Just Got A Mac Pro 1.1 and need some advice

[earthwriter]

So after doing a little bit of research, unfortunately not enough, we bit the bullet and bought a Mac Pro 1.1 that came from University Surplus, Running El Capitan or Yosemite on a modded drive that is able run newer OS)
Configuration is as follows-
-PC AMD 2GB Radeon HD 7850 of course no boot screen
original Nvidia 7300 GT should have around 256mb
-original Apple optical drive
-16gb RAM
-160gb HDD (modded drive includes80gb partitions for both OS's)

Currently booted on El Capitan with the Nvidia card added at the moment but only showing 5mb in About This Mac, but the AMD card is still in the slot we only disconnected the power cable from the motherboard, so on the first run after reinstalling the Nvidia the slot utility came up, we changed lanes or something like that and the slot utility is no longer coming up, but the card still shows only 5mb. Took out the AMD card and placed the Nvidia in the same first slot still reporting only 5mb, could the card be defective or does the slot need to configured correctly? Please see the embedded Expansion Slot Utility Screen Shot, We would like to have both cards installed since we need the boot screen for Recovery Mode and Bootcamp. The AMD card has a lot more power, we are trying to see if there is any way to flash it so that it will work with the boot screen. So we checked the firmware it shows MP11.005C.B08 a quick search shows that to be EFI 1.1, does anyone know if we update the firmware to 2.1 will that interfere with the Modded drive? There is a old Mac Pro 1,1 to 21 thread on here on Mac Rumors but it seems posting to it would be pointless since it was last active in 2012. Any ideas why the Nvidia card only shows 5mb in About This Mac? Could this be because the modded system is not compatible with the Nvidia card and will only work with the stock system or Lion?
Will future updates kill this modded drive all together, will we wind up having to downgrade to Lion? Can someone please explain what is it that makes this HDD modded and how it affects performance, etc? Can we create either a dvd or usb install/rescue disk for the drive or are we pretty much out of luck if the system crashes? Is there any possible chance in the future that future OS X might work or is this the end of the road for the 1.1? It's a lot of questions but we have searched and have found very little info.
We don't mind spending a little more to make this viable and not have to get something else at the moment, however a 1 GB graphics Mac Pro AMD graphics card is over $100 used and we don't even know if it would be compatible with this modded OS X drive?
We appreciate any helpful suggestions or tips.
Thanks

 

[jbarley]

The original Nvidia 7300 GT, when used on your Mac Pro 1,1 with any modern unsupported operating (Lion was the last supported system for the MP1,1) will always only show and use 5-7mb of ram.
Also, it is not your drive which has been "modded" it is the installed system software which has had 1 file (in 2 locations) altered.
About the very first thing all of us MP 1,1 2,1 users do when upgrading the operating system do is ditch the 7300 GT for a more usable Video card.
Check out this thread for more information on how this has been done and what you can do to keep things running smoothly.

 

[earthwriter]

The original Nvidia 7300 GT, when used on your Mac Pro 1,1 with any modern unsupported operating (Lion was the last supported system for the MP1,1) will always only show and use 5-7mb of ram.
Also, it is not your drive which has been "modded" it is the installed system software which has had 1 file (in 2 locations) altered.
About the very first thing all of us MP 1,1 2,1 users do when upgrading the operating system do is ditch the 7300 GT for a more usable Video card.
Check out this thread for more information on how this has been done and what you can do to keep things running smoothly.

Thanks for the reply, that's pretty much what we figured the card not being supported is the reason for the lack of VRAM, so your saying that the modded part is the EFI file Yes looks like the 7850 is what they replaced it with,unfortunately it is not Mac compatible or at least not that we know of so no boot screen. One question comes to mind then, can we install and run boot camp or do we need a newer more compatible Graphics for that? We posted to that thread hopefully they can help.
Thanks

 

[earthwriter]

On a related note, we used the 7300 GT to get to the boot menu, booted up Yosemite and now for some reason we can't boot to El Capitan with the Radeon even after it's been chosen the with or without the 7300 GT, (When we try to boot off the Radeon with the 7300 GT in at the same time it shows a blurry desktop and freezes without the 7300 GT installed, it just boots to Yosemite.) installed any idea what could be causing it to boot to Yosemite and not El Capitan like it was before? Update it's back to normal.
Thanks

 

[earthwriter]

Was using the Mac Pro with no issues suddenly it went blank restarted itself this error was associated with it, can you help us decipher it, is it a Kernel Panic? Is there a better place to post this to? We looked up the Spinlock error but can't find any info that can help us figure out what's causing it except and incompatible wifi driver.
Thanks

Anonymous UUID: A32B7C05-8CAE-7371-7F65-7523B7C5D582

Mon May 22 00:23:51 2017

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801d0f13fe): "thread_invoke: preemption_level 1, possible cause: blocking while holding a spinlock, or within interrupt context"@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-3248.60.11.2.1/osfmk/kern/sched_prim.c:2068
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81fbacb840 : 0xffffff801d0d7b92
0xffffff81fbacb8c0 : 0xffffff801d0f13fe
0xffffff81fbacb950 : 0xffffff801d0ede6f
0xffffff81fbacb990 : 0xffffff801d0e4234
0xffffff81fbacb9d0 : 0xffffff801d11c49c
0xffffff81fbacbb00 : 0xffffff801d67b51b
0xffffff81fbacbb20 : 0xffffff7f9de2cc0a
0xffffff81fbacbb70 : 0xffffff7f9de23d4e
0xffffff81fbacbc00 : 0xffffff7f9de2270e
0xffffff81fbacbf10 : 0xffffff7f9de20212
0xffffff81fbacbf90 : 0xffffff7f9de1f9a5
0xffffff81fbacbfb0 : 0xffffff801d1c6537
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.Ralink.driver.RT2870USBWirelessDriver(5.0.1)[913C8FA7-124F-37D3-AB71-E0B8DD8E4A5F]@0xffffff7f9ddd4000->0xffffff7f9dee3fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(3.2)[848B398F-4D96-3024-8092-6CD3534D2CCA]@0xffffff7f9dc7d000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(900.4.1)[FB980EB5-1F73-348E-9554-6F9F6FE481FD]@0xffffff7f9dd28000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Boot args: kext-dev-mode=1

Mac OS version:
15G1217

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 15.6.0: Mon Jan 9 23:07:29 PST 2017; root:xnu-3248.60.11.2.1~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: 0BADD3CA-3553-380F-8A09-3B02BA961B45
Kernel slide: 0x000000001ce00000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff801d000000
__HIB text base: 0xffffff801cf00000
System model name: MacPro1,1 (Mac-F42C88C8)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 19998917818328
last loaded kext at 15620192533899: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs 1.10 (addr 0xffffff7fa0307000, size 69632)
last unloaded kext at 15713385077873: com.apple.driver.AppleXsanScheme 3 (addr 0xffffff7fa02ff000, size 32768)
loaded kexts:
com.Ralink.driver.RT2870USBWirelessDriver 5.0.1
com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs 1.10
com.apple.filesystems.smbfs 3.0.1
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC 1.70
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient 3.6.1
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl 1.2.13
com.apple.kext.AMDFramebuffer 1.4.2
com.apple.driver.AppleOSXWatchdog 1
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA 274.12
com.apple.driver.pmtelemetry 1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet 1.0.1
com.apple.AMDRadeonX4000 1.4.2
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 4.4.6f1
com.apple.iokit.CSRBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.4.6f1
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X 7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC 3.1
com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin 1.0.0
com.apple.kext.AMD7000Controller 1.4.2
com.apple.driver.AppleHV 1
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSlowAdaptiveClocking 4.0.0
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 3.7.7
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage 2.8.5
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless 1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib 1.0.0
com.apple.BootCache 38
com.apple.driver.AppleIntel8254XEthernet 3.1.4b1
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 5.5.4
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 3.1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelPIIXATA 2.5.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCIPCI 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBUHCIPCI 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons 4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET 1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS 2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC 4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC 1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient 218.0.0
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 163
com.apple.security.quarantine 3
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 8
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement 218.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice 3.7.7
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver 1.0.0
com.apple.driver.usb.IOUSBHostHIDDevice 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.usb.cdc 5.0.0
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostCompositeDevice 1.0.1
com.apple.kext.triggers 1.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController 1.0.14d1
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 274.12
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 525
com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2 205.11
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface 108.2.3
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 2.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 11
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.4.6f1
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily 4.4.6f1
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginLegacy 1.0.0
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 6.0.0d7
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 274.12
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 274.12
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 204.4
com.apple.vecLib.kext 1.2.0
com.apple.kext.AMDSupport 1.4.2
com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl 3.12.9
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 2.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 2.2.6
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC 3.1.9
com.apple.driver.CoreCaptureResponder 1
com.apple.driver.corecapture 1.0.4
com.apple.iokit.IOSlowAdaptiveClockingFamily 1.0.0
com.apple.driver.usb.networking 5.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 3.7.7
com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily 1.8
com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily 1.8
com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily 1.8
com.apple.iokit.IOATAPIProtocolTransport 3.5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily 3.7.7
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily 3.2
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily 4.6.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily 2.8.1
com.apple.iokit.IOATAFamily 2.5.3
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBUHCI 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCI 1.0.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 900.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime 2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily 2.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily 1.1
com.apple.security.sandbox 300.0
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch 1.0.0d1
com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore 2
com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity 1.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleCredentialManager 1.0
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 417.4
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 2.1
com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily 31
com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore 28.30
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform 4.0
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily 2.9
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily 1.4
com.apple.kec.Libm 1
com.apple.kec.pthread 1
com.apple.kec.corecrypto 1.0
Model: MacPro1,1, BootROM MP11.005C.B08, 4 processors, Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 2.66 GHz, 16 GB, SMC 1.7f10
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7xxx, AMD Radeon HD 7xxx, PCIe, 2048 MB
Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 1, 4 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x48594D503135314637324350344E332D5935
Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 2, 4 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x48594D503135314637324350344E332D5935
Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 1, 4 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x48594D503135314637324350344E332D5935
Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 2, 4 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 667 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x48594D503135314637324350344E332D5935
Bluetooth: Version 4.4.6f1 17910, 3 services, 26 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: 802.11ac WLAN, Ethernet, en4
Serial ATA Device: SAMSUNG HD160JJ/P, 160 GB
Parallel ATA Device: SONY DVD RW DW-D150A
USB Device: USB Bus
USB Device: USB Bus
USB Device: Bluetooth HCI
USB Device: USB Receiver
USB Device: USB Bus
USB Device: USB Keyboard
USB Device: USB Bus
USB Device: USB 2.0 Bus
USB Device: 802.11ac WLAN
FireWire Device: built-in_hub, Up to 800 Mb/sec
Thunderbolt Bus:

 

[Sko]

com.Ralink.driver.RT2870USBWirelessDriver

This driver seems to be problematic. Try safeboot (knowledge base article) and find an uninstaller for your usb-wireless-adapter or delete the .kext directly (/System/Library/Extensions/).

 

[earthwriter]

com.Ralink.driver.RT2870USBWirelessDriver

This driver seems to be problematic. Try safeboot (knowledge base article) and find an uninstaller for your usb-wireless-adapter or delete the .kext directly (/System/Library/Extensions/).

Just uninstalled it yesterday and reinstalled with the CD it came with unfortunately all we did was reinstall the same version, we will try uninstalling again, but how do we use the adapter? Thanks
[doublepost=1495483362][/doublepost]What would be the best option to clone the existing systems to a bigger drive? Should we get a drive that has El Capitan already pre-installed or should we get one that is either formatted for Mac or needs to be?
Thanks

 

[Sko]

You have to buy a different wifi-adapter. Ralink was bought in 2011 by MediaTek and there are no newer drivers on their site.

I almost always use just Disk Utility when it comes to cloning. Start in recovery, initialize any off-the-shelf hard drive or SSD and clone your existing startup disk to the new drive. Cloning from a live system may need Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[earthwriter]

That's really bad news, we just bought this adapter after having a bought a non 5G adapter, well so far no more random crash but it will probably happen again. So just clone it with Disk Utility to a formatted Mac Drive, would that be Journaled Format? Would it make more sense to clone it to a 250-500 GB SSD and get a 2 TB just for storage?
Thanks

 

[earthwriter]

Another question, would it be better to replace the Yosemite with Lion and backup since it's more compatible?

 

[AidenShaw]

So after doing a little bit of research, unfortunately not enough, we bit the bullet and bought a Mac Pro 1.1 ...

It's too bad that you didn't ask for advice before biting the bullet - because the advice would have been to not buy a 10 or 11 year old system that's reknowned for being one of the most power-hungry desktops ever sold.

 

[earthwriter]

It's too bad that you didn't ask for advice before biting the bullet - because the advice would have been to not buy a 10 or 11 year old system that's reknowned for being one of the most power-hungry desktops ever sold.

Actually there was a post asking for advice just not about the Mac Pro given certain circumstance there wasn't much choice in the matter as we were not about to spend $2k for a used Mac Pro that looks like a trash can, if that's what your thinking we should have considered? A quick Google search for Most Power Hungry Desktops with Mac Pro in it only yields this "The 'New' Mac Pro Is a Failure - The Mac Observer" Just what is it you are referring to when you say "Power Hungry" as in wattage? If so please share your experience and what kind of power consumption you are aware of, as all we have read so far is that it's a good strong Mac and found little to no complaints whatsoever about it. By the way we are keeping the power management on all the time just like we did with our Mac Mini and it goes to sleep whenever it's not used for more than an hour. However we will be getting a watt watcher type device and measuring wattage to be sure there is no high consumption. We would really appreciate your sharing what you know or have experienced.
Thanks

 

[Sko]

Would it make more sense to clone it to a 250-500 GB SSD and get a 2 TB just for storage?

Yes, a SSD startup drive breathes new life into this machine.

Another question, would it be better to replace the Yosemite with Lion and backup since it's more compatible?

I'd go for El Capitan as it is more mature than Yosemite and still addressed with security updates. Don't do anything older than Yosemite. The link to the El Capitan on Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 thread is in my signature. The most up-to-date installation instruction is around post #1390, if I remember correctly.

 

[kschendel]

It's unfortunate you didn't get a 4,1 or 5,1 (the 2009-2012 tower, not the 2013+ trash can). The 1,1 was an OK machine, but the 32 bit EFI in the boot rom really limits you today, and many cards that are hardware compatible with the 1,1 have outdated drivers that don't work well (or at all) with current OS X releases, as you're finding out.

 

[orph]

the 1.1 is fine for some jobs, as long as you dont want to do anything complex it will work ok.

what do you intend to do on it?
what do you want from it?
are the main points

there not suggesting the new mac pro (it's not in the same price range as a used macpro 1.1), even a newer macmin with a i3/i5 will be much faster.
it's just that the cpu's are intel quad chips (or something) ie pre i-3/5/7 chips so there much slower than newer chips.

the HD 7850 is a good card and you dont need boot screens (i have not had a boot screen since 2014 i think) and not had any problems from it.
i can boot in to windows and different boot partitions without problems, just keep the original card as a backup for luck.

you can install windows, the boot camp app is in the utility's folder (in the app folder).

 

[carlvsam]

It's unfortunate you didn't get a 4,1 or 5,1 (the 2009-2012 tower, not the 2013+ trash can). The 1,1 was an OK machine, but the 32 bit EFI in the boot rom really limits you today, and many cards that are hardware compatible with the 1,1 have outdated drivers that don't work well (or at all) with current OS X releases, as you're finding out.

When I can buy a 4.1 or 5.1 with 32GB of ram and a 2TB HDD for $180, then contact me...

Personally, I prefer seeing these computers still being used, rather than being turned to e-waste.

 

[kschendel]

When I can buy a 4.1 or 5.1 with 32GB of ram and a 2TB HDD for $180, then contact me...

Personally, I prefer seeing these computers still being used, rather than being turned to e-waste.

I don't necessarily disagree. However, after a point, the older machines require more sophistication, effort, time, and money to get / keep running, just because of driver rot, old hardware, etc etc and I think the 1,1 is in that category; and it's not going to get any better. The 5,1's are still over $1000, but I can find single CPU 4,1's (with upgraded CPU's even) in the $500-$600 range and I do think that is a much better deal than a $200 1,1 for 99.9% of users.

 

[dfritchie]

My old mac pro has been regulated to running Windows 10 pro, which it does a great job of doing. El Cap does run on it, but I found somethings, like remembering desktop prefs, don't always work. I tried windows 10 home but it only saw one processor usable, pro uses both.

 

[yellowbunny]

Still use mine daily. 24gb ram, ssd boot drive, 5770, usb3 card, 8tb 3.5 sata. Even does FCPX (better when using proxy files for sure).

 

[LightBulbFun]

that's reknowned for being one of the most power-hungry desktops ever sold.

that My Good Sir Would be the PowerMac G5 Quad (Just look at the Beefier kettle lead it uses...)

 

[CapnDavey]

When I can buy a 4.1 or 5.1 with 32GB of ram and a 2TB HDD for $180, then contact me...

Personally, I prefer seeing these computers still being used, rather than being turned to e-waste.

Well 180 no but if you look around they can be had for as little as 400 dollars that what I paid for this 8 core last year FYI