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MP 1,1-5,1 MacPro5,1: BootROM thread | 144.0.0.0.0
- Thread starter tsialex
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Sure, PM sent. Since you have been dumping the BootROM image send me the oldest one and then dump again following the instructions. Also, I'm curious to see what you call strange dumps.
Alex hooked me up and the rest of these amazing folks on here are a tremendous help. My dinsour 5,1 is been running my recording studio flawlessly.
Well I dumped my 3,1 bootrom and it had approx 34000 free space with several 'invalid' entries after booting mojave without opencore. I did a 4x pram reset and dumped again and now showing 64000 free with one or two invalid entries so I am assuming garbage collection is working.
Saved that one for backup
To confirm, 3,1 bootrom only has one vss storage area, correct?
If you implement Emulated NVRAM via OpenCore, it will basically freeze your NVRAM in that state as Hardware NVRAM Read/Write would effectively stop and instead go into RAM and/or Hard Disk. Only active when booting via OpenCore for now but sure you can imagine the benefit in terms of otherwise unavoidable NVRAM wear and tear. Also mitigates against the large, potential bricking, NVRAM hit that happens when running updates.
You can read up on how to implement this in the OpenCore Manual for a DIY setup.
MyBootMgr has an option to set this up if using that.
I have been wondering where the Mac Pro 3,1 stores the firmware for the Intel Management Engine (if it exists at all.) I suspected it might be on a separate SPI flash chip, but could not find one from low-res photos of the logic board.
These three entries seem to be used by Apple to track repairs/refurbishment, but AFAIK only with newer Macs. Only saw it with values with 2012 and newer Macs, but not with mid-2012 Mac Pro.
Apple firmware tools only allow upgrades, so the answer is no, but with a reconstructed BootROM image I also send the intermediate files that you can reconstruct yourself any previous EFI version and flash.
What about Pigsyn’s MacProFirwareToolUpgrade? It has option to downgrade, but to 2009. Which probably will be to far since I have 6-core processors. Is it correct? Can you provide me more details about your service?
It's just a patch for MacEFIRom's Mac Pro 2009-2010 Firmware Tool, he just changed to the current Apple URLs.
AFAIK, the only way to downgrade via MacEFIROM's tool is when your BootROM have EFI MP51.007F.B03 installed, anything else fails.
Westmere Xeons are not supported with MP4,1 EFI releases, so you won't have a working Mac Pro after downgrading.
Sure, I'll send a PM.
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Completely useless, but I just confirmed that you can only downgrade back to a MP4,1 EFI if your BootROM is MP51.007F.B03.
Had to reconstruct MP51.007F.B03 with my test Mac Pro intermediate files and downgrade from 144.0.0.0.0 to the reconstructed MP51.007F.B03 image to finally be able to run MacEFIROM's tool downgrade procedure successfully.
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Hi Tsialex, I just dumped the bootrom on both of my flashed 4,1s and one of them is showing some serious signs of corruption. Can you PM me about your reconstruction services?
Cross-flashed early-2009 Mac Pros are extremely prone to corruption/bricking.
Done.
Hi Tsialex, I have a 4,1 Mac Pro flashed to 5,1 by previous owner. I upgraded from El Capitan to Mojave, changing the GPU to a metal one on High Sierra and now the cMP is at 144.0.0.0.0 boot ROM. I dumped system ROM with ROMTool and looked at content with UEFITool : VSS store 1 free space is at 32761, VSS store 2 is nowhere to be found and there are too many Invalid entries for my taste. It is better after a
This is a 2 x 3.46 GHz machine with 128 GB (8 x 16 GB) of ram.
In short, can you PM me about your reconstruction services ?
sudo nvram ResetNVRam=1 ( free space is 33889, second VSS store is there), but before I go further towards Big Sur or Monterey, I think it would be wise to reconstruct my bootrom.This is a 2 x 3.46 GHz machine with 128 GB (8 x 16 GB) of ram.
In short, can you PM me about your reconstruction services ?
Invalid entries are the superseded entries marked for reclamation, so you always have some even after a ResetNVRam, your real problem is the cross-flashing process. PM sent.
I have write flash and update nvram set to false. Is this what you are teferring to or is there another setting?
Hey guys, hope you are all doing well. I wanted to ask if I can use Opencore bootloader to freeze my NVRAM so it doesn't get corrupted, but I want to use Mojave still, I don't want to use newer OS? Thanks.