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[Guide] Installing 10.9 Mavericks on older Macs. -HackerWayne

That's where my dilemma started. The only drivers available for that card is for OSX 10.8

So i thought of updating my OS right through 10.9

P.S. Thank you for replying so quickly BTW.
 
Spawn4ever said:
That's where my dilemma started. The only drivers available for that card is for OSX 10.8

So i thought of updating my OS right through 10.9

P.S. Thank you for replying so quickly BTW.
Click to expand...

Try installing the ones for the GTX 285. They should work and will be available for 10.7.5. They ran my GTX 570 just fine.
 
Spawn4ever said:
Yes sure... do i need a specific SW to connect with you?

(i'm assuming it's a remote access connection you are talking about)
Click to expand...

Just need a client, iPhone or iPad or another computer. You will need to get a client app, just google it there are tons of free ones. Turn on remote management in the sharing preferences and then click computer options. Set a password for VNC users to control. If it is actually booting then you should be able to see the screen. If it isn't booting then you will get a connection error.
 
Hennesie2000 said:
Just need a client, iPhone or iPad or another computer. You will need to get a client app, just google it there are tons of free ones. Turn on remote management in the sharing preferences and then click computer options. Set a password for VNC users to control. If it is actually booting then you should be able to see the screen. If it isn't booting then you will get a connection error.
Click to expand...

Downloaded RealVNc and I've got the server running right now. And I've got screen sharing enabled.

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I'm spent... i'll have to pick this up again tomorrow.

Thanks for your help thus far, it is much appreciated, but i NEED some rest.

P.S. if i understand what you are saying is, If the OS is loading in the background it means the card should be working, its a question of finding the correct driver?
 
Spawn4ever said:
Downloaded RealVNc and I've got the server running right now. And I've got screen sharing enabled.

----------

I'm spent... i'll have to pick this up again tomorrow.

Thanks for your help thus far, it is much appreciated, but i NEED some rest.

P.S. if i understand what you are saying is, If the OS is loading in the background it means the card should be working, its a question of finding the correct driver?
Click to expand...

If you can connect via VNC then the card is being initialized and the drivers are working. If you can't connect then the drivers are not working. Have your tried all ports on the card as well? Sometimes when it is a non flashed PC card not all of the ports work.
 
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Rastafabi said:
Hello everybody,

I just updated my install guide.

Thanks to Tiamo you will now get a 100% working Mavericks Installation on your Mac Pro/Xserve. (Now you'll have iMessage/Facetime/Dictation due to nvram support.)
Thanks to some other posters I corrected the guide to not run into the "Still waiting for root device" error. (Sorry did not find you in the thread.)
Click to expand...


Thank you! (and everyone's hard work) I followed the above guide with success on my Mac Pro 1,1 with ATi 5770 video card and got Mavericks on the Mac.

I flubbed it up a few times by following another guide (and the earlier guide) I found on Reddit. Yours worked perfectly!

I would have stayed on Lion but the imminent release of Final Cut Pro X 10.1 would probably have orphaned 10.7 users.

UPDATE: Did the user migration last night and everything is working like the 2006 Mac Pro was officially supported. I positively love this. My firewire iSight camera works, my USB Bluetooth dongle (D-Link DBT-120 Wireless Bluetooth 2.0 USB Adapter) also works with no issues. I have to wake the Mac by the power button in deep sleep since I think it disconnects the Bluetooth to save power. I also like being able to use Messages app again.
 
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Hennesie2000 said:
If you can connect via VNC then the card is being initialized and the drivers are working. If you can't connect then the drivers are not working. Have your tried all ports on the card as well? Sometimes when it is a non flashed PC card not all of the ports work.
Click to expand...

Hi Hennesie2000

Here is where i am today. I've tried every port on the mac pro 2.1 to no avail. I've tried using the Radeon X1900 XT as the main display and the GTX660 in a second slot and i get a gray screen hang during boot. I still haven't managed to install anything newer than OS X10.7.5 to this point.

SOOO i've sort've given up on the Geforce GTX660 card. I'm now looking into getting a second hand card, more specifacly the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 like this one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-ATI-Rad...378?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2333079d3a

In your opinion and your expertise, would you know if this card is compatible with the Mac Pro 2.1? Even if this isn't the apple version of the card?

Big thanks as always for your help Hennesie2000
 
Spawn4ever said:
Hi Hennesie2000

Here is where i am today. I've tried every port on the mac pro 2.1 to no avail. I've tried using the Radeon X1900 XT as the main display and the GTX660 in a second slot and i get a gray screen hang during boot. I still haven't managed to install anything newer than OS X10.7.5 to this point.

SOOO i've sort've given up on the Geforce GTX660 card. I'm now looking into getting a second hand card, more specifacly the XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 like this one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-ATI-Rad...378?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2333079d3a

In your opinion and your expertise, would you know if this card is compatible with the Mac Pro 2.1? Even if this isn't the apple version of the card?

Big thanks as always for your help Hennesie2000
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know. I have always stuck with Nvidia cards in my Mac Pro since I upgraded from the x1900XT. I don't have much experience with ATI cards otherwise. I have used a 285GTX and a GTX570 PC cards and have a friend running a 260GTX. All of those have worked fine. Without having that card to test I won't be of much help and I would just turn to google to find answers.
 
Hennesie2000 said:
I honestly don't know. I have always stuck with Nvidia cards in my Mac Pro since I upgraded from the x1900XT. I don't have much experience with ATI cards otherwise. I have used a 285GTX and a GTX570 PC cards and have a friend running a 260GTX. All of those have worked fine. Without having that card to test I won't be of much help and I would just turn to google to find answers.
Click to expand...

I hear ya. I researched on Google but there are so many varieties of these cards and i can't seem to find a single post with the same combination as what i want to have i.e. Mac Pro 2.1 + ATI Radeon 5870. Unless i missed one, i'm not sure where else to turn. Last thing i want is to pay for a second graphics card that WONT work on my system, you know what i mean?
 
Now running Mavericks on my 1,1 to 2,1 Mac Pro. Runs great, though there are a few bugs that I'm not sure are just due to it being a brand new operating system; could be due to running on a non-officially supported Mac. Other than that, runs great. However, I still plan to sell this Mac Pro and get probably a 2009 Mini, because, when will Apple disable Mavericks from running on these older Macs via an update? And, it is sort of sad that Apple didn't support these older Macs that are obviously quite capable of running a 64-Bit kernel.


Is there a different reason why Apple chose to disable these Macs from running Mavericks officially?
 
Spawn4ever said:
I hear ya. I researched on Google but there are so many varieties of these cards and i can't seem to find a single post with the same combination as what i want to have i.e. Mac Pro 2.1 + ATI Radeon 5870. Unless i missed one, i'm not sure where else to turn. Last thing i want is to pay for a second graphics card that WONT work on my system, you know what i mean?
Click to expand...

I bought the most powerful card that I could confirm worked, at the time that was the GtX570. I know the 5770 works. I don't know what to tell you.
 
Spawn4ever said:
I hear ya. I researched on Google but there are so many varieties of these cards and i can't seem to find a single post with the same combination as what i want to have i.e. Mac Pro 2.1 + ATI Radeon 5870. Unless i missed one, i'm not sure where else to turn. Last thing i want is to pay for a second graphics card that WONT work on my system, you know what i mean?
Click to expand...

Go here, if you haven't already, to confirm which nVidia cards will work and which drivers you need. The x1900 is too old to work in 10.8 or later and that GTX660 will never give you a working boot screen anyway.

----------
Tucom said:
Is there a different reason why Apple chose to disable these Macs from running Mavericks officially?
Click to expand...

It's not so much that they disabled them but that Apple never felt it worth their time to write 64 bit drivers for a handful of outdated graphics cards used in a small subset of already niche machines. The only reason why Chameleon or Tiamo's custom EFI are an option is because we can swap in newer GPUs than what came stock. If Apple were so inclined they could support the '06 and '07 Mac Pros but then they'd need to add an asterisk afterwards to denote which cards aren't compatible. A quick glance at the compatibility list for Mavericks tells me Apple isn't interested in adding clutter.
 
Treksdot said:
It's not so much that they disabled them but that Apple never felt it worth their time to write 64 bit drivers for a handful of outdated graphics cards used in a small subset of already niche machines. The only reason why Chameleon or Tiamo's custom EFI are an option is because we can swap in newer GPUs than what came stock. If Apple were so inclined they could support the '06 and '07 Mac Pros but then they'd need to add an asterisk afterwards to denote which cards aren't compatible. A quick glance at the compatibility list for Mavericks tells me Apple isn't interested in adding clutter.
Click to expand...

So you think it's merely a GPU argument? That is a shame, though cool that it's doable at all, and with that, within the parameters as if it's natively, officially supported. I thought it was due to the 32 bit EFI on the older Macs?
 
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Hennesie2000 said:
I bought the most powerful card that I could confirm worked, at the time that was the GtX570. I know the 5770 works. I don't know what to tell you.
Click to expand...

You've been an extreme help and i appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions like you've been doing.

Thank you and i will keep you posted on the results when i get them.
 
Tucom said:
So you think it's merely a GPU argument? That is a shame, though cool that it's doable at all, and with that, within the parameters as if it's natively, officially supported. I thought it was due to the 32 bit EFI on the older Macs?
Click to expand...

The 32 bit EFI was the default theory for why Apple dropped support after Lion but with Tiamo demonstrating how trivial that issue really was the only thing left to explain it is the hodgepodge of older hardware Apple would have to write drivers for. Other 32 bit EFI based Macs with 64 bit CPUs can load the Tiamo boot.efi to run Mavericks but they quickly run into the problem of their machines lacking 64 bit drivers for some of the builtin hardware. Until someone comes along and provides said drivers I believe Mavericks will only be a viable option for the older Mac Pros. I don't imagine Apple ever thought so many of us would go all Charlton Heston with our Mac Pros.
 
Rastafabi said:
Hello everybody,

I just updated my install guide.

Thanks to Tiamo you will now get a 100% working Mavericks Installation on your Mac Pro/Xserve. (Now you'll have iMessage/Facetime/Dictation due to nvram support.)
Thanks to some other posters I corrected the guide to not run into the "Still waiting for root device" error. (Sorry did not find you in the thread.)

I now included the Mavericks download enabler to create a more comfortable way to download the installer from the AppStore in case you don't have a compatible Mac.

The guide will work on ANY* 32bit EFI Mac having a 64bit CPU, but only on MacPros (and Xserve?) you will get working graphics (if you have a newer generation GPU installed).

*You may face problems with incompatible hardware such as WIFI cards (and of course GPU)

EDIT: Updating the Mac may not be possible through the AppStore, when upgrading (maybe using a ComboUpdate/DeltaUpdate.dmg) you need to restore the included boot.efi and your SupportedMachine.plist BEFORE rebooting!
Click to expand...

Can anybody tell me how to open the above guide. I can download it but my mac says it can't find application to open it. Sorry I am a newbie. Have a Mac Pro 1.1 and trying to digest how to do this. Thanks
 
pharm1boy said:
Can anybody tell me how to open the above guide. I can download it but my mac says it can't find application to open it. Sorry I am a newbie. Have a Mac Pro 1.1 and trying to digest how to do this. Thanks
Click to expand...

you can use the classic OS X tool "The Unarchiver.app" (unarchives almost any archive of whatever format) or the (very very nice) 7zip engine OS X front end "Keka.app" (unarchives [maybe not as much] archives but also packs the most common once).

(There are other archive tools out there but those are the most common/most advanced once.)
 
Rastafabi said:
you can use the classic OS X tool "The Unarchiver.app" (unarchives almost any archive of whatever format) or the (very very nice) 7zip engine OS X front end "Keka.app" (unarchives [maybe not as much] archives but also packs the most common once).

(There are other archive tools out there but those are the most common/most advanced once.)
Click to expand...

Thanks go it downloaded. My first step was to try to download Mavericks on my old mac pro via your download enabler but it still says my machine is unsupported. Have OS X 10.6.8.
 
Rastafabi said:
That's stange… did you reboot in between?
Click to expand...

No, I didn't know I was suppose to reboot. Didn't read that in the instructions. Says it is downloading now. This is a learning process for me. Still waiting on a supported video card to arrive. Just trying to prepare myself. Thanks again!
Sure I will be asking more questions.
 
pharm1boy said:
No, I didn't know I was suppose to reboot. Didn't read that in the instructions. Says it is downloading now. This is a learning process for me. Still waiting on a supported video card to arrive. Just trying to prepare myself. Thanks again!
Sure I will be asking more questions.
Click to expand...

Once you've downloaded the installer you may want to use this tool rather than my guide as it automates the process.
 
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