2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X El Capitan

[neosho]

Interesting!

MacPros must have DIMMs installed as pairs, so 5 DIMMs might be the cause of your issue.

There is only one configuration where an odd number of DIMMs is acceptable, and that is one (single DIMM).
Once you go beyond one DIMM, you must install in pairs. This is because the MacPro motherboard will activate dual memory busses (dual channel) once you have more than 1 DIMM. The dual memory channels feed the dual physical CPUs! El Capitan makes much more extensive use of multi-processor, multi-core processing.

My advice:
Pop one of your DIMMs out and put it to one side.
Then MAKE SURE the remaining DIMMs are installed in the correct slots. There is a diagram on the inside of the removable side panel..

Or see this article from Apple’s Support site https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205043

With 4 DIMMs you should have top riser card slots 1 and 2, bottom riser card slots 1 and 2.

I’m assuming they are all 1GB capacity. Is that correct?

The bad news is that El Capitan definitely does not like 512Mb DIMMs, and there have been a few reports from users with problems using 1GB DIMMs.

Try the advice above. If you still have random crashes, my advice would be to purchase some 2GB or 4GB modules (even number, pairs of course), discard/sell the 1GB modules. Run your MacPro with at least 8Gb or more of total RAM.

Thanks man! ill try playing with dimms and see if miracle happens, will post results!

 

[neosho]

Interesting!

MacPros must have DIMMs installed as pairs, so 5 DIMMs might be the cause of your issue.

There is only one configuration where an odd number of DIMMs is acceptable, and that is one (single DIMM).
Once you go beyond one DIMM, you must install in pairs. This is because the MacPro motherboard will activate dual memory busses (dual channel) once you have more than 1 DIMM. The dual memory channels feed the dual physical CPUs! El Capitan makes much more extensive use of multi-processor, multi-core processing.

My advice:
Pop one of your DIMMs out and put it to one side.
Then MAKE SURE the remaining DIMMs are installed in the correct slots. There is a diagram on the inside of the removable side panel..

Or see this article from Apple’s Support site https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205043

With 4 DIMMs you should have top riser card slots 1 and 2, bottom riser card slots 1 and 2.

I’m assuming they are all 1GB capacity. Is that correct?

The bad news is that El Capitan definitely does not like 512Mb DIMMs, and there have been a few reports from users with problems using 1GB DIMMs.

Try the advice above. If you still have random crashes, my advice would be to purchase some 2GB or 4GB modules (even number, pairs of course), discard/sell the 1GB modules. Run your MacPro with at least 8Gb or more of total RAM.

My bad i had 4x1gb and 2x512MB dimms in the end.. i did remove twose 512mb dimms and set properply the other 4x1gb dimms and now i have chime but no image/black screen wathever i do.. any tip??

Edit: Fixed moving vga to other pcie slot.. now still crashing with 4x1gb dimms..

 

[MacUser2525]

Edit: Fixed moving vga to other pcie slot.. now still crashing with 4x1gb dimms..

More ram another 4x1 should get you there, you want at least 12gb in it if you ever want to run an installer in/on the machine to do fresh install at least that is what worked for my machine which originally had 4gb in it...

 

[Ulysses65]

Hello everybody.
There are two problems.
1. The firmware from 1.1 to 2.1 is not updated, although the system sees all eight cores, but does not determine the processor itself.
2. El Capitan sees only 7 MB of Radeon x1900xt memory, at the same time as the Lion sees all 512.
I ask for help.
(Sorry for my english)

 

[Ant3000]

It's a long while since I did this, but have you rebooted twice? I thought the firmware upgrade needed 2 reboots to work properly.
I could be wrong, but I don't think the X1900 is compatible with El Capitan so you may need to change the card to something like a 5770 (Mac or flashed version if you need boot screens).

 

[mrgreen3325]

Help! My Mac Pro 1,1 keep suddenly crash, which shut down itself during using. (i.e. like out of power).
Then, it keep rebooting itself.
My Mac Pro 1,1 use 2x4GB RAM, GTX-650 with OSX 10.11
Please help me!
The log files are attached.

 

[Ant3000]

Are there any lights on the RAM riser boards? If so, try reseating the RAM modules.
Have you performed SMC / PRAM reset?

 

[mrgreen3325]

Are there any lights on the RAM riser boards? If so, try reseating the RAM modules.
Have you performed SMC / PRAM reset?

Yes, the ram has red flash light when booting up.
No, I didn't SMC/PRAM reset. How to do that?
The new Crash Log file is attached.
Thanks

 

[Ant3000]

Does the red red light remain on after booting? It is worth checking the RAM is in the correct position following the diagram on the inside of the side panel of the Mac and pop the modules and reseat them.

 

[mrgreen3325]

No, the red light is just a flash. And the red light off after booting.

 

[Ant3000]

OK. Are the modules in the correct slots specified by Apple?
These may help...
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201295
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063

 

[mrgreen3325]

modules in the correct slots specified by Apple?
What is that?

 

[Ant3000]

If you look on the inside of the side panel there is a diagram of where the RAM should be positioned. If in the wrong locations it can cause problems

 

[mrgreen3325]

I plug the RAM in the first two slot

 

[Ant3000]

There is a diagram here...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-1-1-not-detecting-theorically-compatible-ram.2046914/
There should be one module on each riser board where shown.
[doublepost=1509207489][/doublepost]Also, how much free space do you have on your Hard Drive? I wonder if it is getting full and running into issues with virtual memory? Or a failing hard Drive?

 

[mrgreen3325]

I only install 1 riser.
The SSD drive have 150 Gbs freespace left

 

[Ant3000]

Try moving the RAM positions - one in the correct position in each riser - SSD free space sounds fine. Have you done the SMC and PRAM reset yet?

 

[jbarley]

Just finished updating my MacPro1,1 running El Capitan with the latest Security update from the App store.
Installed without any issues and system appears to be running just fine.

 

[humann]

Just finished updating my MacPro1,1 running El Capitan with the latest Security update from the App store.
Installed without any issues and system appears to be running just fine.

I'm guessing you mean Security Update 2017-004? I just saw it in my App Store updates for the first time today and your post is two days old so I just want to make sure you don't mean Security Update 2017-003 which I think was the last one. Thanks.

 

[jbarley]

Yes Security Update 2017-004, installed the day it was released, Oct 31.

 

[azouts]

Just finished updating my MacPro1,1 running El Capitan with the latest Security update from the App store.
Installed without any issues and system appears to be running just fine.

Mine doesn't boot anymore. I had fusion drive with filevault2 enabled.

 

[jbarley]

Mine doesn't boot anymore. I had fusion drive with filevault2 enabled.

Sorry about your problems.

 

[jabbo5150]

I'm guessing you mean Security Update 2017-004? I just saw it in my App Store updates for the first time today and your post is two days old so I just want to make sure you don't mean Security Update 2017-003 which I think was the last one. Thanks.

I was about to post about this when I saw this post. I am running El Capitan on my mac pro 1,1 and it works great thanks to this site. Amazed how fast it is with a hybrid drive and 32GB of Ram

That said, is it safe to install this update or will it kill my system?

 

[humann]

Mine doesn't boot anymore. I had fusion drive with filevault2 enabled.

I had a panic attack (personal, not kernel) when my machine refused to boot after the update as well. Startup chime but just dark screen. A restart took me to the login screen but my Dell 27” 4K monitor (on a flashed R9 280X) just went to vertical stripes, unresponsive keyboard. Scared now I reset the PRAM and it all came back. Whew. I hope you have the same luck.

FWIW, I’ve played with Fusion drives and RAID-0 boot configurations on Pikified 1,1 and 2,1 machines but always with problems in the form of failures to boot. I’ve decided to stay with single-drive boot configurations, even though in both cases I was able to get them (Fusion, RAID) to boot at least once but then they’d fail the next restart.

 

[jabbo5150]

I had a panic attack (personal, not kernel) when my machine refused to boot after the update as well. Startup chime but just dark screen. A restart took me to the login screen but my Dell 27” 4K monitor (on a flashed R9 280X) just went to vertical stripes, unresponsive keyboard. Scared now I reset the PRAM and it all came back. Whew. I hope you have the same luck.

FWIW, I’ve played with Fusion drives and RAID-0 boot configurations on Pikified 1,1 and 2,1 machines but always with problems in the form of failures to boot. I’ve decided to stay with single-drive boot configurations, even though in both cases I was able to get them (Fusion, RAID) to boot at least once but then they’d fail the next restart.

What about people with non fusion drives or Raid setups? I just have a regular drive running a Pacified El Capitan on my 1,1. Has anyone had any luck installing that latest security update or should I avoid it?