Resolved 2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X Yosemite

[pixxelpusher]

So I've been using the Yosemite on my Mac Pro 1.1 since release thanks to SFOTT beta ran into one problem in installation quickly figured out that using the Startup Disk in system Pref's and not using the ALT boot it would boot straight into the installer no problem.
now there has been a long standing issue with the audio jack on the back my problem is it works in windows but not OSX 10.10 or 10.10.1 i haven't yet tried 10.10.2 so currently for sound im using the front audio jack witch dosent look very appealing to be honest but I'll be buying a sound card so that should solve that issue.
I was able to do a straight update from the App Store for 10.10 to 10.10.1 which was pretty amazing usually I'm use to making a new patched OS for and updates but yea just updates as normal great job on that one.
I got curios with GPU's recently and with the Nvidia GTX 900 series been realest i thought it was a perfect time to upgrade from my old two EVGA GTX 660 2GB SC to something a bit beefier so I bought a EVGA GTX 980 SC 4GB card and 1st problem i ran into in 10.10 i couldn't get the HDMI to work but in windows work perfectly so I'v decided to stick with the DVI to HDMI no noticeable loose of quality in games but not really my first choose and i don't have any display cables so i cant test to see if they work but anyways the main stuff works full CUDA support the Nvidia Drivers work fully but i think they are under-clocking the card cause games that work amazingly in window 8.1 in 4k (bootcamp) struggle with 1080p in OS X.
since the GPU upgrade tearing in launchpad has totally disappeared everything is so smooth

so would I still recommend the BETA absolutely in a hart beat even though its in beta and the problems I've run into I has totally beard new life in my Mac Pro 1.1 and its brilliant to see people try and figure out how a Machine form 2006 can even Handle the 980 let alone out 4k games at 60-80 FPS and all my games are maxed settings

http://www.modsrigs.com/detail.aspx?BuildID=34609

Hi, currently looking at upgrades in my 2006 MP and am thinking about a card like yours. Can you put some more benchmarks up over in this GPU thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1685478/ Something like LuxMark Sala / Heaven / Valley would be great.

 

[rvgulik]

I didn't use a boot drive on the Xserve. I have a 1,1 already running the modified Yosemite, I just cloned the drive. The issue I had was that the system wouldn't boot with a PCIe GPU, which apparently a few others saw as well. Fortunately, Lion does as much as I need.

OK, i am getting a bit further, i did the following :

1. I re-downloaded Yosemite 10.10.2 from the appstore.

2. Just to make sure the USB drive didn't have any issues i created a boot disk with DiskMaker X. Everything went fine. Then i booted a MacBook Air from that USB stick and it starts the installer. This is great because now i know that there is nothing wrong with the USB stick.

3. Because this was booting, it was easier to change the files and replace the boot.efi

4. So i changed everything according to hennesie2000 manual.

5. It didn't boot.

6. Put back the original boot.efi and it booted again.

Now i am wondering if the boot.efi files are ok or has it something to do with rights or whatsoever. Clearly i am missing something, i both tried the grey and black version.

The only thing i can think of at this moment is that i am using 10.10.2.

 

[NOTNlCE]

OK, i am getting a bit further, i did the following :

1. I re-downloaded Yosemite 10.10.2 from the appstore.

2. Just to make sure the USB drive didn't have any issues i created a boot disk with DiskMaker X. Everything went fine. Then i booted a MacBook Air from that USB stick and it starts the installer. This is great because now i know that there is nothing wrong with the USB stick.

3. Because this was booting, it was easier to change the files and replace the boot.efi

4. So i changed everything according to hennesie2000 manual.

5. It didn't boot.

6. Put back the original boot.efi and it booted again.

Now i am wondering if the boot.efi files are ok or has it something to do with rights or whatsoever. Clearly i am missing something, i both tried the grey and black version.

The only thing i can think of at this moment is that i am using 10.10.2.

1. What is happening when you boot in Verbose mode? (Plug a display into your Xserve via the built in GPU and hold Command+V at startup.)

2. Do you have a PCIe GPU installed or any PCIe cards at all? My Xserve won't boot the modified boot.efi with a PCIe GPU, but works fine without one.

 

[rvgulik]

1. What is happening when you boot in Verbose mode? (Plug a display into your Xserve via the built in GPU and hold Command+V at startup.)

2. Do you have a PCIe GPU installed or any PCIe cards at all? My Xserve won't boot the modified boot.efi with a PCIe GPU, but works fine without one.

I do have an additional network card in there, tomorrow i will take it out and try again.

 

[rvgulik]

1. What is happening when you boot in Verbose mode? (Plug a display into your Xserve via the built in GPU and hold Command+V at startup.)

2. Do you have a PCIe GPU installed or any PCIe cards at all? My Xserve won't boot the modified boot.efi with a PCIe GPU, but works fine without one.

On the other hand what i could do is to take out a drive from the xserve connect it to my macbook and install Yosemite on that drive, then afterwards replace the boot.efi. Now my question is : do i only need to replace the boot.efi?

 

[NOTNlCE]

On the other hand what i could do is to take out a drive from the xserve connect it to my macbook and install Yosemite on that drive, then afterwards replace the boot.efi. Now my question is : do i only need to replace the boot.efi?

Yes - there is a spot in this thread where MacVidCards explains that installing on a supported machine and simply modifying the two boot.efi files is by far the easiest way to install Yosemite on an unsupported Mac. Just those two boot.efi files need to be replaced, and it should be alright. No package modification or string injection like creating the installer.

 

[rvgulik]

Yes - there is a spot in this thread where MacVidCards explains that installing on a supported machine and simply modifying the two boot.efi files is by far the easiest way to install Yosemite on an unsupported Mac. Just those two boot.efi files need to be replaced, and it should be alright. No package modification or string injection like creating the installer.

OK thanks, then i will go with that approach and i will take out the additional network card just to be sure. And NOTNICE thanks again for your input i will keep you posted.

 

[MacVidCards]

Yes - there is a spot in this thread where MacVidCards explains that installing on a supported machine and simply modifying the two boot.efi files is by far the easiest way to install Yosemite on an unsupported Mac. Just those two boot.efi files need to be replaced, and it should be alright. No package modification or string injection like creating the installer.

Yeah, I sometimes feel like I am beating my head on a wall. So many people buggering up their only Lion install then staring at a black screen or broken mav/yose install come here wringing their hands, begging for help while unable to figure out what they broke.

I did the install on a 3,1. Used startup disk to reboot 3,1 from another partition, replaced the files (2) and repaired permissions. Moved drive to 2,1 and ran the piker boot fixer that copies the EFI at every boot. Never had a lick of trouble, 10.10.2 update ran as smoothly as on 5,1. I didn't have to think of it.

And if I ever have trouble I just hold "alt" (option) and I can choose another OS to boot from.

A 1,1/2,1 can hold 8 (count'em) drives. Why oh why are people setting them up with a single, solitary working OS? Insane. Find a $5 old drive and keep a working OS on it.

Reading these threads reminds me that sometimes humans need to make a simple process infinitely complicated to give themselves something to do.

 

[rvgulik]

Yeah, I sometimes feel like I am beating my head on a wall. So many people buggering up their only Lion install then staring at a black screen or broken mav/yose install come here wringing their hands, begging for help while unable to figure out what they broke.

I did the install on a 3,1. Used startup disk to reboot 3,1 from another partition, replaced the files (2) and repaired permissions. Moved drive to 2,1 and ran the piker boot fixer that copies the EFI at every boot. Never had a lick of trouble, 10.10.2 update ran as smoothly as on 5,1. I didn't have to think of it.

And if I ever have trouble I just hold "alt" (option) and I can choose another OS to boot from.

A 1,1/2,1 can hold 8 (count'em) drives. Why oh why are people setting them up with a single, solitary working OS? Insane. Find a $5 old drive and keep a working OS on it.

Reading these threads reminds me that sometimes humans need to make a simple process infinitely complicated to give themselves something to do.

First of all i do understand your frustration but,

I didn't screwup my lion install because it is on a different drive,
Begging for help? I've playing around for a couple of days trying to get this running and reading this forum over and over. Then i decided to ask for help tips and whatsoever.
If it is not running on my xserve then it is ok but i am not giving up so that's why i am trying everything.
Don't forget there are a lot of users that don't have the knowledge that you or any other respectable forum user has. And you're help is greatly appreciated but on the other hand we are here to help each other and i hope i'll get it working so that i can help others that's my main goal.

 

[MacVidCards]

First of all i do understand your frustration but,

I didn't screwup my lion install because it is on a different drive,
Begging for help? I've playing around for a couple of days trying to get this running and reading this forum over and over. Then i decided to ask for help tips and whatsoever.
If it is not running on my xserve then it is ok but i am not giving up so that's why i am trying everything.
Don't forget there are a lot of users that don't have the knowledge that you or any other respectable forum user has. And you're help is greatly appreciated but on the other hand we are here to help each other and i hope i'll get it working so that i can help others that's my main goal.

My words weren't targeted at you in particular.

There is MUCH drama in this thread and quite a lot of it could've been avoided very easily.

If X-Serves are having other issues perhaps there should be a separate thread for them. I have never played with one so I have no knowledge.

My comments specifically refer to 1,1 and 2,1 running either Mav or Yose, both of which can now be done with greatest of ease thanks to hard work of 4 or 5 people. (Not patting myself on back, I didnt do work)

 

[rvgulik]

My words weren't targeted at you in particular.

There is MUCH drama in this thread and quite a lot of it could've been avoided very easily.

If X-Serves are having other issues perhaps there should be a separate thread for them. I have never played with one so I have no knowledge.

My comments specifically refer to 1,1 and 2,1 running either Mav or Yose, both of which can now be done with greatest of ease thanks to hard work of 4 or 5 people. (Not patting myself on back, I didnt do work)

No problem its OK.

These are mine findings and please correct me if i did something wrong.

1. Took out a drive from the server
2. Connected the drive to my MacBook Pro
3. Installed Yosemite 10.10 (NOT 10.10.2) on that harddisk
4. Booted from that drive while connected to the MacBook
5. Everything boots fine
6. Installed the script which replaces the boot.efi (didn't replace the boot.efi after install).
7. Connected the drive to the xserve (through firewire or else i needed to use the drive tray).
8. Didn't boot so i booted with command-V and the system gave me the message that this board-ID wasn't supported.
9. Connected the drive to my MacBook and added the board-ID to the plist file in the coreservices directory.
10. Connected the drive to the xserve again and it booted with Yosemite!
11. Screen output very very slow but ok for now.
12. I did a stupid thing, i think, by reinstalling the script.
13. rebooted the system and it didn't boot
14. booted with cmd-v and the system wanted to boot from the restore partition which doesn't have the modified boot.efi ofcourse.

Should i start over or is there an easy way out?
And can i do something about the ****** display? Does it affect the speed of the system because i am using those servers headless anyway?

 

[NOTNlCE]

Should i start over or is there an easy way out?
And can i do something about the ****** display? Does it affect the speed of the system because i am using those servers headless anyway?

The graphics issue is well known. There are no kernel extensions for the built in Xserve GPU in Yosemite. To skirt this, you will NEED to use a PCIe Graphics Card in order to have graphics acceleration on the Xserve. This is where I, too, have my issue. My Xserve will not boot Yosemite while the PCIe GPU is installed, a must for real usability using the OS.

It depends on HOW you are using your headless server. If you don't need to Screen Share or VNC into the server, I would give it a shot and see how it does. If the graphics issues are causing a hassle, a PC GPU that does not take any external power (I use a GeForce 405 and a Radeon 6450 in my 1,1 Mac Pro) is an easy way to fix the graphics problem.

As far as your drive issue goes, I would just start from the beginning and redo what you did to get the drive to boot in the Xserve. That'll be moving forward, instead of retracing your steps figuring out where you went wrong, if you get my gist. Hopefully, you'll be alright with a PCIe GPU should you need it. There are a couple other reports of people having a similar issue with Mac Pros and the modified boot.efi for Yosemite, which is why I keep an eye on this thread, should it eventually get resolved.

Glad to hear you've had your success.

 

[MacVidCards]

Hmm...when you say "PCIE GPU" do you mean a specific one?

For most vanilla 1,1/2,1 Mav/Yose installs we have been doing a GT120 EFI32. It is a basic card that is a basic replacement for a 7300GT. No speed demon of any sort but has driver support from 10.5-10.10 so a good card in a 1,1/2,1 for many basic things and can be booted back into earlier OSs with ease.

The early X-Serve had a very strange X1300. Strange in that like the X1900XT for 1,1 it lacks any PC BIOS. They were the only true EFI ONLY cards made for Macs. Right after this Apple decided to stop swimming against the current and included a PC BIOS to run most of card with the EFI only providing boot stuff. (The 1,1/2,1 firmware has an ugly kludge...every 1,1 and 2,1 on the planet carries inside it the PC BIOS of a 2006 X1900XT. I guess they realized they couldn't put every GPU BIOS in their firmware into the future...although it certainly would have limited upgrades)

So the X-Serve would be unique as they weren't ever designed to have "upgrades" in GPU. In any case, what other cards have you guys tried? A 2600XT should work or one of our EFI32 GT120s.

If there is someone in LA with one of these troublesome X-Serves I would be willing to loan out some test cards to solve this dilemma and help everyone out.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Hmm...when you say "PCIE GPU" do you mean a specific one?

For most vanilla 1,1/2,1 Mav/Yose installs we have been doing a GT120 EFI32. It is a basic card that is a basic replacement for a 7300GT. No speed demon of any sort but has driver support from 10.5-10.10 so a good card in a 1,1/2,1 for many basic things and can be booted back into earlier OSs with ease.

Always love to learn from you, MVC. I've only used PC cards, and the issue is only under Yosemite. At one point in time, I had Yosemite booted up using a Radeon 6450. That's since been moved to my 1,1 Mac Pro, and my spare GeForce 405 is what's currently in the Xserve. Oddly, it boots Lion fine and fully recognizes the GPU. I have the old 7300 GT that came with the 1,1 when I bought it that I can try.

I wonder if having the X1300 attached to a display is preventing the Xserve EFI from loading the PC BIOS of the PCIe GPU while booting the modified boot.efi. I have the afternoon off tomorrow, hopefully we can shed some light. On that note, however, I don't actually have any more non-powered GPUs to test, especially not any with native OS X EFI so I can get a boot screen. Thanks as always for your input. I'll report back with what I find.

-N

 

[rvgulik]

Hmm...when you say "PCIE GPU" do you mean a specific one?

For most vanilla 1,1/2,1 Mav/Yose installs we have been doing a GT120 EFI32. It is a basic card that is a basic replacement for a 7300GT. No speed demon of any sort but has driver support from 10.5-10.10 so a good card in a 1,1/2,1 for many basic things and can be booted back into earlier OSs with ease.

The early X-Serve had a very strange X1300. Strange in that like the X1900XT for 1,1 it lacks any PC BIOS. They were the only true EFI ONLY cards made for Macs. Right after this Apple decided to stop swimming against the current and included a PC BIOS to run most of card with the EFI only providing boot stuff. (The 1,1/2,1 firmware has an ugly kludge...every 1,1 and 2,1 on the planet carries inside it the PC BIOS of a 2006 X1900XT. I guess they realized they couldn't put every GPU BIOS in their firmware into the future...although it certainly would have limited upgrades)

So the X-Serve would be unique as they weren't ever designed to have "upgrades" in GPU. In any case, what other cards have you guys tried? A 2600XT should work or one of our EFI32 GT120s.

If there is someone in LA with one of these troublesome X-Serves I would be willing to loan out some test cards to solve this dilemma and help everyone out.

Those cards are strange indeed i did a new install of yosemite on the xserve and it would run once. After the reboot it wouldn't start and give me again that the system didn't support yosemite on the restore drive. I think that the graphic adapter is the suspect.
So i leave the xserve on lion for now and see if i can get a GT120 card.
I guess i can remove the x1300 from the xserve and insert the GT120 card.
What are your thoughts?

 

[NOTNlCE]

Those cards are strange indeed i did a new install of yosemite on the xserve and it would run once. After the reboot it wouldn't start and give me again that the system didn't support yosemite on the restore drive. I think that the graphic adapter is the suspect.
So i leave the xserve on lion for now and see if i can get a GT120 card.
I guess i can remove the x1300 from the xserve and insert the GT120 card.
What are your thoughts?

The X1300 is not a removable card; it is built into the Xserve. What drive are you inserting into the Xserve that it's telling you it's unsupported? Did you create an Install Drive or an actual Yosemite install? I've never seen that error message.

 

[rvgulik]

The X1300 is not a removable card; it is built into the Xserve. What drive are you inserting into the Xserve that it's telling you it's unsupported? Did you create an Install Drive or an actual Yosemite install? I've never seen that error message.

It is an original drive which i took out of the xserve and connected through firwire with my mavbook. I did a complete install of Yosemite.
Then i changed the platformsupport.plist, installed the bootfix script.
Connected it back to the xserve and it boots into yosemite. To make sure everything is working i rebooted the system and i get this error :
boot file path: \com.apple.recovery.boot\boot.efi this version is not supported on this platform Reason: Mac-F42289C8

it looks like it wants to boot from the recovery

 

[Hennesie2000]

It is an original drive which i took out of the xserve and connected through firwire with my mavbook. I did a complete install of Yosemite.
Then i changed the platformsupport.plist, installed the bootfix script.
Connected it back to the xserve and it boots into yosemite. To make sure everything is working i rebooted the system and i get this error :
boot file path: \com.apple.recovery.boot\boot.efi this version is not supported on this platform Reason: Mac-F42289C8

it looks like it wants to boot from the recovery

Are you manually replacing the two boot.efi files after doing the install from the MacBook or just relying on the script to replace them on the reboot?

 

[rvgulik]

Are you manually replacing the two boot.efi files after doing the install from the MacBook or just relying on the script to replace them on the reboot?

i did only the script. i guess i should replace them manually, tomorrow i will replace them manually. Can i do it the way you explained in your guide and also use the links in your post?

 

[Hennesie2000]

i did only the script. i guess i should replace them manually, tomorrow i will replace them manually. Can i do it the way you explained in your guide and also use the links in your post?

Yes you can do that. They will be in the same locations.

 

[rvgulik]

Yes you can do that. They will be in the same locations.

ok so unlock one boot.efi replace the file and replace the other one in the usr directory. After that boot from that drive?

 

[Hennesie2000]

ok so unlock one boot.efi replace the file and replace the other one in the usr directory. After that boot from that drive?

Yes.

On another note, since you are installing from the MacBook I don't think that your RecoveryHD partition will boot because it would have been installed using the stock boot.efi files. When you build the installer using the Pike boot.efi it also creates the RecoveryHD using the Pike boot.efi.

 

[rvgulik]

Yes.

On another note, since you are installing from the MacBook I don't think that your RecoveryHD partition will boot because it would have been installed using the stock boot.efi files. When you build the installer using the Pike boot.efi it also creates the RecoveryHD using the Pike boot.efi.

ok i got that i've done that the first time and created an installer with 10.10.2 but that didn't work out, also had a lot trouble booting the usb.
So i am going to try this with the 10.10 version and see how it works out.

 

[Hennesie2000]

ok i got that i've done that the first time and created an installer with 10.10.2 but that didn't work out, also had a lot trouble booting the usb.
So i am going to try this with the 10.10 version and see how it works out.

You can always build the installer on an 8GB partition on the HDD you want to do the install. That way you also have that to fall back on if you have issues with the actual install as well.

 

[rvgulik]

You can always build the installer on an 8GB partition on the HDD you want to do the install. That way you also have that to fall back on if you have issues with the actual install as well.

thx now i feel really stupid that i didn't think of that approach.