Flashing 4,1

[Yogi Cavalier]

Hi all, Yogi Cavalier here:
I'm newbie.
As I'm about to flash my 4,1 Mac Pro. I may have one problem. The graphic card that came with it ten years ago died a few years back. I now have an HD 4870 512 MB. Will this cause the flash to fail or worst? Help, please.

 

[majus]

My 4,1 came with the 4870 512 and it flashed just fine. So you should be OK.

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

Thanks for your quick reply. I may try it later today, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Still a little shaky about disabling something using the coding, but I'll figure it out.

 

[tsialex]

Hi all, Yogi Cavalier here:
I'm newbie.
As I'm about to flash my 4,1 Mac Pro. I may have one problem. The graphic card that came with it ten years ago died a few years back. I now have an HD 4870 512 MB. Will this cause the flash to fail or worst? Help, please.

The flashing process to MP5,1 REQUIRES a Mac EFI GPU. The Netkas forum uses Apple flashers to do the job and efiflasher only work with AppleOEM and Mac EFI GPUs.

Read this post fully, the part for getting to MP51.0089.B00 applies to you as well:

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave (BootROM upgrade instructions thread)

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

Thank you for your quick reply. As it was about five years ago that my GPU failed, I'm not sure that the 4870 has the Extensible Firmware Interface. How can I tell if it does?
Not sure if I will update OS at this time. Just looking for a faster and cooler system. I use it with Adobe's CC6, Affinity, Hype 4 and dozens of other software with which EL Capitan does just fine. I will check out your link. Thanks again.

 

[MacUser2525]

Thank you for your quick reply. As it was about five years ago that my GPU failed, I'm not sure that the 4870 has the Extensible Firmware Interface. How can I tell if it does?
Not sure if I will update OS at this time. Just looking for a faster and cooler system. I use it with Adobe's CC6, Affinity, Hype 4 and dozens of other software with which EL Capitan does just fine. I will check out your link. Thanks again.

Easiest way is to hold down the Option key when booting, if you see the boot picker screen then you have an EFI card.

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

Thanks for putting my concerns to rest.
It worked. All my drives and recovery drives are shown 10.5,10.6.8,10.9.5 and 10.11.6.
Guess I'm ready to go with 4,1 to 5,1 firmware upgrade, to verify :
#1.Restart computer holding the command key and R key.
#2. Type in csrutil disable
#3. restart computer.
#4. open the MacProEFIUpdate.dmg and leave box unopened on desktop.
#5. Open firmware tool and start the tool.
#6. When the tool is done (it takes 10 minutes or more), shut down computer.
#7. Restart computer holding down the start button till the start button flashes and you hear the chime, remove finger from button and after a few seconds it make the boot sounding chime and start to update and the opening screen ... will take a few minutes.
#8. Check the About This Mac's menu check hardware overview model id appears 5,1.

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for putting my concerns to rest.
It worked. All my drives and recovery drives are shown 10.5,10.6.8,10.9.5 and 10.11.6.
Guess I'm ready to go with 4,1 to 5,1 firmware upgrade, to verify :
#1.Restart computer holding the command key and R key.
#2. Type in csrutil disable
#3. restart computer.
#4. open the MacProEFIUpdate.dmg and leave box unopened on desktop.
#5. Open firmware tool and start the tool.
#6. When the tool is done (it takes 10 minutes or more), shut down computer.
#7. Restart computer holding down the start button till the start button flashes and you hear the chime, remove finger from button and after a few seconds it make the boot sounding chime and start to update and the opening screen ... will take a few minutes.
#8. Check the About This Mac's menu check hardware overview model id appears 5,1.

SIP only exists after 10.10, so just boot 10.9 and do all process there.

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

That's GREAT. Saves me from messing with the SIP. Sorry for taking up so much of your time. Have a good night.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Thank you for your quick reply. As it was about five years ago that my GPU failed, I'm not sure that the 4870 has the Extensible Firmware Interface. How can I tell if it does?
Not sure if I will update OS at this time. Just looking for a faster and cooler system. I use it with Adobe's CC6, Affinity, Hype 4 and dozens of other software with which EL Capitan does just fine. I will check out your link. Thanks again.

If your graphics card looks like this , you've got it made in the shade . Notice the card support at the end - it's unique to Macs . Also one DVI and one mini DP port .

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

That's the one. You folks at Macrumors are thorough. I have it connected to a LaCie 324 by HTML. Thanks for the info.

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

Well, I did it. Started in O.S. 10.9 with no need to disable csrutil. Went much faster than I thought it would be.

 

[kohlson]

Congratulations on extending the life of your cMP. FWIW, embrace csrutil enable/disable. It's no big deal. I use it several times a year. I have an RX580 in my 4,1, and have enabled hardware acceleration in it. Just about every time there's an update I have to reset this very useful capability, and disable/enable SIP to do so.

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

Thanks for the congrats.

The last time I did any coding was in the late 1970's on an Apple 2 at work. I just messed around with it. And then again running a data base on my Sinclair back in the early 1980's. The Apple was not mine and the Sinclair was cheap. So major errors and crashes where no problem. Then I purchased my first Mac in around 1985 to run the data base .... no more messing with coding.

Today, if I really needed to do a disable or enable SIP, no doubt I would. As I now delve in video and audio as a hobby, I'm looking into a new GPU for under $200. which I might have to flash. The 580 may suit my needs, but may be over kill. You refer to hardware acceleration, is that to speed up the fans or something else. Why would you need to mess with the SIP so many times?

 

[h9826790]

Thanks for the congrats.

The last time I did any coding was in the late 1970's on an Apple 2 at work. I just messed around with it. And then again running a data base on my Sinclair back in the early 1980's. The Apple was not mine and the Sinclair was cheap. So major errors and crashes where no problem. Then I purchased my first Mac in around 1985 to run the data base .... no more messing with coding.

Today, if I really needed to do a disable or enable SIP, no doubt I would. As I now delve in video and audio as a hobby, I'm looking into a new GPU for under $200. which I might have to flash. The 580 may suit my needs, but may be over kill. You refer to hardware acceleration, is that to speed up the fans or something else. Why would you need to mess with the SIP so many times?

$200 is enough to get a used Vega64, that's almost 100% stronger than RX580. If you search hard enough, you should able to get a used RX580 for just about $100.

Anyway, this is the thread about hardware acceleration

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[For existing OpenCore users, you can always download my latest OpenCore package at post #1314 for update] Full HWAccel achieved now! Everything is covered in the OpenCore thread. The step by step tutorial to enable AMD hardware acceleration is now at here, but I strongly recommend you go...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

Thanks for all the info.

 

[kohlson]

Why would you need to mess with the SIP so many times?

I used to think that I would never need to mess with it. But I do like security(!). The benefits of hardware acceleration in an RX580 on the things I do with my cMP - video editing - require turning off SIP to make adjustments. A couple of system files need to be modified. System updates overwrite these changes. Probably not many more of those for 10.14.

 

[Yogi Cavalier]

All these adjustments and system modifications must save a lot of time. Do you do video editing as a profession or are you doing it ,as I'm, a hobby?

Does the RX580 make your mac run hot?

 

[kohlson]

I would not consider myself a professional, though I do get paying jobs. More than import/export, the hardware acceleration helps with timeline edits.
It does not make my cMP run hot. At all.