MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 2009 boots/chimes then shuts off

[Emen Mali]

After successfully installing and using Monterey via OCLP on my 4,1->5,1 for a couple of weeks. I decided (big mistake) to switch to Opencore 0.7.6, to use the Thunderbolt card. Now I'm unable to boot my machine. Even after booting 4 times (PRAM) the screen never turns on and then shuts off before displaying anything. The Mac Pro (2009) has been modified with the pixlas mod and I'm using a 5700xt. 48gb RAM, dual 5680. One blank SSD in the Bay 1, with High Sierra installer on a USB.

Anyone come across this problem before?

I have a 8tb NVME drive, 2tb NVME, USB 3.2 card and 4 SSDS that were working all fine until I made that mistake of switching.

 

[tsialex]

First thing, RX 5700XT only works with Catalina 10.15.1 and later macOS releases. Install an AppleOEM GPU and do the normal troubleshooting steps.

 

[Emen Mali]

First thing, RX 5700XT only works with Catalina 10.15.1 and later macOS releases. Install an AppleOEM GPU and do the normal troubleshooting steps.

Didn't think of that...will try.

 

[Emen Mali]

ok. after lots of trial and error, I removed 4 of 6 DIMMs only 2x8 are installed, Sapphire 7950 (3gb) no internal drives or PCI card except a 500 in the 1 of 4 bays and Mojave in a 16gb USB DIMM.... initially it shut off like it always did after several seconds of being turned on.... in frustration I held down the power button and got that tone like when installing a firmware update (no firmware updated was needed) Mojave Installer booted up from USB, formatted the brand new SSD and I have Mojave running again. The only strange thing is, this Mac Pro is QUIET... after updated my Prcoessors some years ago, fans would always kick in high and I used Macs Fan Control to slow them down a bit. But this is running super quiet, all fans are turning! Firmware is 144.0.0.0. At this point what do I do next?

I plan on using Thunderbolt card, SSD RAID (not booting), NVME boot drive and my 5700xt (pixels) AND OF course Martin Lo's Opencore. Taking this one slow.

 

[tsialex]

ok. after lots of trial and error, I removed 4 of 6 DIMMs only 2x8 are installed, Sapphire 7950 (3gb) no internal drives or PCI card except a 500 in the 1 of 4 bays and Mojave in a 16gb USB DIMM.... initially it shut off like it always did after several seconds of being turned on.... in frustration I held down the power button and got that tone like when installing a firmware update (no firmware updated was needed) Mojave Installer booted up from USB, formatted the brand new SSD and I have Mojave running again. The only strange thing is, this Mac Pro is QUIET... after updated my Prcoessors some years ago, fans would always kick in high and I used Macs Fan Control to slow them down a bit. But this is running super quiet, all fans are turning! Firmware is 144.0.0.0. At this point what do I do next?

I plan on using Thunderbolt card, SSD RAID (not booting), NVME boot drive and my 5700xt (pixels) AND OF course Martin Lo's Opencore. Taking this one slow.

To me sounds that you have a corrupt NVRAM volume/corrupt BootROM, check before it bricks:

MP5,1: BootROM thread | 144.0.0.0.0

How to check the health of the NVRAM/if the garbage collection is still working: There is a extremely simple way (simple here as in not need to know how the NVRAM works/check free space indicators/validate checksums and etc) to check if the garbage collection failed and the need to reflash with...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Emen Mali]

I followed your link and I'm attaching the jpg of the "free space"

According to the post, the free space would be sufficient for a dual core processor, but there are only 2 DIMMs installed at the moment of BootROM dump. I plan on using 6x16, should I perform the dump with those installed?

Do I perform the NVRAM reset (5 chimes? CMD+OP+P+R) Also I installed a new battery but I was having the issues before the battery was replaced.

 

[tsialex]

I plan on using 6x16, should I perform the dump with those installed?

Yes.

Do I perform the NVRAM reset (5 chimes? CMD+OP+P+R) Also I installed a new battery but I was having the issues before the battery was replaced.

Since you have a cross-flashed early-2009, where you can brick easily, you have to track this issue with eagle-eye until you get it reconstructed to a real MP5,1 BootROM.

 

[Emen Mali]

ok, I know I'm getting ahead, but I thought I updated the firmware to 5,1? How do I get it to a real MP5,1?

 

[tsialex]

ok, I know I'm getting ahead, but I thought I updated the firmware to 5,1?

Cross-flashing an early-2009 just install the MP5,1 EFI, the BootROM image is much more than the EFI, lot's of other components are still MP4,1 including the NVRAM volume and the hardware descriptor.

How do I get it to a real MP5,1?

BootROM reconstruction service is the only way to get a real BootROM image.

 

[Emen Mali]

ok, so do I have to send some hardware for that? Whats the cost? Would it better to get this done first? to Avoid the bricking?

 

[tsialex]

ok, so do I have to send some hardware for that? \

No, not needed.

Whats the cost? Would it better to get this done first?

I've sent you a PM with the instructions/cost.

to Avoid the bricking?

Correct.

 

[aphor]

To me sounds that you have a corrupt NVRAM volume/corrupt BootROM, check before it bricks:

MP5,1: BootROM thread | 144.0.0.0.0

How to check the health of the NVRAM/if the garbage collection is still working: There is a extremely simple way (simple here as in not need to know how the NVRAM works/check free space indicators/validate checksums and etc) to check if the garbage collection failed and the need to reflash with...

forums.macrumors.com

I got a bricked 4,1 which had been firmware patched to 5,1. I delidded and installed a pair of 6-core 3.5GHz westmeres. It didn't get the firmware upgrade somehow when I upgraded to Mojave, and was running Big Sur. I just got OC working, but read your posts about the 4,1 NVRAM FS garbage collection problems, so I decided I was going to try and upgrade the firmware to 144 before dumping and re-flashing a clean ROM. I couldn't find a copy of Mojave, and decided I would just install High Sierra on a spare SSD and keep that around in case I wanted to sell the box later with a supported OS on it, and I could use it to download a copy of Mojave for the firmware. Best laid plans? The High Sierra installer bricked it. Now it won't light EFI_DONE .

I have desoldered the ROM chip, resoldered it on a SMD to DIP breakout, and dumped it. It doesn't seem to have any of the free space problems, or missing sections AFAICT. I bought a spare backplane (not tested) just in case I had to hack together an EFI image using the spare backplane's ROM as a donor. I'd rather pay someone if services are available....

If services are NOT available, then based on the warnings on the post about reconstructing the 5,1 rom image, I'm not confident I'll be able to figure out what to do to get up to v144.

 

[tsialex]

I have desoldered the ROM chip, resoldered it on a SMD to DIP breakout, and dumped it. It doesn't seem to have any of the free space problems, or missing sections AFAICT. I bought a spare backplane (not tested) just in case I had to hack together an EFI image using the spare backplane's ROM as a donor. I'd rather pay someone if services are available....

If services are NOT available, then based on the warnings on the post about reconstructing the 5,1 rom image, I'm not confident I'll be able to figure out what to do to get up to v144.

Seems you misunderstood my instructions about the reconstruction process, you can't extract the NVRAM volume and MLB sector from a bricked BootROM image dump and reconstruct it, you will reconstruct a bricked image. You have to know deeply about EFI firmwares to know exactly what you have to use/discard with working BootROM image dumps, even more so when you are starting from a bricked image where you'll have to validate everything.

I've sent you a PM. Get everything as instructed, obviously except the working BootROM image dump (send me the corrupt image that you dumped from the SPI flash memory with the external SPI programmer) and the SystemInformation report that you can't save it right now, and I'll investigate what can be done. If I can extract the SalesOrderNumber from the NVRAM volume and BuildDate from the MLB sector, I'll be capable of reconstructing a fully working BootROM image with all the original/factory hardwareIDs.

Anyway, did you flashed the MP51.fd to the replacement SPI flash memory, never use the factory SPI flash memory again, and confirmed that you can boot your backplane?

 

[aphor]

Seems you misunderstood my instructions about the reconstruction process, you can't extract the NVRAM volume and MLB sectos from a bricked BootROM image dump and reconstruct it, you will reconstruct a bricked image. You have to know deeply about EFI firmwares to know exactly what you have to use/discard with working BootROM image dumps, even more so when you are starting from a bricked image where you'll have to validate everything.

I've sent you a PM. Get everything as instructed, obviously except the working BootROM image dump (send me the corrupt image that you dumped from the SPI flash memory with the external SPI programmer) and the SystemInformation report that you can't save it right now, and I'll investigate what can be done. If I can extract the SalesOrderNumber from the NVRAM volume and BuildDate from the MLB sector, I'll be capable of reconstructing a fully working BootROM image with all the original/factory hardwareIDs.

Anyway, did you flashed the MP51.fd to the replacement SPI flash memory, never use the factory SPI flash memory again, and confirmed that you can boot your backplane?

Yes, exactly! I don't know the structure of the NVRAM volume and MLB structures, but I suspected you do. I will flash the generic MP51.fd to a new SPI ROM chip, solder that on my backplane, and try to boot it. I haven't tried that yet, but I'm prepared to do that. Thanks for the PM. I'll get you that stuff ASAP.

 

[tcprado]

So, I have a similar problem. I have a Mac Pro 4,1 flashed to 5,1 that was exhibiting erratic behavior, until it stopped booting on Monterrey or Big Sur. I had a EFI ROM backup from a few months back so I just booted on flash mode and used the EFI tool to revert to that backup of the ROM. Now it will chime, show nothing on the screen (even with the original GPU) and then turn off. I can't seem to boot using CMD+R or CMD+OPTION+P+R.

Any ideas?

 

[tsialex]

Try the OEM GPU with a bootable disk of 10.6 to 10.13.6, remove anything else.

 

[tcprado]

Try the OEM GPU with a bootable disk of 10.6 to 10.13.6, remove anything else.

THANKS for the quick reply!

Tried. Removed everything except for original GPU. Tried two CPU trays, one with 2xCPU and 128GB RAM and another with 2xCPU 16GB RAM. It chimes and now it doesn't turn off but still black screen. (I have 3 Mac Pros 5,1. One that is bricked, one that has original firmware, and this one that I'm trying to fix) :/ Any other ideas?

EDIT: I got white screen and booted Mojave! THANKS!

 

[tsialex]

This erratic behavior is a serious clue, your BootROM image is probably near, or already, corrupted. Don't brick another one.

 

[tcprado]

This erratic behavior is a serious clue, your BootROM image is probably near, or already, corrupted. Don't brick another one.

YES! Just reflashed the backup, we're all good. I need to reinstall Monterey now. Apparently it got corrupted.
@tsialex are you from Brazil? I'm from Rio, but live in the US for a few years now.

 

[tsialex]

YES! Just reflashed the backup, we're all good.

The cross-flashing process is a mess, the factory MP4,1 NVRAM volume it's different from the MP5,1 one and slightly incompatible. When in pressure, like with BigSur and Monterey staging of the Software Updates, it will fail.

There is no good/clean MP4,1>5,1 BootROM image backup, you just flashed a better one that will fail in some weeks/months. The only way to avoid bricking a MP4,1>5,1 is with clean-up/upgrade/reconstruction of the BootROM.

I need to reinstall Monterey now. Apparently it got corrupted.
@tsialex are you from Brazil? I'm from Rio, but live in the US for a few years now.

Yep.