cMP 5,1 with PC GPU - Upgrade to 10.13?

[Alchemist]

Hi All,

Perhaps I can borrow your collective genius. Last year I took the plunge and bought a Mac Pro 5,1 and separately purchased a non-flashed (PC version) GTX 1080. After some jiggery-pokery I got everything running just fine on Sierra 10.12.6. All has worked basically pretty well since then. I don't have the boot screen, but it's a great gaming machine under Windows and a decent 2nd workstation under OS X.

I am now wondering about upgrading to High Sierra (10.13) but I remember hearing about some caveats/problems with that process. Can anyone give me any advice about the practicality of this upgrade?

 

[h9826790]

Hi All,

Perhaps I can borrow your collective genius. Last year I took the plunge and bought a Mac Pro 5,1 and separately purchased a non-flashed (PC version) GTX 1080. After some jiggery-pokery I got everything running just fine on Sierra 10.12.6. All has worked basically pretty well since then. I don't have the boot screen, but it's a great gaming machine under Windows and a decent 2nd workstation under OS X.

I am now wondering about upgrading to High Sierra (10.13) but I remember hearing about some caveats/problems with that process. Can anyone give me any advice about the practicality of this upgrade?

It will be quite hard to upgrade to High Sierra without a OOTB GPU or Mac EFI GPU.

However, as long as you stay with HFS+, I believe it's possible to connect your current boot drive to another Mac, upgrade it to High Sierra, install the required web driver, then install the hard drive back into the Mac Pro.

So far, that so call "required" firmware upgrade seems just for providing APFS bootability, but not really a requirement to boot High Sierra.

 

[Alchemist]

It will be quite hard to upgrade to High Sierra without a OOTB GPU or Mac EFI GPU.

However, as long as you stay with HFS+, I believe it's possible to connect your current boot drive to another Mac, upgrade it to High Sierra, install the required web driver, then install the hard drive back into the Mac Pro.

So far, that so call "required" firmware upgrade seems just for providing APFS bootability, but not really a requirement to boot High Sierra.

Thanks very much for your reply. When you say it'd be quite hard, what causes the difficulty? Also, is OOTB Out of The Box? As in, a Mac compatible GPU?

One of the annoyances of my Mac Pro/GPU/4K monitor combo under Sierra is that it won't output in 60Hz in 4K. I was hoping High Sierra might address this.

 

[bookemdano]

I would say one potential issue relates to a firmware update Apple released with Sierra (can't remember if it was the first release or one of the point releases) that added the ability to boot APFS-formatted volumes. Without an EFI-capable GPU you can not flash firmware updates on the Mac Pro. When you install High Sierra, if your boot drive is an SSD it will try to convert it to APFS automatically, and if you don't have the new firmware, your Mac Pro won't boot from it.

The other is that the GTX 1080 has no driver built into MacOS. And since your card is not flashed then you cannot display the desktop without installing the NVIDIA web drivers. How have you been handling Sierra updates in that regard? Have you been pre-installing the web drivers before updating? The problem with upgrading to a whole new OS revision though is you can't pre-install the web drivers.

I think that's why h9826790 was suggesting you use another Mac to install HS to your Mac Pro's drive, boot that drive on the other Mac and install the web drivers, then move it to your Mac Pro.

Did the Mac Pro 5,1 you bought not come with its original video card? If not I would highly recommend you purchase one on ebay (or another basic card with EFI) so that you can do things like OS upgrades without jumping through a million hoops.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks very much for your reply. When you say it'd be quite hard, what causes the difficulty? Also, is OOTB Out of The Box? As in, a Mac compatible GPU?

One of the annoyances of my Mac Pro/GPU/4K monitor combo under Sierra is that it won't output in 60Hz in 4K. I was hoping High Sierra might address this.

Yes, OOTB is Out of the box.

One the very first boot after OS upgrade, there usually has few page require user input before you can reach the desktop. e.g. agree some license, choose data sharing setting, or some iCloud setting etc.

With a PC GTX 1080, all you can see is just black screen. You will have absolutely no idea if there is anything waiting for your input. And I am not sure if any screen sharing can work at this very early stage (the OS installation not even considered fully completed).

But if your aim is to get 4K 60Hz, then I believe you are in the completely wrong direction. GTX 1080 in Sierra definitely able to display 4k 60Hz.

How you connect the monitor? HDMI?

Which monitor you are using? Did you set it to DP 1.2 (or above)?

 

[Alchemist]

Yes, OOTB is Out of the box.

One the very first boot after OS upgrade, there usually has few page require user input before you can reach the desktop. e.g. agree some license, choose data sharing setting, or some iCloud setting etc.

With a PC GTX 1080, all you can see is just black screen. You will have absolutely no idea if there is anything waiting for your input. And I am not sure if any screen sharing can work at this very early stage (the OS installation not even considered fully completed).

But if your aim is to get 4K 60Hz, then I believe you are in the completely wrong direction. GTX 1080 in Sierra definitely able to display 4k 60Hz.

How you connect the monitor? HDMI?

Which monitor you are using? Did you set it to DP 1.2 (or above)?

That makes sense re: the inaccessible upgrade screens during boot. Thanks for clarifying. I am based in the UK. Are there any ways of flashing the card without sending it to MacVidCards in the USA?

I am using an LG 27UD58-B and I am connected via HDMI. I had problems with DisplayPort from what I recall. I can retry though if that is where the issue lies?

 

[barmann]

That makes sense re: the inaccessible upgrade screens during boot. Thanks for clarifying. I am based in the UK. Are there any ways of flashing the card without sending it to MacVidCards in the USA?

You could ask these guys .