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

[opresco]

finally...

Try building one from scratch on a 8GB partition on an internal hdd.

Dear Hennesie2000, I finally gave up trying the so-called "prepatched" file from Mega and, following your advice, I made it "the hard way", starting from a clean Yosemite installer. Your excellent tutorial guided me from start to finish: it worked flawlessly, thank you!

 

[opresco]

solved

Here is what I did:
1 drive bay/sled in bay 1 had my Mavericks OS on it
2 drive in bay 2 was a clean HPS formatted drive
2a bay 4 was my Time Machines Mavericks BU
3 with the machine booted up in Mavericks I downloaded the prepached Yosemite from Mega
4 I also downloaded the YoseFix file at this time just because the timing was convienent
5 while still running Mavericks I restored the Yosemite Installer to the blank drive in bay 2
6 I then shut the machine down and replaced the Mavericks start up drive with a freshly HPS partitioned drive
7 I booted the machine up with the Yosemite Installer that was in bay 2
8 the Installer ran and I told it to install Yosemite on the blank drive in bay 1
When it was done I ran the migration assistant from my time machine BU which was in bay 4 all this time.
That's it. I now have a clean install of Yosemite running on my 2.1 with all my data and apps migrated over.
It may have been a little longer than some in this forum have experience but it worked for me and I'm a happy camper! Don't forget to run the YoseFix BEFORE you run any OS updates.

Good Luck

Hi californian, congrats for the success and thanks for sharing. I finally stopped wasting time with the prepatched installer and decided to use Hennesie's tutorial instead. Now I have a brand new Yosemite 10.10.3 installed on a 1TB SSD (+ 2x2TB black WD HDD RAID) / 24 GB RAM / Radeon HD 5770 1GB, all these in an old Mac Pro 1,1

 

[Hennesie2000]

Hi californian, congrats for the success and thanks for sharing. I finally stopped wasting time with the prepatched installer and decided to use Hennesie's tutorial instead. Now I have a brand new Yosemite 10.10.3 installed on a 1TB SSD (+ 2x2TB black WD HDD RAID) / 24 GB RAM / Radeon HD 5770 1GB, all these in an old Mac Pro 1,1

I uploaded the pre parched installer for a few people but I would always recommend building it yourself. It seems something gets corrupted for some users when trying to download the patched installer. Starting with the Yosemite download direct from Apple is always better practice, even if it takes a little more effort.

 

[RobertJB]

All I got it to work.

it took some time and for the hack of it I still do not know what I did wrong the first 10 times.

In short what I did.

Made my internal HD in 3 partitions (8 Gb, 35 GB, 35 GB)
Did a clean install of 10.6 from DVD.
run all the updates.
Did a upgrade to 10.7 and run all the upgrades.

Copied the Yosemite installer from my MBP to the desktop of 10.7.5
Downloaded a older version of Pacifist.

Did every thing by the book (the manual)

try to restart with option key but the system would boot every time in 10.7.5

in 10.7.5 selected the Yosemite installation as startup disk and reboot.

and then it did what it needed to do.

I hope this does help to those who still have a problem.
I also made a document with screen shots so it is even more clear if required as the manual of hennsie2000 is already a beauty.

 

[RobertJB]

All,

As mentioned in the post yesterday I got it working and i'm really happy .
The Yosemite 10.10.3 boots from my SSD so much faster then Mav. did with the boot loader.

So far I see that every thing is working although i'm under the impression that sleep does not work!

is this a know issue and what could be the cause of this?
With a booting time of 15 sec sleep could not bee a real issue but it would be nice to safe energy when the MP is not performing a task.

thanks,

 

[jonnyice]

Ok, I hate feel dumb & helpless but I'm at that point! My 1.1/2.1 was running Yosemite flawlessly on an SSD boot drive. I used the pre patched download and crested USB boot drive and it worked super easy first time around. Now I think my computer is just falling apart! I did the upgrade (ill advised move) and everything was still going ok. All of a sudden about a week ago I was using google maps and the screen froze with a couple pink specs all around. I rebooted and it worked fine. Now after the last screen freeze I can't get her back! The progress bar goes about 1/8 the way and it restarts. Continuous loop. I tried booting to the USB and it gets to the same point in progress bar and just hangs. Oddly after a couple of minutes I hear through my headphones "to continue in English press return" but my screen is still at the stuck progress bar. I tried resetting the pram yesterday and now my video card only displays to my secondary monitor and still only gets to that one point on progress bar. Is my video card possibly shot? Or SSD gonezo?
I my video card is the geoforce with dual DVI. I can't remember the model, maybe 880? I got it from apple care years ago when the stock one died. Any help is great appreciated, thanks

 

[MacVidCards]

Sounds like bad 8800GT

MIGHT be able to bake it back to life

Worth some googling

Might also try a safe boot to see if you can get to desktop

 

[jonnyice]

Sounds like bad 8800GT

MIGHT be able to bake it back to life

Worth some googling

Might also try a safe boot to see if you can get to desktop

Looks like things are about to get warm in my house! Any suggestions on a simple plug n play video card for this setup otherwise? Just looking for this to work, not any super performance.

 

[Hennesie2000]

Looks like things are about to get warm in my house! Any suggestions on a simple plug n play video card for this setup otherwise? Just looking for this to work, not any super performance.

If you are looking for something simple with a boot screen, I suggest an ATI 2600XT. Without a boot screen it could be as simple as a Nvidia GT 610.

 

[sweetspud]

righteous

Gun'na toss this out (again!):

My 2006 Mac Pro formally 1,1 (now 2,1), "B00" with dual octo core 5355's is running the latest Yosemite as well as a brand new Mac Pro tower.

I just did a minor DiskWarrior tune-up and this thing is... amazing!!

Big thanks again to all that have contributed!!

Mr. Zarniwoop, oemden.com, Hennesie2000 etc...etc.

Personally, I'm too dumb to keep up with who deserves credit! Whoever I've left out, please forgive me. Maybe someone who knows better, can pile-on with additional credits...

These guys are world heavy weight champs at what they do!! And... for little recognition/remuneration!

Thank you ALL!!

Still stoked!!

Sincerely!!

sweetspud

 

[joot]

Can someone tell me what is causing the error below and how do I fix this error? I have a 2006 Mac Pro with 2,1 firmware and 8800gtx video card. Boot using the "boot.efi" method with Yosemite 10.10.3.

 

[Hwidow]

Long pre-boot

Successfully installed Yosemite and updated to 10.10.3 on Mac Pro (flashed) 2.1 via another laptop then manually replacing the boot.efi and other files. Works ok so far, but only thing I couldn't figure is why it stays so long (over 2mins) on pre boot white screen before black apple boot screen starts. Tried everything known, reselect boot drive in system prefs, reset PRAM, delete kext caches and run few other scripts... nothing helps. Whats weird, when I boot back to (remaining) OS X Lion partition it boots quickly, then when booting back to Yosemite from Lion it boots quickly or much quicker, same is when I hold Alt while booting and select Yosemite drive. But if I start booting or restart from Yosemite I get this 2 mins long pre-boot white screen. Any ideas?

P.S: I'm not on SSD, standard 7200 rpm hard drive here

 

[gulufo]

Ok, I hate feel dumb & helpless but I'm at that point! My 1.1/2.1 was running Yosemite flawlessly on an SSD boot drive. I used the pre patched download and crested USB boot drive and it worked super easy first time around. Now I think my computer is just falling apart! I did the upgrade (ill advised move) and everything was still going ok. All of a sudden about a week ago I was using google maps and the screen froze with a couple pink specs all around. I rebooted and it worked fine. Now after the last screen freeze I can't get her back! The progress bar goes about 1/8 the way and it restarts. Continuous loop. I tried booting to the USB and it gets to the same point in progress bar and just hangs. Oddly after a couple of minutes I hear through my headphones "to continue in English press return" but my screen is still at the stuck progress bar. I tried resetting the pram yesterday and now my video card only displays to my secondary monitor and still only gets to that one point on progress bar. Is my video card possibly shot? Or SSD gonezo?
I my video card is the geoforce with dual DVI. I can't remember the model, maybe 880? I got it from apple care years ago when the stock one died. Any help is great appreciated, thanks

This happened to me several time and it's NOT the video card.
Try setting you your mac BLINDLY and then reboot and you will be all ok.

Also/ OR you may try unplugging ALL usb(s) during installation except keyboard and mouse obviously.

----------

Successfully installed Yosemite and updated to 10.10.3 on Mac Pro (flashed) 2.1 via another laptop then manually replacing the boot.efi and other files. Works ok so far, but only thing I couldn't figure is why it stays so long (over 2mins) on pre boot white screen before black apple boot screen starts. Tried everything known, reselect boot drive in system prefs, reset PRAM, delete kext caches and run few other scripts... nothing helps. Whats weird, when I boot back to (remaining) OS X Lion partition it boots quickly, then when booting back to Yosemite from Lion it boots quickly or much quicker, same is when I hold Alt while booting and select Yosemite drive. But if I start booting or restart from Yosemite I get this 2 mins long pre-boot white screen. Any ideas?

P.S: I'm not on SSD, standard 7200 rpm hard drive here

Unplug your usb (time machine or others), it's waiting on it.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Been reading about RAID experiences for the past few minutes. Some idiot at work decided to let my 1,1 update itself while I was out of the office, and now it "doesn't work." Turns out it's booting into the Lion Recovery. I walked someone through replacing the two boot.efi files, but apparently that's not doing the trick. Yosemite is running off of RAID 1, any recommendations? Then again, I haven't had a chance to look at the machine firsthand...

 

[spetznatz]

Thought I'd give this a go... worked like a charm! Hardest thing about the whole process was upgrading one of the hard drives on my Mac Pro to snow leopard 10.6.8… That was like pulling teeth…

Anyway, did the first Yosemite upgrade, then installed the YoseFix script, Then upgraded 10.10.3…

The only real glitch was no sound after the first Yosemite install. A bit of googling reveals that the update can sometimes switch the sound output preferences. I just switch sound output in System Preferences back to internal speakers, and all was well…

A really, really big THANK YOU to everyone who put so much hard work into this. Your efforts are greatly appreciated, and also show that Apple could easily have made these Machines run later operating systems, but chose, instead, to turn them into obsolete doorstops.

Can't seem to find a link on Pike's page to donate… would like to show my appreciation…

And I'll have to change my signature...

[/URL]

 

[eyseman]

Asus 7750 1GB DDR 5 Graphics Issues w/ 10.10.3 - solved

In case anyone is still needing this hint:

I experienced weird graphics issues with my AMD (ATI) card after I updated to 10.10.3. After some research a came accross this post:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/161511-radeon-hd-7750-xfx-glitchy-after-10-10-3-update.html

Thanks to @JayBIOS2 for sharing.

I did not need to use the boot flags though. I started the machine with my old genuine mac graphics card. I modified the file as described in the post above and re-injected the kext with kext utility. I shutdown the machine, replaced the graphics card with my Asus 7750 1GB DDR5 and rebooted.

Works like charme again

I attached the utility tool as well as the already modified kext in case anyone needs it.

Best,
eyseman

 

[sumer]

In case anyone is still needing this hint:

I experienced weird graphics issues with my AMD (ATI) card after I updated to 10.10.3. After some research a came accross this post:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/161511-radeon-hd-7750-xfx-glitchy-after-10-10-3-update.html

Thanks to @JayBIOS2 for sharing.

I did not need to use the boot flags though. I started the machine with my old genuine mac graphics card. I modified the file as described in the post above and re-injected the kext with kext utility. I shutdown the machine, replaced the graphics card with my Asus 7750 1GB DDR5 and rebooted.

Works like charme again

I attached the utility tool as well as the already modified kext in case anyone needs it.

Best,
eyseman

Thanks for posting this. I experienced the same thing. Someone should have attached the modified kext on that site. I'm curious to know if the kext will stick on 10.10.4 update.

Cheers

 

[SuperKerem]

Will I be able to use a Nvidia GTX 970 with Yosemite? Will it have the Apple boot screen? Thanks.

 

[Hennesie2000]

Will I be able to use a Nvidia GTX 970 with Yosemite? Will it have the Apple boot screen? Thanks.

Yes you can use it but since there is no native support for Maxwell based cards in Yosemite you have to use the Nvidia Web Drivers. No you will not have a boot screen.

If you want to run a Maxwell card you are probably better off using Clover to boot Yosemite. You would actually have a boot screen then and you could use the boot flag nv_disable=1 if anything went wrong and you needed to get to the desktop.

 

[SuperKerem]

Yes you can use it but since there is no native support for Maxwell based cards in Yosemite you have to use the Nvidia Web Drivers. No you will not have a boot screen.

If you want to run a Maxwell card you are probably better off using Clover to boot Yosemite. You would actually have a boot screen then and you could use the boot flag nv_disable=1 if anything went wrong and you needed to get to the desktop.

What are the Nvidia web drivers? I'm guessing they are just normal downloadable drivers, right? (the word 'Web' put me off)
Isn't Clover what Hackintoshes use?
Will using it impact the capability and performance of the MP once booted?
This makes stuff even more complicated because I have to change the Mac's boot.efi because natively 2006 MPs don't support Yosemite without a tweak. Surely using Clover will not have this patch and therefore will prevent the MP from booting Yosemite?

 

[Hennesie2000]

What are the Nvidia web drivers? I'm guessing they are just normal downloadable drivers, right? (the word 'Web' put me off)

Yes you can download them directly from the NVIDIA website. NVIDIA calls them web drivers.

Isn't Clover what Hackintoshes use?

Clover will work fine with a Mac Pro as well. I used it along with many others in this thread before the boot.efi method was finished.

Will using it impact the capability and performance of the MP once booted?

Nope, but boot times will be a bit longer because it has to boot in legacy mode.

This makes stuff even more complicated because I have to change the Mac's boot.efi because natively 2006 MPs don't support Yosemite without a tweak. Surely using Clover will not have this patch and therefore will prevent the MP from booting Yosemite?

Clover takes care of booting the stock boot.efi file so you don't have to worry about the boot.efi file posted here to run Yosemite on a 1,1 or 2,1.

 

[SuperKerem]

Yes you can download them directly from the NVIDIA website. NVIDIA calls them web drivers.


Clover will work fine with a Mac Pro as well. I used it along with many others in this thread before the boot.efi method was finished.


Nope, but boot times will be a bit longer because it has to boot in legacy mode.


Clover takes care of booting the stock boot.efi file so you don't have to worry about the boot.efi file posted here to run Yosemite on a 1,1 or 2,1.

Wow, you've answered all my questions. Except (edit) five... How will the Nvidia card be powered? I.E. Will it plug into the PSU?

Can you set the Mac to not show the Clover screen on bootup so that it looks like a legit Mac instead of a hackintosh?

If using an SSD, will the increase in boot times be noticeable? And if I use Clover will I be able to update easily?

And finally, will the Quad Xeon in the 2006 MP hold back gaming performance and prevent it from running modern games maxed out? After all, the GTX is far more than capable from running these games.

 

[Hennesie2000]

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

Wow, you've answered all my questions. Except (edit) three... How will the Nvidia card be powered? I.E. Will it plug into the PSU?

Some GTX 970s use 2 6pin power cables and have a TDP far below 225W. You will have to get the two PCIe power cables for a Mac Pro if you don't already have them. Avoid a GTX 970 that has any 8pin power connections.

If using an SSD, will the increase in boot times be noticeable? And if I use Clover will I be able to update easily?

An SSD will help but you still have to boot Clover before you can boot OS X.

And technically another question, but can you set the Mac to not show the Clover screen on bootup so that it looks like a legit Mac instead of a hackintosh?

Yes use the mlcamp2 theme.

And finally, will the Quad Xeon in the 2006 MP hold back gaming performance and prevent it from running modern games maxed out? After all, the GTX is far more than capable from running these games.

Yes the CPU will be a bottle neck along with the PCIe Gen1 slot. The 970 is a PCIe Gen3 card. Essentially it will be like running it in a 4x Gen3 slot in terms of bandwidth available.

 

[SuperKerem]

Some GTX 970s use 2 6pin power cables and have a TDP far below 225W. You will have to get the two PCIe power cables for a Mac Pro if you don't already have them. Avoid a GTX 970 that has any 8pin power connections.


An SSD will help but you still have to boot Clover before you can boot OS X.


Yes use the mlcamp2 theme.




Yes the CPU will be a bottle neck along with the PCIe Gen1 slot. The 970 is a PCIe Gen3 card. Essentially it will be like running it in a 4x Gen3 slot in terms of bandwidth available.

Thanks for all the help! You really know your stuff

Was PCIe Gen 2 first incorporated in the 2008 or 2009 Mac Pros? Is it worth spending an extra £100-200 for PCIe Gen 2? And how much of a performance difference will it be in percentages? 20-50% worse? Also, how/where do the power cables plug in? Are there multiple power ports on the Mac Pro motherboard?

Finally, do you have a specific favourite theme for Clover (Bootcamp style) as I've found dozens of them! I would prefer to just skip the Clover screen and just boot into OS X, but I don't know if that's possible. (Can't you press the option key as usual to select Windows?)

Sorry for all these questions but they have been in the back of my mind for ages! Seriously, you have been SO helpful!

 

[Hennesie2000]

Thanks for all the help! You really know your stuff

Was PCIe Gen 2 first incorporated in the 2008 or 2009 Mac Pros? Is it worth spending an extra £100-200 for PCIe Gen 2? And how much of a performance difference will it be in percentages? 20-50% worse?

I ran a GTX 570 in my Mac Pro for a long time. It is a very good and balanced card that still falls under the 225W TDP limit. Gen1 PCIex16 is similar to Gen2 PCIex8. There really isn't much of a performance hit when going from x16 to x8 in gaming. Even the latest Z97 boards only have one PCIex16 Gen3 lane and run SLI in dual x8 mode.

With a GTX 570 I could play BF3 with mostly high or ultra settings, no AA Post or HBAO and I would average around 50FPS. When I upgraded my processors to dual x5365's I only saw a 5-10FPS boost. It is hard to say what kind of percentage hit you will see. Your best bet is to look at benchmarks online. I know there are some comparing the performance of Gen2 vs Gen3.

If you are looking for a good no fuss card that doesn't require any Web Drivers (still no boot screen though) then a GTX 570 is a good choice.

Also, how/where do the power cables plug in? Are there multiple power ports on the Mac Pro motherboard?

The power cabled plug into the board just behind the front fan assembly. You will have to remove the fan assembly and HDDs 2 and 3 to install the cables.

http://www.amazon.com/Mini-pcie-Mac...7965&sr=8-1&keywords=mac+pro+pcie+power+cable

Finally, do you have a specific favourite theme for Clover (Bootcamp style) as I've found dozens of them! I would prefer to just skip the Clover screen and just boot into OS X, but I don't know if that's possible. (Can't you press the option key as usual to select Windows?)

Like is said use mlcamp2 for the theme that is closest to the default OS X boot screen. You can skip clover but if something goes wrong and it starts to KP or boot loop you won't be able to change anything. You can set clover to boot to OS X automatically after 1 second though. You won't be pressing an option key at all. Here is my boot screen on my Hackintosh using the mlcamp2 theme:

I have mine set to time out after 3 seconds and auto boot to Yosemite.