macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jgleigh]

@dosdude1 Installed Catalina 10.15.5 on a 2010 Mac Pro with a AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT flashed by MacVidCards. The install was successful, but after the install, it continues to restart with this error each time, instead of going to the user setup screen. It works fine with a GTX 680, but wondering why it's giving this error with the 5700 XT.

Thoughts?

don't update to 10.15.5 with EFI 5700

Our friends in Cupertino have broken support for EFI 5700 in 10.15.5. Stay on 10.15.4 until we get a fix. If your 5700 has a ROM switch and you are on 10.15.5, you can use the PC side to work around...

www.macvidcards.com

 

[Lucky736]

Wonder if 10.15.6 B1 fixed it?

 

[Blackriton]

If you have your wifi router sitting right next to the MacPro, it might get a signal I guess but you definitely should connect the antennas. Try to center the male connectors over the female on the card and gently press while slightly rotating the male connector. When if attaches, you'll find that the male connector freely rotates on the female connector. As for BT, you have to remove the screw holding the old BT board and pull it off the motherboard. The old BT chipset can't be present at the same time as the new one on the BCM94360CD card.

FYI, regarding signal quality and strength with the BCM94360CD, my MacPro 3,1 sits about 3 feet away from a TP-Link Archer A7 AC1750 router through an intervening wall. Option clicking the wifi icon in the menu usually shows RSSI: -53 dBm, Noise -93 dBm, TX rate 975 Mbps for 5 GHz 802.11ac with 80 MHz channels. Optimally, you want the RSSI-Noise to be 40 dBm or higher for maximum bandwidth.

Many thanks for the details.Effectively my router is 50 cm from the MacPro so its looks I get the signal for this reasons......I will try again later and thanks for the technique help. I have removed the BT old card and used the cable to connect to the J3 connector on the new card. It was the only one, I managed to correctly connect on the first try........In the system report : bluetooth is active and also in the SystPrefPanel but my loudspeaker formerly recognized couldn't combine now. Maybe I didn't used the good technique for the and I will try again....... Is it possible that J3 is not the right connector in the new card ??????? Maybe its J1 ??? I couldn't find any information on this detail. The card came with zero info.........

 

[GMous]

Yes

Thanks a lot.

 

[Blackriton]

Many thanks for the details.Effectively my router is 50 cm from the MacPro so its looks I get the signal for this reasons......I will try again later and thanks for the technique help. I have removed the BT old card and used the cable to connect to the J3 connector on the new card. It was the only one, I managed to correctly connect on the first try........In the system report : bluetooth is active and also in the SystPrefPanel but my loudspeaker formerly recognized couldn't combine now. Maybe I didn't used the good technique for the and I will try again....... Is it possible that J3 is not the right connector in the new card ??????? Maybe its J1 ??? I couldn't find any information on this detail. The card came with zero info.........

The loudspeaker on bluetooth is recognized right away by my MacBookPro so I used the right technique. My guess now is that the BT Cable is not on the right connector. I will try to change later when I retry the antennas connections. But I am glad also that the antennas are not 100% . Here are the details when option clicking the wifi icon

 

[joergz]

The loudspeaker on bluetooth is recognized right away by my MacBookPro so I used the right technique. My guess now is that the BT Cable is not on the right connector. I will try to change later when I retry the antennas connections. But I am glad also that the antennas are not 100% . Here are the details when option clicking the wifi icon View attachment 921461

J3 is correct but please check if you really used the correct connector on the card.

 

[jhowarth]

The loudspeaker on bluetooth is recognized right away by my MacBookPro so I used the right technique. My guess now is that the BT Cable is not on the right connector. I will try to change later when I retry the antennas connections. But I am glad also that the antennas are not 100% . Here are the details when option clicking the wifi icon View attachment 921461

The antenna leads should all have small label tags attached to them for clear identification. J3 is correct for BT. The 20dBm value for RSSI-Noise indicates a weak signal strength (as expected with no antennas).

How does RSSI relate to signal quality

Those antenna leads will connect, but you have to be really patient in attaching them. Mine took several attempts.
Regarding the BT issues, if you have spare external drive, you might try a clean install with the patched Catalina patcher. I have seen an instance where the BT configuration wasn't properly switched over to the new device on one volume here. If the clean install solves the BT recognition issues, you might try deleting the BT device in the Network system panel and then adding it back again under the new BT card.

 

[coasterOneEightThree]

View attachment 921477

J3 is correct but please check if you really used the correct connector on the card.

Thanks from my side! The cables in my Mac Pro 3.1 are labeled with numbers. Doesn't it matter how the WiFi cables are connected beyond the J3 connector? It would be great for us Mac Pro users to have a clear, reliable and functional assignment of the cables, because one cannot be sure how often the connections can be plugged in without damage.

 

[Tony Vee 73]

With the help of @jackluke, I was able to add Airdrop to my aging 2010 15" MBP6,2 (10.15.5.2) with a USB 4.0 Bluetooth dongle and these instructions here: page-229

Unfortunately, Unlock with Apple Watch doesn't work. You need Bluetooth 4.0 AND WiFi 802.11ac. A question for all you technical wizards. Would I be able to add a WiFi 802.11ac USB dongle (Like This) to use with "Unlock with Apple Watch"?

 

[Blackriton]

Thanks from my side! The cables in my Mac Pro 3.1 are labeled with numbers. Doesn't it matter how the WiFi cables are connected beyond the J3 connector? It would be great for us Mac Pro users to have a clear, reliable and functional assignment of the cables, because one cannot be sure how often the connections can be plugged in without damage.

I am 100% positive that I connect the BT cable on the J3 but as its not working I will try to connect on J1 and test the difference.

 

[Blackriton]

The antenna leads should all have small label tags attached to them for clear identification. J3 is correct for BT. The 20dBm value for RSSI-Noise indicates a weak signal strength (as expected with no antennas).

How does RSSI relate to signal quality

Those antenna leads will connect, but you have to be really patient in attaching them. Mine took several attempts.
Regarding the BT issues, if you have spare external drive, you might try a clean install with the patched Catalina patcher. I have seen an instance where the BT configuration wasn't properly switched over to the new device on one volume here. If the clean install solves the BT recognition issues, you might try deleting the BT device in the Network system panel and then adding it back again under the new BT card.

I may try also to reapply the post-install patches.When updating from 10.15.4 to 10.15.5 I didn't had to use the post-install on the USB Installer DD. It was automatically applied and maybe something got wrong with Bluetooth recognition ????

 

[eVasilis]

I may try also to reapply the post-install patches.When updating from 10.15.4 to 10.15.5 I didn't had to use the post-install on the USB Installer DD. It was automatically applied and maybe something got wrong with Bluetooth recognition ????

There shouldn't be a problem with the wifi/BT card as, if I am not mistaken, this particular model is supported natively.

 

[jhowarth]

I am 100% positive that I connect the BT cable on the J3 but as its not working I will try to connect on J1 and test the difference.

J3 is definitely the BT connector for that card.

Installation Guide Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD for Mac Pro 2009, 2010-2012

Note that the BT antenna has its own board that is separate from board with the AirPort wifi antennas.

MacPro 2008 service manual

See the 'Bluetooth Antenna Board and Cable' and 'AirPort Antenna Board with Cables' sections. The important point is that BT only needs an antenna designed for the 2.4GHz band whereas Airport needs 2.4/5GHz dual-band antennas. So if you connect the BT antenna to one of the Airport connectors on the BCM94360CD card, you will reduce the 5GHz performance by effectively taking out one of the three antennas.

 

[Blackriton]

J3 is definitely the BT connector for that card.

Installation Guide Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD for Mac Pro 2009, 2010-2012

Note that the BT antenna has its own board that is separate from board with the AirPort wifi antennas.

MacPro 2008 service manual

See the 'Bluetooth Antenna Board and Cable' and 'AirPort Antenna Board with Cables' sections. The important point is that BT only needs an antenna designed for the 2.4GHz band whereas Airport needs 2.4/5GHz dual-band antennas. So if you connect the BT antenna to one of the Airport connectors on the BCM94360CD card, you will reduce the 5GHz performance by effectively taking out one of the three antennas.

The install guide is for MacPro 2009 and they are different from the MacPro 2008 as the BT card position is far away from the wifi card. And also the new Wifi-bluetooth card has connectors on the other face than the one seen in the 2009 install guide. So it looks possible (but I will verify that later today or tomorrow.....) that J1 may be the BT connector instead of J3.

 

[jhowarth]

deleted

 

[Blackriton]

There shouldn't be a problem with the wifi/BT card as, if I am not mistaken, this particular model is supported natively.

The new cards were native on old iMacs, not native with the MacPro 3,1 2008...........Thats why it may be a problem now for full recognition.

 

[jhowarth]

The new cards were native on old iMacs, not native with the MacPro 3,1 2008...........Thats why it may be a problem now for full recognition.

That's certainly not the case on my MacPro 3,1. The exact card that I purchased on eBay was Broadcom Bcm94360cd 802.11ac WiFi Card Bluetooth 4.0 for Apple 27" iMac Airport which works perfectly. AirDrop and Handoff works out of the box with stock patched Catalina. Also, there appears to be only one version of this card Broadcom BCM94360CD.

 

[Blackriton]

That's certainly not the case on my MacPro 3,1. The exact card that I purchased on eBay was Broadcom Bcm94360cd 802.11ac WiFi Card Bluetooth 4.0 for Apple 27" iMac Airport which works perfectly. AirDrop and Handoff works out of the box with stock patched Catalina. Also, there appears to be only one version of this card Broadcom BCM94360CD.

Maybe mine bought on OsXWifi is not exactly the same "MacPro 2008 (3,1), 2007 (2,1) and 2006 (1,1) Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD -802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 4,0" than yours. The connectors are facing the motherboard.
For the moment AirDrop, Handoff and Wifi are working (but I have still to connect the antennas-only the BT antenna is connected to J3 connector). My only trouble is Bluetooth appearing as active in the system report and in the SystemPrefPanel but not working to recognize external speakers or a MacBook Pro.........

 

[jhowarth]

Maybe mine bought on OsXWifi is not exactly the same "MacPro 2008 (3,1), 2007 (2,1) and 2006 (1,1) Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD -802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 4,0" than yours. The connectors are facing the motherboard.
For the moment AirDrop, Handoff and Wifi are working (but I have still to connect the antennas-only the BT antenna is connected to J3 connector). My only trouble is Bluetooth appearing as active in the system report and in the SystemPrefPanel but not working to recognize external speakers or a MacBook Pro.........

My BCM94360CD, mounted on the version 3.0 miniPCIe card, also places the antenna jacks facing the motherboard. That is why you want to first mount the card on the miniPCIe card and attach the antenna leads first before flipping it over to mount it on the motherboard. The only BT device that I have used with my card is a mouse but that works fine. I don't understand why you think a MacBook Pro should appear in the bluetooth devices. That should show up in the AirDrop section.

 

[crjackson2134]

Guys, this thread is not really the place for this BT hardware discussion. Can we return to the approbate topic, and take this BT discussion to a more suitable thread. If that doesn't work for you, how about making a new thread instead of using this one.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...orking-on-mac-pro-2010-keep-updating.1748061/

 

[Blackriton]

My BCM94360CD, mounted on the version 3.0 miniPCIe card, also places the antenna jacks facing the motherboard. That is why you want to first mount the card on the miniPCIe card and attach the antenna leads first before flipping it over to mount it on the motherboard. The only BT device that I have used with my card is a mouse but that works fine. I don't understand why you think a MacBook Pro should appear in the bluetooth devices. That should show up in the AirDrop section.

In the Bluetooth System PrefPanel of my MacPro, the MacBook is listed and the opposite is also true: the MacPro is listed in the Bluetooth System Prefanel of the MacBook ! But its also written under their names "No connected". I have done nothing for that but they appear on these Prefpanels.

 

[jhowarth]

In the Bluetooth System PrefPanel of my MacPro, the MacBook is listed and the opposite is also true: the MacPro is listed in the Bluetooth System Prefanel of the MacBook ! But its also written under their names "No connected". I have done nothing for that but they appear on these Prefpanels.

Maybe you have Bluetooth Sharing enabled in the Sharing system preference panel on those machines?

 

[Blackriton]

Maybe you have Bluetooth Sharing enabled in the Sharing system preference panel on those machines?

Exactly. That explains why they are listed in these PrefPanels.

 

[reukiodo]

I used the ROM Patcher on both of my Nvidia Chipset Macs (Early 2008 MBP & late 2008 unibody MacBook). I had no problems and it worked perfectly, just make sure your computer is plugged in and charged. Of course YMMV, I’m just sharing my experience with @dosdude1 APFS ROM Patcher.

Yeah, actually, I think the main issue with doing it on MCP79 machines is that it takes SO LONG to flash for some reason. What I think causes bricks is people's systems turn off or go to sleep during the process (as it takes 30+ minutes sometimes). So, chances are, as long as you make 100% sure your system stays running and out of sleep mode during the entire process, it'll work just fine. I can't guarantee this, but that will be the case most likely.

Maybe put this into the readme so others are aware? I had to really go hunting to find this!

 

[coasterOneEightThree]

Guys, this thread is not really the place for this BT hardware discussion. Can we return to the approbate topic, and take this BT discussion to a more suitable thread. If that doesn't work for you, how about making a new thread instead of using this one.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...orking-on-mac-pro-2010-keep-updating.1748061/

I don't think so. Everything that makes our old Macs work with Catalina and its features belongs in this thread. Here, for example, graphics cards are also discussed very often and that was never criticized before. If it bothers you, please just ignore it. Thank you!