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2nd Mac Pro bricked by an Apple update
- Thread starter Plutonius
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ok, the maker says it has to stay plugged in.
But has someone tried a firmware restoration with a matt card by pulling the card at the right moment ?
Or with Flashrom or Dosdudes RomTool (whats a GUI for Flashrom after all) ?
If that works I think about buying one for my emergency toolkit, if not extern programming the flash is more handy.
Alex, what do you think happens when ripping off the card on the Frank Connector, does the system uses the onboard flash or has it to be reset in some order ?
But has someone tried a firmware restoration with a matt card by pulling the card at the right moment ?
Or with Flashrom or Dosdudes RomTool (whats a GUI for Flashrom after all) ?
If that works I think about buying one for my emergency toolkit, if not extern programming the flash is more handy.
Alex, what do you think happens when ripping off the card on the Frank Connector, does the system uses the onboard flash or has it to be reset in some order ?
LITTLE FRANK don’t support hot swap. You will damage the backplane if you try to do this, the SPI don’t switch back to the on board one if you remove the MATT card.
Edit:
I tried hot removing the MATT card to try to read the backplane SPI flash with ROMTool and it worked with 142.0.0.0.0, so Apple changed something that makes this scenario work.
It's very risky and the MOLEX connector of the MATT card won't work for more than 5-10 insertions, so it's not a very useful tool…
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Hi tsialex, it is not clear for me that after I inserted the MATT card and (hopefully) my unresponsive mac starts again, how should I proceed ? Will the corrupted SPI overwrited after the first restart of the machine or should I leave that forever attached ? Is it possible to re-use the same MATT card in a different machine, in case it is needed ? Thanks in advance for the answer.
MATT card will replace the corrupted SPI flash while connected, if you remove, your Mac Pro will stop working.
No.
Yes.
If you remove, Mac Pro that was installed will not boot again. You should contact cmizapper directly and ask about your doubts.
You can replace the backplane or buy a MATT card, the only other solution is desolder and reprogram the SPI flash.
Yes, but you can reflash it with a SPI programmer without soldering.
Just to make it clear (for me)...
the first thing to do is making a backup of the MATT CARDs SPI chip, and flash it with a rebuilt or backup ROM (if available) by a programmer (e.g. a modified ch341a)
Is a firmware Update (when card is connected) written to it instead of the onboard chip? - and there is no chance to safely reflash the original SPI chip?
the first thing to do is making a backup of the MATT CARDs SPI chip, and flash it with a rebuilt or backup ROM (if available) by a programmer (e.g. a modified ch341a)
Is a firmware Update (when card is connected) written to it instead of the onboard chip? - and there is no chance to safely reflash the original SPI chip?
No, it's useless to backup the MATT card, it's trash. Read here:
Mac OS 11.3 has broken support for older Mac Pros
I'm glad to answer, but this is a very old topic that I've written extensively about all pros and cons, use the search for MATT written by me, you will find more than you ever want to read about this. SPI flash has a limited life, if your Mac Pro has being in use continuously, it's probably...
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To what intend? You can do it, but it's easier to just install the MATT card and flash your Mac Pro clean dump.
It's a SPI flash replacement, when a MATT card it's connected, the backplane SPI flash is completely disabled and all SPI signals are routed to it.
Why? You should replace the original SPI flash if you are capable to do it, not try to make it working again to fail some days later.
No, it's useless to backup the MATT card, it's trash. Read here:
Mac OS 11.3 has broken support for older Mac Pros
I'm glad to answer, but this is a very old topic that I've written extensively about all pros and cons, use the search for MATT written by me, you will find more than you ever want to read about this. SPI flash has a limited life, if your Mac Pro has being in use continuously, it's probably...
To what intend? You can do it, but it's easier to just install the MATT card and flash your Mac Pro clean dump.
It's a SPI flash replacement, when a MATT card it's connected, the backplane SPI flash is completely disabled and all SPI signals are routed to it.
Why? You should replace the original SPI flash if you are capable to do it, not try to make it working again to fail some days later.
Thank you for your quick response...
I am able to replace the original chip... (my SPI is in a working condition at this time)... but I don't want to touch this vintage peace of hardware...
I want to use the MATT Card just to keep the original SPI chip healty, that I have the oppertunity to put the mac pro in original state (some time) ... and use the system meanwhile as my daily driver... call me a nut, but ... however...
I was not shure, that it will work just write the output from dosduds romtool with flasrom to the SPI... so I would have tried this just for educational purposes
AND I would have made the useless Backup of the MATT card for an unlikely event; to use the card (due to an emergency) to safe another mac...
(Not sure if someone else's Mac Pro would boot with my ROM)
No Mac Pro has a reliable SPI flash memory nowadays unless is a brand new never used one, NOS. Any Mac Pro that has being in use is near the end of the useful life of the SPI flash, SPI flash memories have a limited useful life.
Mac Pro BootROM is not a static firmware, the moment you started to use it, the NAND cells that contain the NVRAM volume start to have cycles of erase/re-write.
Seems you didn't really understand what is going on, please read the post that I linked with the analysis of the BootROM image sends to all MATT cards.I was not shure, that it will work just write the output from dosduds romtool with flasrom to the SPI... so I would have tried this just for educational purposes
AND I would have made the useless Backup of the MATT card for an unlikely event; to use the card (due to an emergency) to safe another mac...
(Not sure if someone else's Mac Pro would boot with my ROM)
Not only you can brick the MATT card itself, you can also get the MAC addresses of your Mac Pro put in the iCloud/Messages/FaceTime block list, since it's a clone and Apple actively do security scans for this type of thing.
In that case, isn't it better to flash the original "trash" ROM which comes with the MATT Card... before giving it away?
I think this mac is blacklisted already...
If I get you right, it is not a problem to boot the trash rom, until I flash my own (rebulit) asap?
If you gonna give it away or use it again flash MP51.fd. Anyway is not a very wise decision, since if the SPI is corrupt, probably the NAND cells that contain the NVRAM volume are near dead or dead already. Btw, it's extremely risky to hot-swap, the usual outcome is a short circuit.
I really don't understand why you are going to so much trouble and risk trying to re-use a 10+year old SPI flash to have to do it right days or weeks down the road.
Being real, this is risky and dumb.