MP 1,1-5,1 4,1 to 5,1 Mac pro stuck on full loading bar [Resolved]

[TurboChungus]

I've been trying desperately to get my 4,1 (firmware updated to 5,1) to boot back into High Sierra. Before making upgrades, my Mac Pro ran fine. I'm running a single Xeon X5675, and I upgraded from 16gb of 1033mhz RAM to 32gb of 1333mhz, as well as swapping out the default Nvidia GT 120 for an XFX RX 570 4GB.

During the initial boot, everything went fine until I tried to log in to my account, which got stuck at the spinning wheel. Tried a reboot again, this time the spinning wheel occurred even before selecting the profile. A third boot resulted in a blank grey screen.

Swapped the original hardware back, and now it'll show the boot loading screen, but instead of going to the start-up at half-way, the bar passes half way, takes 15 minutes to reach full, and just freezes there. Tried the SMC reset, obviously tried every safe boot/restore mode/NVRAM reset/Boot drive select key combo (windows mechanical keyboard plugged directly in) to no success. No key combo is working, tbh the keyboard doesn't even turn on immediately when first starting. Even tried removing both my HDDs (Raid 0) and booting, that just ended up at the grey screen with nothing, no missing file icon or anything.

I'm going crazy re-arranging the DIMM slots and PCI slots to no success. Even flashed high sierra to a USB drive but I can't even initiate the proper key commands to access the boot selection. Spent hours searching through various threads but so far no one has ran into my exact scenario. Any help? 😔

 

[vivo]

Maybe this helps : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/br2032-status-and-failure-symptoms.2191305/

Just asking but did you try plugging the mechanical keyboard in other usb ports?

 

[TurboChungus]

Maybe this helps : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/br2032-status-and-failure-symptoms.2191305/

Just asking but did you try plugging the mechanical keyboard in other usb ports?

Tested the battery, it's around 3.1V so that's fine. I also bought a cheapo keyboard just for testing purposes and still no dice. Tried every USB port on the mac, even in my USB 3.0 pci card that I know for a fact works when High Sierra booted.

 

[tsialex]

What's the status of EFI_DONE when you press the DIAG button on the backplane?

Download the Apple Technician Manual for your Mac Pro and read about the DIAG button (usually pages 28 to 33 for early-2009 to mid-2012).

 

[TurboChungus]

What's the status of EFI_DONE when you press the DIAG button on the backplane?

Download the Apple Technician Manual for your Mac Pro and read about the DIAG button (usually pages 28 to 33 for early-2009 to mid-2012).

EFI_DONE light remains off when I press the DIAG button, just the 5v stand-by illuminates. However, I did finally manage to boot into recovery mode and have access to disk utility/terminal. Per disk utility though, one my HDDs with the whole OSX directory is reporting as failing per SMART. This makes 0 sense to me. I ran the verify and repair on the directory folder, with everything passing. I don't see any correlation between upgrading RAM/Video card to suddenly killing a hard drive. My machine wasn't dropped, the hard drive bays were untouched, everything worked before I did this upgrade, which I've been building PC's for about 10 years. Nothing metal fell into any boards or shorted out or anything like that.

I have a 256GB M.2 SSD via PCI that also showed up, formatted, and worked fine in High Sierra, that suddenly does not show in either disk utility or terminal. Getting ready to tear my hair out.

 

[tsialex]

EFI_DONE light remains off when I press the DIAG button, just the 5v stand-by illuminates. However, I did finally manage to boot into recovery mode and have access to disk utility/terminal. Per disk utility though, one my HDDs with the whole OSX directory is reporting as failing per SMART. This makes 0 sense to me. I ran the verify and repair on the directory folder, with everything passing. I don't see any correlation between upgrading RAM/Video card to suddenly killing a hard drive. My machine wasn't dropped, the hard drive bays were untouched, everything worked before I did this upgrade, which I've been building PC's for about 10 years. Nothing metal fell into any boards or shorted out or anything like that.

I have a 256GB M.2 SSD via PCI that also showed up, formatted, and worked fine in High Sierra, that suddenly does not show in either disk utility or terminal. Getting ready to tear my hair out.

EFI_DONE off is a sure sign of BootROM problems, the EFI part of the BootROM was not successfully loaded - when the EFI_DONE LED is lit, the Mac Pro firmware successfully loaded all components. You sure have more problems than a failed SMART.

For an early-2009 cross flashed to MP5,1, the hybrid BootROM usually ends on a brick overtime, just look at the first two pages of the Mac Pro forum, you will get more than a brick per week. If you can get it booting reliably, at least dump your BootROM and check the VSS stores free available space.

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

Thank you @tsialex as always! Your knowledge overwhelms me! I have fixed my problem just reflashing BootROM using the reconstructed one that you made it for me. Now everything is ok again

forums.macrumors.com

 

[TurboChungus]

EFI_DONE off is a sure sign of BootROM problems, the EFI part of the BootROM was not successfully loaded - when the EFI_DONE LED is lit, the Mac Pro firmware successfully loaded all components. You sure have more problems than a failed SMART.

For an early-2009 cross flashed to MP5,1, the hybrid BootROM usually ends on a brick overtime, just look at the first two pages of the Mac Pro forum, you will get more than a brick per week. If you can get it booting reliably, at least dump your BootROM and check the VSS stores free available space.

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

Thank you @tsialex as always! Your knowledge overwhelms me! I have fixed my problem just reflashing BootROM using the reconstructed one that you made it for me. Now everything is ok again

forums.macrumors.com

Terrific 😐, I created a USB boot drive with OS High Sierra on it with trans mac on my windows, but so far it doesn't show up on the boot drive list, just the original HDD that's supposedly corrupted. When I select the usb drive, it just takes me right back to recovery mode. I'll do the BootROM suggestion as soon as I can figure out how to boot into an actual OS.... :/

Edit: I ordered a high sierra install USB and new WD Blue HDD that will be here in a few days. Going to try make a whole new internal boot drive and just transfer everything over to it.

 

[TurboChungus]

Welp turns out somehow, at the same time I preformed the upgrade the HDD decided to give-up and fail completely. Wasn't an issue with the parts but I had to purchase a new HDD and re-install High Sierra on it. Runs fine now if anything.