM, and it's a beast.

Sierra is *ok* . . . I was happier with Yose, but future-potential is huge :)
 
ATB3800

ATB3800

macrumors newbie
Oct 27, 2017
5
1
Morpheo said:
:)

Besides, being "stuck to El Cap" doesn't necessarily mean retiring it. As long as mine meets the system requirements to run my software, and as long as it gets my work done, I'll keep it. When it can no longer meet *my* requirements, I'll find a nice spot in my closet near my beige G3, which for some bizarre reason, I still have ;)
Click to expand...
I have a beige G3 that I upgraded to a sonnet encore 1ghz g4. I use it as an afp server using usb external drives
 
M

MSSC

macrumors newbie
Mar 21, 2017
6
0
Its like transporting 10 metres long wooden logs using Smart - simply impossible
 
I

iphone2g&3gfan

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2013
147
103
Orlando, Florida
I have been following the MacPro1,1 and 2,1 unsupported threads from all the way back in Mountain Lion. I was looking around and found that for AMD cpu's without sse4.1 a kernel has been developed that emulates the instructions. You can find it at post #763 here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...elease-for-help-use-the-help-topic/?p=2495836

It may be worth a try as the only barrier separating those macpro's from Sierra and beyond is the sse4.1 instruction set.
 
LightBulbFun

LightBulbFun

macrumors 68030
Nov 17, 2013
2,900
3,195
London UK
iphone2g&3gfan said:
I have been following the MacPro1,1 and 2,1 unsupported threads from all the way back in Mountain Lion. I was looking around and found that for AMD cpu's without sse4.1 a kernel has been developed that emulates the instructions. You can find it at post #763 here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...elease-for-help-use-the-help-topic/?p=2495836

It may be worth a try as the only barrier separating those macpro's from Sierra and beyond is the sse4.1 instruction set.
Click to expand...

looking at the comment and the kernel linked in it its meant for AMD CPUs with SSE4 it does not contain an SSE4 emulator sadly...
 
I

iphone2g&3gfan

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2013
147
103
Orlando, Florida
It was a long shot... there is opemu, and nawcom's legacy kernel from way back in the snow leopard days was amazingly good at using it. It would be a largeish effort to incorporate opemu into darwin 6 versions or 7 versions later (nawcom's was Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0) :(
 
reukiodo

reukiodo

macrumors 6502
Nov 22, 2013
420
220
Earth
hwojtek said:
  1. creating a firmware flash for 1,1/2,1 with microcode that would allow the old computer to run next generation of Xeons (LGA 771-socketed Harpertown Xeons based on Penryn microarchitecture), which support SSE4,1. (Pros: you get a 3,1 Mac for 1,1 price. Cons: even more extremely unlikely, as 1: the Penryn microcode from an Intel BIOS would need to be decrypted first, which - given the current state of cryptography - would happen somewhen in 26th century, 2: somebody with a thorough knowledge of Intel trade secrets would need to put together a firmware for a Mac Pro).
Click to expand...

Has anyone with a cMP 1,1 or 2,1 tried to update their microcode with https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ode-update-guide.2122246/page-2#post-26151850 ?

I'm guessing that 1067A microcode is needed for an X5492, so https://github.com/platomav/CPUMicr...latB1_ver00000A0E_2015-07-29_PRD_59BF808E.bin ?
 
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