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

[tsialex]

I think that this is the best example of garbage collection failure to this day:

When garbage collection is working, whenever the PEI detects that the VSS store is below 2048 bytes available at the power up, the valid entries of the primary VSS store are backed up to the secondary, the primary is erased and the backup is restored to the primary VSS store - this is clearly not working with @EdMun mid-2012 Mac Pro.

 

[martyjp]

I have an Early 2009 Mac Pro flashed to 5,1. I have upgraded the processors to 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon with 48 GB of memory in 6 DIMM slots. I have been running Open Core from Catalina through Monterey, with Windows 10 on a separate hard drive.

A big reason that my Mac has had such an extended life is because of the work that @tsialex and @cdf have done for this community.

After reading through this thread, I decided to dump my ROM to check its health. Following your directions I have the following information.

It appears to be just under the threshold that you recommend for my setup, and I would be interested in what options you would recommend to continue extending the usefulness of my Mac Pro.

 

[tsialex]

I have an Early 2009 Mac Pro flashed to 5,1. I have upgraded the processors to 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon with 48 GB of memory in 6 DIMM slots. I have been running Open Core from Catalina through Monterey, with Windows 10 on a separate hard drive.

A big reason that my Mac has had such an extended life is because of the work that @tsialex and @cdf have done for this community.

After reading through this thread, I decided to dump my ROM to check its health. Following your directions I have the following information.

View attachment 2051116

It appears to be just under the threshold that you recommend for my setup, and I would be interested in what options you would recommend to continue extending the usefulness of my Mac Pro.

Looking just at the space available without the context, you can fairly assume that your VSS store is still reasonably healthy, but when then add fact that your Mac Pro is an early-2009 cross-flashed to MP5,1 firmware (early-2009 Mac Pros, like the early-2008s, have only one working VSS store from factory and the cross-flashing don't address this issue with the NVRAM volume), then it becomes worrisome.

A lot of cross-flashed early-2009 Mac Pros are bricking, no news if you look how much posts about bricks we have here on the Mac Pro forum, and one of the main reasons are the differences between the MP4,1 and MP5,1 NVRAM volume that cause excessive cycles of erase/rewrite in the SPI flash memory area that the NVRAM volume is stored, ultimately causing the SPI failure.

Two things that you can extend the life of your backplane, first get the cross-flashing mess repaired with a BootROM reconstruction service and later replace the SPI flash memory/buy a MATT card. I'm gonna send you a PM.

 

[0134168]

I have an Early 2009 Mac Pro flashed to 5,1. I have upgraded the processors to 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon with 48 GB of memory in 6 DIMM slots. I have been running Open Core from Catalina through Monterey, with Windows 10 on a separate hard drive.

A big reason that my Mac has had such an extended life is because of the work that @tsialex and @cdf have done for this community.

After reading through this thread, I decided to dump my ROM to check its health. Following your directions I have the following information.

View attachment 2051116

It appears to be just under the threshold that you recommend for my setup, and I would be interested in what options you would recommend to continue extending the usefulness of my Mac Pro.

Wise decisition. Same machine here and I keep thiinking it´s an extraordinary working mac. I flash the ROM regulary with a reconstructed @tsialex ROM since many time ago.

 

[emilediaz]

I hope this is the right place to be posting this:

Hardware crashes on Mac Pro (Early 2009) upgraded to OSX 12.5.1:

I'm posting here, because I was told this may be the thread for Mac 5,1. I am hoping to get some help or insight into my problem. I recently sent away my Mac Pro (Early 2009) to be modded by a reliable guy. Now I have a Mac Pro with OSX 12.5.1, 192 GB of RAM, and a Radeon RX 580 8 GB gfx card. I'm in heaven!

However, within the first 48 hours, I noticed that certain apps were crashing the Mac completely. For example, I was using a 3rd-party noise filter inside of Adobe Photoshop when the Mac made a fast whine and shut down. Dead! The crash felt like someone had pulled the plug on the Mac Pro. Just to make sure I had not pulled a fuse, I plugged the Mac into a separate outlet but got the same results.

A few things I noted: After the crash, I was unable to startup the Mac by pressing the power button on the front of the Mac Pro. It won't respond. I HAVE to unplug and replug the Mac into the AC outlet for me to be able to restart the Mac.

When I called my guy who had modded the machine, he told me that he had seen this before. He told me that this is not a hardware issue but, in fact, is caused by his having to disable SIP in order to run the mod. He said that some older software causes a crash and brings down the Mac completely.

I am looking all over the forums to see if anyone can help me with this issue. My mod expert suggested I run Parallels on my Mac and run these apps within that. I am hoping some people have insight on this as well.

 

[tsialex]

I hope this is the right place to be posting this:

Hardware crashes on Mac Pro (Early 2009) upgraded to OSX 12.5.1:

I'm posting here, because I was told this may be the thread for Mac 5,1. I am hoping to get some help or insight into my problem. I recently sent away my Mac Pro (Early 2009) to be modded by a reliable guy. Now I have a Mac Pro with OSX 12.5.1, 192 GB of RAM, and a Radeon RX 580 8 GB gfx card. I'm in heaven!

However, within the first 48 hours, I noticed that certain apps were crashing the Mac completely. For example, I was using a 3rd-party noise filter inside of Adobe Photoshop when the Mac made a fast whine and shut down. Dead! The crash felt like someone had pulled the plug on the Mac Pro. Just to make sure I had not pulled a fuse, I plugged the Mac into a separate outlet but got the same results.

A few things I noted: After the crash, I was unable to startup the Mac by pressing the power button on the front of the Mac Pro. It won't respond. I HAVE to unplug and replug the Mac into the AC outlet for me to be able to restart the Mac.

Seems a PSU problem.

When I called my guy who had modded the machine, he told me that he had seen this before. He told me that this is not a hardware issue but, in fact, is caused by his having to disable SIP in order to run the mod.

LOL!!!! This is the craziest excuse for a problem that I ever read.

He said that some older software causes a crash and brings down the Mac completely.

Nope.

I am looking all over the forums to see if anyone can help me with this issue. My mod expert suggested I run Parallels on my Mac and run these apps within that. I am hoping some people have insight on this as well.

Remove the 32GB DIMMs and install DIMMs that don't need OC to run, then run AHT/ASD (won't work with 32GB DIMMs). After that test with vanilla Mojave (without OC) for some days.

Make it the easiest to debug and be sure that you don't have a hardware problem.

Btw, please don't post the same thing to multiple threads.

 

[Maxamess]

Having come across this thread (and read through several other associated ones) I am pretty alarmed about what my BootRom’s condition might be and realize I may have stuffed up. I am seeking advice about how to do a BootRom dump with a view to ask Tsialex to check it but my setup is pretty complicated and I don’t want to mess up.

I have a Mac 5.1 mid 2010, 48gb RAM, 2 x 33ghz 6 core and an AMD Radeon RX 6600 8gb. I am running Martin Lo’s OpenCore 0.8.0 and Monterey 12.3.1 which all seems pretty stable after having upgraded from the original installation of OpenCore 7.5, Big Sur and a RX480.

I did not do a BootRom dump before installing OpenCore in the first place (pretty stupid, I now know.)

I have made other previous changes to the machine (There is a PCI-e SSD boot disk with Monterey; storage is a PCI-e card with 2 x SSD in RAID 0 config and there is another RAID 0 using 3 of the internal spinner hard drives. There is also a PCI-e USB3 card).

So - I understand the required dump needs to be done without OpenCore active. OpenCore is installed on the SSD boot drive, so I am assuming if I boot from any other drive, OpenCore won't operate (is that right?).

I have an internal disk with a bootable version of Mojave on a partition but if I boot into that, I believe my RX6600 won’t work as the drivers only appeared in Monterey 12.1 or so. Is that correct?

I have a createinstallmedia usb with Mojave on it but if I boot into that, how might I then use ROMtool to do a dump? (If I have ROMtool on the usb somewhere, could I access it somehow?) but then - the RX6600 problem remains.

I have an old and native HD 5880 I could pull from another 5.1 but that is not a metal card so I would somehow need to boot into High Sierra (I could make another createistallmedia usb – but then, how to use ROMtool when booted from that?) Or, I could put the old RX 480 back in, boot from the Mojave partition but won't have the boot picker to do this (although I guess I could select the Mojave as the startup disk.)

Perhaps, I am overly worried but I am aware that mucking about with hardware and booting into various operating systems can exacerbate the NVRAM problems so I am trying to minimize the harm and find a workaround.

Any advice would be most welcome. I hadn’t realized that OpenCore and BootRom were an issue when I started down this path but if I can sort it, it is a small price to pay for the ability to use Monterey, modern graphics cards and all the rest. The longevity of these machines and the community support for them never cease to amaze me. Thanks.

 

[tsialex]

Having come across this thread (and read through several other associated ones) I am pretty alarmed about what my BootRom’s condition might be and realize I may have stuffed up. I am seeking advice about how to do a BootRom dump with a view to ask Tsialex to check it but my setup is pretty complicated and I don’t want to mess up.

I have a Mac 5.1 mid 2010, 48gb RAM, 2 x 33ghz 6 core and an AMD Radeon RX 6600 8gb. I am running Martin Lo’s OpenCore 0.8.0 and Monterey 12.3.1 which all seems pretty stable after having upgraded from the original installation of OpenCore 7.5, Big Sur and a RX480.

I did not do a BootRom dump before installing OpenCore in the first place (pretty stupid, I now know.)

I have made other previous changes to the machine (There is a PCI-e SSD boot disk with Monterey; storage is a PCI-e card with 2 x SSD in RAID 0 config and there is another RAID 0 using 3 of the internal spinner hard drives. There is also a PCI-e USB3 card).

So - I understand the required dump needs to be done without OpenCore active. OpenCore is installed on the SSD boot drive, so I am assuming if I boot from any other drive, OpenCore won't operate (is that right?).

If you remove the drive where OC ESP is installed, yes

I have an internal disk with a bootable version of Mojave on a partition but if I boot into that, I believe my RX6600 won’t work as the drivers only appeared in Monterey 12.1 or so. Is that correct?

Yes.

I have a createinstallmedia usb with Mojave on it but if I boot into that,

You gonna install High Sierra or Mojave to a new disk.

how might I then use ROMtool to do a dump?

Boot HighSierra/Mojave and then run ROMTool

(If I have ROMtool on the usb somewhere, could I access it somehow?)

ROMTool works from Mavericks to Mojave (works later too, but then you are dumping a OC instance)

but then - the RX6600 problem remains.

Yes.

I have an old and native HD 5880 I could pull from another 5.1 but that is not a metal card so I would somehow need to boot into High Sierra (I could make another createistallmedia usb

Ok.

– but then, how to use ROMtool when booted from that?)

I'll send you a PM, follow the instructions and you will correctly dump the BootROM image.

Or, I could put the old RX 480 back in, boot from the Mojave partition but won't have the boot picker to do this (although I guess I could select the Mojave as the startup disk.)

Perhaps, I am overly worried but I am aware that mucking about with hardware and booting into various operating systems can exacerbate the NVRAM problems so I am trying to minimize the harm and find a workaround.

Any advice would be most welcome. I hadn’t realized that OpenCore and BootRom were an issue when I started down this path but if I can sort it, it is a small price to pay for the ability to use Monterey, modern graphics cards and all the rest. The longevity of these machines and the community support for them never cease to amaze me. Thanks.

It's a Mac that have been working for ~12 years, you certainly will find all sort of issues. If you want that it continues to work, you need to be pro-active and the first thing to address is the BootROM image, since its usually the first component to fail.

 

[thesubscriber]

I have a Mid 2012 Mac Pro 5.1 with 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeons, 128 GBs ECC Ram and a Nvidia Geforce Titan X running High Sierra. Firmware version 144. I finally have decided to upgrade my graphics card which intern requires upgrading to a newer OS, final goal being Big Sur. During the Open Core installation I checked the NVRAM as recommend as per this communities fantastic documentation. It doesn't look good. The second VSS Store is gone and free space is quite low.

I found replacement chips on Digikey and will have no issue soldering and flashing a new chip. But Rom re-construction is beyond my skill level.

Not sure if this is the correct place to post. If it's not please point me in the correct direction!

 

[tsialex]

I have a Mid 2012 Mac Pro 5.1 with 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeons, 128 GBs ECC Ram and a Nvidia Geforce Titan X running High Sierra. Firmware version 144. I finally have decided to upgrade my graphics card which intern requires upgrading to a newer OS, final goal being Big Sur. During the Open Core installation I checked the NVRAM as recommend as per this communities fantastic documentation. It doesn't look good. The second VSS Store is gone and free space is quite low.

I found replacement chips on Digikey and will have no issue soldering and flashing a new chip. But Rom re-construction is beyond my skill level.

Not sure if this is the correct place to post. If it's not please point me in the correct direction!

View attachment 2068970

Your secondary VSS store header is already corrupt and being identified as padding area. I'll send you a PM.

P.S.:

Drivers for Titan X frequently saved a binary blob inside the main VSS store, sometimes bigger than the usual 2048 bytes of a standard NVRAM variable. This usually makes modern AMD cards to not work correctly and frequently to not even boot - lot's and lot's of cases in the past.

 

[Maxamess]

If you remove the drive where OC ESP is installed, yes

Yes.

You gonna install High Sierra or Mojave to a new disk.

Boot HighSierra/Mojave and then run ROMTool

ROMTool works from Mavericks to Mojave (works later too, but then you are dumping a OC instance)

Yes.

Ok.

I'll send you a PM, follow the instructions and you will correctly dump the BootROM image.

It's a Mac that have been working for ~12 years, you certainly will find all sort of issues. If you want that it continues to work, you need to be pro-active and the first thing to address is the BootROM image, since its usually the first component to fail.

Your secondary VSS store header is already corrupt and being identified as padding area. I'll send you a PM.

P.S.:

Drivers for Titan X frequently saved a binary blob inside the main VSS store, sometimes bigger than the usual 2048 bytes of a standard NVRAM variable. This usually makes modern AMD cards to not work correctly and frequently to not even boot - lot's and lot's of cases in the past.

Wow, thanks so much for the quick and comprehensive reply Tsialex will follow instructions sent and get back to you.
cheers

 

[thesubscriber]

For the note on Titan drivers. Am upgrading to a Radeon W6800, so could run into that. Flashing the ROM with a rebuilt image should resolve that, as long as I don't reinstall the Titan drivers. Correct?

Thanks for the awesome support!

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

It's bricked.

Btw, when you cross-flash an early-2009 Mac Pro with MP5,1 firmware, you will lose the ability of use Firmware Restore CD. You can't use a MP4,1 or a MP5,1 Firmware Restore CD with a MP4,1>5,1.

Since MP4,1>5,1 are hybrids, one of the several problems is that you can't restore the firmware anymore. Buy a brand new SPI flash, write the 144.0.0.0.0 MP51.fd, desolder the original U8700 SPI flash, solder the new one and get your MP4,1>5,1 booting again.

After that, we can try to recover the hardwareIDs from the dump of the corrupted SPI flash.

@tsialex
hello I have a problem with my Mac Pro 4.1, the machine does not boot or chime when starting, and it has a blinking white power led. I tried to move both the CPU tray, the video card and the power supply to another Mac Pro, and everything works correctly. I wanted to know if it was a brick problem and if therefore, unsoldering or reprogramming the chip on the backplane I could solve it.

 

[tsialex]

@tsialex
hello I have a problem with my Mac Pro 4.1, the machine does not boot or chime when starting, and it has a blinking white power led. I tried to move both the CPU tray, the video card and the power supply to another Mac Pro, and everything works correctly. I wanted to know if it was a brick problem and if therefore, unsoldering or reprogramming the chip on the backplane I could solve it.

Seems very probable, bricks are the most common defect with early-2009 Mac Pros, but a dead southbridge could also cause the same blinking power LED.

The SPI flash memory is an expendable component that will cost you less than $2, so, always replace it. It's a 12+ years old flash memory, even if the SPI flash memory can reprogram the worn out NAND cells it at 2MHz, it won't work correctly at 50MHz when installed back in the backplane.

Btw, don't damage the original SPI flash memory while removing it from the backplane, you gonna need to dump it (if you didn't dumped the BootROM image and saved it before).

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

Hi tsialex , thanks for the answer, I wanted to ask you if before replacing the chip I could try to reprogram it directly on the board through an EZP 2019 USB programmer that I already have at home? if so, is there a step by step procedure to do this?

 

[tsialex]

Hi tsialex , thanks for the answer, I wanted to ask you if before replacing the chip I could try to reprogram it directly on the board through an EZP 2019 USB programmer that I already have at home? if so, is there a step by step procedure to do this?

No, you have to remove it from the PCB, parasitic drain and CS is pulled low, you won't program it while installed on the backplane.

First post have all the info needed, just follow the links. If your programmer supports the SPI flash memory, you can use it.

Btw, while flashing the 144.0.0.0.0 MP51.fd get you booting again, the MP51.fd is an incomplete BootROM image for upgrading the EFI, you'll need a BootROM reconstruction service to get your Mac Pro fully working again.

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

I checked what kind of SPI Flash is mounted on my machine and it is a SST25VF032B.
What kind of chip should I buy for my Mac Pro 4.1?
When you say to ask a firmware engineer to rebuild the BootROM are you referring to an engineer who deals with firmware programming?
my flash programmer has his own programming software (picture attached) can I use that to program the new Flash SPI?

 

[tsialex]

I checked what kind of SPI Flash is mounted on my machine and it is a SST25VF032B.
What kind of chip should I buy for my Mac Pro 4.1?

Any of the three SPI flash models listed on the first post will work from early-2009 to mid-2012, but the only one still being made is the MXIC MX25L3206E and it's the model that you want to buy.

When you say to ask a firmware engineer to rebuild the BootROM are you referring to an engineer who deals with firmware programming?

Since you don't know if the backplane still works or not, you only have to worry about that later. When you confirm that the backplane is still working, I can send the instructions/cost/etc via PM.

my flash programmer has his own programming software (picture attached) can I use that to program the new Flash SPI?

I don't know any info about your specific programmer, but SPI flash programmers are usually agnostic and almost everyone supports the three SPI flash memory models used by Apple with MacPro5,1.

The MP51.fd is a standard binary image file, no issues at all programming it.

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

the programmer has a pliers to connect to the chip at 8 feet, can I try to read the contents of the Flash without disassembling it or is it not possible due to what you said above?

 

[tsialex]

the programmer has a pliers to connect to the chip at 8 feet, can I try to read the contents of the Flash without disassembling it or is it not possible due to what you said above?

You sure can try, no one ever dumped or reprogrammed while the SPI flash memory is installed.

Even if your SPI flash programmer is magical, you still gonna need to replace the 12+ years old SPI flash memory, so, why bother with this windmill?

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

Even if your SPI flash programmer is magical, you still gonna need to replace the 12+ years old SPI flash memory, so, why bother with this windmill?

It was just curiosity since I have never replaced a Flash on a PC motherboard
I order the replacement flash and as soon as it arrives I replace it.
I'll write to you as soon as I'm ready
Thanks a lot for the information

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

The software of the programmer support the SPI Flash you raccomended

 

[tsialex]

The software of the programmer support the SPI Flash you raccomended

I would be very surprised if a 10 years old SPI flash memory, one of the most used, is not fully supported. You can use even a PicKit2 to program it, almost anything that supports SPI flash programming have support for this flash memory.

 

[Audiomangiraldo]

I would be very surprised if a 10 years old SPI flash memory, one of the most used, is not fully supported. You can use even a PicKit2 to program it, almost anything that supports SPI flash programming have support for this flash memory.

is this the correct flash?

MX25L3206EM2I-12G | Digi-Key Electronics

Se ordini oggi, spediamo oggi! MX25L3206EM2I-12G – FLASH - NOR Memoria IC 32Mbit SPI 86 MHz 8-SOP da Macronix. Prezzi e disponibilità di milioni di componenti elettronici su Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.it

I ask because the component code is slightly different

 

[tsialex]

is this the correct flash?

MX25L3206EM2I-12G | Digi-Key Electronics

Se ordini oggi, spediamo oggi! MX25L3206EM2I-12G – FLASH - NOR Memoria IC 32Mbit SPI 86 MHz 8-SOP da Macronix. Prezzi e disponibilità di milioni di componenti elettronici su Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.it

I ask because the component code is slightly different

Yes.