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

[ectomorph]

There appears to be one problem. Snow Leopard (10.6.8) can't see El Cap drives in Startup Disk. It used to see Lion OK but doesn't see the updated drive any more. This is a problem because I have a non-flashed Asus 5770. In the slightly longer term if everything goes well with the 10.11 install I plan to update 10.6 too as that will probably fix the problem and if 10.11 works as I know it can then I will not need to boot into Snow Leopard

 

[stokowski]

Hi people,
I used for two years a Mac Pro 1.1 with El Capitan. After my Ati 5770 crashed I was forced to replace it with a new one. Everything was then o.k., but the mac crashed shortly after signing up. Every recovery try failed. Then I installed new the snow leopard server version and did the pikify again as discribed in the good youtube video. But now the install process is crashing after a short time with a report.

Edit: Problem solved: One Ram-Unit was broken (seen with 10.6.8), and so there wasn´t enough memory for the process.

Greetings,
stokowski

 

[Rocketman83]

On my Pikified Mac Pro 2,1, I've pretty much retired El Capitan, in favor of (gasp!) Windows 10 Pro, running in Bootcamp. The newest versions of many programs I regularly use (Photoshop, MS Office, CorelDraw) won't install or run on El Cap. But the latest Windows version of these same programs install and run well in Bootcamp. Very well, in fact. I rarely even boot into El Cap anymore. Frankly, I just don't need it. My 12 year old Apple computer has strangely morphed into a Macrosoft machine. Kind of ironic, no?

 

[nebojsak]

Do any of you face frequent finder freezing? Mac Pro 1,1 2007 with 2x2,66 Xeons, 16gb ram, SSD, Radeon 5770. Does it have something to do with the maybe too old CPU?

edit: just to mention that I've tried solutions like deleting .plist file and terminating finder via Terminal. Doesn't work. And to mention that this occurs once in a while, not every time I boot into El Cap.

 

[rthpjm]

Do any of you face frequent finder freezing? Mac Pro 1,1 2007 with 2x2,66 Xeons, 16gb ram, SSD, Radeon 5770. Does it have something to do with the maybe too old CPU?

edit: just to mention that I've tried solutions like deleting .plist file and terminating finder via Terminal. Doesn't work. And to mention that this occurs once in a while, not every time I boot into El Cap.

The only time this has happened to me, the OS hard disk was failing.

Check the system log in the Console app. Look for disk related messages...

 

[nebojsak]

the message "IOATA controller device blocking bus" appears almost every second. I've googled a bit and found that disconnecting an optical drive would help, but it didn't do the trick.

SSD is like 6 months old and every tool I used says it's in normal condition :/

Maybe some other disk drive? I have few old HDDs that appear mounted from time to time, but I can't pull them off right now, I'm in the middle of rendering some video.

 

[nebojsak]

Update: disconnected optical drive, pulled off old SATA HDD, restarted - and the message is gone

I'll check again doing some GPU extensive work in Davinci Resolve and Motion.

 

[rthpjm]

Update: disconnected optical drive, pulled off old SATA HDD, restarted - and the message is gone

I'll check again doing some GPU extensive work in Davinci Resolve and Motion.

It’s almost certainly the spinning disk that’s failing...

 

[nebojsak]

I don't know, this is not my main machine, but the freezing was pretty steady and occassional during that six months, not getting worse with time. So far it's all ok, we'll see.

 

[sudo nope]

Update:

Got the El Cap to install.
With that OS X platform, I was able to get the script and ramdisk to finish.
Shut down after prompt.
Held the button until long chime and again until the screen went grey.

but with both no disk eject and no flash, just boots right to log in screen.
tonight I will try holding it longer.

Any other ideas?

 

[MIKX]

Just got El Cap 10.11.6 running on a 2007 Dual Quad 3GHZ 2,1 CMP with an EFI FLASHED HIS HD 5870.

Used dosdude1's Youtube vid

- very straight forward.

Created the USB installer - installed 10.11.0 to a spare spinner HDD on my MacBook Pro - replaced the boot.efi in the required places.
Installed the drive in the 2,1 - booted up. OK - copied 10.11.6 combo to the 2,1 El Cap - ran the 10.11.6 combo -rebooted but of course wouldn't boot so removed teh drive to my 4,1>5,1 cMP and re-did the boot.efi replacement.

Put the El Cap 10.11.6 HDD back in the 2,1 - cold boot up - Voila !

SIP is still enabled aand next I'm going to replace the boot.efi in the El Cap Recovery disk.

Then I'm going to Carbon Copy Clone the El Cap drive to a small spare 2,5" spinner HDD for future use.

================================================

Luckily I already had this ( friend's ) machine running Mavericks 10.9.5 on another drive - this was handy in having a separate OS X working eg: to check if El Cap shows up in Mavericks Startup Disk etc.

=====================================================

Incidentally, I had a problem with the 2,1's CPU B ( bottom one ) showing as dead but I have a strong feeling that cleaning the CPU B's CPU socket & the 3Ghz chip with IsoPropyl ( with a soft brush ) may fix that - in the meantime ( until later today ) This 3Ghz 2,1 is running quite snappily ONE 3GHZ CPU A ( completely removed CPU B and placed soft plastic cover over the CPU empty socket with the CPU Clamp locked down until I can get to cleaning it tonight

If I can't get the CPU B chip working, no great loss. One 3Ghz is still respectable speed and ample for my moderate-user friend..
================================================

The amount of dust under both heatsinks was absolutely astonishing ! I will be posting re this in another thread.

===================================================

A nice day's work, very satisfying to breathe new life into these. remarkably long-lived and still very useful .machines

=============

EDIT : I did a 200% absolute cleaning ( isopropyl alsohol + soft brush ) of CPU B's CPU chip and the motherboard CPU socket in the 2,1 - re-thermal pasted and re-installed ( I'm getting quite adept at this ! ) but no joy. . it seems that the CPU B's X5365 3Ghz is truly dead - so I removed CPU B + heatsink, sealed the motherboard CPU B socket - it is now a SINGLE QUAD Core 2,1 until a replacement AliExpress X5365 arrives.
In any case El Cap 10.11.6 is running without any issues for the time being.

 

[nebojsak]

Update: disconnected optical drive, pulled off old SATA HDD, restarted - and the message is gone

I'll check again doing some GPU extensive work in Davinci Resolve and Motion.

It's been more than two weeks and the finder freezing is definitely gone.

But there is another issue. iCloud drive from finder shows some obsolete files, like from a year ago, not the present state. Any solutions on that?

 

[Homercon]

On my Pikified Mac Pro 2,1, I've pretty much retired El Capitan, in favor of (gasp!) Windows 10 Pro, running in Bootcamp. The newest versions of many programs I regularly use (Photoshop, MS Office, CorelDraw) won't install or run on El Cap. But the latest Windows version of these same programs install and run well in Bootcamp. Very well, in fact. I rarely even boot into El Cap anymore. Frankly, I just don't need it. My 12 year old Apple computer has strangely morphed into a Macrosoft machine. Kind of ironic, no?

Yup I've been thinking about making this a Windows machine only since El Cap is just being left behind now. No drivers/software for my new 4k monitor (makes using the physical menu buttons a HASSLE, Viewsonic XG3220), and I have to force El Cap with SwitchResX to run displayport 4k/60hz (1440p HiDPI), which of course meant disabling SIP (blind method, original GPU is in my storage somewhere). I can't even watch a 4k 60hz video on Youtube, too slow, might be the video card, but I'm hesitant to buy yet another non-EFI GPU since I have no idea how much longer this machine will continue to function. No bluetooth or WiFi even with the proper wireless card installed, could never get it to work, and would only mess with my system. Overall, its been a nice ride and the machine has done everything I needed, until now. Getting into day trading and finding the programs I am using aren't exactly fast on El Cap. I might just build a new PC for about 1k and keep the cMP here until someone buys it off me for $100 bucks LOL. But then I would lose my beautiful Apogee Ensemble audio interface because it only works with OSX (macOS, whatever you wanna call it)

2, 1 (1, 1)
2x Quad 2.66 Ghz x5355 (matched pair, $60 Ebay)
64gb DDR2 ($60 Ebay)
240gb SSD El Cap boot drive ($82 back in 2015)
GTX 660 2GB (MSI Twin Frozr III) ($193 back in 2014, ouch!)

 

[Rocketman83]

Yup I've been thinking about making this a Windows machine only since El Cap is just being left behind now. No drivers/software for my new 4k monitor (makes using the physical menu buttons a HASSLE, Viewsonic XG3220), and I have to force El Cap with SwitchResX to run displayport 4k/60hz (1440p HiDPI), which of course meant disabling SIP (blind method, original GPU is in my storage somewhere). I can't even watch a 4k 60hz video on Youtube, too slow, might be the video card, but I'm hesitant to buy yet another non-EFI GPU since I have no idea how much longer this machine will continue to function. No bluetooth or WiFi even with the proper wireless card installed, could never get it to work, and would only mess with my system. Overall, its been a nice ride and the machine has done everything I needed, until now. Getting into day trading and finding the programs I am using aren't exactly fast on El Cap. I might just build a new PC for about 1k and keep the cMP here until someone buys it off me for $100 bucks LOL. But then I would lose my beautiful Apogee Ensemble audio interface because it only works with OSX (macOS, whatever you wanna call it)

2, 1 (1, 1)
2x Quad 2.66 Ghz x5355 (matched pair, $60 Ebay)
64gb DDR2 ($60 Ebay)
240gb SSD El Cap boot drive ($82 back in 2015)
GTX 660 2GB (MSI Twin Frozr III) ($193 back in 2014, ouch!)

My original 2007 Mac Pro (1,1 w/ upgraded firmware to 2,1) now has 32GB RAM and a Radeon HD 5770 1GB video card. Video normally runs well, whether I'm in OSX or Windows. It can hiccup on certain websites, though, but I think that has more to do with excessive traffic on the site's server more than my computer's ability to play the file.

As a Windows machine, I think this Mac has much usable life left in it. I haven't broken away from Apple entirely. I own an iPad too. Connects easily (via lightning port to USB) to either El Cap or Windows 10.

 

[Argyboy]

Still rocking El Capitan like a champ on my 2.1. Such great machines. Shame we can't get any higher versions going but always got the option of Linux after El Cap becomes unusable. I refuse to put Windows near any of my devices so I'll be looking for a nice Linux distro for this once El Cap is done with browser support!

 

[Mariner19]

I finally has a successful OS El Capitan 10.11.6 running on a separate HDD in my MacPro 2,1. Now the issue is that all my programs / applications that I use are on my primary HDD running 10.9.5. What is going to be the proper procedure for transfering from HDD to HDD. They are both in the same machine, can I just drag & drop or is the migration tool the correct way?

 

[rthpjm]

I finally has a successful OS El Capitan 10.11.6 running on a separate HDD in my MacPro 2,1. Now the issue is that all my programs / applications that I use are on my primary HDD running 10.9.5. What is going to be the proper procedure for transfering from HDD to HDD. They are both in the same machine, can I just drag & drop or is the migration tool the correct way?

Boot into your new El Capitan OS...
Then navigate to Applications:Utilities, run the Migration Assistant.
You should be able to select your old OS on the other disk as the source...

 

[Mariner19]

Hi Flygbuss, I just replaced the file "SystemLogo.tiff" contained in "/Applications/Utilities/System Information.app/Contents/Resources" by an image created by me with Photoshop...

I attach it to you as a zip file...

View attachment 825710

alphascorp; I've already downloaded your provided zip file but have not opened it as of yet. Having issues of where to locate the SystemLogo.tiff. Went through the steps of /Applications/Utilities/System Information.app - right clicked to open/Contents/Resources. I do see 2 tiff files already in the resource file - AppleCareBox.tiff & AppleLogoSmall.tiff. Any further instructions of what to do with the zip file ? Will the OS automatically know what to do once it it placed in the Resources file?

 

[Kaische]

Hello Forum,

a few weeks ago i started reading this thread because my girlfriends 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 (Snow Leopard) should get "el capitain".

So far i had no succes to boot from a secondary ssd with a modified el capitain installation.

I downloaded an image with the allready modifed boot.efi.

I tried two GPU Upgrades, first an EVGA GTX 570 HD and then an ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-512-MB-PCI-E

With the ati card i can see the boot sequence and can choose the "el c" installation but it won't boot. I get an error Message, i guess, but i'm not sure it must be something with a missing driver for the ati gpu. I can boot into snow leo with the ati card.

If i install the GTX i get no picture at all. No bootscreen, which i know is normal but than snow leo should at least boot, but i don't know if it does because the screen stays black. The GTX is ok i tested the card in a PC.

Both Card have the two pci power connectors attached.

I attached the error message from the boot screen.

Has anyone an hint or did i maybe overread a post with the same problem ?


2006 Mac Pro 1,1 Ram Uprade to 32 GB
Nvidia 7300 GPU

Snow Leo on a 1 TB SSD
EL Captian on an 2nd 1 TB SSD


Thanks and greetings from Hamburg, Germany

 

[rthpjm]

Hello Forum,

a few weeks ago i started reading this thread because my girlfriends 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 (Snow Leopard) should get "el capitain".

So far i had no succes to boot from a secondary ssd with a modified el capitain installation.

I downloaded an image with the allready modifed boot.efi.

I tried two GPU Upgrades, first an EVGA GTX 570 HD and then an ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-512-MB-PCI-E

With the ati card i can see the boot sequence and can choose the "el c" installation but it won't boot. I get an error Message, i guess, but i'm not sure it must be something with a missing driver for the ati gpu. I can boot into snow leo with the ati card.

If i install the GTX i get no picture at all. No bootscreen, which i know is normal but than snow leo should at least boot, but i don't know if it does because the screen stays black. The GTX is ok i tested the card in a PC.

Both Card have the two pci power connectors attached.

I attached the error message from the boot screen.

Has anyone an hint or did i maybe overread a post with the same problem ?


2006 Mac Pro 1,1 Ram Uprade to 32 GB
Nvidia 7300 GPU

Snow Leo on a 1 TB SSD
EL Captian on an 2nd 1 TB SSD


Thanks and greetings from Hamburg, Germany

Hello Kaische

Greetings from the UK!

I believe that your issue is related to the image that you downloaded. Those disk images are often created for portables (MacBooks). They often have other modified content to make them work on the MacBook family.

The error message seems to point to a modified kernel, or modified kernel extensions, or both.

If you have a newer Mac that you can use, you can download a copy of the original El Capitan installer directly from Apple (via the App Store). If you only have your girlfriend’s Mac Pro you should try booting from the Snow Leopard partition, then read my post #1390 on page 56 (link in my signature below). There is a link at that post pointing to an Apple Support document which provides a way to download El Capitan on older versions of MacOS.

Once you have the original Apple version of Install Mac OS X El Capitan, then you can use the pikify method (also at post #1390). I would recommend using the App version.

Before you start I would advise replacing the original 7300 graphics card with either of the other two. If they are “PC variants” then you will probably not see the initial boot screens. Be patient, once the MacOS kernel takes over, the OS drivers will load and the screen should activate...

Try this approach directly from the MacPro 1,1.

If you cannot install by this method don’t worry, report back here and we’ll try to talk you through the other method.

 

[Kaische]

@rthpjm : Thanks a lot , i did it , i'm writing this post from the mac pro 1,1 with el c. AMAZING ! Thanks again. Now i will try your boot64 method to get sure that the installation of the security patch does not wreck my new el c. installation.

 

[LordeOurMother]

I can't get iCloud Drive working on this device presently. I've tried resetting icloud, forcing a stop of icloud services via terminal, logging in and logging out, etc. Anyone else have ideas? Perhaps Apple thinks is a hackintosh? (Yet iMessage/Facetime works...)

I don't really feel like reinstalling El Cap. (THAT'S a process...)

If not, I'll just sign up for dropbox or OneCloud and have it manually sync to iCloud. But ugh. haha.

 

[Kaische]

@rthpjm : Yesterday evening i did make the mistake and installed the latest 2018 security update and after installing i landed directly into the boot loop. I did install the boot64 before..
Then I booted back into snow leo and tried to repair the broken kernel but i must have missed something and got frustrated.
Then used the pikify tool again and reinstalled El C., fortunately all user data was still there.
For now i will leave it in this state. (Mac OS X 10.11.4 )

Thanks again

Cheers
Kai

 

[rthpjm]

@rthpjm : Yesterday evening i did make the mistake and installed the latest 2018 security update and after installing i landed directly into the boot loop. I did install the boot64 before..
Then I booted back into snow leo and tried to repair the broken kernel but i must have missed something and got frustrated.
Then used the pikify tool again and reinstalled El C., fortunately all user data was still there.
For now i will leave it in this state. (Mac OS X 10.11.4 )

Thanks again

Cheers
Kai

You can safely upgrade to 10.11.6, and to Security Update 2017-005.

If you do want to apply the Security Updates from 2018-001 or higher, then you should first get to 10.11.6 and SecUpd 2017-005, then make a copy of the kernel file /System/Library/Kernels/kernel. Copy it to your home folder or another partition.

Any of the SecUpdates from 2018-001 or higher will replace the kernel file with one that is not compatible with the original MacPros 1,1 or 2,1. You simply need to overwrite the “bad” kernel with the “good” kernel. To do this you will need to boot from another partition (this can be the Recovery HD or your Snow Leopard partition).

 

[shinkansen]

I have this weird issue with Mail and iCloud drive.
I have a 1,1 mac pro running El cap 10.11.4

When i try to add an O365 email it will not log in and asks for manual setup.
iCloud drive is just spinning on "setting up iCloud drive", have tried to log out of iCloud, restart and log in again.

Anyone who has had this issue?