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

[tsialex]

I assumed he doesn't own a Metal card and isn't interested in running Mojave but did want native NVMe booting on HS. Seems like a valid reason, but that said should remember that this is beta firmware and hasn't been fully tested. Maybe it's better to wait for the release of 10.14.1 (probably only a couple weeks away).

For me, nothing justify the risk of bricking a client’s backplane. Just buy a inexpensive Metal supported GPU like HD7750/7850/630GT, prepare a old disk with 10.13.6 and install the GPU and the disk every time is needed to do a firmware upgrade.

 

[goMac]

If Apple ever adds full EFI boot screens in a future ROM I can't wait to see the excitement that's gonna happen around these parts.

Does it seem reasonable Apple could? I don't know how much spare room they have in firmware on the board or how much space that extra driver would use.

 

[bookemdano]

If Apple ever adds full EFI boot screens in a future ROM I can't wait to see the excitement that's gonna happen around these parts.

Does it seem reasonable Apple could? I don't know how much spare room they have in firmware on the board or how much space that extra driver would use.

I refuse to give up hope!

 

[bsbeamer]

There is an updated beta for 10.13 at the moment. Unsure if it's a supplemental 10.13.6 update, or if it is really more of a 10.13.7 style update (that likely would be masked as supplemental). Have NOT yet downloaded or installed. Not likely, but do wonder if it contains any updated firmware.

 

[tsialex]

There is an updated beta for 10.13 at the moment. Unsure if it's a supplemental 10.13.6 update, or if it is really more of a 10.13.7 style update (that likely would be masked as supplemental). Have NOT yet downloaded or installed. Not likely, but do wonder if it contains any updated firmware.

Supplemental updates usually don’t have a way to upgrade firmware with Mac Pros 5,1.

If is the same that Apple seeded last week, don’t have any new firmware for MP51.

I’ll check it when I arrive at home.

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If Apple ever adds full EFI boot screens in a future ROM I can't wait to see the excitement that's gonna happen around these parts.

Does it seem reasonable Apple could? I don't know how much spare room they have in firmware on the board or how much space that extra driver would use.

The SPI flash has a lot of free space. Even if UEFI/GOP is 20x bigger than the UGA driver, the BootROM has space.

 

[fhturner]

Still no joy. Last thing I tried was the Terminal bless command I mentioned above, w/ the firmware update files copied to /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates. This only opened the DVD tray w/ no firmware "bong" and sat there until I turned it off and rebooted back into the OS.

I really don’t understand why you are doing this. You gonna risk bricking Mac Pros just to don’t have to change a GPU and a disk?

I know what I’m doing and I DON’T manually install firmwares.

Stop asking for trouble, you gonna brick one fast.

Given your sentiments here, I will cease further attempts. Honestly, I didn't think I was trying to accomplish anything that far outside the box. I'm not trying to upgrade to hacked or unsupported firmware (such as NVMe-injected like we had to do before yesterday), and the only thing I'm trying to circumvent is the installer check that doesn't like my lack of Metal GPU. I figured surely there are other methods to position a firmware file where the system wants it and then apply the update upon startup. There's even a Unix executable file in there that shows somewhat friendly output as this (example from my MBP where I'm posting, but you get the idea):

~ fred$ Install\ macOS\ Mojave\ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/Firmware/efiupdater
efiupdater version 16.220.2~8

ROM Payload path: <CFURL 0x7f976c506ac0 [0x7fff94872af0]>{string = file:////AppleInternal/Packages/EFIPayloads/, encoding = 134217984, base = (null)}
Current EFI Version string: MBP114.88Z.0184.B00.1806051659
EFI currentVersion: [MBP114 0184.00 1806051659 Release]
EFI updateVersion:  []
No firmware update file found for this system. Nothing to do
efiupdater exit status = 1

Heck, there's also the 4,1>5,1 utility that's been around forever as well. So, I just didn't think I was really pushing the envelope w/ this. If any firmware Terminal wizards are out there and have suggestions, please enlighten us!

 

[tsialex]

If Apple will gonna support UEFI/GOP with Mac Pro 7,1, maybe they can develop it now on MP5,1 and use it as a beta test.

It’s the only reasonable way that I see Cupertino investing with such firmware change at the end of the support time for MP5,1.
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Still no joy. Last thing I tried was the Terminal bless command I mentioned above, w/ the firmware update files copied to /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates. This only opened the DVD tray w/ no firmware "bong" and sat there until I turned it off and rebooted back into the OS.



Given your sentiments here, I will cease further attempts. Honestly, I didn't think I was trying to accomplish anything that far outside the box. I'm not trying to upgrade to hacked or unsupported firmware (such as NVMe-injected like we had to do before yesterday), and the only thing I'm trying to circumvent is the installer check that doesn't like my lack of Metal GPU. I figured surely there are other methods to position a firmware file where the system wants it and then apply the update upon startup. There's even a Unix executable file in there that shows somewhat friendly output as this (example from my MBP where I'm posting, but you get the idea):

~ fred$ Install\ macOS\ Mojave\ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/Firmware/efiupdater
efiupdater version 16.220.2~8

ROM Payload path: <CFURL 0x7f976c506ac0 [0x7fff94872af0]>{string = file:////AppleInternal/Packages/EFIPayloads/, encoding = 134217984, base = (null)}
Current EFI Version string: MBP114.88Z.0184.B00.1806051659
EFI currentVersion: [MBP114 0184.00 1806051659 Release]
EFI updateVersion:  []
No firmware update file found for this system. Nothing to do
efiupdater exit status = 1

Heck, there's also the 4,1>5,1 utility that's been around forever as well. So, I just didn't think I was really pushing the envelope w/ this. If any firmware Terminal wizards are out there and have suggestions, please enlighten us!

The problem is not with the tools, but with the state of the current firmware on the SPI Flash. If you have a partially corrupt firmware like almost everyone here have/had, you are just a bless away from a brick.

At least with the Apple macOS installer way to upgrade the BootROM, you have some (little) assurance that you not going to brick the backplane.

 

[fhturner]

At least with the Apple macOS installer way to upgrade the BootROM, you have some (little) assurance that you not going to brick the backplane.

I gotcha. But you get that I'm only trying to *trigger* the "Apple macOS installer way", right? I'm not trying to brute force something that shouldn't be there...only trying to "slip in" behind the Metal/Filevault check and execute the "Apple way" from there. My attempts were VERY tame...

 

[h9826790]

If Apple will gonna support UEFI/GOP with Mac Pro 7,1, maybe they can develop it now on MP5,1 and use it as a beta test.

It’s the only reasonable way that I see Cupertino investing with such firmware change at the end of the support time for MP5,1.

This is what I believe
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Does not work Plextor M8SE 256GB. Works on Windows. What do you think about this?

Controller: Marvell 88SS1093

View attachment 793580 View attachment 793578 View attachment 793579

What do you mean "works on Windows"?

If that drive can work in Windows on cMP. That means the drive is good for cMP.

And system info also shows the card is recognised. (I think not all NVMe will be listed at the NVMe page, but all of them will be listed at the PCI page and storage page).

 

[goMac]

If Apple will gonna support UEFI/GOP with Mac Pro 7,1, maybe they can develop it now on MP5,1 and use it as a beta test.

It's kind of insane they're adding NVMe this late in the game, so my hunch is something is going on here.

NVMe is an amount of risk Apple would typically want to avoid on a product this old, and it doesn't directly service anything required for Mojave.

 

[turluttu]

This is what I believe
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What do you mean "works on Windows"?

If that drive can work in Windows on cMP. That means the drive is good for cMP.

And system info also shows the card is recognised. (I think not all NVMe will be listed at the NVMe page, but all of them will be listed at the PCI page and storage page).

My friend, Thank you for your interest, but I can’t make it work. Maybe there is not enough driver to support? I also tried installing the Mojave 10.14.0 public version, with no results.

 

[tsialex]

It's kind of insane they're adding NVMe this late in the game, so my hunch is something is going on here.

NVMe is an amount of risk Apple would typically want to avoid on a product this old, and it doesn't directly service anything required for Mojave.

I'm not surprised with the native NVMe support. Apple added NVMe EFI modules to almost all supported Macs when they added APFS support. Even to MacBooks Pro that you can't install a PCIe NVMe drive.

Other thing, people here are using NVMe with MP5,1 for almost 6 months. A lot of troubleshooting that Apple needed to implement the native support was already done by us, we know most the caveats and what work and what don't. Maybe Apple finally decided to implement native NVMe support to just eliminate the need to inject the module.

 

[crjackson2134]

It's kind of insane they're adding NVMe this late in the game, so my hunch is something is going on here.

NVMe is an amount of risk Apple would typically want to avoid on a product this old, and it doesn't directly service anything required for Mojave.

Adding NVMe is very easy for them. Very little effort required, and something positive to show they are listening. Why do you feel it’s insane considering it’s still a supported platform? The design may be older and near EOL, but it’s not there yet.

Would you settle for a car maker to stop fixing your car 6 months short of warranty period, just because it’s exactly like the model designed 3 years earlier?

It’s good customer service for a change, don’t wish it away.

 

[goMac]

Adding NVMe is very easy for them. Very little effort required, and something positive to show they are listening. Why do you feel it’s insane considering it’s still a supported platform? The design may be older and near EOL, but it’s not there yet.

Would you settle for a car maker to stop fixing your car 6 months short of warranty period, just because it’s exactly like the model designed 3 years earlier?

It’s good customer service for a change, don’t wish it away.

Apple is extremely risk adverse. Remember how they refused to enable third party TRIM support for years because a few drives had bad TRIM implementations? And even when they did it's not automatic and carries giant warnings?

It's especially odd because the Mac Pro is so far out of support, so not only are they making a change like this that they would normally hate making, but doing it on a platform so old. It's not like they're going to sell any more 2010 Mac Pros because of this change.

You're right that they could be doing it for goodwill, or they could be doing it to test bed for the next Mac Pro. I'm just saying while out here this would be a small deal, at Apple this would be a (relatively, within the Mac Pro team) big deal. On this forum, previous work has been on an optional NVMe module. Apple is shipping this as a firmware update to every single cMP customer. Even if they only had a 1% failure rate imagine all the noise that would cause.

Even assigning someone within Apple to test this for a week or two before release is a pretty big deal when Apple isn't going to get any money back on this upgrade.

And, as far as I know, this isn't tied to any other major changes. So it's not like a "Well, while we're in here we'll just throw in NVMe for no reason."

Not trying to wish it away at all. Just saying, this isn't a small thing for Apple. And it probably does mean... well, something.

(Although maybe they just really want people to stop flashing custom firmwares.)

 

[Macschrauber]

i ran the Mojave installer app from the link alex gave just for upgrading to 140.0.0.0 from High Sierra 10.13.6

Asked for Firmware update in 1st step so I only did that.

Worh a try for upgrade only without Mojave. Had a flashed radeon R9 in that 5.1 box btw

 

[Upgrader]

For a single drive, I wouldn’t buy anything other than the Angelbird Wings, or kryoM2.

These are really nice carriers. I had the Angelbird for a very short time and that is one nicely made piece of hardware.

I also had the angelbird for a couple of weeks. Sad to have to give it back. Solid piece of kit.

 

[bookemdano]

Apple is extremely risk adverse. Remember how they refused to enable third party TRIM support for years because a few drives had bad TRIM implementations? And even when they did it's not automatic and carries giant warnings?

It's especially odd because the Mac Pro is so far out of support, so not only are they making a change like this that they would normally hate making, but doing it on a platform so old. It's not like they're going to sell any more 2010 Mac Pros because of this change.

You're right that they could be doing it for goodwill, or they could be doing it to test bed for the next Mac Pro. I'm just saying while out here this would be a small deal, at Apple this would be a (relatively, within the Mac Pro team) big deal. On this forum, previous work has been on an optional NVMe module. Apple is shipping this as a firmware update to every single cMP customer. Even if they only had a 1% failure rate imagine all the noise that would cause.

Even assigning someone within Apple to test this for a week or two before release is a pretty big deal when Apple isn't going to get any money back on this upgrade.

And, as far as I know, this isn't tied to any other major changes. So it's not like a "Well, while we're in here we'll just throw in NVMe for no reason."

Not trying to wish it away at all. Just saying, this isn't a small thing for Apple. And it probably does mean... well, something.

(Although maybe they just really want people to stop flashing custom firmwares.)

Maybe Apple has some huge corporate customer who still uses cheese graters and with enough clout to request this addition while they wait for the 2019 model? I dunno, I agree it's surprising that Apple would add this, especially after Mojave's release. Not that I'm complaining!

 

[zemaker]

Is anyone having issues after the Mojave update with Bootcamp? I can't see my Mac OS drive from within Windows 10.

 

[crjackson2134]

Mac Pro is so far out of support

It’s obviously not out of support yet.

 

[bookemdano]

It’s obviously not out of support yet.

He probably meant that it's out of hardware support (having been put out to "Vintage" pasture long ago).

 

[crjackson2134]

He probably meant that it's out of hardware support (having been put out to "Vintage/Obsolete" pasture long ago).

I purchased mine in 2013 and Apple says it’s still supported. No longer produced vs. not supported differ. So it seems that Apple bases supported status on original production or purchase date in this case. I don’t know, but I don’t think there’s anything insane or risky about adding NVMe. It means, they have clearly made an example to show that it’s supported.

APFS added
Microcode updates added
video card link speed corrected
APFS tweaked
firmware Flashability for non-efi video added
NVMe added.

Clearly it’s a supported older platform.

 

[robbier]

Is anyone having issues after the Mojave update with Bootcamp? I can't see my Mac OS drive from within Windows 10.

Mojave converts all boot drives to APFS (even Fusion and traditional HDD), and Boot Camp drivers do not support APFS. There is nothing really that can be done...you could download software like APFS for Windows by Paragon Software to allow you to see the drive and read / write to it, but you won't be able to select the drive as a startup disk from Windows.

 

[bookemdano]

I purchased mine in 2013 and Apple says it’s still supported. No longer produced vs. not supported differ. So it seems that Apple bases supported status on original production or purchase date in this case. I don’t know, but I don’t think there’s anything insane or risky about adding NVMe. It means, they have clearly made an example to show that it’s supported.

APFS added
Microcode updates added
video card link speed corrected
APFS tweaked
firmware Flashability for non-efi video added
NVMe added.

Clearly it’s a supported older platform.

I totally get what you're saying. But really could any of us have predicted Apple would be giving us ANY of that at the beginning of this year? Apple has totally ignored and neglected this platform for years--even before the trashcan came out. I'm not complaining about it--and I'm hoping for more. But I am really surprised that ye olde' cheese grater is getting so much TLC from Apple in October 2018. It's really out of character for them.

 

[TehFalcon]

My 5,1 flashed 4,1 won't find the beta update... any ideas?

 

[crjackson2134]

I totally get what you're saying. But really could any of us have predicted Apple would be giving us ANY of that at the beginning of this year? Apple has totally ignored and neglected this platform for years--even before the trashcan came out. I'm not complaining about it--and I'm hoping for more. But I am really surprised that ye olde' cheese grater is getting so much TLC from Apple in October 2018. It's really out of character for them.

Accord!