MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 1,1 brick due to me upgrading firmware

[FatAlan]

Hi all.
Last week I purchased a Mac Pro 1,1. I then purchased 2 Xeon 5355s and 32GB of memory. I put it altogether, installed Mountain Lion and marveled at how I couldn't install anything due to my OS being too old. Obviously i needed to upgrade.

I was carefully following some very clear instructions on how to upgrade my 1,1 to 2,1 firmware so i could enjoy seeing the name of my processors and witness all of the memory. Retrospectively I shouldn't have.

What I did, ladies and gentleman was kick out the plug mid-way through the firmware upgrade. My Mac is now dead.

It will not boot to a chime and seems to be in a loop of the cd drive just clunking every 20 seconds. I followed instructions where I hold in the power button and I get a 3/3/3 code from the white LED above the power button. Eventually the drive opens. I burned a "firmware restoration" DVD from apple and that just doesn't boot. I don't know if anybody has any hints or tips for using this software.

So, my question - is it dead? Should I just throw it and grab another cheap 1,1. The fact that I wanted to save this one suggests that is not really in my nature but I don't want to waste time on something Ive killed due to my own stupidity.

Now, I am new to mac pro so is it something silly? I have pressed all the buttons inside and I have discovered that if I plug in the power lead with my finger on the on switch all the fans scream like its about to take off.

I think I have spent the last 10 hours going over and over the same things and nothing makes sense anymore

Any help would be great.

Thanks,

Alan

 

[reukiodo]

Out of curiousity, which firmware restoration DVD did you burn? Do you have the link?

 

[FatAlan]

Out of curiousity, which firmware restoration DVD did you burn? Do you have the link?

The link I used was -

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL204?locale=en_US

I'm going to try a different machine for burning this. After that I guess I could just throw the machine out and buy another buy that just seems wasteful. I'll probably waste a massive amount of time and effort before that happens

Cheers

Alan

 

[FatAlan]

I know this isn't the best answer but to fix the problem I purchased another mac pro for £25. I have installed the memory upgrade and everything works perfectly. The new machine seems quieter than the old one too. So I have a complete 1,1 for spares now.

 

[tsialex]

I know this isn't the best answer but to fix the problem I purchased another mac pro for £25. I have installed the memory upgrade and everything works perfectly. The new machine seems quieter than the old one too. So I have a complete 1,1 for spares now.

When you brick a MP1,1/2,1, you have to remove a TSOP32 flash memory and reprogram it with a external programmer. This will cost you much more than a replacement logic board or a full system.

For people in the USA, even a MP4,1/MP5,1 backplane will be cheaper than a MATT card or the cost for reprogramming the SPI flash that stores the BootROM. So, you did right buying a replacement MP1,1.

 

[FatAlan]

I did look at a MATT card but I just couldn't make the number work. This 1,1 was local too - this certainly helped as shipping costs can make these things quite expensive.