MP 1,1-5,1 Mojave 2020-006 bricked my 5,1?

[mixedfeelings]

Hey, all!

I have a 2010 cMP 5,1 basic quadcore cpu, in Mojave with a Sapphire Pulse RX580 8gb GPU. I have kept it mostly up to date, but it only had the 140.0.0.0.0 firmware. I recently ran the 2020-006 update and it seems to have bricked my machine. When it restarted, both monitors were black and have never come back. I let it run for about 5 hours, leaving and coming back to the same situation. I have tried everything I can think of to get it back.

I tried the original GT120 GPU to see if i could see anything as it booted, and so far no luck. Though when i still had the RX580 in, the monitor attached to that eventually turned half dark gray half light gray, and then fully light gray and then stayed like that until i unplugged it. I have also tried the long press on the power button until i get the beep and chime.

I have since pulled everything (optical drive, boot ssd, extra hdd, both gpus, all but 1 RAM stick).

When it boots, I get a chime and the power button is solid. When I press the diag button i get:

PWROK - GREEN
5V STBY - AMBER
SYS PG - GREEN

And that's it:

With no EFI DONE, am I at the end of the line with this backplane? Any thoughts on next moves?

Thanks in advance!!

Prior to this, I was having issues with the mac freezing periodically. I could move the mouse, but not click on anything or use the keyboard. After a bit, it would start working again. I am not sure if this is related to the issue at hand.

 

[Macschrauber]

Attach an USB Keyboard to the front or back ports

hold cmd-alt-p-r alltogether until the box chimes 4 times

if you are in luck and the 1st reset cleans enough of the nvram Streams.

maybe hold the keys some minutes, find a comfortable position.

if it comes back to life make a rom dump as soon as possible. Google dosdude1 romtool for it.

Then ask tsialex for cleaning the firmware.

 

[mixedfeelings]

Attach an USB Keyboard to the front or back ports

hold cmd-alt-p-r alltogether until the box chimes 4 times

if you are in luck and the 1st reset cleans enough of the nvram Streams.

maybe hold the keys some minutes, find a comfortable position.

if it comes back to life make a rom dump as soon as possible. Google dosdude1 romtool for it.

Then ask tsialex for cleaning the firmware.

Thank you! I forgot to mention that I did try the PRAM reset a few times, but never got more than the 1 regular boot chime. I will try it again, though! Should i put everything back in? boot ssd, gpu, etc.

 

[MBAir2010]

Mojave (patched) stopped my hard drive from working on a MacBook air late 2010 after an security update in i think October or September of this year. after the update, i got that red circle on start up.
since this was a spare, i re-installed Snow leopard and then mountain lion and stopped,
were everything worked.
I read that that security update harmed many Macs and MacBooks but hopefully not your hardware.
you might have to reinstall or reinstall using time machine if a back was made.

i wish you the best in this and let us know what happened.

 

[FarmerBob]

2020-006 was the only SecUpdate that I did not have to do the installer change to it. It loaded and installed right after download. That surprised me. But afterwards my 3,1 wouldn't boot from the newly updated boot drive. The machine starts up, chime, then nothing. The first thing I did was press the Power Button, which the LED was On the whole time, and see if it powers down immediately then "it ain't goin' any further". So for the heck of it I started up in the "Startup Manager" and low and behold, there was the boot drive along with several others, and it was selected as the Startup Disc. So I hit the Enter key and it started right up, but slowly. Even after the 2020-007 SU I still have to start it through the Startup Manager, where the proper drive is selected and it's still slow. I have even done the "Option" key before clicking on the drive to get the circle arrows that supposedly chooses that drive as the new startup. But no.

I hope to get a new partition, on a new faster drive, with everything all proper so I don't have to do this anymore. My main holdup is Office 2011. I have installed it a billion times all over and now all of a sudden it won't install. Not even a new unopened copy. So . . . just thought I'd chime in with my Startup issue.

P.S.
I read somewhere that the 2020-007 is an "All Inclusive Update" and 005 & 006 don't need to be run. You can go right to 007. Someone please correct me if I am wrong?!

 

[Macschrauber]

Thank you! I forgot to mention that I did try the PRAM reset a few times, but never got more than the 1 regular boot chime. I will try it again, though! Should i put everything back in? boot ssd, gpu, etc.

try to get the 2nd and 3rd chime, even put something on the keys to hold them forever.

if that wont help theres the option to solder a fresh flash chip in programmed with the generic mp51.fd file of the mojave installer. But dump the old chip to get the hardware codes like sn, son, etc etc.

makes the effort to reconstruct much easier.

all in case the flash chip is the culprit.

tsialex is the expert but guess he takes a break now.

 

[Macschrauber]

I dumped my rom before and after the Mojave 2020-007 Security Update

one XML File was added in the 1st VSS Stream:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>Software Update Post Logout</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>Boot 1</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>8</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>Language Chooser</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>2</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>OS Installer</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>Boot 2</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>8</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>Language Chooser 2</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>2</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>OS Installer 2</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>67</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ConclusionDelay</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>InstallPhase</key>
        <string>Boot 3</string>
        <key>InstallPhasePercentageKey</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
    </dict>
</array>
</plist>

so, if the nvram is almost full a Security Update what writes a XML Log file into NVram could brick a Mac Pro 5.1 Efi

as I and others keep on telling: always make sure you have a firmware backup.

And it is always good to have a cleaned up firmware. Tsialex can do this. Only in case he is way too busy I can do it, too.

 

[Dayo]

... it started right up, but slowly. Even after the 2020-007 SU I still have to start it through the Startup Manager, where the proper drive is selected and it's still slow.

If you have any HD Drives, I'll suggest you start backing them up immediately as dramatic slow downs as you describe are actually a hint to you that one of such is failing or has failed.

That you experienced this slow down around the time of an update is most likely just coincidence ... if you have such spinners. You can verify this by shutting down, disconnecting any such drives and restarting. If the slow down goes away, then you will know what was the real cause.

 

[mixedfeelings]

try to get the 2nd and 3rd chime, even put something on the keys to hold them forever.

if that wont help theres the option to solder a fresh flash chip in programmed with the generic mp51.fd file of the mojave installer. But dump the old chip to get the hardware codes like sn, son, etc etc.

makes the effort to reconstruct much easier.

all in case the flash chip is the culprit.

tsialex is the expert but guess he takes a break now.

I can't thank you enough! I switched to a different keyboard (classic full mac keyboard) and got the PRAM reset to work properly! I waited 4 times, and now i am back in! I disabled SIP and made a dump of my ROM for backup (And even got the first step of opencore done in the process ). Thank you so much!!

 

[FarmerBob]

If you have any HD Drives, I'll suggest you start backing them up immediately as dramatic slow downs as you describe are actually a hint to you that one of such is failing or has failed.

That you experienced this slow down around the time of an update is most likely just coincidence ... if you have such spinners. You can verify this by shutting down, disconnecting any such drives and restarting. If the slow down goes away, then you will know what was the real cause.

Thanks for the info. I have 4 brand new WD 2TB Blacks in my 3,1 that replaced the previous various and well used drives. So the Backing up was done with CCC that "worked", partially or totally failed. And in alerting the Dev, I called the new version "Fancified", of which at the time the new features seemed like a Godsend for this major migration. But he got all bent out of shape, refunded my money and said that I was too difficult to work with to figure out the problem. I have worked with him before with no incident. Obviously his skin has gotten kinda thin over the years. That was "the one" app that I could and have been able to completely blindly depend upon for decades without a second thought. Not anymore . . .

Anyway, this main issue started with a clean install floowed ny the Safari/005/006 updates. Prior to, all, except the one partition that CCC trashed everything it moved and the source drive, things were good. Some still are. It's just the installs, two, that went through the 005/006/Safari updates, and I don't even use Safari. Although some of the partitions that had OSs on them I had to run Onyx on them before they'd even boot at all. But are in great shape now. In all my decades of blindly moving and swapping things, OSs, applying updates and whatnot, this is the first time I have ever had a boot problem such as this that Zapping the PRAM or doing an overlay reapply didn't fix. Have started using SilentKnight (LOVE IT!) along with Onyx and that has helped a lot. Although SL says my EFI version on the 3,1 is out of date and I have no idea where to go on that. Whereas, that install which was cloned to my 2010 MBP, the EFI is up to date.

NOW as of the other day my machine boots without assistance. But it is still slower as was reported by many as part of the "disastrous" update situation and before it. I have two partitions that one is suppose to be my new main 10.14.6 and another storage that I have played with going from the last full complete install using an updated DosDude Patcher Installer of 10.14 which is .6 and 18G103 directly to 18G7016 using just the 007 SecUpddate after doing the install mod without all the drama and destruction. My original post was before things have "mellowed" as mentioned here. I just want to get things all cleaned up and working nicely. Cuz I'm done and settled in Mōjāv and fine to stay here forever. Unless someone gives me a rumored new smaller MacPro . . . </book>

 

[Tommi14]

so, if the nvram is almost full a Security Update what writes a XML Log file into NVram could brick a Mac Pro 5.1 Efi

as I and others keep on telling: always make sure you have a firmware backup.

And it is always good to have a cleaned up firmware. Tsialex can do this. Only in case he is way too busy I can do it, too.

These may be stupid questions:

-What processes or factors could fill the nvram so that it would be almost full?

-Is the firmware backup done by using the dosdude1 ROMTool?

-Does cleaning up the firmware require desoldering, reprograming and soldering back the SPI flash?

-Does reseting the nvram clean it up?

 

[Macschrauber]

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

There is a extremely simple way (simple here as in not need to know how the NVRAM works/check free space indicators/validate checksums and etc) to check if the garbage collection failed and the need to reflash with the clean dump: Dump the BootROM with ROMTool Open the dump with the most...

forums.macrumors.com