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How macOS Sierra handle Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1? Interesting!!

I'm a bit confused by this thread.

My Mac Pro 4,1 2009 was not used by myself for around a year so I pulled my Boot SSD and put it in my 2011 MacBook Pro.

From here I installed Sierra when it was released.

Last week I decided to bring the Mac Pro back into action so simply moved the SSD back.

When I did this it ran Sierra perfectly with no issues etc. I didn't even realise this was supposed to be an issue!

Since then though I have flashed it and installed 2x X5680 ;)
 
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I think I made a mistake with my Mac Pro 4,1 > 5,1. There is a NVidia Geforce 980 installed. I disabled the webdriver but didn't restart and the MacOS Sierra installation began without restarting (?). I didn't hear the startup sound. After half an hour, when the screen remained black and screensharing didn't help, I installed an old GT 120. Then I saw the kernel panic at startup. Nevertheless, I won't upgrade anymore. My old Filemaker Pro and Toast Titanium are incompatible. Sierra isn't worth it in my opinion.
 
I was finally able to install Sierra on my Mac Pro 4,1. It required zapping the PRAM, serializing the logic board first as a repair on the Mac before I bought left the new logic board unserialized. With that fixed, I booted to a Mavericks partition (as El Capitan was stopping the firmware change), and the firmware updated allowing the Sierra install.

So far my experience is very good, Radeon 7950 stability seems much better than Yosemite of El Capitan.

However there is one problem. Sierra doesn't recognize my original Apple WIFI hardware. At the top menu, it says, "No hardware Installed." However the System Profiler does recognize the hardware. System Preferences Network pane doesn't even allow you to select an new WIFI profile. I have zapped PRAM with no solution. I have booted back to El Capitan and WIFI works fine, but not at all in Sierra.

Anybody have any ideas?
 
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^^^^Go back to the preceding page and read Post #228. It's a common issue. Your card needs to updated to run Sierra.

Lou
 
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flowrider said:
^^^^Go back to the preceding page and read Post #228. It's a common issue. Your card needs to updated to run Sierra.

Lou
Click to expand...

Thanks and yes, I read back and see issues, but I don't know what I need to buy and I've discovered that during the repair on my Mac Pro when the logic board was replaced, they also put in a third party WIFI card in, not an Apple one While Apple supported it in El Capitan & Yosemite and further back, obviously they are not now. Here's the data, but I still can't tell what brand or know what I need to buy. Since I don't rely upon WIFI, this is not a deal killer for me, but it would be nice to be totally compatible. Btw, these stats do not even show up in Sierra. It just says NO HARDWARE FOUND. I had to boot to El Capitan to get this.

Interfaces:

en2:

Card Type: Third-Party Wireless Card

MAC Address: 00:1e:4c:63:c5:8d

Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165

Wake On Wireless: Supported

AirDrop: Supported

Current Network Information:

PHY Mode: 802.11n

BSSID: dc:fe:07:b9:d9:f0

Network Type: Infrastructure

Security: WPA/WPA2 Personal

Signal / Noise: -52 dBm / -78 dBm

Transmit Rate: 117

MCS Index: 14
 
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flowrider said:
^^^^See these two threads:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/installing-airport-card-in-mac-pro.1632552/#post-17853528

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...orking-on-mac-pro-2010-keep-updating.1748061/

Lou
Click to expand...

Many thanks again! I will check them out if I get ambitious. I would like to have Airdrop and Handoff capability. El Capitan ays my card is capable for Airdrop, but I've never gotten it to work.

The thing I hate most about how Apple is doing business is that yeah, they finally fixed some of the Graphics drivers in El Capitan in Sierra, but they also stopped supporting the customers who needed them MOST!

Same thing with WIFI. Apple introduced Airdrop and Handoff, while knowing that their most expensive Pro machines were not even capable of doing it at the time because Apple had let the Pro line go for so long. Then to add insult to injury, they start discontinuing those machines for "other" reasons. Apple used to support Macs as long or longer than Microsoft. Now its completely the other way around.

My Mac Pro was used in the making of one of the Toy Story movies. It's hardly obsolete compared to a Mac Mini or the cheapest Macbook. I only know this from residual Final Cut Pro files that they forget to clean off the machine. But what did Apple quickly do? They started disabling older versions of Final Cut Pro in OS X on purpose to gouge Pro customers. Well I'm not a Pro customer technically. I just bought a very tricked out machine from a Hollywood Design Studio. And I'm very happy with it. It still does more than I myself could ever do! Seriously, if this machine could talk, I'd love to hear the stories. :)
 
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I am not getting any updates showing up since 10.12.2 on my 2009 Mac Pro (flashed to 5,1) anyone else seeing this?
 
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fhturner said:
So, are you talking about what they call the "Legacy" version of the card that requires a driver and is listed as compatible from 10.6 up to 10.8.2 (but which works even as late as 10.11.6 in my experience)? There's also a driverless version (which I believe only differs in its firmware, but OWC so far won't give us access to that) that's compatible with 10.8.3+. One benefit of the Legacy version is that it supports eSATA port multiplication, while the driverless one does not, at least according to the specs pages for each.

Fred
Click to expand...
Sorry if this is late, but I wanted to mention that after an update from 10.12.3 to 10.12.4 I was having kernel panics early on boot caused by another Newertech card (6G-1e1i) and a PRAM reset fixed it. Just FYI!
 
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I have a question that I didn't notice answered. I now have Sierra up and running on my 4,1 Mac Pro, but what if I flash it back from 5,1 to 4,1 firmware? Will Sierra still run after already installed or will just updates fail to install?

I also got a USB WIFI adapter which runs fine, but doesn't seem to support the newer WIFI features like Apple's.
Is it just that Apple is ONLY supporting the Broadcom chip onboard?
 
BaltimoreMediaBlog said:
I have a question that I didn't notice answered. I now have Sierra up and running on my 4,1 Mac Pro, but what if I flash it back from 5,1 to 4,1 firmware? Will Sierra still run after already installed or will just updates fail to install?

I also got a USB WIFI adapter which runs fine, but doesn't seem to support the newer WIFI features like Apple's.
Is it just that Apple is ONLY supporting the Broadcom chip onboard?
Click to expand...

No idea, no one try it yet, but my understanding is that you can't boot straight away, should need some work around.

Technically, it's the same as install Sierra on a 5,1 and then move the HDD to the 4,1. My understanding is it won't boot.

For those features, you need CAT (Continuity Activation Tool) to activate them. They only supported on native Wi-Fi card.
 
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Squuiid said:
Pick up one of these and you won't have to worry about that ;)
It's a pretty common upgrade for those of us with cMPs.
http://www.osxwifi.com/apple-broadc...-with-adapter-for-macpro-2009-and-macpro-2010
Click to expand...

Actually upgrading the Bluetooth is good advice, but it currently works as originally released without Handoff.
But that won't help with WIFI though, but I guess what I have externally is sufficient.
It's just annoying that I'm running out of USB ports and I should need to use that one.
 
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BaltimoreMediaBlog said:
Those links are helpful, but is there a WIFI/Bluetooth card that can be purchased that doesn't need soldering?
While I do know how to solder, I'm not risking that on a $3000 machine. The replacement cost of the Mac Pro far outweigh the WIFI issues.
Click to expand...

I've purchased something like this a while ago:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-P...215866?hash=item3d303b93ba:g:n2IAAOSwqBJXXolZ

You can find plenty on eBay using "macpro bluetooth" search. Installs without any soldering, works OOB, Handoff and everything.
 
After six months, I tried to re-install Sierra on my Mac Pro 2009. This time it worked. The only problem is that if I want to change the startupdisk and restart I get a message "insufficient Priviileges". I can however change the startup disk if I shut down the Mac afterwards. However I keep a partition with Yosemite and El Capitan because of compatibility problems with some applications in Sierra.
A pleasant surprise in Sierra is (according to Geekbench) Metal is 10% faster and OpenCL 15% faster.
 
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