MP 1,1-5,1 Manually Configured OpenCore on the Mac Pro

[0134168]

*******, I see in your profile you have a 3.1. Did you OC it? which GPU?
It's working well? any advice if going to OC it?
Thank you in advance.

Nope. Just @dosdude1 patched. It´s in Catalina. GTX-600.

 

[prefuse07]

Did you check the BR2032 RTC battery voltage? It's the first thing to check with sleep problems.

So this is weird as hell.... but I ran first aid in disk util last night and found out that my EFI partition had some errors, the -69766 one, so I ran this:

sudo fsck_msdos diskXsX

and it's been smooth since then. Sleep has gone back to normal, and I think i'm gonna install Big Sur now.

So to anyone reading this -- check your stuff in disk util if you're having any similar issues, run "first aid" on the drive that's giving you issues, and use fsck_msdos diskXsX to repair.

I am still going to replace my battery when I do the pixlas mod, but just wanted to give an update to my situation.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I've just updated to OC 0.7.6 without changing anything within config.plist (perhaps not the safest thing to do). Everything seems to be working fine.

 

[chrisrm9208]

I've just updated to OC 0.7.6 without changing anything within config.plist (perhaps not the safest thing to do). Everything seems to be working fine.

Looking at the changelog, I don't see anything that would affect the cMPs; do you notice any differences?

 

[PeterHolbrook]

No, I don’t.

 

[zzzippp]

For the curious, you can view the Differences.pdf showing the difference between the OpenCore 0.7.5 and 0.7.6 Reference Manual here. Alternatively, find it included in the OpenCore-0.7.6-RELEASE download.

I've only been using OC for less than a month now, but I'm not seeing any changes that would appear to affect users with OC already installed and working on their classic Mac Pros.

 

[cdf]

The guide has been updated to OpenCore version 0.7.6. See Maintenance for the changes that you should make to your config. Happy updating!

 

[Jazzzny]

Hello guys,
I was able to get the FL1100 USB3 PCIe card initialized in OC. I plugged a USB Mouse into a USB3 port and it worked in the OC bootpicker. Booting from the USB3 card may work, but my Mac Pro hates USB drives and currently refuses to boot from any USB drive. If anyone wants to test it out, I have attached the drivers that I used:
These drivers were extracted from the MacPro6,1 firmware
-XhciDxe
-UsbBusDxe
-UsbMassStorageDxe

 

[rjay805]

****Fixed it. When all else fails, 3x PRAM reset always there to save the day. Bluetooth "on" icon likes to come up right away too in the clock bar instead of being delayed 5-10 minutes. I should have known better but was lazy due to just updating OC and Big Sur to the latest and Monterey****

----

TOPIC - 5.1 mac pro not seeing external hard drives or internal hard drives (minus the system/boot drive) after update from big sur to monterey (OC using martins 7.5 package was used). Aside from this, Monterey and system boot and load/work fine, just can't see any external or internal drives in finder or disk utility or in terminal -> diskutil, but they show in system info.

----

I already was on Big sur for 6-7 months working great, with martins 6.3 oc release on my 5.1 Mac Pro. Decided to upgrade oc to 7.5 and upgrade to Monterey 12.0.1 per instructions from max sound solutions video from November 7th on YouTube. The Monterey upgrade went smooth and all works correctly except for one weird thing (yet important).

Only odd thing is external hard drives or internal Sata drives (including the optical drive), aside from the system drive, don’t show in the Mac OS finder or disk utility. They will show on the boot selector or open core and show in system report but not in finder or disk utility. Another odd thing is one of those drives is encrypted and asks for the password to mount. I have tried canceling that prompt, typing in the password and clicking ok. And also clicking “save to keychain”. But still no luck with any other drives showing in finder or disk utility

The oddest thing that is driving me crazy. Any help would be appreciated

If i'm missing something and this is an easy fix, i've noticed that my keyboard and mouse (both BT) work just fine from a total shut down and fresh boot or even a restart. But the bluetooth icon up top by the clock has a cross through it and bluetooth appears "off". The keyboard and mouse all still work fine but scrolling on the mouse (magic mouse 2), doesn't work. It takes about 10 minutes or so and both keyboard and mouse disconnect and reconnect automatically and bluetooth shows "on" in the clock bar and scrolling works fine. This happens each time i do a fresh boot or reboot. I know there are issues with the legacy BT and Wifi card, but seeing this with the upgraded one. Wifi works fine. I know there will be quirks and such but figured i would mention this too

---

Hyped with the whole OC Project and everyone's time. Thanks again crew!

 

[tsialex]

Hello guys,
I was able to get the FL1100 USB3 PCIe card initialized in OC. I plugged a USB Mouse into a USB3 port and it worked in the OC bootpicker. Booting from the USB3 card may work, but my Mac Pro hates USB drives and currently refuses to boot from any USB drive. If anyone wants to test it out, I have attached the drivers that I used:
These drivers were extracted from the MacPro6,1 firmware
-XhciDxe
-UsbBusDxe
-UsbMassStorageDxe

Once you loaded the drivers via OC you already booted and have OpenCore running.

Perhaps you wanna say chain loading? We did the same via EFI shell back in 2017ish.

 

[joevt]

Hello guys,
I was able to get the FL1100 USB3 PCIe card initialized in OC. I plugged a USB Mouse into a USB3 port and it worked in the OC bootpicker. Booting from the USB3 card may work, but my Mac Pro hates USB drives and currently refuses to boot from any USB drive. If anyone wants to test it out, I have attached the drivers that I used:
These drivers were extracted from the MacPro6,1 firmware
-XhciDxe
-UsbBusDxe
-UsbMassStorageDxe

Which Mac Pro did you try these with?
Are UsbBusDxe and UsbMassStorageDxe also necessary? I would think Mac Pro already has those.

Once you loaded the drivers via OC you already booted and have OpenCore running.

Perhaps you wanna say chain loading? We did the same via EFI shell back in 2017ish.

Install them in firmware or use Driver#### nvram then they can be used for pre boot loader booting (i.e. Startup Manager - hold option key at boot)?

 

[PeterHolbrook]

The guide has been updated to OpenCore version 0.7.6. See Maintenance for the changes that you should make to your config. Happy updating!

I may well have missed something, but the 0.7.6 OC Reference Manual doesn't mention an EnableVmx parameter. Is there a typo or something, or is that an undocumented feature?

EDIT: Up to now, I've always had the following under NVRAM/Add

<key>4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14</key>
<dict>
<key>DefaultBackgroundColor</key>
<data>
AAAAAA==
</data>
<key>UIScale</key>
<data>
AQ==
</data>
</dict>

If I eliminate all that, won't the OC Picker background colour revert to light grey?

EDIT2: Has OC 0.7.6 added anything in its internals towards Monterey 12.1 compatibility with vintage hardware, or will that be included in some sort of SurPlusPlus patch or kext?

 

[cdf]

I may well have missed something, but the 0.7.6 OC Reference Manual doesn't mention an EnableVmx parameter. Is there a typo or something, or is that an undocumented feature?

Good observation. It's missing from the documentation that shipped with 0.7.6. However, it's included here:

OpenCorePkg/Docs/Configuration.pdf at master · acidanthera/OpenCorePkg

OpenCore bootloader. Contribute to acidanthera/OpenCorePkg development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

If I eliminate all that, won't the OC Picker background colour revert to light grey?

No. With PickerVariant set to Default, you should get the modern black theme.

Has OC 0.7.6 added anything in its internals towards Monterey 12.1 compatibility with vintage hardware, or will that be included in some sort of SurPlusPlus patch or kext?

It'll probably be included as a patch if needed. For the first beta of 12.1, @Syncretic came up with the MonteRand patch. However, MonteRand is not needed for the current beta.

 

[upipes]

Nope. Just @dosdude1 patched. It´s in Catalina. GTX-600.

Thanks for answering.
If you have plans to update your 3.1, would you be so kind to share "how to" with us? I really need to learn how to do it properly...
My main purpose is make Cubase working again, and get all the power from my GTX680 in order to get a better performance in FCPX (even buying a better card than my one, that works without any power or pixlas mod).
Let me know, please.

Muchas gracias.

 

[Jazzzny]

Once you loaded the drivers via OC you already booted and have OpenCore running.

Perhaps you wanna say chain loading? We did the same via EFI shell back in 2017ish.

Yeah, I used OC to load the drivers, sorry for any confusion

Which Mac Pro did you try these with?
Are UsbBusDxe and UsbMassStorageDxe also necessary? I would think Mac Pro already has those.


Install them in firmware or use Driver#### nvram then they can be used for pre boot loader booting (i.e. Startup Manager - hold option key at boot)?

I am using a MacPro5,1 with the 144 bootrom
UsbBusDxe and UsbMassStorageDxe are necessary because the MacPro5,1 variants cannot properly communicate with XHCI devices
I installed the drivers by adding them to the drivers folder of OC and modifying the config.plist.
Getting preboot support may be possible, but that would require modification of the Mac Pro firmware, which is beyond my knowledge.

 

[dmztff]

Anyone updated to the 12.1 release candidate on a 5,1 yet? I'm running Martin's OC0.7.5 on mine, and I think all I have to do is reboot with the VMM flag on to get the update, but I'm curious whether anybody else has tried it already and whether there are any unexpected MonteRand-like pitfalls.

 

[joevt]

UsbBusDxe and UsbMassStorageDxe are necessary because the MacPro5,1 variants cannot properly communicate with XHCI devices

Maybe if I include those with the my modified for EFI 1.1 XhciDxe driver, then it would work. edk2 has UsbBusDxe and UsbMassStorageDxe so they could be ported to EFI 1.1 also.... But maybe I'll try just reloading the UsbBusDxe and UsbMassStorageDxe from firmware after loading XhciDxe.

Getting preboot support may be possible, but that would require modification of the Mac Pro firmware, which is beyond my knowledge.

Use the DriverOrder and Driver#### nvram variables to have the drivers loaded from internal drive, then they should allow preboot without having to modify the Mac Pro firmware.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Anyone updated to the 12.1 release candidate on a 5,1 yet? I'm running Martin's OC0.7.5 on mine, and I think all I have to do is reboot with the VMM flag on to get the update, but I'm curious whether anybody else has tried it already and whether there are any unexpected MonteRand-like pitfalls.

I haven't updated my Mac to the 12.1 RC, but I can mention a couple of things. The first one is that there's an alternative OC configuration that doesn't require VMM for Monterey updates. The second one is that, for both instances of SurPlus, we'll probably need to change MaxKernel from 21.1.0 to at least 21.2.0.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Can anyone comment on possible problems that may result from upgrading an old iMac with an nVidia GPU currently running a dosdude1-modified Catalina to the latest Catalina through the current OpenCore? Would there be any issues with graphics acceleration, sound, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, et cetera? Or would the user be better served by installing a newer patched Catalina?

 

[paalb]

Can anyone comment on possible problems that may result from upgrading an old iMac with an nVidia GPU currently running a dosdude1-modified Catalina to the latest Catalina through the current OpenCore? Would there be any issues with graphics acceleration, sound, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, et cetera? Or would the user be better served by installing a newer patched Catalina?

I know you like me do not want to use OpenCore Legacy Patcher, but this table might indicate if it is possible.

https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/MODELS.html#imac

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I have nothing against OCLP, only against promoting it in the context advocated herein. And yes, I suppose it’s possible, but I’m not sure how a non-patched Catalina will behave on an old iMac with an nVidia GPU.

 

[TECK]

I'm trying to install OC 0.7.5 on cMP 5,1 using the instructions from post 1. However, after I reboot in recovery, the OC EFI partition is not listed with terminal command "diskutil list." Only my Mojave boot EFI is listed. Any advice? Thanks!

Run the first 3 commands (scroll at the bottom of the page) and post your details. disk0 is an example, pick the disk where you installed OC. If you are not sure, repeat the same commands for each disk, to make sure your OC directory is properly installed.

~$ diskutil list /dev/disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk2⁩         499.9 GB   disk0s2

~$ sudo diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1
Password:
Volume EFI on /dev/disk0s1 mounted

~$ ls -lh /Volumes/EFI/EFI
total 3
drwxrwxrwx  1 floren  staff   512B 19 Nov 17:56 BOOT
drwxrwxrwx  1 floren  staff   1.0K 19 Nov 17:56 OC

 

[TECK]

Reference Manual doesn't mention an EnableVmx parameter

Is there, see 0.7.6 changes.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Is there, see 0.7.6 changes.

Thanks. I'm sure those 0.7.6 changes you mention must indeed be in some document, but, quite certainly, there is no mention whatsoever to "EnableVmx" anywhere in the "Configuration.pdf" document (dated 2021.11.28) that came with "release" OC 0.7.6 I downloaded from the Acidanthera GitHub site last Monday. See here:

 

[krakman]

I just wanted to share my experience, but first a big respect to all those involved in this project, thank you for all the effort, donations coming your way.....

First I spent about 2 weeks of spare time reading through all the alternatives. I have a 4.1>5.1 cMP with Vega 56 GPU.

I decided to use OCLP but I ended up hitting a dead end with trying to bless the OC EFI on the USB - I am a newb at terminal commands.

So here's what I did -

used CCC to clone my Catalina Boot drive to a new SSD

Used a 6.1 Mac Poo to install Monterey onto the SSD via a USB3 caddy

Reinstalled the SSD into the cMP and used OCLP to Patch the EFI on the SSD

I then spent a week trying various terminal commands to bless the EFI but failed dismally until I found Dayo's MyBootMGr tools in which has a little app called BootBlesser. I used that bless the EFI and restarted.

WOW!!!!!! first I saw the Boot picker and then it just booted into Monterey.

I tried my luck and updated to the latest Monterey Beta, it worked flawlessly.

You guys are the best!