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MacPro 1,1 MEGA UPDATE

G

GOR4N

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 10, 2015
25
1
hi to everybody,

i am planning on a huge update of my old Mac Pro 1,1 which worked with me for almost ten years and still is very very good, stable and quite machine that makes money for me

currently it’s original MacPro 2006:
2x C2D Xenon 5150
4GB RAM
nVidia 7300GT
nVidia GT210 (for some very very small CUDA work)
OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard

so everything started reading this post
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1740775/

everything is nicely described and reading macrumors forum i have equipped myself withs new RAM,CPU,GPU upgrades
32GB RAM, 2X XENON X5365, MSI R9 280X, SSD, USB3, eSATA extension

i would like to consult with all of you experienced members just to tell me if my plan, working and upgrading order is OK or not and if it’s not please do tell me where i am wrong

a GPU will arrive in a few days and somewhere by end of the next week i will be ready to try and preform update in two or three days


this is my plan what and how will I upgrade MacPro in this order

1. HARDWARE UPGRADE
1.1 RAM UPGRADE
1.2 FIRMWARE UPDATE
1.2.1 1,1 -> 2,1 UPDATE using MacPro2006-2007FirmwareTool.zip (http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1094.msg6585.html#msg6585)
1.2.2 SMC 1.7f10 -> 1.15f3 UPDATE using EFI update tool (http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5454.msg18469.html#msg18469)
1.3 CPU UPGRADE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmz7gPw31L0)
1.4 GPU UPGRADE (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1808938/)

2. OS X UPDATE
2.1 TEST SOFTWARE ON SATA HDD (with OS X tuning)
2.2 INSTALL OS X YOSEMITE ON SSD

3. ADDITIONAL HARDWARE UPGRADE
3.1 BUILD INTERNAL RAID
3.2 ADD eSATA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkLylsH-gE8)
3.3 ADD USB 3.0 (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1427373/)

now i will describe how and what i have planned to do so if you have some ideas or i am somehow wrong please do tell me


I WILL MARK WITH RED QUESTIONS THAT I THINK ARE IMPORTANT


1.1 RAM UPGRADE
i got myself 8x 4GB 32GB RAM Apple Mac Pro 1,1 2,1 MA356D/A MA356LL/A DDR2 667 Mhz FB DIMM from eBay and this is pretty straight forward … i pull out old memory sticks and put in the new ones

1.2 FIRMWARE UPDATE
here is my first doubt
i need to download MacPro2006-2007FirmwareTool.zip to update firmware from 1,1 -> 2,1
if i understood everything correctly first i follow instructions from
* http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1094.0.html

after this i need to do SMC firmware update described in this post
* http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5454.0.html
as stated in this post you need to do some hex editing of firmware files which is described in details on this address
* http://boeglin.org/blog/index.php?m=01&y=13&entry=entry130109-013629
but if i don’t want to hex edit files, i can download them from this post on netkas forum
* http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,8690.msg27717.html#msg27717

AM I SAFE DOWNLOADING AND USING FILES FROM POST ABOVE?

after firmware update from 1,1 -> 2,1 and SMC update from 1.7f10 -> 1.15f3 i can proceed to hardware update

1.3 CPU UPDATE
i bought 2x Intel Xeon X5365 4x 3 GHz Quad-Core SLAED / Socket 771 / 3.0 3,0 3GHz
this also seems rather straight forward to me
i will follow these instruction

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmz7gPw31L0
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phzn8MPaDtQ

wich thermal paste do you suggest ... i can get MX-2, MX-4 or SILVER5 from ARTIC or TG5 from TERMALTAKE

after i complete firmware and hardware upgrade of CPU i should be able to boot in OS X 10.6.8 with new info that should show me that my mac is now
MacPro 2,1 with total of 8 cores running at 3,0GHz and total of 32 GB RAM

1.4 GPU UPGRADE
this is tricky part number two
because OS X YOSEMITE is not supporting my original nVidia 7300GT i am planing to flash PC GPU with mac efi rom and i choose MSI ATI R9 280X cos people are very happy with this one
* https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1808938/

i will do this on my PC machine via ATI Winflash tool

my question is
AFTER FLASHING GPU SHOULD I EXPECT TO BOOT INTO OS X 10.6.8 IF I ONLY USE FLASHED R9 280X GPU?
it’s just a test i know, pull out my nVidia cards and install only flashed ATI in MacPro if it’s not working put back default nVidia 7300GT, but did anybody successfully done this or at least tried (having boot screen and correct sysinfo)?

JUST FOR TEST i will also try to boot OS X 10.6.8 with only R9 280X WITH STOCK PC ROM BEFORE FLASHING GPU WITH MAC EFI ROM
maybe if i’m successful i can try to run some apps to see what’s going on in OS X 10.6.8 with badass R9 :)

IF I CAN'T BOOT WITH R9 280X INTO OS X 10.6.8 WILL I BE ABLE TO INSTALL OS X YOSEMITE WITH NVIDIA GT210 WHICH HAS PC STOCK ROM?

i have red somewhere that it is possible i just need to correct few things on USB bootable drive ... or i am wrong?

if this also is not possible i will try to find some MacGPU from a friend to complete OS X Update and after that I will try to make R9 280X to work



2. OS X UPGRADE
did deep read&scan of forum post how to do this with SFOTT tool
* http://oemden.com/sixty-four-on-thirty-two-sfott/privatetest/
* https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1802962/

first question is should i prepare YOSEMITE installation manually like described in this post
* https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20074210/
or am i safe to use a pre-patched Piker-Alpha bootable Yosemite installer
* https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20537556/

if i am safe using pre-patched version my second question would be:
IS THERE ANY PREPARED OS X 10.10.3 BOOTABLE INSTALLATION OF YOSEMITE or should i use older 10.10.2 and then try to update to latest 10.10.3 trough App Store :)

I am planning first to try OS X UPDATE on some old SATA HDD just to be able to preform additional updates and to test softwares that I need for work.

If everything is OK on SATA HDD i will do the same thing on SSD


3. ADITIONAL HARDWARE UPDATE
this is why i want to test first on SATA drive just to make sure that i can make it work and than do clean install on ssd

3.1 CREATE INTERNAL RAID
i was planning to use 2x 3TB SATA HDD to make RAID … so this is straight forward for me

3.2 ADD eSATA CONNECTION
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkLylsH-gE8

3.3 ADD USB3 PC CARD
i am planning to use some PC USB3 with NEC chipset cos as i saw people have some nice results with this chipset
* https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1427373/

my final question is
WILL MACPRO PSU BE ABLE TO PUSH THIS NEW MACHINE?

if i, with your help of course, do successfully update of original MACPRO 1,1 2006 i promise i will write a PDF step-by-step tutorial of what i did and share it here on forum

tnx in advance … looking forward to hear your opinion … best regards
 
GOR4N said:
2. OS X UPGRADE
did deep read&scan of forum post how to do this with SFOTT tool
* http://oemden.com/sixty-four-on-thirty-two-sfott/privatetest/
* https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1802962/

first question is should i prepare YOSEMITE installation manually like described in this post
* https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20074210/
or am i safe to use a pre-patched Piker-Alpha bootable Yosemite installer
* https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20537556/

if i am safe using pre-patched version my second question would be:
IS THERE ANY PREPARED OS X 10.10.3 BOOTABLE INSTALLATION OF YOSEMITE or should i use older 10.10.2 and then try to update to latest 10.10.3 trough App Store :)
Click to expand...

I'd try a pre-patched installer, and if it doesn't work, build your own. Very easy if you follow the instructions *to the letter*. Also you'll have to install PikeYoseFix so your boot.efi will never get replaced with an OS update. That way you will be able to install updates directly from the App Store without worrying if you mac will boot or not after the update :)
 
GOR4N said:
1.2 FIRMWARE UPDATE
here is my first doubt
i need to download MacPro2006-2007FirmwareTool.zip to update firmware from 1,1 -> 2,1
if i understood everything correctly first i follow instructions from
* http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1094.0.html

after this i need to do SMC firmware update described in this post
* http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5454.0.html
as stated in this post you need to do some hex editing of firmware files which is described in details on this address
* http://boeglin.org/blog/index.php?m=01&y=13&entry=entry130109-013629
but if i don’t want to hex edit files, i can download them from this post on netkas forum
* http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,8690.msg27717.html#msg27717

AM I SAFE DOWNLOADING AND USING FILES FROM POST ABOVE?
Click to expand...

I've updated my firmwares from the above sources and everything went fine. Checksums of the files from the last link are valid.

Good luck!
 
Morpheo said:
I'd try a pre-patched installer, and if it doesn't work, build your own. Very easy if you follow the instructions *to the letter*. Also you'll have to install PikeYoseFix so your boot.efi will never get replaced with an OS update. That way you will be able to install updates directly from the App Store without worrying if you mac will boot or not after the update :)
Click to expand...

i also think that this is the safest and easiest way ... but it's a challenge for me to try to build 10.10.3 version :) ... i will see in a few days

----------
Sko said:
I've updated my firmwares from the above sources and everything went fine. Checksums of the files from the last link are valid.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

OK ... tnx for the info ... i will use files from the last link ... don't wanna lose time hex editing stuff

is there a possibility that something goes wrong wile updating SMC?

----------
Inutopia said:
Power supply should be no problem, just check you have the correct connections for the 280x.
Click to expand...

yes of course ... GPU comes with one 8-6pin adapter and one more 6-6pin power cable will be purchased ... that's figured from image below

MSI-Radeon-R9-280X-Gaming13.jpg


can somebody confirm that msi r9 280x is working well with latest OS X 10.10.3 update?

----------

also if anybody is interested in some benchmark and real-world speed comparison test of an original 2006 macpro 1,1 and updated one just let me know which tests would you guys like to see
 
I wouldn't do this one:
  • 1.2.2 SMC 1.7f10 -> 1.15f3 UPDATE using EFI update tool

The reason is that many users having done that, see the fans run louder during the boot of their Mac Pros. I'm running a quiet 2,1 with the stock SMC and X5355 Quad Xeons / Apple ATI HD 5770 / 16GB FB DIMM Ram.

Most of the rest I've already made in the past, following Tiamo's boot files last year I have a HDD with Mavericks installed and this year's savior was PikerAlpha with his boot files and Hennesie2000 with his great guide.

Good luck and be patient, it took me 2 months to go from 1,1 to 2,1 and all the upgrades, including the shipping of the parts from all over the globe via eBay.
 
VAGDesign said:
I wouldn't do this one:

  • 1.2.2 SMC 1.7f10 -> 1.15f3 UPDATE using EFI update tool



The reason is that many users having done that, see the fans run louder during the boot of their Mac Pros. I'm running a quiet 2,1 with the stock SMC and X5355 Quad Xeons / Apple ATI HD 5770 / 16GB FB DIMM Ram.
Click to expand...

but if i have uderstood posts about firmware upgrade my XENON'S X3565 won't be able to work without proper firmware and smc upgrade?



VAGDesign said:
Good luck and be patient, it took me 2 months to go from 1,1 to 2,1 and all the upgrades, including the shipping of the parts from all over the globe via eBay.
Click to expand...


it did took some time but i have everything except R9 280X which will be delivered in a few days ... thank you for sharing your experience
 
GOR4N said:
but if i have uderstood posts about firmware upgrade my XENON'S X3565 won't be able to work without proper firmware and smc upgrade?
Click to expand...

Actually, the heat was known to build up inside the case from sleeping or shutdown and the fans being idle. FBDIMMs in 2007 would get hot, 70-75*C opt more and some GPUs like 8800GT use to have its fan come on during startup.

In fact a lot of people will boost the lower threshold fan speed to a slightly higher minimum than the 499/599 rpm to 800-999 just to improve air flow cooling yet still stay quiet.

And ppl complained in Aug/Sept about the "noise" from fans, whereas I had complained of quiet instead of efficient cooling and need to keep FBDIMMs cooler than they were. My newest, 2013, FBDIMMs stay a cool 59*C.

Definitely the firmware update to support 5300 dual quad-core.
 
GOR4N said:
my question is
AFTER FLASHING GPU SHOULD I EXPECT TO BOOT INTO OS X 10.6.8 IF I ONLY USE FLASHED R9 280X GPU?
Click to expand...

No, my flashed R9 280x does not work with 10.6.8; the minimum requirement is 10.7.5. I'm using 10.9.5.

--Eric
 
Eric5h5 said:
No, my flashed R9 280x does not work with 10.6.8; the minimum requirement is 10.7.5. I'm using 10.9.5.



--Eric
Click to expand...


tnx Eric for this info ... it's priceless :) ... now i am thinking to install 10.7.5 to SATA HDD because MacPro 1,1 with original 32bit EFI can be updated to 10.7.5 "natively" AND it can work with my "default" nVidia 7300GT which is also supported in 10.7.5 and what's most important i can do all of hardware upgrades in 10.7.5 and when i am sure that everything is working i can continue installing new 10.10.2-3

also for the sake of this community i will do tests and benchmarks in 10.7.5 with default 2006 1,1 config and upgraded 10.10.2-3
 
GOR4N said:
so this means that I MUST UPGRADE FIRMWARE AND SMC !??
Click to expand...
No, neither is absolutely necessary.

The firmware update has mostly cosmetic effects for the 'About this Mac' dialog and the smc update just brings the 'matching version' feeling (and might alter overall fan behaviour, for me it did not).
 
Sko said:
No, neither is absolutely necessary.



The firmware update has mostly cosmetic effects for the 'About this Mac' dialog and the smc update just brings the 'matching version' feeling (and might alter overall fan behaviour, for me it did not).
Click to expand...


OK
I will definitely update firmware and SMC and will monitor hardware behavior for day or two as i do some benchmarking AND if needed i will revert to original firmware and SMC because some users have experienced louder fans and some have not
 
i signed up to post a reply here is what I did last year i got a 2006 Mac Pro at the BARC hamfest for 200 dollars it had no hard drive and only one ram card with 2 go of ram. i added another card with 4 gig used the 250 gig hard drive that came in my G5 put 10.6.8 on it. then added a seagete 1 tb server drive cloned the drive upgraded to lion. Next I replaced the dvd burner with a dvr 118 that I had in my first G5 and added a LG blu ray burner below it on the SATA port under the fans. I got a ATI HD 4870 from craiglist for 40 dollars with power cables from Amazon I flashed the card with the dos flasher using a free dos disc and a small partition with the utility and rom on it. Next i used SFOTT to make a install of Mavericks for my mac. mac pro running 10.6.8 10.7.5 ,10.9.3 and Windows 7 i hope this give some encouragement
Dave
 
all of the components should arrive today so before starting anything i have one noobish question ... i now have hdd with working OS X 10.6.8 and plan is to replace it with other HDD on which i will install OS X 10.10.2-3 via SFOTT so my question is:

IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG WITH 10.10.2-3 WILL I BE ABLE TO BOOT BACK IN 10.6.8 IF I REPLACE YOSEMITE HDD WITH ORIGINAL SNOW LEOPARD HDD (AND DEFAULT GPU 7300GT)?
 
GOR4N said:
all of the components should arrive today so before starting anything i have one noobish question ... i now have hdd with working OS X 10.6.8 and plan is to replace it with other HDD on which i will install OS X 10.10.2-3 via SFOTT so my question is:

IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG WITH 10.10.2-3 WILL I BE ABLE TO BOOT BACK IN 10.6.8 IF I REPLACE YOSEMITE HDD WITH ORIGINAL SNOW LEOPARD HDD (AND DEFAULT GPU 7300GT)?
Click to expand...

Yes, just plug & play.

PS: I wouldn't upgrade the SMC, only firmware... it's up to you. The new Xeons will be recognized if you upgrade the firmware, I've done this only, that's why I insist. Reading around about funny fan behavior since SMC upgrade, I avoided the upgrade and I suggest you to do the same :)

Cheers!
 
VAGDesign said:
Yes, just plug & play.

PS: I wouldn't upgrade the SMC, only firmware... it's up to you. The new Xeons will be recognized if you upgrade the firmware, I've done this only, that's why I insist. Reading around about funny fan behavior since SMC upgrade, I avoided the upgrade and I suggest you to do the same :)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

tnx VAG i appreciate it ... but i am tempted to try with SMC and if mac start to act funny i will revert it back to original and will talk about my experience

i also found this tool called smcFanContorl so i will play with it too
source for this tool is from this article http://retrocosm.net/2012/05/25/mac-pro-11-processor-upgrade/
 
GOR4N said:
tnx VAG i appreciate it ... but i am tempted to try with SMC and if mac start to act funny i will revert it back to original and will talk about my experience

i also found this tool called smcFanContorl so i will play with it too
source for this tool is from this article http://retrocosm.net/2012/05/25/mac-pro-11-processor-upgrade/
Click to expand...
FBDIMMs were known to run too hot, and the default fan speed too slow, so using it should be required no matter what, even now.
Coupled with the X1900 which was horrible with dust and cooling even more reason.
All the fan control does is give you the chance to change the default fan speed to be h igher. And you can set multiple profiles and use another if you have need to such as a project editing or rendering instead of first waiting for heat to cause the fans to kick in.
Easier to take preventative action first than to try to push the heat out later just set fans to 1200 or any setting you want.
 
all of the components arrived :cool:

- 32GB RAM - 8x 4GB 32GB RAM Apple Mac Pro 1,1 2,1 MA356D/A MA356LL/A DDR2 667 Mhz FB DIMM
- 2x Intel Xeon X5365 3 GHz Quad-Core SLAED
- MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 3G
- SSD 240GB PATRIOT PYRO SATA III MLC with IcyDock EZConvert 2.5" > 3.5"
- 2x 3TB SEAGATE SATA HDD
- TRANSCEND PDU3 PCIe USB3.0 Expansion card
- Internal eSATA bracket

and here are few pictures of my MacPro 1,1 hardware before I start upgrading


 
Last edited:
Looks like a lot of fun bringing that baby up to modern !!!

Just a little warning about R9 280X, while there ARE drivers for 10.7.5 available on the Sapphire Website, they did NOT work on a 1,1 when I tried them.

I believe others found same result. I believe this has to do with 32bit kernel being used and only the 64bit drivers work. If there was a "boot.fi" for 10.7.5 to run the 64 bit kernel I imagine the drivers might work that way, but for now, just consider the 280X to be a 10.8.3 or later card and you will be much happier with it.

Seriously though, enjoy the upgrades. It will feel like a much newer machine.
 
Very nice. I upgraded my dad's Mac Pro 1,1 with X5365s (I think? The 3.0ghz ones), 8GB of RAM, an SSD and an ATI 4870. Works great for him. I put the logic board of a 2008 Mac Pro into my 1,1 and swapped over a few components and it worked awesome. Only issue I had was dremeling out the power supply holes. I did this about a year ago but I believe it took me about 2 weeks in total to upgrade, and about $600 in total, including 2x4GB 800mhz RAM, an AMD 7950, and a 1TB HDD. I bought a dead 2006 for $50, which turned out to be a great deal. Had a fine 7300GT that I sold for about $100 and a dead logic board that I sold for $60. Various other components sold for about $100.

If you ever need to change from a 1,1, I'd definitely recommend that you try swapping the motherboard.
 
MacVidCards said:
Just a little warning about R9 280X, while there ARE drivers for 10.7.5 available on the Sapphire Website, they did NOT work on a 1,1 when I tried them.
Click to expand...

aaaa ... tnx ... cos other user did said that i can use r9 280x in 10.7.5 and tnx for pointing about 32/64bit thing why it won't work


ok but i have simple solution
1. downloaded and installed nvidia drivers for Lion 10.7.5
- forum post (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15657084/)
- drivers page (http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-295.00.05f03-driver.html)
2. swapped old 7300 GT with my old PC nVidia GT220
3. there is no boot screen but it works :eek:



it's not a topic but strange thing ... CUDA not recognized !?



CUDA is not needed for my upgrade but GT220 is enough to upgrade to 10.10.2-3 ... right?
 
Last edited:
I had a successful day today ... RAM, firmware and SMC are updated with no problem and it was very easy too :cool:

only thing that got me scared is that while SMC update fans kick to full power for a few moments and nobody mentioned that :eek:

but when booted to OS X everything seems fine ... take a look

BEFORE


AFTER



how does this look to you guys?
i read somewhere that just in case i should kick up min fan RPM to 800 because next thing will be CPU and GPU upgrade ... should I do that?
 
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