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Firmware Tool for 4,1 to 5,1 upgrade
- Thread starter bxs
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As charfr states, no need to change your hardware. However, if you do upgrade the firmware then you can upgrade the CPU/s (single CPU use W3680 or W3690, or dual CPU setup use X5680's or X5690's) if you so choose - otherwise leave your existing CPU/s in place. And an added bonus of the firmware upgrade is your ram speeds increase from 1066 to 1333MHz (providing your ram meets this spec).
The Wi-Fi Card in the Mac Pro 4,1 may not work when you upgrade to High Sierra??
Correct, there are 2 types of Wifi card used by Apple on the 4,1. One of them has no driver since Sierra.
I'm on Sierra now, so does that mean I have the good Wi-Fi card, the one that will work with High Sierra?
Thanks for the info! Btw, do you know the history or why Apple decided not to support the other Wi-Fi with drivers? Why was my Wi-Fi card supported with up to date drivers, but not the other Wi-Fi card? Just curious. Glad I have the good Wi-Fi card.
I'm thinking now maybe that's the reason Apple decided to officially not support 4,1 after El Capitan because it would be too confusing and messy for them with some 4,1 having the good Wi-Fi card and half having the "bad" Wi-Fi card.
Thanks for the info! Btw, do you know the history or why Apple decided not to support the other Wi-Fi with drivers? Why was my Wi-Fi card supported with up to date drivers, but not the other Wi-Fi card? Just curious. Glad I have the good Wi-Fi card.
I'm thinking now maybe that's the reason Apple decided to officially not support 4,1 after El Capitan because it would be too confusing and messy for them with some 4,1 having the good Wi-Fi card and half having the "bad" Wi-Fi card.
They never ever intend to support anything for 4,1 in Sierra or later. AFAIK, because some 4,1 come with a Wifi card that same as 5,1 used. That’s why it has to be supported.
7 years support is the common practice in Apple. Even though not always correct, but most of machines do get 7 years support. Since 4,1 released in early 09. That means it will be supported until early 2016. And because Sierra was release at late 2016. It’s completely normal for Apple to drop 4,1 support.
No need. But with upgrading to 5,1, you will be able to upgrade to faster CPU. And if you have a single 4-core, you will be able to potentially upgrade your board to a dual 6-core. I just upgraded my 2009 5,1 to a dual 3.46 6-core (X5690 total 12-core. 24 with multi-threading). Benchmark is now faster than the 2013 Mac Pro, aka Trash Can. I'm also planning on upgrading my other 2009 5,1 convert, from single 4-core to a dual 6-core. A friend of mine has a dual board ready to swap in. Love these Mac Pros. The upgradability! So much better than the iTrashCans.
I would prefer the option to a single 6-core @ 3.46 but with a high-end graphics card (Titan XP or above). This is cheaper imho, unless you want to go to the max.
But I heart, that High Sierra might be the last supported system on the MP 5.1.
Anyway, I have an other question: If you upgrade to High Sierra you have to do another firmware upgrade which doesn't allow downgrading, afaik. Can you boot Mac OS 10.6 with this firmware?
Yes, the new firmware won't stop a "5,1" boot from any supported OS. The issue of can't boot from too old OS is basically because lack of hardware driver inside the OS, not firmware version.
A cMP 5,1 was originally shipped with OS 10.6.4. So that is the earliest OS that will run on a 5,1 whether with original or updated firmware.
Lou
I am having the hardest times trying to upgrade my Mac Pro early 2009(2 x 2.26 CPU). I have started with Maverick and received the error 5530. Updated the OS to Yosemite and still receiving the error 5530. What am I doing wrong? Please help and TIA!
You didn’t say what (and how) you’ve done, how can we know what you’ve done wrong?
I was able to upgrade it manually. Got the answer from forum.Netkas.org. Instruction below.
Started by MacEFIRom, Message by verveguy
Relevance: 63.9%
I could not get the firmware updater tool to work. Error 5570 then Error 5530.
So I hacked the scripts within the tool and ran them directly. I now have a MacPro 2009 which reports Model Identifier: MacPro5,1
Root problem: you need to have BOTH the 2010 and 2009 EFI upgrader disk images available so this tool can prepare both the upgrade and downgrade paths. And the tool no longer seems to be capable of downloading them (or at least not for me and anyone else getting the 5530 error). Digging into the compiled .scpt file inside the tool, it's pretty clear what is wrong. But the script is run-only compiled and I can't fix it directly.
So I manually downloaded them and then had to hack the subsidiary shell scripts embedded in the Firmware Tool app and run them directly by hand.
Here's what I did:
0/ Reboot in recovery mode and disable SIP (Recovery mode, Terminal, csrutil disable ). Reboot again.
1/ Download *both* EFI updater packages from Apple
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL989?locale=en_US
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1321?locale=en_US
2/ Use DiskUtility to convert each disk image to a new read/write image
3/ Mount the first image for the 2009 firmware. Rename the mounted disk to Mac Pro EFI Update 2009
4/ Mount the second image for the 2010 firmware. Rename the mounted disk to Mac Pro EFI Update 2010
5/ Run the netkas forum Mac Pro 2009-2010 Firmware Tool.app
(it will fail, but it will create the RamDisk)
6/ Hack the ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh script buried in my ~/Downloads/Mac Pro 2009-2010 Firmware Tool.app/Contents/Resources/ directory with this new version:
Code:
#!/bin/sh
pushd /Volumes/RamDisk
# we mounted the EFI update disk image manually
# hdiutil attach -nobrowse EFI2010.dmg
pkgutil --expand '/Volumes/Mac Pro EFI Update 2010/MacProEFIUpdate.pkg' Expanded
cp Expanded/MacProEFIUpdate.pkg/Payload Payload
tar -xf Payload
mkdir MacProEFI2010-2009
mkdir MacProEFI2009-2010
cp 'System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacProEFIUpdate15/EFIUpdaterApp2.efi' MacProEFI2010-2009
cp 'System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacProEFIUpdate15/MP51_007F_03B_LOCKED.fd' MacProEFI2009-2010/MP41_0081_07B_LOCKED.fd
rm -R Applications
rm -R Expanded
rm -R System
rm Payload
hdiutil detach '/Volumes/Mac Pro EFI Update/'
# we mounted the EFI update disk image manually
# hdiutil attach -nobrowse EFI2009.dmg
pkgutil --expand '/Volumes/Mac Pro EFI Update 2009/MacProEFIUpdate.pkg' Expanded
cp Expanded/MacProEFIUpdate.pkg/Payload Payload
tar -xf Payload
cp 'Applications/Utilities/Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update.app/Contents/Resources/EfiUpdaterApp2.efi' MacProEFI2009-2010
cp 'Applications/Utilities/Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update.app/Contents/Resources/MP41_0081_07B_LOCKED.fd' MacProEFI2010-2009/MP51_007F_03B_LOCKED.fd
rm -R Applications
rm -R Expanded
rm -R System
rm Payload
hdiutil detach '/Volumes/Mac Pro EFI Update/'
popd
patch /Volumes/RamDisk/MacProEFI2009-2010/EfiUpdaterApp2.efi EfiUpdater2009.patch
patch /Volumes/RamDisk/MacProEFI2010-2009/EfiUpdaterApp2.efi EfiUpdater2010.patch
7/ Then run the script directly. Using terminal:
Code:
cd ~/Downloads/Mac\ Pro\ 2009-2010\ Firmware\ Tool.app/Contents/Resources/
./ExtractAndPatchEFIFile.sh
sudo UpgradeEFI2009-2010.sh
8/ Shutdown then power on and hold down the power button. Don't let it go. You'll hear the beep indicating EFI update, then it will reboot again. Keep the button down. In my case, the CD drive popped out. I waited a while, then pushed the CD drive back in. Eventually, I got bored and let the power button go. A little while later it rebooted again. Maybe even one more time.
9/ Login, check all is well with System Info.
10/ Reboot into Recovery mode again, enable SIP (Terminal, csrutil enable). Reboot
I'm pretty sure I captured all of that correctly. Hope this helps others.
(If anyone knows how to contact the original author of the update tool or can get the source, I'd happily fix it)
Boot while immediately holding down Cmd+R, which boots you into your Recovery drive. Go to the Utilities menu and click on Terminal.
When Terminal appears, type in csrutil status (then press return) this will tell you whether SIP is enabled or disabled.
To disable, type csrutil disable (then press return).
To enable, type csrutil enable (then press return).
Then reboot by typing reboot (then press return).
When Terminal appears, type in csrutil status (then press return) this will tell you whether SIP is enabled or disabled.
To disable, type csrutil disable (then press return).
To enable, type csrutil enable (then press return).
Then reboot by typing reboot (then press return).
[doublepost=1513705687][/doublepost]Just got this working after some trial and (mostly) error. My steps that resulting in success - on a 2009 Mac Pro (4,1) from El Capitan were:
1. Disable SIP (reboot into recovery mode, use terminal, enter crustil disable at the prompt),
2. Reboot
3. Mount the EFI 1.5 updater
4. Run the 2009 to 2010 firmware update
5. Restart with holding the button 'til flashes
I also had earlier zapped my PRAM, but not sure if that was necessary. The key for me was disabling SIP and repeating steps 3 and 4. When I had first disabled SIP and just tried to run an already built firmware the system would just boot. No firmware install. So, my suspicion is someting is need when the firmware program is run that SIP initially blocks.
Hope that helps.
Is it possible to update the firmware from a 2008 Mac Pro to a 5,1? I am really interested to get a new computer that is better than my Macbook Pro and hopefully if I can update the firmware to 5,1, then I would buy the Mac Pro.
Architecture of the 3,1 cMP is completely different than the cMP 5,1, so the answer is no!
Lou
Hello all,
I’ve recently bought a “new” mac pro 4.1 and I am pretty happy with it so far.
I almost directly updated the firmware from 4.1 to 5.1 through the Netkas update tool in order to install high sierra. After a few small hiccups, everything runs perfect now.
So far, so good. As I’m planning to use the Mac pro as my main desktop machine, alongside with my MacBook, I need to be sure the machine is safe to work at.
I read a couple of times, that it is possible to install malware trough the mainboard EFI. I am asking myself now, whether the firmware update, which was conducted through the high sierra installer, has overwritten the complete old firmware, or if it was just a small update. If so, all potential malware should be flashed and overwritten with this update?
Additionally, the weekly EFI-Check should detect malware in the EFI, shouldn’t it?
I’m really appreciating the work from netkas & especially “MacEFIRom” and the last thing I would do is to insinuate anything to these guys. I just need to be sure, that my machine is completely safe to work at.
Thanks in advance for all your answers.
Best Regards,
Nick
I’ve recently bought a “new” mac pro 4.1 and I am pretty happy with it so far.
I almost directly updated the firmware from 4.1 to 5.1 through the Netkas update tool in order to install high sierra. After a few small hiccups, everything runs perfect now.
So far, so good. As I’m planning to use the Mac pro as my main desktop machine, alongside with my MacBook, I need to be sure the machine is safe to work at.
I read a couple of times, that it is possible to install malware trough the mainboard EFI. I am asking myself now, whether the firmware update, which was conducted through the high sierra installer, has overwritten the complete old firmware, or if it was just a small update. If so, all potential malware should be flashed and overwritten with this update?
Additionally, the weekly EFI-Check should detect malware in the EFI, shouldn’t it?
I’m really appreciating the work from netkas & especially “MacEFIRom” and the last thing I would do is to insinuate anything to these guys. I just need to be sure, that my machine is completely safe to work at.
Thanks in advance for all your answers.
Best Regards,
Nick
It's hard nowadays to call any computer "completely safe". But you shouldn't have to worry about the firmware:
The MacPro4,1 to MacPro5,1 firmware upgrade simply installs Apple's official MacPro5,1 firmware to machines from 2009.
The High Sierra Firmware upgrade then completely replaces this with another new version (not just a partial patch).