MP 1,1-5,1 MacPro5,1: BootROM thread | 144.0.0.0.0

[trifero]

This will make it boot, but just the SSN solves nothing if you use iCloud/FaceTime/Messages. There are 7 different hardwareIDs that differentiate one Mac Pro from another.

Good to know. Thanks for the info.

 

[719c6]

@tsialex

I don't know if it has been reported before but I can confirm I upgraded two 2009 4,1 (flashed to 5,1) to bootrom 144.0.0.0.0 using a non-metal graphics card - EVGA Geforce GT630.

Started Mojave install with GT120 and rec'd the unable to install message - non-metal graphics
Shutdown with window open
Swapped GPU to GT630
Rebooted and let Mojave do it's thing. Screen artifacts and pretty choppy but able to see most.
Waited for Shutdown arrow in install app and clicked it.
After shutdown, held power button for firmware flash.
On shutdown again, I swapped back to GT120 and rebooted.
144.0.0.0.0 firmware.

EVGA Geforce GT630
P/N: 02G-P3-2639-KR

If this is been reported before, sorry. But for those wanting/needing 144 without using a metal card - this works!

 

[Borowski]

GT630 Rev. 2 is metal-compatible, it has the newer GK208-gpu.
Could you upload your rom or make a screenshot in GPU-Z, windows needed.

 

[719c6]

No Windows drivers yet, just plug and run. Looks like the older GF108.

 

[Borowski]

Yes, it is the older Fermi-architecture. Strange behaviour.

 

[tsialex]

Some of the Fermi GPUs are more or less supported by Apple Kepler drivers, at least the PCIe IDs of some Fermi GPU models are there. If I remember right, Netkas found this on one of the first Mojave betas. Seems Apple/Nvidia were testing/trying to implement METAL with some Fermi GPUs.

While you can upgrade your BootROM with some of the Fermi GPUs that have the PCIe IDs in the Kepler drivers, won't work with any other non METAL GPU.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Curious if the MP5,1 got a firmware update today. My 2012 MacBook Pro got one with the security update. It's version 421.0.0.0.0.

 

[chrfr]

Curious if the MP5,1 got a firmware update today. My 2012 MacBook Pro got one with the security update. It's version 421.0.0.0.0.

It didn't. 5,1 firmware cannot be updated "inline" with system updates the way newer Macs can.

 

[MisterAndrew]

It didn't. 5,1 firmware cannot be updated "inline" with system updates the way newer Macs can.

Well there's probably a new full installer available to download.

 

[tsialex]

Well there's probably a new full installer available to download.

Nope.

Still the same from 18G103 from 2019-10-14:

 

[macsforme]

You have to remove the backplane from the case, it's not possible to desolder it inside the case.

While it's easy to desolder it, see the SMD removal with ChipQuick low-point solder desolder method for example, if you can't do yourself and can find someone to do it cheap, go for it. Backplanes are becoming expensive lately.

I ended up buying some of that desoldering stuff and doing it myself. That was by far the most nerve-wrecking thing I have ever done to my Mac Pro. Everything seemed to go perfectly, though! I flashed my rebuilt v140 boot ROM to the new chip, desoldered the old one, cleaned up the pads, then the new chip seemed to go on just fine. I did a final firmware update back up to v144, and we're back in business.

Thanks for all the guidance! Long live the MacPro5,1!

 

[trifero]

I ended up buying some of that desoldering stuff and doing it myself. That was by far the most nerve-wrecking thing I have ever done to my Mac Pro. Everything seemed to go perfectly, though! I flashed my rebuilt v140 boot ROM to the new chip, desoldered the old one, cleaned up the pads, then the new chip seemed to go on just fine. I did a final firmware update back up to v144, and we're back in business.

Thanks for all the guidance! Long live the MacPro5,1!

View attachment 1724026

Well done!

 

[h9826790]

Curious if the MP5,1 got a firmware update today. My 2012 MacBook Pro got one with the security update. It's version 421.0.0.0.0.

Very impossible, the 5,1 is an obsolete model now. There should be no more support from Apple. Even they know there is a significant security flaw in the firmware, most likely still won't do anything.

Anyway, Tsialex show you the fact already.

 

[tsialex]

I ended up buying some of that desoldering stuff and doing it myself. That was by far the most nerve-wrecking thing I have ever done to my Mac Pro. Everything seemed to go perfectly, though! I flashed my rebuilt v140 boot ROM to the new chip, desoldered the old one, cleaned up the pads, then the new chip seemed to go on just fine. I did a final firmware update back up to v144, and we're back in business.

Thanks for all the guidance! Long live the MacPro5,1!

View attachment 1724026

Nicely done!

Did you went for indium desolder wire and desolder braid or did you got a hot air station? I've use both techniques, but it's a lot cheaper to use the hot air station, if you have one.

 

[macsforme]

Nicely done!

Did you went for indium desolder wire and desolder braid or did you got a hot air station? I've use both techniques, but it's a lot cheaper to use the hot air station, if you have one.

I used a stick of that low melting point stuff (don’t know the technical term), similar to what you linked me to, and some desoldering wick. That was actually my first time using ether of those tools. I don’t have a hot air station unfortunately, so I just used my pencil soldering iron. I was hesitant to even try it with my very limited tools and experience, but all that being said, I am very happy how it worked out.

 

[tsialex]

I've started to notice in the last few weeks that some dumps people send me have the first store of the NVRAM header invalid. At first, I thought that was just a fluke, then slowly some more cases started to creep in.

I don't have enough cases to track what is causing it, but it's happening and it's not related to the NVRAM being full like when the first store overrun the second one, this one below (corrupt is on the left, cleaned/reconstructed one on the right) still have 34976 bytes free inside of the first store:

Correct:

8D2BF1FF 96768B4C A9852747 075B4F50 00000300 00000000 5F465648 FF8EFFFF 4800387A 01000001 03000000 00000100

Invalid:

8D2BF1FF 96768B4C A9852747 075B4F50 00000300 00000000 5F465648 FF8EFFFF 4800397A 00000001 03000000 00000100

If you still don't have a backup of your BootROM safely stored, do it.

 

[trifero]

I've started to notice in the last few weeks that some dumps people send me have the first store of the NVRAM header invalid. At first, I thought that was just a fluke, then slowly some more cases started to creep in.

I don't have enough cases to track what is causing it, but it's happening and it's not related to the NVRAM being full like when the first store overrun the second one, this one below (corrupt is on the left, cleaned/reconstructed one on the right) still have 34976 bytes free inside of the first store:

View attachment 1725491

Correct:

8D2BF1FF 96768B4C A9852747 075B4F50 00000300 00000000 5F465648 FF8EFFFF 4800387A 01000001 03000000 00000100

Invalid:

8D2BF1FF 96768B4C A9852747 075B4F50 00000300 00000000 5F465648 FF8EFFFF 4800397A 00000001 03000000 00000100

If you still don't have a backup of your BootROM safely stored, do it.

Thank you so much for the info.

 

[tsialex]

Earlier today I've talked about the second VSS store being overrun by the first one, some hours latter @fatespawn sent me the dump from his cross-flashed single CPU early-2009 and take a look:

DECIMAL       HEXADECIMAL     DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0             0x0             UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 524288, header size: 1, revision: 0, EFI Firmware File System, GUID: 7A9354D9-0468-444A-CE81-0BF617D890DF
24972         0x618C          CRC32 polynomial table, little endian
35787         0x8BCB          mcrypt 2.2 encrypted data, algorithm: blowfish-448, mode: CBC, keymode: 8bit
243907        0x3B8C3         BIOS version: MP51.88Z.F000.B00.1904121248
524288        0x80000         UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 524288, header size: 1, revision: 0, EFI Firmware File System, GUID: 7A9354D9-0468-444A-CE81-0BF617D890DF
549260        0x8618C         CRC32 polynomial table, little endian
560075        0x88BCB         mcrypt 2.2 encrypted data, algorithm: blowfish-448, mode: CBC, keymode: 8bit
768195        0xBB8C3         BIOS version: MP51.88Z.F000.B00.1904121248
1048576       0x100000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 16384, header size: 1, revision: 0, EFI Firmware File System, GUID: 7A9354D9-0468-444A-CE81-0BF617D890DF
1064960       0x104000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 49152, header size: 1, revision: 0, GUID: 153D2197-29BD-44DC-59AC-887F70E41A6B
1065216       0x104100        Intel x86 or x64 microcode, sig 0x000106a5, pf_mask 0x03, 2018-05-11, rev 0x001d, size 12288
1077504       0x107100        Intel x86 or x64 microcode, sig 0x000206c0, pf_mask 0x13, 2009-08-20, rev 0x-ffea, size 8192
1085696       0x109100        Intel x86 or x64 microcode, sig 0x000206c2, pf_mask 0x03, 2018-05-08, rev 0x001f, size 11264
1114112       0x110000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 16384, header size: 1, revision: 0, EFI Firmware File System, GUID: 7A9354D9-0468-444A-CE81-0BF617D890DF
1130496       0x114000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 49152, header size: 1, revision: 0, GUID: 153D2197-29BD-44DC-59AC-887F70E41A6B
1130752       0x114100        Intel x86 or x64 microcode, sig 0x000106a5, pf_mask 0x03, 2018-05-11, rev 0x001d, size 12288
1143040       0x117100        Intel x86 or x64 microcode, sig 0x000206c0, pf_mask 0x13, 2009-08-20, rev 0x-ffea, size 8192
1151232       0x119100        Intel x86 or x64 microcode, sig 0x000206c2, pf_mask 0x03, 2018-05-08, rev 0x001f, size 11264
1179648       0x120000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 196608, header size: 1, revision: 0, Variable Storage, GUID: FFF12B8D-7696-4C8B-85A9-2747075B4F50
1179688       0x120028        NVRAM start of the 1st VSS store
1179766       0x120076        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (i)
1181814       0x120876        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (j)
1184252       0x1211FC        NVRAM PanicInfo Log
1191827       0x122F93        NVRAM bluetoothActiveControllerInfo
1194597       0x123A65        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1196645       0x124265        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1201145       0x1253F9        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1203193       0x125BF9        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1207693       0x126D8D        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1209741       0x12758D        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1213497       0x128439        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1215545       0x128C39        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1220045       0x129DCD        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1222093       0x12A5CD        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1225790       0x12B43E        NVRAM bluetoothActiveControllerInfo
1225957       0x12B4E5        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1228005       0x12BCE5        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1230860       0x12C80C        NVRAM SIP state, type: (w)
1231392       0x12CA20        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1233440       0x12D220        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (h)
1245255       0x130047        NVRAM start of the 2nd VSS store **HEADER CORRUPTED**
1245302       0x130076        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (i)
1247350       0x130876        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (j)
1249788       0x1311FC        NVRAM PanicInfo Log
1257363       0x132F93        NVRAM bluetoothActiveControllerInfo
1260133       0x133A65        NVRAM MemoryConfig type: (g)
1343518       0x14801E        HardwareID Base_xx: 17
1343538       0x148032        bzip2 compressed data, block size = 100k
1345160       0x148688        HardwareID 11-digits SSN: G89xxxxx4PD
1345177       0x148699        HardwareID 3-digit HWC model: 4PD
1376256       0x150000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 2686976, header size: 1, revision: 0, EFI Firmware File System, GUID: 7A9354D9-0468-444A-CE81-0BF617D890DF
1416827       0x159E7B        BIOS version: MP51.88Z.F000.B00.1904121248
1614976       0x18A480        Apple NVMe EFI Module
4063232       0x3E0000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 65536, header size: 1, revision: 0, GUID: E3B980A9-5FE3-48E5-929B-2798385A9027
4128768       0x3F0000        UEFI PI Firmware Volume, volume size: 65536, header size: 0, revision: 0, Apple Boot Volume, GUID: 04ADEEAD-61FF-4D31-BAB6-64F8BF901F5A
4128867       0x3F0063        BootBlock version: AAPLEFI1.88Z.0005.I00.1010071430
4194000       0x3FFED0        HardwareID MLB/LBSN: J59xxxxxxx1LTB, BuildDate: 09xxxx09xxxx

Advanced variable multiplication (19 MemoryConfig for just 3 DIMMs plus 3 bluetoothActiveControllerInfo), a Panic/Crash log stored (it's the 5th one that happened) and the 2nd VSS header corrupt.

I'm genuinely surprised by this Mac Pro is still capable of booting.

Again, if you don't have a backup dump from your Mac Pro BootROM image please don't wait for it to brick!

 

[trifero]

But what is causing this?

 

[tsialex]

But what is causing this?

Old age + the cross-flashing process.

Yep, the circular log is not robust enough for 12 years of usage.

 

[Macschrauber]

I've started to notice in the last few weeks that some dumps people send me have the first store of the NVRAM header invalid. At first, I thought that was just a fluke, then slowly some more cases started to creep in.

I don't have enough cases to track what is causing it, but it's happening and it's not related to the NVRAM being full like when the first store overrun the second one, this one below (corrupt is on the left, cleaned/reconstructed one on the right) still have 34976 bytes free inside of the first store:

View attachment 1725491

Correct:

8D2BF1FF 96768B4C A9852747 075B4F50 00000300 00000000 5F465648 FF8EFFFF 4800387A 01000001 03000000 00000100

Invalid:

8D2BF1FF 96768B4C A9852747 075B4F50 00000300 00000000 5F465648 FF8EFFFF 4800397A 00000001 03000000 00000100

If you still don't have a backup of your BootROM safely stored, do it.

checked into my collection and got 3 invalid vss Stores out of 100

binwalk * | grep Invalid
16            0x10            "Invalid VSS Store Header"
16            0x10            "Invalid VSS Store Header"
16            0x10            "Invalid VSS Store Header"

correction: 2 were not MP4.1/5.1, one 3.1 and one MacBook Air. But sent you that one, it has also a lot of panic logs.

 

[bsbeamer]

Old age + the cross-flashing process.

Yep, the circular log is not robust enough for 12 years of usage.

Wondering if you think MP5,1 & MP4,1>5,1’s that have not been updated or really touched in 6-9+ months would be impacted. Most are rocking official Mojave installs.

Several offices still have these from pre-COVID, before work from home situations became the norm. Most official MP5,1 are/were 2012 models. Really do wonder if it is even worth the effort for some of them that are not.

 

[tsialex]

Wondering if you think MP5,1 & MP4,1>5,1’s that have not been updated or really touched in 6-9+ months would be impacted. Most are rocking official Mojave installs.

Several offices still have these from pre-COVID, before work from home situations became the norm. Most official MP5,1 are/were 2012 models. Really do wonder if it is even worth the effort for some of them that are not.

I'm answering this more generically and not just for you.

If you have production Mac Pros and are not buying used ones that you don't know anything about how it were used, you can keep it going on the cheap, no problem. Mac Pros are very cheap to buy nowadays in some markets, but the parts and maintenance are still expensive everywhere - people constantly forget this. Buying an used one right now is a lottery, maybe you can get one lightly used mid-2010 or a almost brick early-2009 - it's very difficult to really know without deep inspection.

The NVRAM corruption happens in different ways, most are related to constant use. There are ways to accelerate the inevitable corruption in the long run, like using UEFI Windows without OC protection and constantly testing CPU trays/CPUs/DIMMs/BT cards - an overused NVRAM is one that will corrupt and brick or have failed NAND cells and brick . Remember that even the last Mac Pro out of the factory already have 7 years now, some have 12 years of usage right now.

Most problems are with power users Mac Pros that are frequently upgraded and not really on production Mac Pros. One exception is for production Mac Pros that had NVIDIA web drivers in the past and now have AMD GPUs and the cross-flashed ones.

Btw, I already did some clean-up/reconstruction for production companies and labs to keep Mac Pros healthy for some more time until new AS Macs are released. NVIDIA web drivers make a mess inside the NVRAM volume.

 

[retta283]

Mac Pros are very cheap to buy nowadays in some markets, but the parts and maintenance are still expensive everywhere - people constantly forget this

Very, very true. I see certain GPUs for MPs (ones that aren't even Metal capable) going for more than the computers themselves. No one needs to pay $300 for a x1900. I would love to pick up a better GPU for mine but the ones I've looked at cost more than I paid ($150) for the computer itself. Other parts are quite pricey too. Sorry for minor thread hijack.

 

[VitaminK]

I’m likely needing help with a bootrom reconstruction, its for a Mac Pro (2009 flashed 5,1), I’ll read tsialex process for reconstruction talking about 5,1 firmware needing changes dealing with a 4,1. Which has me hesitant moving forward, Binwalk doesn’t show any UEFI Windows 509x issues.