MP 1,1-5,1 How to upgrade to Mojave from High Sierra using an RX580?

[Mark Bowen]

First off please accept my apologies as I can see from the many many threads I've read about this that it's definitely been discussed before but I'm so completely lost with all of this now that I thought I should ask in a new thread.

I have a Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010) which I bought when they first came out. It has worked beautifully for the past 10 years with absolutely no hitches at all which is amazing as I literally throw everything at it daily!

I would however like to upgrade the system from High Sierra (it is running that now) to Mojave and so have bought a Radeon RX580 Sapphire Pulse (link below)

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8G GDDR5 Dual HDMI/DVI-D/Dual DP Graphics Card - Black

SAPPHIRE Technology is a leading manufacturer and global supplier of innovative components and solutions for PC systems for both consumer and professional applications From its origins in the design and manufacture of state-of-the-art graphics add-in boards the extensive SAPPHIRE product range ha...

www.amazon.co.uk

I also purchased 64GB of ram as it was cheap and wanted to treat the computer 😉

After reading many hundreds of pages about upgrading my main question is how to get a boot screen operating with the above graphics card?

I was on one hand under the impression that as I'm running High Sierra then I could just pop the card in (I also bought a dual mini 6 pin to 8 pin lead), install Mojave as it will let me do that with this card and then when that's all up and running I could install something like rEFInd to allow myself to get a boot screen?
(or should that be install rEFInd before the system update?)

Either way that rEFInd needs installing I've come across threads saying this is all you need to do and then other threads saying that you need to install rEFInd and a Clover file and loads of Terminal commands so I'm really not sure now of what I need to do :-(

As mentioned above I've never had a problem with this Mac in the 10 years I've been using it and I like to think I know my way round them very well (used to work as a music technician with Macs and in fact they're the only computer I've ever used apart from Ataris, Spectrums & BBCs!). I however have never had the need to mess with them too much at a low level or anything like that.

I've only ever used the bootscreen for very edge cases and never needed to fix the computer or system once by using that method so I was initially thinking to myself, am I all that bothered with even having a boot screen? That brought me to thinking yes I am as so*s law might come to hand here and everything goes wrong and I have no way to get the computer back up and running again so I'd really like to get a boot screen working in the easiest way possible. I've seen other threads on using openCore but to be honest even though I can follow instructions and type in lines of code without a problem I do worry that there's just so much to do that if anything did go wrong then I'd be seriously worried as I wouldn't understand anything that I'd just done and wouldn't have the first foggiest of where to start to look to fix the problem.

I also (to sort of go hand in hand with rEFInd, came across Next Loader and I believe it was called Boot Runner) which I've read do the same sort of things?

Basically therefore my question is what is the easiest method for me to upgrade to Mojave using the card linked to above so that I can get a boot screen working with it. On the other hand if there's any way to not have a boot screen but if something did go wrong to still be able to fix the computer in some way and if you think that would be a better fit here then I'm open to hearing that side of things too.

One other question if I may whilst here regards updating the system to Mojave. I can see my Mac has the Mojave installer app on it (I believe it was around 6GB in size if my memory serves me correctly) and was wondering is it possible to place a copy of say High Sierra onto a USB flash drive along with that app so that I can boot from the USB drive and then install Mojave onto one of the internal SSD drives I have in the computer? If so this would be handy as then if I did have problems I'm guessing I could take all drives out of the computer that aren't working and place a new, blank drive in and boot from the USB flash drive if needed and start all over again should such a large problem arise?

Also just thinking ahead as to the best way to update to Mojave anyway so that I always have High Sierra to fall back on should I need to.

Many thanks in advance for any help with this and I'm really sorry if I've waffled on too much but just wanted to get all my knowledge written down so people can see exactly what I've seen and know so hopefully I can get the help I need.

Hope everyone is keeping well and staying safe during these odd times.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

[MarkC426]

You cannot have a boot screen with RX580 (tbh you rarely should need it).
You can get it flashed by macvidcards, you would have to send it to him (or he does pre-flashed cards).

Keep your original gpu as a backup which presumably is original Apple Card.

You can run the installer for Mojave from HS and select another drive for installation.

 

[Mark Bowen]

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. This is where I'm getting lost then as there are threads on the forums here (and I've seen many others too) which seem to say different?

[HowTo] MP 3,1 Use AMD RX 580 for Mojave/Catalina and bootscreen (without flashing)

Here is a guide that I think a few are looking for to help them open the door to other options outside of Nvidia Kepler GPUs like the GTX 680 that are rather old and quite expensive. I'm going to do my best to break this into two sections, one about getting boot screen with a stock PC RX 580...

forums.macrumors.com

The link above (to me) sounds like they're saying you would get a boot screen with the RX 580 or am I misunderstanding what they're meaning in there?

Many thanks for all the help on this though as it's very much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Mark
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Ooh and on the issue of using a USB flash drive to install Mojave from, is that possible and if so, what do I need to do in order to realise that?

Thanks again.

Mark

 

[MarkC426]

If your comfortable with getting into code....then maybe.
But I would avoid it unless you know what your doing.

TBH I don't boot into windows or anything like that, so have zero use for the boot screen.
If you have another OS or a copy on another drive, you can boot to that if you had a problem (you should have a clone anyway for safety).
You can change boot volume from within prefs panel also.

 

[kohlson]

There is a way, other than macvidcards. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opencore-on-the-mac-pro.2207814/

So you'll have to decide how much a boot screen is worth to you - OC is some amount of effort. I haven't not yet done it myself, but I suspect it would take me a few hours to review and get comfortable with the procedure, and then execute.

I have gone through the various stages of taking my 4,1 into the almost present (10.14.6, RX580, NVMe SSD) and I am very happy with its ability to edit 4K footage in FCPX. When I installed the RX580 18 months ago, I have missed the ability to have boot screens...never. Not one little bit. Not anything close to a "Oh, if only." YMMV.

The RX580 is supported from 10.12.6 on. I've installed one for a friend who still uses FCP7. In his case, the issue was his 5870 died, and it didn't make sense to get anything else as a replacement. But best driver support is 10.14.6.

Still, I have a pair of originally installed GT120s lying around, because you never know. And, you know, inertia...or lack thereof.

 

[DPUser]

never missed the boot screen here
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One thing that is easy to overlook... with its removal drive trays, it is a simple matter to swap boot drives. If only one boot drive is onboard, your Mac will start from it.

 

[tsialex]

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. This is where I'm getting lost then as there are threads on the forums here (and I've seen many others too) which seem to say different?

[HowTo] MP 3,1 Use AMD RX 580 for Mojave/Catalina and bootscreen (without flashing)

Here is a guide that I think a few are looking for to help them open the door to other options outside of Nvidia Kepler GPUs like the GTX 680 that are rather old and quite expensive. I'm going to do my best to break this into two sections, one about getting boot screen with a stock PC RX 580...

forums.macrumors.com

The link above (to me) sounds like they're saying you would get a boot screen with the RX 580 or am I misunderstanding what they're meaning in there?

Many thanks for all the help on this though as it's very much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Mark
[automerge]1591809449[/automerge]
Ooh and on the issue of using a USB flash drive to install Mojave from, is that possible and if so, what do I need to do in order to realise that?

Thanks again.

Mark

MP3,1 UEFI GOP support is totally different from MP5,1, while rEFInd works for a MP3,1, it won't work with a MP5,1.

If you want pre-boot configuration support with a MP5,1 and a non Mac EFI flashed GOP GPU, try OpenCore.

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

This guide explains how to use the excellent OpenCore boot loader to install, run, and update the latest version of macOS on the MacPro5,1, resulting in a clean, unaltered operating system just like on a supported Mac.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Mark Bowen]

Hi everyone,

Many thanks for all the replies, they're very very much appreciated.
I think on reflection I'll just go without a boot screen as there's too much involved with installing OpenCore for me to want to go down that route. As mentioned I've never had a problem with this Mac so don't envisage one happening now (famous last words!!) .

If I could possibly ask 2 more questions if anyone has any ideas on them?

I've been told elsewhere that the RX580 will show a screen if I ever chose to use the recovery option (Command-R) and just wanted to check here if that's correct or not?

If that still works then I'm really not fussed at all by not being able to startup with option to choose a disk as I don't really ever do that anyway. Just wanted to check if what I'm being told is true or not though as I trust peoples knowledge on here much more than I do where I was told this.

The other question would be regarding a USB Bluetooth dongle that I purchased so that I will still be able to use my Magic Mouse.
Currently the dongle is working fine under High Sierra however there is one thing I've noticed with it. Oh I should perhaps also first of all mention that I have also purchased a USB WiFi dongle too so that WiFi will continue to work with Mojave also. Both of these are working fine so far and fingers crossed I don't envisage any problems with them working under Mojave.

The problem I do have however is that I have the Bluetooth dongle plugged in using one of the USB ports on the front face of the computer and the WiFi dongle at the back. If I now try to place a USB flash drive into the other front USB port then the mouse plays up and works exceptionally slowly and intermittently.

I thought possibly it might have to do with USB power draw (I also have a Huion graphics tablet plugged into the keyboard side USB port, the keyboard plugged into one of the rear USB sockets, the WiFi dongle plugged into another one of the rear sockets and finally an iConnectAudio2+ audio interface also plugged into the last rear USB socket).
I tried taking a couple out of the equation but this is still happening so thinking that it must therefore be something else somewhere though not sure what?

Just wondering why having a USB flash drive plugged in to the front USB port along with the Bluetooth dongle would cause the mouse to behave like that?

Thanks again for any insight to those two questions.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

[tsialex]

I've been told elsewhere that the RX580 will show a screen if I ever chose to use the recovery option (Command-R) and just wanted to check here if that's correct or not?

Both Recovery and macOS installer works fine with RX 580, the display will work after the GPU drivers are loaded, takes around 3 minutes.

 

[Mark Bowen]

Thanks for that. Definitely reckon I'll go that route then.
Do you possibly have any ideas on why the Magic Mouse is playing up when a USB flash drive is plugged in at all? I'm using the Bluetooth dongle when it's having the issues. If using the built-in Bluetooth then there's no problems however when I move across to Mojave then I'll have to be using the dongle as the built-in card will no longer work.

Many thanks,

Mark

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for that. Definitely reckon I'll go that route then.
Do you possibly have any ideas on why the Magic Mouse is playing up when a USB flash drive is plugged in at all? I'm using the Bluetooth dongle when it's having the issues. If using the built-in Bluetooth then there's no problems however when I move across to Mojave then I'll have to be using the dongle as the built-in card will no longer work.

Many thanks,

Mark

Sorry, no.

 

[Mark Bowen]

Okay, no problems. I'll do some more digging and testing of that myself and if I find anything out I'll report back here. Definitely 'feels' a little strange so not too sure what's going on.

Thanks everybody for all your help though as it's been very much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

[Mark Bowen]

Doing some digging on this and I believe that USB 3.0 flash drives can actually create radio interference so I believe that's very possibly what's going on here.

On a sidenote though and a quick question. I've just noticed (after purchasing both a USB WiFi dongle and a USB Bluetooth dongle) that both the original internal WiFi and Bluetooth cards are working fine!

I was under the impression from everything I'd read that they would stop working under Mojave and were no longer supported?

Seems not to be the case for me though so just wondering why that is?

That said I'm definitely going to be keeping them both and in fact utilising the WiFi dongle as it's much faster but just wondering how mine are still working? This was a brand new install of Mojave to a totally blank new drive.

Thanks for any insight as to why this may be.

Oh and as you may have noticed already I now have my Mac all up and running on Mojave and it is running absolutely beautifully so thank you to everyone for all the help.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

[kohlson]

USB 3.0 flash drives can actually create radio interference

They can, along with anything else that's USB-3 (hubs, docks, drives, etc). This can interfere on the same frequency as BT. Please note that I said "can" not "will." I have intermittent, though manageable interference with my Magic Mouse 2 on my 2009. MM-1 is unusable. Things get wonky depending on what's hooked up and going, but the tradeoff in transfer rates works for me.

 

[kalenaka]

I currently have a 2009 Mac Pro (dual quadcore Xeons 2.66 with 32 GB of ram) flashed to 5,1 running the recent version of High Sierra and with the right BootROM. All my specs for things to work match tsialex's "MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave". I also have a Sapphire Pulse RX580. When I start the computer with the required specs and the RX580 installed (w. dual 6 mini to 8), the screen is black but the fans run.

I tried

-resetting PRAM
-starting and restarting
-letting the computer sit for half hour to see if the screen will work, but nothing
-reformatting the SSD Samsung Evo drive and redownloading El Capitan and High Sierra to the proper specs

What are your thoughts? Should I get a graphics card that's native to Apple that works with both Mojave, High Sierra, and Catalina to make the jump and use the RX580? If this is discussed in another thread, please share. I'll be happy to read it. At this point, I'm not sure how to proceed.

 

[KeesMacPro]

@kalenaka
The sapphire RX 580 is natively supported with High Sierra and up (and Sierra with buggy drivers) .
Based on your description, if you install the card under High Sierra, Mojave or Catalina it should work fine.
I'd test the card with another monitor cable and/or another GPU output (e.g. HDMI vs. DisplayPort).
If you could test the card in another Mac/PC ,that would rule out a faulty GPU.

 

[MarkC426]

How are you reformatting the drive with no display.
Are you using an old gpu for this?

As KeesMacPro said, which gpu connection are you using.

 

[kalenaka]

@KeesMacPro, I'll get another cord to test. Tried DP and now will try HDMI.

@MarkC426, I reformatted the drive with the original graphics card to High Sierra, so I know my monitor works.

 

[MarkC426]

Sounds like either GPU or power cable then.

 

[kalenaka]

My GPU is brand new, out of the box. I could try another GPU and another dual 6 mini to 8 and another monitor to graphic card cord. If one of the power outlets on the motherboard is down, is there a way to check that?

Also, when I reformatted and redownloaded El Capitan, my Mac Pro was already in Mac 5,1 and the correct bootRom. Could it be that the person who flashed my 2009 Mac Pro to 5,1 used bad coding?

 

[MarkC426]

But as your system works with old GPU, it points to the RX580 as the issue!
Presumably you put the GPU in the same pcie slot.
Can you try your old GPU on each 6 pin on the motherboard?

 

[kalenaka]

UPDATE!!!

I tried Screen sharing and saw that my Mac Pro was reading the RX580. I plugged in the card. Dettached the 8 pin, reattached. Started the computer without any cord to the monitor. Plugged in the DP to the card and then to the computer and finally it worked. Thank you all. I'm buying you a virtual coffee. I can finally make my feature length film editing on a Mac Pro versus a Macbook Air. Thank you!!!

 

[kalenaka]

Now that I have my graphics card going, I upgraded my CPU to dual X5580 3.33 but now I'm getting a black screen. When i start, there's no chime. My motherboard lights up once. So I switched back to my old dual Xeon 2.66 and still I get the same thing, that is a brief light from the motherboard, graphic card running, and computer starts, but there is no screen. If there's a thread for this, I'm happy to read it.

 

[kalenaka]

I was careful to not screw the heatsink on too tight. I made sure that I screwed them thumbtight or a little less. I looked at the pins and they look good and not crushed.