Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

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

Status
The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
kkinto

kkinto

macrumors regular
Apr 29, 2011
228
63
For a while with OC installed everything was fine. Recently though my mac now boots without any boot screen display whatsoever and eventually reaches a black screen after monitor finally gets a signal which stays in that state for a VERY long time (over 10 minutes sometimes). A cursor is present but nothing happens. No user login is required. Finally it will go to the apple grey loading screen (last part of the progress bar) and the Finder will appear. Opt or ESC at boot does absolutely nothing (visually).

I updated to the 0.5.7 version per post at https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/activate-amd-hardware-acceleration.2180095/post-28255048 but no change. Updated Lilu and Whatevergreen to latest versions. Still no difference.

Any ideas what could be causing this or how to go about solving it? When this was all new there was nothing like this and I always saw the boot menu (text) pass by and it booted with apple bootscreen except for a short bit where the monitor lost input. Only major change has been the recent system security update but I am pretty certain it worked okay after that for a while. Thx
 
Last edited:
startergo

startergo

macrumors 603
Sep 20, 2018
5,022
2,283
cdf said:
I'm not sure about bit 26. The different one is bit 2 (target disk mode).
Click to expand...
I missed that one. But then there are 2 different bits (5 and 29):
A1QM4A== is:
0000 0111 0101 0100 0000 1100 1110 0000
0001 0111 0101 0100 0000 1100 1100 0000
is F1QMwA==
 
C

cdf

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
2,256
2,583
startergo said:
I missed that one. But then there are 2 different bits (5 and 29):
A1QM4A== is:
0000 0111 0101 0100 0000 1100 1110 0000
0001 0111 0101 0100 0000 1100 1100 0000
is F1QMwA==
Click to expand...

A1QMwA== and F1QMwA== are the originals. A1QM4A== includes the added bit for UEFI Windows.
[automerge]1586949114[/automerge]
Also, check the endianness: A1QM4A== is actually
1110 0000 0000 1100 0101 0100 0001 0011
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: h9826790 and w1z
C

cdf

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
2,256
2,583
This is really intriguing. Why do some machines report target disk mode and others not? Is this a remnant of the 4,1? @tsialex have you come across the firmware feature bits in the Boot ROM?
 
W

w1z

macrumors 6502a
Aug 20, 2013
692
481
@startergo & @cdf

I have been following your posts on the Windows 10 booting/upgradeability issues and would like to add another data point as I have not experienced any of the issues being discussed.

My PlatformInfo

Code: 
<key>PlatformInfo</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Automatic</key>
        <false/>
        <key>SMBIOS</key>
        <dict>
            <key>BoardProduct</key>
            <string>Mac-27AD2F918AE68F61</string>
        </dict>
        <key>UpdateDataHub</key>
        <false/>
        <key>UpdateNVRAM</key>
        <false/>
        <key>UpdateSMBIOS</key>
        <true/>
        <key>UpdateSMBIOSMode</key>
        <string>Create</string>
    </dict>

I have ProtectSecureBoot set as true with all NVMe drives setup as internal via OC:

Code: 
<key>DeviceProperties</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Add</key>
        <dict>
            <key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x11,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
            <dict>
                <key>built-in</key>
                <data>AA==</data>
            </dict>
            <key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x3,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Pci(0x9,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)</key>
            <dict>
                <key>built-in</key>
                <data>AA==</data>
            </dict>
        </dict>
        <key>Block</key>
        <dict/>
    </dict>

I also have AppleUserInterfaceTheme, AppleBootPolicy enabled and VMM, Hyperthreading disabled with my OC Output section setup as:

Code: 
<key>Output</key>
        <dict>
            <key>ClearScreenOnModeSwitch</key>
            <false/>
            <key>ConsoleMode</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>DirectGopCacheMode</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>DirectGopRendering</key>
            <false/>
            <key>IgnoreTextInGraphics</key>
            <false/>
            <key>ProvideConsoleGop</key>
            <true/>
            <key>ReconnectOnResChange</key>
            <false/>
            <key>ReplaceTabWithSpace</key>
            <false/>
            <key>Resolution</key>
            <string>Max</string>
            <key>SanitiseClearScreen</key>
            <false/>
            <key>TextRenderer</key>
            <string>BuiltinGraphics</string>
        </dict>

Windows resides on a dedicated NVMe drive with OC on a dedicated USB drive. SIP is fully enabled.

Edit: I am not sure if this helps or not but I also have Target Disk Mode available as an option.
[automerge]1586956950[/automerge]

Output for the 2 commands @startergo ran previously (FirmwareFeatures and FirmwareFeaturesMask)

Code: 
➜  ~ nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeatures | awk '{split($NF,chars,""); for(n=0;n<256;n++){ord[sprintf("%c",n)]=n}; i=1; j=0; while(i<=length($NF)){if(substr($NF,i,1)=="%"){printf "%s",toupper(substr($NF,i+1,2)); i=i+2} else {printf "%x",toupper(ord[chars[i]])} j=j+2; i++} print("")}' | xxd -r -p | base64
A1QMwA==
➜  ~ nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeaturesMask | awk '{split($NF,chars,""); for(n=0;n<256;n++){ord[sprintf("%c",n)]=n}; i=1; j=0; while(i<=length($NF)){if(substr($NF,i,1)=="%"){printf "%s",toupper(substr($NF,i+1,2)); i=i+2} else {printf "%x",toupper(ord[chars[i]])} j=j+2; i++} print("")}' | xxd -r -p | base64
P/8f/w==

diskutil list (Windows drive):

Code: 
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk1s1
   2:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk1s2
   3:           Windows Recovery                         554.7 MB   disk1s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data WIN10                   2.0 TB     disk1s4
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: cdf
tsialex

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
cdf said:
This is really intriguing. Why do some machines report target disk mode and others not? Is this a remnant of the 4,1? @tsialex have you come across the firmware feature bits in the Boot ROM?
Click to expand...
I never investigated this exactly, but I have an idea about what's happening. Let me explain this first, inside the MP5,1 BootROM we have, in order:

  1. The EFI firmware
  2. The NVRAM volume
  3. The BootBlock
  4. MLB sector
MacEFIRom tool replaces the EFI firmware and patches the MLB sector (changing the jump point), keeping the exactly same NVRAM volume and BootBlock from the original MP4,1 BootROM. While the NVRAM of MP4,1 and MP5,1 are basically the same, the BootBlock is very different and the BootBlock code controls Firmware Restore and TargetDiskMode.

Firmware Restore I'm sure that don't work anymore with a MP4,1>5,1 upgraded by MacEFIRom tool, but I never checked if TDM works correctly with the hybrid firmware, this needs to be checked.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: zoltm, JedNZ, h9826790 and 3 others
C

cdf

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
2,256
2,583
tsialex said:
MacEFIRom tool replaces the EFI firmware and patches the MLB sector (changing the jump point), keeping the exactly same NVRAM volume and BootBlock from the original MP4,1 BootROM. While the NVRAM of MP4,1 and MP5,1 are basically the same, the BootBlock is very different and the BootBlock code controls Firmware Restore and TargetDiskMode.
Click to expand...

Thanks. This makes a lot of sense.

w1z said:
Edit: I am not sure if this helps or not but I also have Target Disk Mode available as an option.
Click to expand...

Do you mean available as an option in Startup Disk? I also have that option, even without the feature bit. In fact, the bit is also missing in your value (A1QMwA==)... But wait: in post #502, your value is apparently different (0xC00C5417 or F1QMwA==). I wonder what could have provoked this changed...
 
Dayo

Dayo

macrumors 68020
Dec 21, 2018
2,257
1,279
Does anyone know what setting is required to see BS: debug flags?
I am only able to see OC: and OCXYZ: ones using the following:
Code: 
        <key>Debug</key>
        <dict>
            <key>AppleDebug</key>
            <false/>
            <key>DisableWatchDog</key>
            <false/>
            <key>DisplayDelay</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>DisplayLevel</key>
            <integer>2147483714</integer>
            <key>Target</key>
            <integer>81</integer>
        </dict>

BS: debug flags are from the Early Booting Stage that runs before the main OC is loaded.
 
W

w1z

macrumors 6502a
Aug 20, 2013
692
481
cdf said:
Do you mean available as an option in Startup Disk? I also have that option, even without the feature bit. In fact, the bit is also missing in your value (A1QMwA==)... But wait: in post #502, your value is apparently different (0xC00C5417 or F1QMwA==). I wonder what could have provoked this changed...
Click to expand...

Yup, Target Disk Mode under Startup Disk.

I could think of the following changes in setup:

1. SIP is fully enabled now whereas previously it was disabled
2. Currently using Mac Pro 2019 BoardProduct whereas previously I may have either used the iMac Pro's or no BoardProduct/PlatformInfo at all (can't remember)
3. OC is currently installed on a dedicated USB flash drive where as previously it was installed in the ESP/EFI partition of macOS Catalina (was not able to get OC installed on USB because I was attempting to bless OC from within OC which we can't do as reported by @vit9696)
4. Although I don't believe this has any impact but I recently installed a Matt Card
5. ProtectSecureBoot is enabled now whereas previously that option was not available
6. Updates to macOS Catalina

Hope this info helps.

Cheers
 
  • Like
Reactions: cdf
startergo

startergo

macrumors 603
Sep 20, 2018
5,022
2,283
Dayo said:
Does anyone know what setting is required to see BS: debug flags?
I am only able to see OC: and OCXYZ: ones using the following:
Code: 
        <key>Debug</key>
        <dict>
            <key>AppleDebug</key>
            <false/>
            <key>DisableWatchDog</key>
            <false/>
            <key>DisplayDelay</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>DisplayLevel</key>
            <integer>2147483714</integer>
            <key>Target</key>
            <integer>81</integer>
        </dict>

BS: debug flags are from the Early Booting Stage that runs before the main OC is loaded.
Click to expand...
Don't use target greater than 65.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dayo
C

cdf

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
2,256
2,583
w1z said:
4. Although I don't believe this has any impact but I recently installed a Matt Card
Click to expand...

Aha! I suspect you have a real 5,1 and your Matt Card differs in the BootBlock.
 
C

cdf

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
2,256
2,583
tsialex said:
Both you and @wiz have the intermediate files and any recreated BootROM will have the current BootBlock.

If the MATT card was updated using a reconstructed image over that pre-historic dump that cmizapper sends, the BootBlock is correct.
Click to expand...

Other factors must be at play, because my bootROM was also reconstructed with the intermediate files.
 
A

astonius86

macrumors member
Apr 25, 2017
93
32
Mt Juliet, TN
After updating to OC 0.5.7 I noticed I have a phantom ethernet adapter appearing in system preferences. If I remove it and reboot it comes back. Any ideas what this could be?

Screen Shot 2020-04-15 at 10.29.23 AM.png
 
tsialex

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
cdf said:
Other factors must be at play, because my bootROM was also reconstructed with the intermediate files.
Click to expand...
Current BootBlock version is AAPLEFI1.88Z.0005.I00.1904121247, the string, hexa showed below, starts at 0x3F0064.

Code: 
24494249 4F534924 41004100 50004C00 45004600 49003100 2E003800 38005A00 2E003000 30003000 35002E00 49003000 30002E00 31003900 30003400 31003200 31003200 34003700 0000FFFF
 
W

w1z

macrumors 6502a
Aug 20, 2013
692
481
cdf said:
Aha! I suspect you have a real 5,1 and your Matt Card differs in the BootBlock.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have an original 5,1 and used the intermediate files to reconstruct v144 then flashed to the Matt Card.

One thing I noticed though before flashing the Matt Card with the reconstructed bootrom was that I was able to boot an APFS volume with the bootrom that was flashed by cmizapper.
 
tsialex

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
w1z said:
Yes, I have an original 5,1 and used the intermediate files to reconstruct v144 then flashed to the Matt Card.

One thing I noticed though before flashing the Matt Card with the reconstructed bootrom was that I was able to boot an APFS volume with the bootrom that was flashed by cmizapper.
Click to expand...
Did you saved it? Check if it's the same #19. This one can't boot APFS unless you have the drivers inside the EFI partition.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom