You make a good point. He has another Mac Pro to perform the install natively on. That definitely makes things easier.
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Mac Pro 3,1 Running Sierra
- Thread starter LarrikinAus
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You make a good point. He has another Mac Pro to perform the install natively on. That definitely makes things easier.
Well, if anyone gets the same symptoms as myself I found the fix...
Re-download the OS using the patcher tool. I also went ahead and checked the box that said do not verify applications withing the patcher tool. I then did the same process as before and now the usb boots into the OS installer like it should.
Jumped up to high Sierra as well.
I have a sapphire r9 280x I may throw in this box, it requires two 8 pin connectors though... As if this machine wasn't power hungry enough!
Re-download the OS using the patcher tool. I also went ahead and checked the box that said do not verify applications withing the patcher tool. I then did the same process as before and now the usb boots into the OS installer like it should.
Jumped up to high Sierra as well.
I have a sapphire r9 280x I may throw in this box, it requires two 8 pin connectors though... As if this machine wasn't power hungry enough!
AMD GPU HD 7xxx, R7 xxx, R9 xxx, RX 4xx, RX 5xx and Vega requires SSE4.2 since High Sierra. Mac Pro 3,1 Xeon don't have it.
You have to use HD 4xxx/5xxx/6xxx or NVIDIA GPUs with High Sierra and MP3,1. With Mojave, only NVIDIA Kepler GPUs work.
have had a Mac Pro 3,1 for 4 years, done everything I could possibly do to it, 3.2 CPU's 32GB memory, 2X Blue ray DVD changed the 3,1 CD drive to SATA interface, later changed one to a 22pin interface and ran it to the outside to a PCI slot so I could plug in a drive to the 22pin if I wanted, 3.0 USB 4X in a PCI slot that gets it power from the slot, cable with molex 4 pin connectors for power when needed, Apricorn card for SSD or or reg 2.5, 1 place and 2 place card with Raid, now using it for Windows 10 and Linux or other OS with Parallels, put metal ICYDock SSD enclosures in all for slots, 1 slot changed to 2X Raid enclosure and two Kingston Hyperx with Sierra 10.12.6, (a regular slot with 2X enclosure with Raid is not any faster than just one drive unless it is in a X16 PCI slot) the others have Sierra and Mojave, 2 is for The Sierra 10.12.6 and 2 are for Mojave 10.14, mostly run Mojave 10.14 and some times Boot to Sierra, 2 drives with each because with Carbon Copy the second drive is backed up with a bootable copy of both if I need it, when the Mac OS is on Raid in a X16 slot on a 2 place Raid Apricorn card it will do 750+ GPS, in a Regular 22pin slot it will do 550 GPS, both will boot less than 10 seconds, sometime seen 5 seconds, SSD only, found that a 250 GB SSD is sufficient for each of all Mac operating systems with a external 2TB regular HD for storage
a Mac WiFi card will work it has Wifi A and A/AC and 4.0 Bluetooth, BCM94331CD or a BCM94360CS
works with everything up to Sierra but with Mojave the Bluetooth on the wifi card don't work, have to use a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard or a Mac wired keyboard and Logitech mouse, a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle will work with the Mac mouse and Keyboard but not as good as the Mac Bluetooth, if you have the new wifi card with Bluetooth the old original bluetooth card can be taken out, it is 2.0 and it don't work very good anyway
used Dosdude's patcher to setup the Mac operating systems that wouldn't run on the 3,1, had a ATI 5770 GPU installing Sierra 10.12.6 and it worked 100% perfect, tried installing High Sierra but after trying it 20 times and every way I could think of I decided that was it for High Sierra it is Just like Sierra anyway, then Mojave, studied up on it and got a MSI Nvidia GTX 680 Twin Frozer GPU (has Metal which is perfect) and installed Mojave 10.14, went perfect, have done it more than once since, Mojave 10.14 is running perfect and so is Sierra 10.12.6 and I am good until they come out with a new one, see if Dosdude does anything with it or he can, probably good the way it is for a while
what I have been researching is the new 2019 Mac mini, what I would get is a i7, 512GB SSD and 8GB Memory, add memory later myself, maybe an external GPU, comes to $1535 including tax, then I could install EVERYTHING!! from the App Store
a Mac WiFi card will work it has Wifi A and A/AC and 4.0 Bluetooth, BCM94331CD or a BCM94360CS
works with everything up to Sierra but with Mojave the Bluetooth on the wifi card don't work, have to use a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard or a Mac wired keyboard and Logitech mouse, a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle will work with the Mac mouse and Keyboard but not as good as the Mac Bluetooth, if you have the new wifi card with Bluetooth the old original bluetooth card can be taken out, it is 2.0 and it don't work very good anyway
used Dosdude's patcher to setup the Mac operating systems that wouldn't run on the 3,1, had a ATI 5770 GPU installing Sierra 10.12.6 and it worked 100% perfect, tried installing High Sierra but after trying it 20 times and every way I could think of I decided that was it for High Sierra it is Just like Sierra anyway, then Mojave, studied up on it and got a MSI Nvidia GTX 680 Twin Frozer GPU (has Metal which is perfect) and installed Mojave 10.14, went perfect, have done it more than once since, Mojave 10.14 is running perfect and so is Sierra 10.12.6 and I am good until they come out with a new one, see if Dosdude does anything with it or he can, probably good the way it is for a while
what I have been researching is the new 2019 Mac mini, what I would get is a i7, 512GB SSD and 8GB Memory, add memory later myself, maybe an external GPU, comes to $1535 including tax, then I could install EVERYTHING!! from the App Store
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I can confirm this. Typing this on a Mac Pro 3.1 running on Mojave. I was looking for a cheap update for my dying 2011 iMac. So I found this 300 euro Mac Pro 3.1 in mint condition. I had to replace some parts to get it up to spec and make it compatible with Mojave, but it works like a charm now. I use the Mac BT mouse and keyboard and also handoff works. Same for unlocking with my Apple Watch, all works. I had to put in a BCM94360CD for this, it has a second antenna connector but this wire was already present in my Mac and after installing it worked right away. The GPU was the second issue, I replaced it with a GTX 680 and after installing this I was able to upgrade to Mojave. No issues since, very happy with my upgrade! 
I can confirm this. Typing this on a Mac Pro 3.1 running on Mojave. I was looking for a cheap update for my dying 2011 iMac. So I found this 300 euro Mac Pro 3.1 in mint condition. I had to replace some parts to get it up to spec and make it compatible with Mojave, but it works like a charm now. I use the Mac BT mouse and keyboard and also handoff works. Same for unlocking with my Apple Watch, all works. I had to put in a BCM94360CD for this, it has a second antenna connector but this wire was already present in my Mac and after installing it worked right away. The GPU was the second issue, I replaced it with a GTX 680 and after installing this I was able to upgrade to Mojave. No issues since, very happy with my upgrade!
The nice part is that Apple typically provides security updates for the previous OS version for two years after release of a new version. Since Mojave was released in September of last year, we'll probably get High Sierra security updates for a year and a half. So those who have Macs that can't get updates past High Sierra (Apple supported methods or otherwise) can still use their machines as-is without major security concerns for probably another year and a half.
My best guess is that the 5,1 Mac Pros will have official Apple support until the new Mac Pro gets released, supposedly sometime this year. I'd bet that it will be later this year, and if those of us who have Mac Pro 5,1 models and don't want to upgrade are lucky, the new Mac Pro will be released after the next OS release and their machines stay supported. If not, I hope that hardware limitations don't prevent dosdude from providing a patcher method to keep the software on these modern.
I admit that most of this is speculation, but it makes a certain amount of sense.
I used dosdudes patcher to get my 3,1 up and running with Sierra. Put in on two drives. A SSHD in one of the bays and an SSD connected to the Apricorn Velocity Soli x1 PCIe card. Both installs were successful and Sierra runs smoothly with my GTX 680 on both drives. The problem I am having is that I cannot get the computer to boot to the SSD. I have to option key on startup to boot to the SSD otherwise I get prohibited symbol. The computer will boot normally to the SSHD when selected. I have attempted all of the low level troubleshooting tactics (reset nvram, etc.). Nothing works. Is this because I installed Sierra to the SSD while connected to the PCIe card? Or could this have more to do with some convoluted ahci kext mess? Would really like to sort this out.
Had same issues with Apricorn Solo on 3.1, with supported Systems. Afair with Yosemite and El Capitan. I used to boot with the option key every time. From time to time it worked without using the option key but I never found a pattern why. I messed a lot with this box running different OSes, that should be really a point to watch for.
I wonder if the OWC Mercury Accelsior S+ would be any better or if this is simply just a PCIe problem for this machine. On El Capitan I just had to reset the NVRAM once, then option key boot once and it would stick. I'm also wondering if there would be a difference between installing to the SSD in one of the native SATA bays, and then moving to the card vs. installing direct to the SSD connected to the card.
There is a lot of info around about kext files, and unsigned kext files causing prohibited symbol on boot, and swapping the AHCIport kext file for the El Capitan one, etc., but it feels like I'm on a wild goose chase trying to troubleshoot this. I'll keep digging though, maybe something will turn up.
Checked the .fsck_hfs.log after boot up and saw the following:
fsck_hfs.log
/dev/rdisk4s2: fsck_hfs started at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
/dev/rdisk4s2: /dev/rdisk4s2: ** /dev/rdisk4s2 (NO WRITE)
/dev/rdisk4s2: Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-366.70.3).
/dev/rdisk4s2: fsck_hfs completed at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
** /dev/rdisk3s2 (NO WRITE)
/dev/rdisk3s2: fsck_hfs started at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
/dev/rdisk3s2: /dev/rdisk3s2: ERROR: volume / is mounted with write access. Re-run with (-l) to freeze volume.
/dev/rdisk3s2: fsck_hfs completed at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
Where disk4s2 is the one the machine should be booting into, it's booting to disk3s2 instead. Anyone know if that NO WRITE error is important?
fsck_hfs.log
/dev/rdisk4s2: fsck_hfs started at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
/dev/rdisk4s2: /dev/rdisk4s2: ** /dev/rdisk4s2 (NO WRITE)
/dev/rdisk4s2: Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-366.70.3).
/dev/rdisk4s2: fsck_hfs completed at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
** /dev/rdisk3s2 (NO WRITE)
/dev/rdisk3s2: fsck_hfs started at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
/dev/rdisk3s2: /dev/rdisk3s2: ERROR: volume / is mounted with write access. Re-run with (-l) to freeze volume.
/dev/rdisk3s2: fsck_hfs completed at Tue Jan 15 16:10:28 2019
Where disk4s2 is the one the machine should be booting into, it's booting to disk3s2 instead. Anyone know if that NO WRITE error is important?
You know what. I'm just going to mount the SSD in one of the bays and take the SATA III to II hit and hold out for a 5,1 later this Spring or something. Everything I'm reading about this Apricorn card booting on the 2008 seems like nonsense that nobody has really sorted out, it all depends on your config and luck it seems like. Dosdudes patch I don't think has anything to do with this although the AHCIport kext is of interest to me but sorting all that out is way above my skillset and I'm not some command line wizard. Apricorn never should have released this card with the idea of 3,1 support. Probably the OWC Mercury Accelsior S+ would work better but it seems like this card is not a problem on the 5,1s and has the 2nd SATA port unlike the Accelsior so... need to maintain my sanity here.
I use the OWC Mercury Accelsior S+ card in my 3,1 and have never had the issues that you mention. It does seem to be specific to the Apricorn card. That second SATA port would be nice.