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Mac Pro 1,1 upgrades guidance

S

srjtv

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 27, 2014
7
0
Hello all! Long time reader, first time writer. Been Googling and reading and reading, and my brain is mush. I kindly and with great appreciation ask for help and direct answers.

I inherited a Mac Pro 1,1. 2x 2.66 for four cores, 500GB System Drive, 3 2TB Scratch Drives, 12GB RAM, X1900 graphics card, FCS 3 discs with serial included. Very useful as a B machine for editing (Primary is an Avid & Adobe PC). Was given to me clean, so I downloaded a 10.7.4 image, installed, all was well. I followed all instructions I could find for installing 10.8.3, 10.9.4, 10.10.1, both official and with Chameleon, and no luck on ANY of it. Followed the instructions for every single one - twice - and could not get any of it to work. So, went back to Lion. Did the install of Lion, installed FCP, had the comp search for updates . . . and no 10.7.5 came up? Weird.

Anywho - going to do the X5355 upgrade, and would like to upgrade the graphics card so I can get the tower to utilize and HDMI TV for editing (trying to use as much equipment I have around as possible to make this as inexpensive as possible). If I can get 10.7.5 installed, would an EVGA 01G-P4-2650-RX GeForce GTX 650 work? It is the least expensive Nvidia card I can find that has an HDMI out (and I don't care about audio over HDMI, just video). Process - would I update to 10.7.5, download Nvidia driver for 10.7.5, install, shut down, unplug the X1900, install the Nvidia in the bottom slot where the X1900 was, and reboot and pray the HDMI works? With the available TV / Monitor I have, DVI is not an option - needs to be VGA or HDMI.

Additionally - would also like to upgrade the system drive to a SSD (250GB will suffice), and maybe swap the SuperDrive to a BluRay burner (have a copy of Toast for BluRay burning), which I believe will involve using a PATA to SATA adapter, unless I install it in the spare bay which has SATA running to it already?

Basically, processors + card + SSD + Blu-Ray =

Anything I am not thinking, aside from where to find a adapter for the Mac Pro sleds to install the SSD? Don't need the whole heatsink thing, just an adapter to the sled.
 
The first step you missed about upgrading to those newer versions of Mac OS X is that you need to replace that X1900 for something newer. I was in good shape with mine because I had already previously upgraded to a re-flashed 4870.
 
Cliff - thank you for the response. Actually, that was something I had tried - I have a HIS IceQ 7850 I'm currently not using, which I attempted to use in my upgrade to 10.8.3, 10.9.4, and 10.10.1 (the latter using Chameleon injection), and neither yielded any results - blank screen (I made sure on both attempts to edit the necessary Kexts and plists, etc). Upgrading to Mountain Lion or Mavericks with the X1900 resulted in a grey screen with a circle with an line through it, which is apparently the same as the no-OS folder question mark, if my reading is correct. For Reference, the X1900 was located in Slot 1, the 7850 in Slot 4 - and yes, I did remember to change power cables between the two when attempting to boot. IceQ was hooked up via DVI to a monitor I was able to borrow for a couple of days.

Sorry for leaving that info out.
 
I would sell it and get a decently priced 4,1 MP. A 4,1 MP 2.66 quad will pretty much match the 8 core performance of that upgraded processor and blow away the single core processes. 16 GB of ram can be had on eBay for around $60-$80. I got my 4,1 on eBay from Poweron.com for $549 shipped. For editing especially FCS 3 the 4,1 will be way faster. For another $220 you can upgrade to a 3.33 hex that will geek bench 2600/15000 on single/multi core processing. The 1,1 hardware is nearly a decade old.
 
MacVidCards said:
No 650 driver sin 10.7.5

You need to use the boot.fi fix, it's simple and easy.
Click to expand...

So can the boot.efi fix be done post-installation or should it be done pre-installation? I assume youre referring to Tiamo's file.

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weaverra said:
I would sell it and get a decently priced 4,1 MP. A 4,1 MP 2.66 quad will pretty much match the 8 core performance of that upgraded processor and blow away the single core processes. 16 GB of ram can be had on eBay for around $60-$80. I got my 4,1 on eBay from Poweron.com for $549 shipped. For editing especially FCS 3 the 4,1 will be way faster. For another $220 you can upgrade to a 3.33 hex that will geek bench 2600/15000 on single/multi core processing. The 1,1 hardware is nearly a decade old.
Click to expand...

The thought has crossed my mind - the issue is I don't know how much I could possibly get for a Mac 1,1 anywhere. And would still want to get the 256ish SSD, Blu-Ray, processors, and keep the spare drives for scratch. So a barebones 1,1 with a 500 GB mechanical drive - not a lot there.
 
Just an i[date - success!

Just wanted to update everyone - success has been had! After trying EVERYTHING, I used SOFFT with a Mavericks retail build, and son of a gun the 1,1 booted into Mavericks with the x1900 installed! I updated to 10.9.5, did the SOFFT patch again, and again it booted into Mavericks with the X1900. Success and VICTORY! :). Granted, it only recognzied the x1900 as 7MB of GPU memory, so I took that IceQ, installed it, hooked it up via HDMI, and prayed - and it booted! Didn't need to edit kexts or run a permissions repair or anything after boot - just worked. And I turned it on and off five times just to be absolutely sure. Right to the boot screen (no white screen, stays black until logon, so I'll never be able to verbose boot if there's a problem or Bootcamp it - I held down option while booting with the USB installer still plugged in, and never got anything except darkness). So now it's just time to install an SSD for the boot drive, replace the Super Drive with a BluRay I have sitting around, and FCS, Toast, and myself will be having a grand old time :) Thanks for all your help and advice!
 
srjtv said:
Just wanted to update everyone - success has been had! After trying EVERYTHING, I used SOFFT with a Mavericks retail build, and son of a gun the 1,1 booted into Mavericks with the x1900 installed! I updated to 10.9.5, did the SOFFT patch again, and again it booted into Mavericks with the X1900. Success and VICTORY! :). Granted, it only recognzied the x1900 as 7MB of GPU memory, so I took that IceQ, installed it, hooked it up via HDMI, and prayed - and it booted! Didn't need to edit kexts or run a permissions repair or anything after boot - just worked. And I turned it on and off five times just to be absolutely sure. Right to the boot screen (no white screen, stays black until logon, so I'll never be able to verbose boot if there's a problem or Bootcamp it - I held down option while booting with the USB installer still plugged in, and never got anything except darkness). So now it's just time to install an SSD for the boot drive, replace the Super Drive with a BluRay I have sitting around, and FCS, Toast, and myself will be having a grand old time :) Thanks for all your help and advice!
Click to expand...

Congrats and enjoy your machine. :) As suggested by Cliff8928, try upgrading the GPU. Maybe to a Radeon 5770 or 5870. I read somewhere that the 1900XT, as it accumulates dust in the fan, may stall and needs to get the dust clean out.
 
Thanks Macsonic, I plan on enjoying it - processor upgrade especially :). I think you might have missed this, but I managed to get my HIS IceQ 7850 working fine and dandy in the 1,1 in the first slot via HDMI to a spare LCD TV we had hanging around. So that's awesome. No option to output sound via HDMI, but beggars can't be choosers :)
 
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