Okay, so, I've been going through a series of upgrades, probably in the wrong order, on my MacPro 1,1. I updated to El Capitan using the Piker method. Now, I want to add a pair of Xeon X5365 3.0GHz CPUs, which requires me to upgrade the firmware to 2,1. Unfortunately, I can't get the "Mac Pro 2006-2007 Firmware Tool" to work. Do I need to be in a Snow Leopard or Lion environment for it to work? If so, I am stuck with trying to get anything other than El Capitan to boot up. Any advice, please?
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Mac Pro 1,1 upgrade 2,1 AFTER El Capitan
- Thread starter GMan72
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Can you explain what issue is preventing it from working or when the problem occurs? I ran it from Mavericks after the CPU upgrade and it worked just fine.
[doublepost=1467079791][/doublepost]I think I figured out the problem; apparently, in El Capitan, a feature called SIP was introduced that basically locks any changes to firmware and can only be disabled via terminal from a recovery partition boot. Unfortunately, in my install, I did not create a recover partition, so could not login to terminal and disable SIP. What I ended up doing was installing Lion on another drive, then running the firmware updater in Lion...worked great!! Then, I installed the new 4 core CPUs, booted back to El Capitan and all is great. Whew...took way too many iterations to get there, but I finally did. Now, my 10 year old Mac Pro has new life with new 250GB SSD with El Capitan, new Xeon 5365s, upgraded Radeon 5770 (added several years ago), and 32 GB of RAM. The upgrade doubled the Geekbench multi-core score from 5142 to 10908.
Another upgrade you can do on the 2006 that I have done to mine, is when you get the x5365 cpu's, you can also get a pair of cpu heatsinks from a mac pro 2008 3,1. They have a LOT more cooling ability than the 2006 ones, including the air dam that helps get more cooling to the lower cpu since its the hottest one. The only caveat is that the lower heatsink temp sensor wire is too short, so you will need to pry the temp sensor off the old 1,1 heatsink, and re-glue it to the 3,1 heatsink so the cable will reach the plug on the motherboard.
The reason I did this, is the 1,1 cpu choices never were higher than 80 watts each, so its heatsinks were made to match that. The x5365 is a 150 watt cpu. Since real 2,1 heatsinks are wierd and very hard to get, the 3,1 ones work fine. The 3,1 also had 150 watt cpu's as an option so it has the triple full length heat pipe setup on its heatsinks.
Last point, everybody that upgrades their cpu's in their 1,1's, I really hope you remove the northbridge heatsink and repaste it. The 10 year old paste on mine was almost totally dried out, and with fresh arctic silver 5, my MCH temps have dropped by 10c or more.
The reason I did this, is the 1,1 cpu choices never were higher than 80 watts each, so its heatsinks were made to match that. The x5365 is a 150 watt cpu. Since real 2,1 heatsinks are wierd and very hard to get, the 3,1 ones work fine. The 3,1 also had 150 watt cpu's as an option so it has the triple full length heat pipe setup on its heatsinks.
Last point, everybody that upgrades their cpu's in their 1,1's, I really hope you remove the northbridge heatsink and repaste it. The 10 year old paste on mine was almost totally dried out, and with fresh arctic silver 5, my MCH temps have dropped by 10c or more.
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[doublepost=1486604084][/doublepost]I hate to revive a dead thread but I am trying to figure out how to remove the Northbridge heatsink on my Mac Pro 2,1. I have scoured the technician's manual and have scoured the web and found nothing. Since you recommend replacing the thermal paste on said heatsink, I figure you must know how to get it off. Please share.
The two large heatsinks on the logic board are both held on the same way, by a tight spring clip.
To remove them push one end down, so it can move under the chromed loop thats attached to the logic board.
While holding it down (its very stiff), twist the heatsink to pull it out from the loop, then just lift the heatsink up diagonally and unhook the other end of the clip.
To put it back, put the fresh paste on the chip, hook one end of the spring clip on its loop on the logic board.
Hold the heatsink TIGHT and bend the other end of the spring clip down until you can get it to latch on the other loop.
If you do it right, you should have both ends latched, and your forcibly holding the heatsink a little bit over the chip, so its not actually touching. Then, just lower the heatsink down onto the chip. Make sure you have a strong grip on it and dont bend the spring clip more than you have to, it takes a considerable amount of pressure, but works out fine as long as you dont slip up.
This isnt a dead thread at all, nothing wrong with asking for help on refurbishing your old mac pro!