Mac Pro 2,1 CPU upgrade.

[ilegal31]

Hello,


I have two old Mac Pro's one is a 1,1 model and the other one is a 2,1 model, I had saved some money this year to make a CPU upgrade, my intention is to upgrade the 1,1 to an 8 core CPU "Using the ones from the 2,1 mac pro", and upgrade the 2,1 to a more powerful CPU, can anyone please provide information on how can I do it and where to purchase the processors?.


I appreciate all the help provided.


Thanks.

 

[bax2003]

These are best CPU options, search ebay:
Intel Xeon E5345 - Quad Core 2.33 GHz
Intel Xeon X5355 - Quad Core 2.66 GHz
Intel Xeon X5365 - Quad Core 3.00 GHz

Read this topic: for stepping and details:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1210403/

You can upgrade EFI firmware on your 1.1 to properly display your CPUs, without that it will just say 3.00 GHz of Unknown, but it will still be working OK.

For EFI upgrade read this:
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1094.0.html

 

[Macsonic]

Hello,


I have two old Mac Pro's one is a 1,1 model and the other one is a 2,1 model, I had saved some money this year to make a CPU upgrade, my intention is to upgrade the 1,1 to an 8 core CPU "Using the ones from the 2,1 mac pro", and upgrade the 2,1 to a more powerful CPU, can anyone please provide information on how can I do it and where to purchase the processors?.


I appreciate all the help provided.


Thanks.

You may also check out some videos showing how to upgrade a 1,1 Mac Pro. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=2006+mac+pro+cpu+upgrade+

The CPUs are being sold at eBay.

 

[NOTNlCE]

If your 2,1 is a legit 2,1, it already uses the most powerful CPUs available for that machine.

As bax has said, the X5365 Quad Core 3.0GHz are the fastest either machine will take, and it is most likely what is currently installed in your 2,1. Your 1,1 can be bumped to equal power, but I would personally recommend those X5355s at 2.66GHz because they are exponentially less expensive and offer almost the same performance.

 

[simie]

I have just upgraded a Mac Pro 1.1 to a 2.1

The problem I had was the modified sh files were ignoring the Firmware file and the solution was to copy all of the contents of the firmware package into the ramdisk. This notified me when run from terminal the files already existed. I ignored this and continued with the upgrade and everything went to plan.

This work 100% for this Mac Pro

 

[Petri Krohn]

The problem I had was the modified sh files were ignoring the Firmware file and the solution was to copy all of the contents of the firmware package into the ramdisk. This notified me when run from terminal the files already existed. I ignored this and continued with the upgrade and everything went to plan.

This video shows how to ungrade the firmware from MP1,1 to MP2,1.

After Apple moved the links for the EFI updating tool to download its software, it has become more difficult to upgrade the original Mac Pro 1,1 to 2,1. In this tutorial , I show how do this this, step by step.

You will also need to find the firmware update tool from somewhere. The Netkas site is the victim of economic warfare. Western sanctions prevented the site owner from transferring funds to the registrar or the web hosting service.

An alternative is to load the firmware to an EFI partition and bless it with a "-firmware" option.

***

There is a thread about modifying the Mac Pro 2,1 firmware to support 5400 series Harpertown CPUs. So far this has been unsuccessful.

updating a Mac (Pro)s CPU Microcode

I Just wanted to make a Quick posting that I managed to update the Microcode on my MacBook2,1 to the latest version intel has released for its CPU :) I managed to do this by dumping my MacBooks BootROM using flashrom in Linux and actually manually finding the microcode in the BootROM (which in...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[simie]

The firmware update was copied into the ramdisk to bypass the error message I kept getting. This resolved all problems and the firmware update could begin. My MP is now 2.1