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

[Mystere65]

Safari 12 is not compatible with El Capitan ... end of support

 

[Nick Batey]

Hello,
I'm back, following my post #4299 of July 20, 2018 regarding the operation of the update "SecUpd2018-004ElCapitan" with Kernel 2017-005.
After 2 months EVERYTHING IS STILL STABLE ...
I am a professional and I use my Mac Pro more than 10 hours a day and I work with quite "greedy" softwares such as: Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere, Final Cut and Cinema 4D.
FYI, I never turn off my Mac Pro, the evening I suspend the activity, and I restart it only once every 2 weeks.


Fix SecUpdate ElCapitan Mac Pro 1.1-2.1 Start Loop.dmg

AlphaScorp, thanks for sharing this file with us, it has been most helpful to me. To everybody still struggling with getting their Mac Pro 1.1s up-and-running with El Cap, here's an overview of the steps I've taken:

1. I've used my MacBook Pro 5.3 to install El Cap to a separate drive.
2. I've booted from that external drive (still attached to my MBP) and installed all the updates out there (El Cap 10.11.6 + Security Update 2018-004, iTunes and everything else).
3. While booted on the external drive, I've then used the Fix SecUpdate ElCapitan dmg-file, which can be found in this post.
4. I rebooted in the El Cap of my MBP internal drive and copied the Pikey boot.efi to the required places on the external drive.
5. While being on my MBP internal drive, I've changed the PlatFormSupport.plist file on the external drive using Texteditor and added a few strings so that a Mac Pro 1.1 and 2.1 would be recognized. This also included to add the board IDs for both 1.1 and 2.1 Mac Pros. Board IDs can be found online.
6. I then placed the external drive in my Mac Pro 1.1, pressed the power button, and success!

To add, I had had already upgraded the EFI firmware to 2.1 before I tried to install Yosemite some years ago, so my upgraded CPU and memory were recognized immediately.

I hope this overview makes sense.

 

[EpilepticGerbil]

Hey All, I remember that someone compiled a list of graphics cards the worked out of the box with 2,1 Macs running El Cap. I can't find this list in MacRumors anymore, anyone know where it is. I think I am putting too much of a strain on the ATI Radeon 5770 with 3 monitors connected to it. I just want to lighten the load off of that card. I use to do work and watch all my tv programs on it at the same time. If anyone has a link to the thread, please post/send to me. I really appreciate it.
[doublepost=1537748446][/doublepost]

Posting some graphic compatibility info I found for the Mac Pro *somewhere* several months ago. I cant take the credit for this but iKnow its helped me a lot:

Supported Hardware for your Hackintosh
A Details on Most Useful Information when you are buying a Desktop Component or Laptop for Hackintosh , you will always have these questions in your mind :- Is my PC fully support or what ? , Compatible Hardware will make your Hackintosh 95 % Mac .
CPU :-
Intel :
All CPUs starting from Intel Core 2 Duo up to now (Broadwell) is supported,.
AMD : most AMD CPU are supported but its required modified kernel .

GPU :- Most Crucial and important part of the Hackintosh ( if it can’t work you can’t see the screen or the animation’s laggy as hell ) but with Dedicated or Intel iGPU you can have what you want
Integrated GPU (iGPU)
Integrated GPU (iGPU)
With Mac OSX , these iGPUs are native support:
Intel HD Graphics on 1st Generation Intel Core i Processor (Arrandale, need some kexts modding )
Intel HD 3000 on 2nd Generation Intel Core i Processor ( Sandy Bridge )
Intel HD 4000 on 3rd Generation Intel Core i Processor ( Ivy Bridge )
Intel HD 4400 (laptop only) /4600/5000/Iris on 4th Generation Intel Core i Processor ( Haswell )
Discrete GPU
These GPUs are supported (the list may be incompleted or not correct at some points, please inform me about the GPU that works for you but not on the list or the one not works):
NVIDIA :
nVidia 7000 Series
nVidia 8000 Series
nVidia 9000 Series
nVidia GT 200 Series
nVidia GT 400 Series
nVidia GT 500 Series
nVidia GT 600 Series
nVidia GT 700 Series ( stay away from the Ti Series which are awfull to get Full QE/CI )
nVidia GTX Titan (t )
nVidia Quadro 4000
nVidia GT 520M, 540M and 630M ( laptop with discrete GPUs )
nVidia GTX 675M, 760M, 765M, 770M
nVidia NVS 5200M
nVidia Quadro 1000M, 2000M
AMD :
AMD 4000 Series
AMD 5000 Series
AMD 6600, 6700, 6800 Series
AMD 7750, 7770, 7870, 7950, 7970
AMD R7-200 R9-200 Series ( supported on OS X 10.10)
AMD 4650M, 5470M, 7650M
Note : with Release of El-Capitan Apple introduces Metal which is not Supported by Nvidia , preferably Choose AMD Graphics with less modification get full QE/CI .
VGA (Graphics ) :
Mac OSX not supports VGA port so you cant use it but with some kext patching we can enable VGA on Hackintosh for HD3000 .
If you want to use VGA Graphics then go for Dedicated GPU which supports VGA in Mac OSX .

RAM :-
The minimum requirements for OS X is 2Gb of RAM, 4GB is enough to run things smoothly. If you want to run virtual machines or multiple softwares, 8GB of RAM or more is recommended.

Audio :-
Most of Audio Codecs are supported or Enable by Patching AppleHDA to get Native Sound .
With VodooHDA you can enable any Audio Codec on Hackintosh

Ethernet :-
Intel Gigabit
5 Series – 82578LM/82578LC/82578DM/82578DC
6 and 7 Series – 82579LM/82579V
8 and 9 Series – I217LM/I217V/I218LM/I218V/I218LM2/I218V2/I218LM3
Realtek:-
1.RTL8111, 8168, 8101E, 8102E, 8131E, 8169, 8110SC, 8169SC
2.RTL8111/8168 B/C/D/E/F/G
3.RTL8101E/8102E/8102E/8103E/8103E/8103E/8401E/8105E/8402/8106E/8106EUS
4.RTL8105/8111E/8111F/8136/8168E/8168F
Atheros :-
1.AR8121, 8113, 8114, 8131, 8151, 8161, 8171, 8132,8151, 8152, 8162, 8172
2.AR816x, AR817x supported
Broadcom :-
1.BCM5722, 5752, 5754, 5754M, 5755, 5755M, 5761, 5761e, 57780, 57781, 57785,5784M, 5787, 5787M, 5906, 5906M, 57788, 5784M
Marvell :-
1.88E8035, 88E8036, 88E8038, 88E8039, 88E8056, 88E8001
Killer :- E2200 now supported
Wireless: –
Please Refer to Wifi Compatibilty List
which has details on working and non working Wifi in Mac OSX

BIOS : Basic Input Output System
This also important part of Hackintosh with supported Bios you can Easily turned your PC in Hackintosh but if its not Supported then you need to Patch it , Modifying Bios are not recommended will lead you to Bricking PC or Laptop
Legacy BIOS : has lilitation of 2.2TB HDD . and its legacy for OLD Harwares
UEFI BIOS : which is more Easy and Simple with GUI to handle and Has no Limitaion.
UEFI BIOS are Faster and Cleaner/Clearer than Lagacy Bios for All Operating System . Most of Newest Hardware Having UEFI BIOS inbuilt ..

 

[Hast]

Hi all! Mac Pro 2,1 user here. I have to questions after viewing all these pages of the thread:

1) Is there a fix for 2018-001/2 security updates for el cap on 2,2
2) Is there any other updates that I SHOULD NOT install on my old mac with el cap on board?

Thanks you in advance.

 

[alphascorp]

Hi all! Mac Pro 2,1 user here. I have to questions after viewing all these pages of the thread:

1) Is there a fix for 2018-001/2 security updates for el cap on 2,2
2) Is there any other updates that I SHOULD NOT install on my old mac with el cap on board?

Thanks you in advance.

Hello,
ALL "SecUpd2018-XXXElCapitan" updates produce a boot loop following the Kernel fix. For now there have been 4:
-SecUpd2018-001ElCapitan
-SecUpd2018-002ElCapitan
-SecUpd2018-003ElCapitan
-SecUpd2018-004ElCapitan

Personally I installed "SecUpd2018-004ElCapitan" and to avoid the boot loop I created an automatic tool that replaces the new kernel with the one of "SecUpd2017-005" (Kernel replacement operations explained by "Larsvonhier" and "kaosnews" (page 170 post #4237):

Fix SecUpdate ElCapitan Mac Pro 1.1-2.1 Start Loop.dmg

To use my tool you no longer need to have a clone of your ElCapitan system disk, for my part I launched my installation package from a External SSD with Lion 10.7.5 and everything worked very well ...
After 3 months EVERYTHING IS STILL STABLE

 

[Hast]

Hello,
ALL "SecUpd2018-XXXElCapitan" updates produce a boot loop following the Kernel fix. For now there have been 4:
-SecUpd2018-001ElCapitan
-SecUpd2018-002ElCapitan
-SecUpd2018-003ElCapitan
-SecUpd2018-004ElCapitan

Personally I installed "SecUpd2018-004ElCapitan" and to avoid the boot loop I created an automatic tool that replaces the new kernel with the one of "SecUpd2017-005" (Kernel replacement operations explained by "Larsvonhier" and "kaosnews" (page 170 post #4237):

Fix SecUpdate ElCapitan Mac Pro 1.1-2.1 Start Loop.dmg

To use my tool you no longer need to have a clone of your ElCapitan system disk, for my part I launched my installation package from a External SSD with Lion 10.7.5 and everything worked very well ...
After 3 months EVERYTHING IS STILL STABLE

Hello! Thank you for the reply!

Okay, but is there still a reason to install these updates with an old kernel? is it better than just hiding updates from the app store?

 

[Argyboy]

Personally I prefer to hide those security updates after 2017-005 - the reason for that is because as one of the thread experts said, if you use that kernel replacement method, you're running an old kernel with updated kernel extensions, which isn't tested by Apple. I'm keeping my machine at 2017-005 - I installed application updates to Safari and iTunes without any issues, but I won't be installing the security updates. I prefer to keep a tested and stable system rather than running that risk.

 

[Hast]

Personally I prefer to hide those security updates after 2017-005 - the reason for that is because as one of the thread experts said, if you use that kernel replacement method, you're running an old kernel with updated kernel extensions, which isn't tested by Apple. I'm keeping my machine at 2017-005 - I installed application updates to Safari and iTunes without any issues, but I won't be installing the security updates. I prefer to keep a tested and stable system rather than running that risk.

Thanks a lot!

 

[alphascorp]

Hello! Thank you for the reply!

Okay, but is there still a reason to install these updates with an old kernel? is it better than just hiding updates from the app store?

Security updates contain applications updates, extensions updates, and various frameworks changes in addition to modified kernels.
The new kernels since January 2018 have been modified mainly to correct the Spectre & Meltdown security flaw, which is useless because the Intel Xeon that equips the Mac Pro1,1, 2,1 and 3,1 are not Concerned by Spectre & Metldown (Xeon 5130, 5150 and 5160 for the MP1,1, X5365 for the MP2,1, E5462, E5472 and E5482 for the MP3,1), Xeons affected by Spectre & Meltdown are: 34xx, 36xx, 55xx, 56xx, 65xx, 75xx, E3 Vx, E5 Vx and E7 Vx ...)

Since January 2018, many of us have updated our Mac Pro 1.1 & 2.1 by replacing the new kernel by the old and to date, no notorious instability is to be deplored.
Some have decided to stop the 2018 update by staying on that of 2017-005 and it is their choice.
I do not force anyone to install the 2018 updates, I just bring my experience ...
My Mac Pro 2.1 is updated with "SecUpd2018-004ElCapitan", Safari 11.1.2 (11605.3.8.1) and iTunes 12.8
I have only disabled SIP and I regularly check and repair permissions with OnyX 3.1.9 for OS X El Capitan 10.11 and it stays stable.

 

[DrDee7]

Automatic Restart after Shutdown Problem

Hi Mac Pro updaters,

I have only just upgraded to El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1 with Pikify3.1.v14.

My details are: RAM… 18GB (4GBx4 + 1GBx2)
Graphics Card… GeForce 8800 GTS 640 640MB
HDs x2… 2TB with boot El Capitan + 1TB with Mac OS Lion

I have not added any further updates (neither System, Security or Firmware updates) beyond my original Install boot system which is El Capitan 10.11.3.

The Problem: Basically I have El Capitan up and running well until I Shutdown. Then it does an automatic Restart. The only way I can stop this is to pull the plug.

I think maybe the problem is that the only install El Capitan system I had was 10.11.3 and not 10.11.0 ?

Also I have no WiFi connection (Bluetooth is okay) but probably just need a new WiFi card ?

Any help, suggestion for the Restart problem would be appreciated.

Cheers,
DrDee7

 

[stokowski]

Hello,
First of all thanks to the guys in this forum doing this amazing things for our MacPros 1.1.
I did in last August the upgrade from 10.6 by the latest method with pikify without Usb as described by video in this thread. From the start I had security Update 003 ob the Disc and refused the Last upgrade. Last Week my wife kept the mac in sleep Modus over Night with her User Account and about 4 a.m out of the sudden the Mac started to chime again and again. The Black picture is getting for a short time bright, the apple logo appears, the bar flashes and then start over. After searching around I installed successfully the OS again with pikify and Data and Users were thankfully there again. Today I wanted to install a second HDD for TimeMachine but ubfortunatelly over Night the Same thing as Last week happened. Before a new install for the third time I am asking for your advice.

Greetings,
Stokowski

 

[FlorisVN]

Hello,
First of all thanks to the guys in this forum doing this amazing things for our MacPros 1.1.
I did in last August the upgrade from 10.6 by the latest method with pikify without Usb as described by video in this thread. From the start I had security Update 003 ob the Disc and refused the Last upgrade. Last Week my wife kept the mac in sleep Modus over Night with her User Account and about 4 a.m out of the sudden the Mac started to chime again and again. The Black picture is getting for a short time bright, the apple logo appears, the bar flashes and then start over. After searching around I installed successfully the OS again with pikify and Data and Users were thankfully there again. Today I wanted to install a second HDD for TimeMachine but ubfortunatelly over Night the Same thing as Last week happened. Before a new install for the third time I am asking for your advice.

Greetings,
Stokowski

it looks like you have upgraded to the latest security updates, which will break you install.
Use old kernel again, or hide security updates after a clean install..

read post #4430 above from alphascorp with a an easy fix to repleace the old kernel again if wanted..

 

[stokowski]

it looks like you have upgraded to the latest security updates, which will break you install.
Use old kernel again, or hide security updates after a clean install..

read post #4430 above from alphascorp with a an easy fix to repleace the old kernel again if wanted..

Thanks for xour help. Everything is working again!
Greetings,
stokowski

 

[Amiga3000D]

i installed El Cap 10.11 using the Pikify Method and installed Boot64 as well. Is it safe now to Update to 10.11.6 using the combo update or is there an "update path" to ensure a functional system? Will the called security update from jan 2018 loaded to be installed AFTER the combo update or is it part of the combo update? otherwise I will install 10.11.5 combo update first.

Thx for the great tutorials and work!

 

[Traace]

Automatic Restart after Shutdown Problem

Hi Mac Pro updaters,

I have only just upgraded to El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1 with Pikify3.1.v14.

My details are: RAM… 18GB (4GBx4 + 1GBx2)
Graphics Card… GeForce 8800 GTS 640 640MB
HDs x2… 2TB with boot El Capitan + 1TB with Mac OS Lion

I have not added any further updates (neither System, Security or Firmware updates) beyond my original Install boot system which is El Capitan 10.11.3.

The Problem: Basically I have El Capitan up and running well until I Shutdown. Then it does an automatic Restart. The only way I can stop this is to pull the plug.

I think maybe the problem is that the only install El Capitan system I had was 10.11.3 and not 10.11.0 ?

Also I have no WiFi connection (Bluetooth is okay) but probably just need a new WiFi card ?

Any help, suggestion for the Restart problem would be appreciated.

Cheers,
DrDee7

I had the same with one Mac Pro here, it always turned on by itself. TOP246YN IC inside PSU controls on/off switch circuit, it was broken for me. Replaced and its fine again.

 

[FlorisVN]

I had the same with one Mac Pro here, it always turned on by itself. TOP246YN IC inside PSU controls on/off switch circuit, it was broken for me. Replaced and its fine again.

thanks for the info.
Our MacPro 1,1 has somekind of similiar problem.
Sometimes when we do a reboot it hangs, and reboots over and over.
Apple chime over and over, it will never go past boot and start normal.

Only fix is then to shutdown the MacPro completly (pressing power button 5 sec.) and start again..
this problems only occurs when doing a reboot, and it happends not all the time..

Should our TOP246YN also be faulty here... ?

 

[Traace]

U welcome,
yes many random on/off issues could be caused by this chip. But its always hard to say for sure just with a remote diagnostic . At my end, the faulty TOP246YN died with a loud "BÄNG!"....exploded & cMP 1,1 was complete dead until replacement.

This IC is hard to access. It's more in the middle of the logic part PSU PCB (cMP 1,1 has two PSU PCBs "sandwitched" together), screwed on a heatsink between other components. A flexible screwdriver worked, after that I just soldered chip remnants out.

 

[hwojtek]

I have El Capitan up and running well until I Shutdown. Then it does an automatic Restart.

Did you reset the SMC?

 

[DrDee7]

I had the same with one Mac Pro here, it always turned on by itself. TOP246YN IC inside PSU controls on/off switch circuit, it was broken for me. Replaced and its fine again.

Hi Traace,
Thanks for the reply. You could well be right about this control switch. It looks like a job for a techo to fix.
My hands are too old & shakey. I will bear it in mind if all else fails.
My first Mac was a 128K, somewhere around 1985, after my Commodore Vic20 & 64, so I go back a bit.
[doublepost=1539081120][/doublepost]

Did you reset the SMC?

Yes hwojtek,
I did try a SMC reset, but only after you asked me > No go unfortunately.
I have just got a fresh copy of Mac OS 10.11.0 to do a fresh Pikify3.1 install since my original install was 10.11.3 and maybe that is the problem?
Also I can't get Internet with Ethernet or WiFi off my modem, but Bluetooth wireless is working.
Would I need to get a modern new WiFi card or maybe I just dunno what network addresses to punch in.
The auto Ethernet setup doesn't work.
Thank for your answer anyhow.

 

[plentyoftimeto69]

Hey y'all, it's been a while since I posted, but I just wanted to add my 2 cents re: patching. I am running the latest El Capitan patches from the App Store on my 2,1 and it's really not that hard to do. The patches don't seem to replace the kernel on the recovery partition, so after patching, just boot to recovery and replace the kernel with the one from the last 2017 patch. I leave the kernel in my kernel directory as kernel2017 and just hard link it back with 'ln' from a terminal after each patch. Super easy to do.

PS: I also just upgraded my 2,1 from a 10k platter disk to an SSD and holy hell what a difference! That system went from semi-usable to as viable as my 2013 MacBook Air. No more beach balling at all. Photoshop loads in under 5 seconds.

 

[Mjsais]

Nope.

I’ve done nothing to automate any of the kernel replacement. I think I was the first person to confirm replacing the kernel is possible, and supplied the steps. What I did here was motivated by the desire to help those people who bricked their machines to get them back without the anxiety of performing an OSX re-install.

For me personally, I prefer to stay with El Capitan 10.11.6 with Security Update 2017-005. It is the last Apple tested combination. For me, it’s too much of a risk to blindly install the 2018-00x updates. The 001 version introduced the incompatible kernel in the first case. Apple will not (and should not) consider backwards compatibility for our MacPro 1,1s or 2,1s.

What will happen when Apple releases a Security Update that introduces one or more incompatible kernel extensions and/or incompatible applications? Somebody (who will not be me!) will need to diagnose which are the incompatible files and then test if a downgrade will make the machine stable again. At this point you get into 1-n branching effects. Let’s say a kext becomes incompatible, if it is downgraded it might restore some functionality, but if there are other apps or libraries that were expecting certain responses, then these might become unstable after the downgrade. Ultimately, at some point in the future, the branching effect might mean that nearly 100% of the most recent updates would need to be rolled back...

Some people might argue that we’ve been modifying our Mac Pros for years without issue. Actually, all we’ve been doing is modifying the Pre-OS environment (boot.efi). The Mac OS X operating system has been untouched (kernel, kernel extensions, apps, and supporting files), until Security Update 2018-001.

Now, I can admire the courage of other users who carry on by downgrading the kernel and report back “works great for me”. I’m personally not going to do that, I’m more than happy to stay put at 10.11.6 + 2017-005 + supported app updates. Therefore, I’m disinclined to add downgrading the kernel to my toolsets.

Others have “filled the gap”... Contributor @alphascorp has posted an automation tool a few post back from here. For those wishing to go down this route, I wish you all the luck in the world. It’s simply not my choice.

My MacPro will be replaced in a years time (when Apple release the next machine). I’ll keep my cMP around, I’m going to turn it into a virtual machine host. I run lots of copies of Linux both professionally and as a hobby. The cMP will excel as a Proxmox VM host.

Thank you for everything you have contributed to keep our machines working. I also will not update past the last 2017 security update. Do you know if the latest Safary update 11.1.2 is safe to execute?

 

[jbarley]

I have Safari 11.1.2 installed on my MacPro 1,1 running El Cap, works just fine.
But must admit I don't normally use it being I'm a staunch FireFox fan.

 

[Argyboy]

Thank you for everything you have contributed to keep our machines working. I also will not update past the last 2017 security update. Do you know if the latest Safary update 11.1.2 is safe to execute?

I installed iTunes and Safari updates without any issues at all. I don't use Safari myself, but the 11.1.2 update installed fine on my MacPro. I only avoided the security updates post 2017-005.

 

[Mjsais]

I installed iTunes and Safari updates without any issues at all. I don't use Safari myself, but the 11.1.2 update installed fine on my MacPro. I only avoided the security updates post 2017-005.

Thank you

 

[SuperMatt]

Anybody experiencing Code signing issues with El Cap? I had to re-download Outlook 2016 because the prior copy stopped working and crashed with a Code signing failure. Now the Finder crashes whenever I try to open it and I think it's the same issue perhaps.