MP 1,1-5,1 Flashing a MP 4,1 to 5,1 w/ Mojave (NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB GPU)

[Ben Thayer]

I just bought a Mac Pro 4,1 and want to flash it to 5,1. It is running Mojave with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB GPU. I am not sure why it wasn't flashed. Do I need to downgrade my OS before it can be flashed? I have ordered a new MSI RX 560 to replace the NVIDIA and want to upgrade the quad core 2.66 to a six core 3.06. Thanks for the help.

 

[covrc]

How are you able to run Mojave on that? I thought the GPU. GT 120 didn’t have “metal” Which is needed for the OS to run.

 

[Snow Tiger]

How are you able to run Mojave on that? I thought the GPU. GT 120 didn’t have “metal” Which is needed for the OS to run.

Once installed on a cMP , Mojave will run with an EFI GT 120 as the only GPU . It operates , slowly , though . And there is no metal support . I do it for diagnostics purposes .

 

[fastlanephil]

If it really is an unflashed 4,1 then maybe it was upgraded using the dosdude patch. Better check out the “What You Have To Do To Upgrade To Mojave“ stickie at the top of the forum and do it correctly.

 

[Snow Tiger]

I just bought a Mac Pro 4,1 and want to flash it to 5,1. It is running Mojave with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB GPU. I am not sure why it wasn't flashed. Do I need to downgrade my OS before it can be flashed? I have ordered a new MSI RX 560 to replace the NVIDIA and want to upgrade the quad core 2.66 to a six core 3.06. Thanks for the help.

Looks like someone installed a boot drive in your Mac that already had a Mojave install .

I don't think it is possible to install Mojave on a Mac Pro 4,1 ( 2009 ) using the factory retail installer .

It can be done with the Dos Dude patcher , to get an OS installed on unsupported hardware .

You should first upgrade your Mac Pro 4,1 into a 5,1 using the Netkas firmware upgrade tool . You can use the EFI GT 120 GPU as your only installed graphics card for this . I'd be suspicious of the OS install on the drive that came with your Mac . You want the most stable environment possible when you update firmware , because there will be no recovery options in reality if something goes wrong . I have not succeeded in using a firmware restore disk with the cMPs .

Install a fresh macOS from an Apple server on a drive and disable SIP , if need be , to upgrade your Mac into a MP5,1 .

If you want to install Mojave onto your Mac once it identifies itself as a Mac Pro 5,1 , make a macOS USB installer with the latest version of Mojave from an Apple server . Using this installer to load Mojave onto your Mac will upgrade the boot ROM to the version you desire ( 144.0.0.0.0 ) . The firmware is located on the installer , BTW . You need to remove all non-metal GPUs first during this operation and have a metal compatible GPU installed . I use the official MSI RX 560 .