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

[Telechrome]

Pikified MacPro1,1 with GT 120:

Forgive me if this issue has been raised before, or if this is the appropriate thread to post. I've looked around, but have not found a definitive solution as yet.

I purchased a genuine Apple NVIDIA GT120 card to replace my original 7300 GT, as suggested on the forums to use a better video card. I've increased memory to 20 GB of RAM. And I've installed a 120 GB SSD for the OS X boot drive.

I've successfully managed to upgrade from Lion 10.7.5 to El Capitan 10.11.6 with the Pikify 3.1 V14 script and applied the Boot64 V3 package. Everything works great and I'm quite happy with the performance.

The only issue is with the GT 120 card. For the most part, it acts as if it's dead. No signal on either the mDP or the DVI ports. Not a gray screen or apple logo. Not even after boot do I get a desktop displayed.

I've tested the card in a Windows PC and it works perfectly. Both ports display boot and desktop, so I have established that the card, my cables and my monitors check out OK.

I've now installed both cards (GT 120 and 7300 GT) in the Mac. I can boot from the 7300 GT as usual, into the desktop. The interesting thing is that the GT 120 and my monitors are detected. 'About This Mac' system report shows both cards in PCIe slots 1 and 2. It even shows the monitor models and S/Ns.

If I go to the monitor options on the toolbar, it shows my primary display and the two other monitors (LG TV, Asus VE198). In Displays Preferences, I can see all the displays, arrange them, mirror them.

Everything "looks" to be working properly, but the two GT 120 screens are black.

I downloaded the NVIDIA 346.03 drivers and ran with both native Mac and NVIDIA drivers. I moved the cards to different slots, played with the PCIe configuration tool. Nada.

My thoughts are that Apple is throttling the GT 120 outputs perhaps. I have not upgraded the firmware to make it a MP1,2. Boot ROM version is still the original MP11.005C.B08. And I haven't attempted to flash the video ROM, as it is the original Apple, which is why I bought it, thinking it would be play-and-play, and show the bootup screen.

I understand about the EFI32 and EFI64. Even after bootup though, I still don't get a desktop.

Only once, for a few minutes, it worked. I had just added the GT 120 with the 7300 GT and I had all three monitors working! And then I reset the PRAM and I've never been able to get anything to display on the GT 120 since.

So I know I'm close. I know the equipment works. And I don't have a huge budget to buy more expensive video cards. The GT 120 will be ample for my needs. (Basically using the MP as a server -- no heavy graphics apps.)

If anyone on the forum can point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

I would also like to thank all the developers for your tireless efforts in enabling us to resurrect this fine, but legacy computer to the point where it's useful again.

 

[Macschrauber]

Gt120 is a EFI64 GPU and wont provide boot screens in a 32 bit EFI Mac.

 

[Telechrome]

Thank you for your reply. I'm OK with not having the boot screen. What is unusual though, is that I don't even get the desktop. Card works fine on Windows PC. There's no video at all in the Mac.

 

[joebarqc]

It looks to me like you have at some time in the past changed the boot settings to disable MacOS automatic memory compression and memory swap to disk (your boot args appear to have vm_compressor=2). If you do that AND the memory pressure is high then you are almost certainly going to experience a kernel fault.

ref:
https://medium.com/@ayltai/need-for...ry-last-drop-out-of-macos-sierra-7ac17b680c98

Thanks. it solve the trouble. I don't remember have change this before, but put it back to 4 solve the computer freeze.

Is this stored in PRAM ?

 

[joebarqc]

Hi everyboby,

I have littleSnitch popping frequently with this message :
"On 2019-12-22, a computer with IP address 13.70.91.69 tried to establish an incoming connection to screensharingd.bundle on port 5900 (rfb). The request was denied via connection alert."

The IP address is not always the same, but on the same range and the only thing i was able to trace is this ip is from an Azure machine.

Any hints about this recurring screensharingd.bundle attempt ?

 

[rthpjm]

Thanks. it solve the trouble. I don't remember have change this before, but put it back to 4 solve the computer freeze.

Is this stored in PRAM ?

Yes. Probably best to simply remove it entirely (delete it from the PRAM)

 

[farnorth52]

Hi.

I faced the same problem.

It's just due to the date of your computer.

Most of the security certificate have expired on El Capitan .dmg file.

Just put your computer in 2017 before you launch installation and everything will work

Cheers.

Thanks joebarqc, that worked for me too....after about 20 tries without changing the date. silly old man!!!

 

[mandomedic]

Would appreciate help if anyone can help me solve my issue. I have successfully installed El Capitan on my "new" old 1,1 Mac Pro with 2.66 Duo Core Processors and 32 GB of RAM. It was working perfectly until I decided to upgrade the Safari Browser with one found on the web titled "Safari10.1.2ElCapitan.pkg" Afterwards, I am unable to open safari, it bounces once in the dock, but never opens. Will my Pikify hack break If I do a repair with the command key and R, and repair the Operating system?

Thanks for everyone who made this hack possible, as I was already ready to dump this computer in my recycle bin as it would no longer opened any of my current programs.


Thanks

 

[Argyboy]

Would appreciate help if anyone can help me solve my issue. I have successfully installed El Capitan on my "new" old 1,1 Mac Pro with 2.66 Duo Core Processors and 32 GB of RAM. It was working perfectly until I decided to upgrade the Safari Browser with one found on the web titled "Safari10.1.2ElCapitan.pkg" Afterwards, I am unable to open safari, it bounces once in the dock, but never opens. Will my Pikify hack break If I do a repair with the command key and R, and repair the Operating system?

Thanks for everyone who made this hack possible, as I was already ready to dump this computer in my recycle bin as it would no longer opened any of my current programs.


Thanks

I can't really offer much help directly with the Pikify question, but honestly, you'd be better off using another browser. Safari only goes as far as version 11 on El Capitan, whereas the current versions of Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi are all current and supported on El Cap and probably will be for the next couple of years at least.

Safari is already on version 13 and you'll never be able to go higher than 11 on El Cap, so unless you really really really love or need Safari, I'd probably suggest going elsewhere.

 

[mandomedic]

I can't really offer much help directly with the Pikify question, but honestly, you'd be better off using another browser. Safari only goes as far as version 11 on El Capitan, whereas the current versions of Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi are all current and supported on El Cap and probably will be for the next couple of years at least.

Safari is already on version 13 and you'll never be able to go higher than 11 on El Cap, so unless you really really really love or need Safari, I'd probably suggest going elsewhere.

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have already downloaded Chrome, and it works without any glitches. I prefer Google Chrome anyways.

Thanks again,

Armando

 

[driversat]

hi everybody,
i have macmini2,1 c2d 1.83, 4gb ram.osx 10.7.5.
i tried pikify v14 to create install media in the second partition and rebooted to begin installation.
the boot seems ok, i can select by mouse or keyboard the OS boot partition and at the welcome page to select language i can't use keyboard nor mouse!!!! even if i change usb ports.
please help.

 

[rthpjm]

hi everybody,
i have macmini2,1 c2d 1.83, 4gb ram.osx 10.7.5.
i tried pikify v14 to create install media in the second partition and rebooted to begin installation.
the boot seems ok, i can select by mouse or keyboard the OS boot partition and at the welcome page to select language i can't use keyboard nor mouse!!!! even if i change usb ports.
please help.

Pikify is designed for use on desktop-class MacPros. The MacMinis are effectively MacBooks wrapped in a different form factor (yes, I know I‘m probably oversimplifying!). As such there are a number of idiosyncrasies of the MacMini that Pikify does not cater for. USB is one of those idiosyncrasies...

There’s another thread that aims at the other platforms including the MacMinis. See https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/os-x-el-capitan-on-unsupported-macs.1889851/

 

[Lastic]

First and foremost , thanks for this excellent solution, my MacPro 1.1 has now been reinstated as my desktop machine with an 30" Cinema Display paired to it.

However all the graphics cards I own are old NVDIA's (due to better Linux support) , the currently installed Geforce 7300 glitches on El Capitan.

Would it be advisable to install an Radeon , like a 5770HD ? But which type ?

 

[rthpjm]

First and foremost , thanks for this excellent solution, my MacPro 1.1 has now been reinstated as my desktop machine with an 30" Cinema Display paired to it.

However all the graphics cards I own are old NVDIA's (due to better Linux support) , the currently installed Geforce 7300 glitches on El Capitan.

Would it be advisable to install an Radeon , like a 5770HD ? But which type ?

There are 3 “ages” of graphics cards when talking about the MacPro 1,1 / 2,1...

1. Older (incl. original) cards that work but do not support hardware acceleration. These cards work, but because El Capitan uses much more acceleration across the whole desktop experience, these older cards are acting as a drag on the perceived performance. The original 7300 struggles even with the Finder, when you drag windows around you’ll get tearing...
2. Cards from around the era of El Capitan that support acceleration AND provide ”boot screens”. These cards fall into two distinct groups. Original equipment from Apple and some mainstream vendors that specifically marketed Apple versions, AND off the shelf PC cards that can be re-flashed to include the original firmware + additional EFI firmware code. NOTE - THIS WAS THE ERA OF 32-bit EFI CODE. It’s the EFI portion of the firmware that allows the Mac EFI pre-boot environment to initialise the card and display the early boot screens.
3. Cards from around that era and later that came with 64-bit EFI firmware, or off the shelf PC Cards where there is no available 32-bit implementation of EFI that can be grafted on.

Cards from group 2 hit the sweet spot in my opinion. I have an XFX 5770 which the community (fl0rian IIRC) helped me with to get the EFI part patched and working. You’ll need to do some research. It’s pretty easy to track down the DIY information but I suggest you do some reading and try to get hold of an exact maker/model/revision of card that others have had success with. The greatest chance of success is to aim for a card family that Apple themselves shipped/supported in ANY Mac of the era if you want to try adding to the EFI code to a vanilla card. Or, there’s plenty of people selling “Apple compatible” cards online (they’ve usually just flashed the card with the extra EFI code because they can charge a premium for it). Take a look at netkas.org/forum/

Cards from group 3 will work great once Mac OS X is loaded. Most cards from most “families” will work out of the box, but they will not usually show the pre-boot screens. You can try to use the “fallback of last resort video” which is usually VGA. If your newer, really powerful gfx card has a physical VGA port (there won’t be many cards in this group with a physical VGA port - but I’ve learned to never say never!), or if you plug in a VGA adaptor to one of the digital ports, you “might” be lucky and find the video routing on the card will allow the fallback EFI video code to be displayed. Most people just put up with the blank screen until Mac OS X takes over. This group of cards will go all the way up to cards that were current around El Capitan and Sierra (perhaps High Sierra) it all comes down to the availability of drivers in El Capitan. I have an EVGA NVidia GTX 680 that falls into group 3, it works out of the box, no need to flash, just be patient with the black screen until Mac OS is loaded. The only caveat to this group 3 is that really new cards, especially if the gfx chipset family changed AFTER 10.11.6, may not have drivers. Remember El Capitan stopped being updated some time ago...

 

[Patrizio Cuccurullo]

Aiutami ti prego, ho un MacBook pro
17 Pollici, Core 2 duo
Processore 2,33 Ghz intel Core 2 duo
4GB 667 DDR 2
Grafica Ati radeon X1600 256 MB ( credo che qui c'è il problema)
Non riesco a fare nessuna procedura per aggiornare qualsiasi sistema che non sia il suo originale non più aggiornabile ( OS X Lion 10.7.5)
Mi potete aiutare ? Non conosco la lingua inglese ( solo italiano) ed uso traduttore google

Translation:
Please help me, I have a MacBook pro

17 Inch, Core 2 duo

2.33 Ghz processor Intel Core 2 duo

4GB 667 DDR 2

Graphics Ati radeon X1600 256 MB (I think there is a problem here)

I can't do any procedure to update any system other than its original no longer updatable (OS X Lion 10.7.5)

You can help me ? I don't know the English language (only Italian) and I use google translator

 

[rthpjm]

Aiutami ti prego, ho un MacBook pro
17 Pollici, Core 2 duo
Processore 2,33 Ghz intel Core 2 duo
4GB 667 DDR 2
Grafica Ati radeon X1600 256 MB ( credo che qui c'è il problema)
Non riesco a fare nessuna procedura per aggiornare qualsiasi sistema che non sia il suo originale non più aggiornabile ( OS X Lion 10.7.5)
Mi potete aiutare ? Non conosco la lingua inglese ( solo italiano) ed uso traduttore google

Translation:
Please help me, I have a MacBook pro

17 Inch, Core 2 duo

2.33 Ghz processor Intel Core 2 duo

4GB 667 DDR 2

Graphics Ati radeon X1600 256 MB (I think there is a problem here)

I can't do any procedure to update any system other than its original no longer updatable (OS X Lion 10.7.5)

You can help me ? I don't know the English language (only Italian) and I use google translator

Please read post number #4964 (3 posts up) above.

You can try to install Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan. That is as high as these CPUs can go.

It is difficult to get these MacBook devices to run El Capitan because of the graphics cards.

You might find it easier to aim for a full Windows installation or a Linux distribution...

 

[rthpjm]

It is a sad day for me. I have finally retired my MacPro 1,1. it will join the other retired Macs that I still own. There is a whole museum of Mac models in my attic space

I was waiting for the 2019 MacPro (7,1), but alas it was just too “Pro” and the associated cost is too high for me. I have therefore joined the ranks of the Hackintosh legions. I’ve built a beast of an AMD Ryzen 9 3900x system. Happily running Catalina.

I would like to say thank you to all the people who contributed to keeping the MacPro 1,1 and 2,1 machines running. Tiamo was the first developer of the custom boot.efi boot file and deserves great credit for showing the community that it could be done. Then Pike R Alpha (aka Pike) took up the baton to continue the development. Pike was /is an incredible programmer applying his Hackintosh skills to the continued development of the boot.efi files that kept our classic MacPros alive and usable well beyond everyone’s expectations. There was a whole host of other clever people that helped with the process of modifying the installer to build and work for the 1,1/1,2. (Mike, Peter, and everyone else, I salute you)

My MacPro 1,1: 2006 - 2020 Rest In Peace

Long live the MacPro 1,1!


It was really interesting, and I learned a great deal whilst I was involved.

Goodbye everyone...

 

[selfware]

Im confused as to upgrading form 10.10 to 10.11 on my mac pro 1,1
will this break my wifi? vid card?
what should i be cautious of?

 

[hwojtek]

Did you read the first post?

 

[Argyboy]

It is a sad day for me. I have finally retired my MacPro 1,1. it will join the other retired Macs that I still own. There is a whole museum of Mac models in my attic space

I was waiting for the 2019 MacPro (7,1), but alas it was just too “Pro” and the associated cost is too high for me. I have therefore joined the ranks of the Hackintosh legions. I’ve built a beast of an AMD Ryzen 9 3900x system. Happily running Catalina.

I would like to say thank you to all the people who contributed to keeping the MacPro 1,1 and 2,1 machines running. Tiamo was the first developer of the custom boot.efi boot file and deserves great credit for showing the community that it could be done. Then Pike R Alpha (aka Pike) took up the baton to continue the development. Pike was /is an incredible programmer applying his Hackintosh skills to the continued development of the boot.efi files that kept our classic MacPros alive and usable well beyond everyone’s expectations. There was a whole host of other clever people that helped with the process of modifying the installer to build and work for the 1,1/1,2. (Mike, Peter, and everyone else, I salute you)

My MacPro 1,1: 2006 - 2020 Rest In Peace

Long live the MacPro 1,1!


It was really interesting, and I learned a great deal whilst I was involved.

Goodbye everyone...

Just wanted to say thanks so much for all your support, tips and advice in this thread over the past few years. Your contributions really have been invaluable, and I hope you'll find a use for your 1,1 at some stage. Truly great machines!

Best wishes to you!

 

[Rocketman83]

i've tried several times now to install El Capitan on my 2007 Mac Pro 2,1. I had it installed and running well on this same machine for the past couple of years or so, but recently the drive it was installed on got corrupted and I had to re-partition it.

Anyway, this time around, I'm using the newest Pikify method (v. 14) to automate the install process with a copy of the El Capitan installer, version 10.11.0. The installer seems to run OK and says at the end that Pikify was successful, and to reboot. I reboot, and the installer screen comes up. I click on Continue, but after a short time, it fails with the following message:

"OSX could not be installed on your computer. No packages were eligible for install. Contact the manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again."

I'm not sure what the problem is. I downloaded El Cap as a dmg file, dragged the installer from Disk Utility into my Lion 10.7.5 Applications folder, and ran it from there. I'm attempting to install El Cap on a different internal drive than the one Lion is on.

I downloaded the Pikify app from this forum.

Please, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Macschrauber]

You can try to set the date back by one year, before 10-24-2019, might be a certificate issue. Also take care the mac dont resets the date by syncing with a time server. Pull the internet cable.

 

[Rocketman83]

You can try to set the date back by one year, before 10-24-2019, might be a certificate issue. Also take care the mac dont resets the date by syncing with a time server. Pull the internet cable.

Thanks, I'll try that. Although before my last attempt at installing El Cap, I did set the time back to 1/1/2017. But when I ran the Pikify script in Terminal, i got some error message about a time stamp issue, and that something was too far in the future. But I was still connected to the Internet, so disconnecting may solve that problem.

Also, I'm temporarily pulling my internal Bootcamp drive out of the machine before trying to install El Capitan again. Having it there may be causing confusion for the installer, especially since I have Paragon HFS+ installed on that Windows drive. In fact, I think it was that program that corrupted my original El Cap drive in the first place. Tried running First Aid on that El Cap drive with Disk Utility. It failed and corrupted the disk in the process.

 

[Rocketman83]

Setting back the time to before 10/24/2019, and disconnecting from the Internet, worked! Thank you so much, Macschrauber! El Capitan is installed and running well. One issue I had though was changing the time. In Terminal, I wasn't at first able to have root access using the "sudo -s" command while the date was set back. I kept getting that timestamp message about something being too far in the future. I temporarily reset the time to current, and typed again the "sudo -s" command which then allowed me to input my password. Then I disconnected from the Internet and manually set the time back to 10/23/2019. The Pikify process proceeded normally. Upon reboot, and with fingers crossed, El Capitan successfully completed installation.

I also installed Boot64 right afterward.

My only question now is, is it OK to update to the latest version of El Capitan from the App Store? The version I installed is 10.11.3. Is that security update that causes the boot-loop included with the 10.11.6 update?

 

[hwojtek]

Yes. You will need to replace the kernel.