MP5,1: Return of the microcodes (MP51.0089.B00) **OBSOLETE**

[JedNZ]

Stoopid question: I’ve got Win10 installed on a Samsung 850 EVO on my cMP 4,1>5,1 (see sig). I originally installed Win7 (by CD), then upgraded to 8,1 (internet upgrade installer), then Win10 (inter upgrade installer). I have audio and wifi working (BCM94360CD with 802.11ac & BT4.0).

My question is: how do I tell if I have it in legacy or EFI mode?

I know little to nothing about Windows and remember (as a bad memory now) that I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get Win7 installed (had to remove all other drives first, and had to burn the CD/DVD from an iso and had a complicated set of instructions to get it work - all of which are competency forgotten now as it was 3 years ago and it was all over my head).

 

[bookemdano]

Stoopid question: I’ve got Win10 installed on a Samsung 850 EVO on my cMP 4,1>5,1 (see sig). I originally installed Win7 (by CD), then upgraded to 8,1 (internet upgrade installer), then Win10 (inter upgrade installer). I have audio and wifi working (BCM94360CD with 802.11ac & BT4.0).

My question is: how do I tell if I have it in legacy or EFI mode?

I know little to nothing about Windows and remember (as a bad memory now) that I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get Win7 installed (had to remove all other drives first, and had to burn the CD/DVD from an iso and had a complicated set of instructions to get it work - all of which are competency forgotten now as it was 3 years ago and it was all over my head).

I think if you did upgrade installs then it's (still) in BIOS mode. But here is an article showing a couple ways to check for sure:

https://www.easyuefi.com/resource/check-windows-is-booted-in-uefi-mode.html

 

[h9826790]

So I have installed Windows 10 in efi mode several times, and once on a Samsung xp941. It doesn’t appear to work when I remove my efi gpu. Is this a known limitation or is there some way to get that to work? Also, how exactly do you switch between OS X and Windows without using System Preferences/Startup Disk?

1) I highly suggested ONLY install Windows on a SDD that connected to one of the native SATA II port, not via any PCIe cards. Few combination can boot Windows (may require work around), but most PCIe cards / adaptor simple make the cMP can't boot to Windows

2) The only card that I know cannot work with EFI Windows is the HD7950 Mac Edition card (or any other flashed HD7xxx / R9 2xx). And switching between GPU should not be an issue. I can replace my 1080Ti by the RX580 without any issue (both of them has UEFI, but not Mac EFI).

3) I used to use BootChamp (NOT Bootcamp), but since 10.13.6, I simply use the terminal command

sudo bless -device /dev/disk0s2 -mount /Volumes/BOOTCAMP -setBoot -nextonly

to make my Mac boot to Windows. This command will make the Mac only boot to Windows once, then go back to macOS automatically.

Of course, if you use this command, you have to confirm your disk number. In my case, the SSD is located in the optical cage, and the EFI partition of the Windows drive is disk0s2.

But some users also reported that BootChamp still works in 10.13.6 on their cMP.

If I want keep using Windows, once I boot into Windows, I can use the Bootcamp apps to set Windows partition as the next boot drive. Then the cMP will always boot to Windows until I select macOS again (my macOS is installed on a HFS+ partition). If the macOS is installed on APFS, then holding option during boot (if Mac EFI GPU is installed), or simple perform a PRAM reset can also go back to MacOS.
[doublepost=1532162643][/doublepost]

My question is: how do I tell if I have it in legacy or EFI mode?

Open terminal and enter

diskutil list

If you have EFI installation. The partitions of the Windows drive will look like this.

 

[Squuiid]

1) I highly suggested ONLY install Windows on a SDD that connected to one of the native SATA II port, not via any PCIe cards. Few combination can boot Windows (may require work around), but most PCIe cards / adaptor simple make the cMP can't boot to Windows

2) The only card that I know cannot work with EFI Windows is the HD7950 Mac Edition card (or any other flashed HD7xxx / R9 2xx). And switching between GPU should not be an issue. I can replace my 1080Ti by the RX580 without any issue (both of them has UEFI, but not Mac EFI).

3) I used to use BootChamp (NOT Bootcamp), but since 10.13.6, I simply use the terminal command

sudo bless -device /dev/disk0s2 -mount /Volumes/BOOTCAMP -setBoot -nextonly

to make my Mac boot to Windows. This command will make the Mac only boot to Windows once, then go back to macOS automatically.

Of course, if you use this command, you have to confirm your disk number. In my case, the SSD is located in the optical cage, and the EFI partition of the Windows drive is disk0s2.

But some users also reported that BootChamp still works in 10.13.6 on their cMP.

If I want keep using Windows, once I boot into Windows, I can use the Bootcamp apps to set Windows partition as the next boot drive. Then the cMP will always boot to Windows until I select macOS again (my macOS is installed on a HFS+ partition). If the macOS is installed on APFS, then holding option during boot (if Mac EFI GPU is installed), or simple perform a PRAM reset can also go back to MacOS.

Or dedicate a Mac to running Windows only and then PCIe disks boot fine
But only if you have a spare one lying around!

 

[jameslmoser]

1) I highly suggested ONLY install Windows on a SDD that connected to one of the native SATA II port, not via any PCIe cards. Few combination can boot Windows (may require work around), but most PCIe cards / adaptor simple make the cMP can't boot to Windows

2) The only card that I know cannot work with EFI Windows is the HD7950 Mac Edition card (or any other flashed HD7xxx / R9 2xx). And switching between GPU should not be an issue. I can replace my 1080Ti by the RX580 without any issue (both of them has UEFI, but not Mac EFI).

3) I used to use BootChamp (NOT Bootcamp), but since 10.13.6, I simply use the terminal command

sudo bless -device /dev/disk0s2 -mount /Volumes/BOOTCAMP -setBoot -nextonly

to make my Mac boot to Windows. This command will make the Mac only boot to Windows once, then go back to macOS automatically.

Of course, if you use this command, you have to confirm your disk number. In my case, the SSD is located in the optical cage, and the EFI partition of the Windows drive is disk0s2.

But some users also reported that BootChamp still works in 10.13.6 on their cMP.

If I want keep using Windows, once I boot into Windows, I can use the Bootcamp apps to set Windows partition as the next boot drive. Then the cMP will always boot to Windows until I select macOS again (my macOS is installed on a HFS+ partition). If the macOS is installed on APFS, then holding option during boot (if Mac EFI GPU is installed), or simple perform a PRAM reset can also go back to MacOS.
[doublepost=1532162643][/doublepost]

Open terminal and enter

diskutil list

If you have EFI installation. The partitions of the Windows drive will look like this.
View attachment 771893

Okay, so I apparently had some other issue? I installed it just fine on an SSD drive in a native SATA II port (bay 3). As soon as I pulled my GTX680 ME card out and put in an RX580, it just wouldn't boot. That was the only thing I changed. The RX580 boots fine using legacy windows installed on a different drive.

The reason I was trying to do this is because I wanted to install macOS on my pcie ahci xp941 drive, but Windows installed in legacy mode doesn't boot when this is installed. I tried booting the windows 10 efi installed with it and it works fine. I would probably have decided to just keep my GTX680 in the system but its not as powerful as a card (and maybe isn't going to be supported by Mojave?).

 

[tsialex]

I would probably have decided to just keep my GTX680 in the system but its not as powerful as a card (and maybe isn't going to be supported by Mojave?).

Can't help much with your RX580 troubles, but how much time you wait? Windows needs 10, 15 minutes to auto-install the driver. You need internet connection btw.

GTX680 is Mojave supported, tested it on my 4,1>5,1 and 3,1.

 

[MIKX]

Bear in mind that Win 7 at least will show a black screen with a flashing " /" for up to 3 - 4 minutes . . and then starts up OK. I don't ever use BootCamp .. I have Win7 & Win 8.1 installed on their own SATA II drives .. they both boot every time without any issues.

 

[jameslmoser]

Can't help much with your RX580 troubles, but how much time you wait? Windows needs 10, 15 minutes to auto-install the driver. You need internet connection btw.

GTX680 is Mojave supported, tested it on my 4,1>5,1 and 3,1.

I waited a bit but I definitely didn’t want 10-15 minutes. Maybe that was the problem. I’ll try it again. Thanks!

 

[Cecco]

Some problems are solved with the Firmware Restoration CD, but if it's something more serious, you have to desolder the SPI Flash memory and reprogram it with a SPI Flash Programmer.

I had to do that =(

Maybe I have a bad SPI Flash memory too.
Tried to update Hexacore Mac Pro 4,1 -> 5,1 to 10.13.6 with non-flashed GTX 980. Didn't come back after a while, so force shutdown and replaced GTX with flashed 7950. Didn't come back either. FANs running, disks spinning but no boot chime. Diag LEDs on mobo look fine. Resetting PRAM and SMC and replacing battery didn't help. So I'm wondering, whether SPI Flash memory has become corrupted. As it doesn't even react on a long press on the power button, I cannot flash it from CD either.

Any links on the SPI Flash memory desoldering and reprogramming?

 

[tsialex]

Maybe I have a bad SPI Flash memory too.
Tried to update Hexacore Mac Pro 4,1 -> 5,1 to 10.13.6 with non-flashed GTX 980. Didn't come back after a while, so force shutdown and replaced GTX with flashed 7950. Didn't come back either. FANs running, disks spinning but no boot chime. Diag LEDs on mobo look fine. Resetting PRAM and SMC and replacing battery didn't help. So I'm wondering, whether SPI Flash memory has become corrupted. As it doesn't even react on a long press on the power button, I cannot flash it from CD either.

Any links on the SPI Flash memory desoldering and reprogramming?

Seems the same as with the corrupted EFI on my Mac Pro.

Do you have backup of your BootROM? You will need it, or at least, reconstruct it with your Mac Pro SerialNumber, LogicBoardSerialNumber and the OrderNumber/SKU. Without it, you can't access iCloud/Facetime/iMessage. I can help with it, if you don't know how.

You can reprogram it with this info https://ghostlyhaks.com/blog/blog/hacking/18-apple-efi-bypass but you have to remove from the Mac Pro before, the Pi don't have sufficiently power to do the onboard reprogramming. You can use a SPI programmer/EPROM programmer too, if you have one, but still have to remove from the logic board unless you have a bench power supply to feed the SPI during programming.

It's more-or-less complicate to desolder the SPI flash, I know my way with a hot air desoldering station, so I didn't have problems with that part. You can cook the board if you don't know how to do it, loose tracks from the board/etc. Maybe you can go to a cell phone repair shop and ask them for the desoldering/soldering part.

If you live in the US, it's more cost effective to buy a used logic board on eBay.

 

[Cecco]

Seems the same as with the corrupted EFI on my Mac Pro.

Do you have backup of your BootROM? You will need it, or at least, reconstruct it with your Mac Pro SerialNumber, LogicBoardSerialNumber and the OrderNumber/SKU. Without it, you can't access iCloud/Facetime/iMessage. I can help with it, if you don't know how.

You can reprogram it with this info https://ghostlyhaks.com/blog/blog/hacking/18-apple-efi-bypass but you have to remove from the Mac Pro before, the Pi don't have sufficiently power to do the onboard reprogramming. You can use a SPI programmer/EPROM programmer too, if you have one, but still have to remove from the logic board unless you have a bench power supply to feed the SPI during programming.

It's more-or-less complicate to desolder the SPI flash, I know my way with a hot air desoldering station, so I didn't have problems with that part. You can cook the board if you don't know how to do it, loose tracks from the board/etc. Maybe you can go to a cell phone repair shop and ask them for the desoldering/soldering part.

If you live in the US, it's more cost effective to buy a used logic board on eBay.

Your's got corrupted during a failed update too?

Here a used logic board is around 250 €.

Concerning the desoldering: Usually it is easier to cut the wires to the chip and desolder them one by one. The chip then is destroyed of cause and has to be replaced with a new one. Is a new chip available or is it a custom apple design?

Could you tell me, where the chip is located on the motherboard so I can check, whether I feel comfortable to do the desoldering?

No, I don't have a backup of the BootROM. I'd happily take your offer to assist in recreating it, in case I'll go that route.

Many Thanks.
[doublepost=1532346312][/doublepost]What do you mean with a bench power supply? Just supply 5 V to the disconnected motherboard? That would be an easy task. I have an adjustable PSU 0-30 V / 0-5 A in my closet.

And finally, is there a way to check that it is really a corrupted BootROM that prevents the Mac from booting?

 

[tsialex]

Your's got corrupted during a failed update too?

Here a used logic board is around 250 €.

Concerning the desoldering: Usually it is easier to cut the wires to the chip and desolder them one by one. The chip then is destroyed of cause and has to be replaced with a new one. Is a new chip available or is it a custom apple design?

Could you tell me, where the chip is located on the motherboard so I can check, whether I feel comfortable to do the desoldering?

No, I don't have a backup of the BootROM. I'd happily take your offer to assist in recreating it, in case I'll go that route.

Many Thanks.

Corrupted when trying to flash a edited version with NVMe driver and microcodes.

It's a standard 8-pin SOIC SPI Flash, chip U8700 on the logic board, right next to the PCIe Power conector PCIE AUX B and it's silk-screened ROM next to it.

On my Mac Pro was a SST 25VF032B, but can be a Macronix one too. I don't think that you can cut a SOIC chip like a DIP one without destroying the board.

What do you mean with a bench power supply? Just supply 5 V to the disconnected motherboard? That would be an easy task. I have an adjustable PSU 0-30 V / 0-5 A in my closet.

No, 3V3 directly to the SPI flash: VDD, pin-8. You only need 30mA to program the SPI flash, but the logic board components drain the supply…

And finally, is there a way to check that it is really a corrupted BootROM that prevents the Mac from booting?

If you had a previous backup, you could check for a corrupted BootROM, but without your only option is to reprogram it.

@Cecco when you're ready to do it, send me a PM here with your SystemSerialNumber, the logic board serial number (it's on a printed label on the logic board) and the SKU of your Mac Pro, I'll reply with the personalized BootROM.

 

[Cecco]

Thanks, so just 3.3 V from the PSU to Pin8 and GND to PIN 4. PI is then powered from the bench PSU as well. Have some PIs laying around already, just need the SOIC8 clip. Would be much easier than the desoldering.

Backup can only be done by reading the SPI via the PI or is there a way to do it via the terminal app (on my other working Macs)? Better be safe than sorry.

I'm tempted to try it but would need your help in reconstructing the bootROM.

 

[tsialex]

Thanks, so just 3.3 V from the PSU to Pin8 and GND to PIN 4. PI is then powered from the bench PSU as well. Have some PIs laying around already, just need the SOIC8 clip. Would be much easier than the desoldering.

Backup can only be done by reading the SPI via the PI or is there a way to do it via the terminal app (on my other working Macs)? Better be safe than sorry.

I'm tempted to try it but would need your help in reconstructing the bootROM.

On theory, yes, just 3V3 on VDD and GND on VSS, I don’t know how much the drain and how the other components interact. Maybe it’ll be easier to route all the pins on to a protoboard, then to the Pi.

You can use dosdude1.com RomTool to dump your BootROMs.

PM me the 5 needed infos and I send you the personalized BootROM.

 

[Cecco]

PM me the 3 needed info and I send you the personalized BootROM.

Thanks I'll do but make take a bit until I've collected the information.

 

[tsialex]

Thanks I'll do but make take a bit until I've collected the information.

One more thing, buy a real Pomona SOIC clip, the fake ones are totally useless. 3M make good ones too, but are costlier. Btw, both brands have problem with counterfeit goods too.

 

[Cecco]

One more thing, buy a real Pomona SOIC clip, the fake ones are totally useless. 3M make good ones too, but are costlier. Btw, both brands have problem with counterfeit goods too.

Already odered a Pomona clip. Somehow had the feeling the cheap ones at Amazon might not work well.

 

[tsialex]

Already odered a Pomona clip. Somehow had the feeling the cheap ones at Amazon might not work well.

First I've bought one of the cheap Pomona ones on eBay. It's so fake that the model 5250 is inscribed as "MODLE 5250". The real Pomona clips are totally different from the cheap fake ones, but I've seen some good fakes too.

 

[h9826790]

Maybe I have a bad SPI Flash memory too.
Tried to update Hexacore Mac Pro 4,1 -> 5,1 to 10.13.6 with non-flashed GTX 980. Didn't come back after a while, so force shutdown and replaced GTX with flashed 7950. Didn't come back either. FANs running, disks spinning but no boot chime. Diag LEDs on mobo look fine. Resetting PRAM and SMC and replacing battery didn't help. So I'm wondering, whether SPI Flash memory has become corrupted. As it doesn't even react on a long press on the power button, I cannot flash it from CD either.

Any links on the SPI Flash memory desoldering and reprogramming?

You mean just a normal OS update via AppStore, but not the firmware update?

In my case, I didn’t update, flash anything, but just want to re-boot to Windows, and my cMP just die and never boot again. Exactly the same symptoms as yours. I doubt if it’s firmware related. Or just becasue it’s getting old now, and something failed.

 

[crjackson2134]

Seems the same as with the corrupted EFI on my Mac Pro.

Do you have backup of your BootROM? You will need it, or at least, reconstruct it with your Mac Pro SerialNumber, LogicBoardSerialNumber and the OrderNumber/SKU. Without it, you can't access iCloud/Facetime/iMessage. I can help with it, if you don't know how.

You can reprogram it with this info https://ghostlyhaks.com/blog/blog/hacking/18-apple-efi-bypass but you have to remove from the Mac Pro before, the Pi don't have sufficiently power to do the onboard reprogramming. You can use a SPI programmer/EPROM programmer too, if you have one, but still have to remove from the logic board unless you have a bench power supply to feed the SPI during programming.

It's more-or-less complicate to desolder the SPI flash, I know my way with a hot air desoldering station, so I didn't have problems with that part. You can cook the board if you don't know how to do it, loose tracks from the board/etc. Maybe you can go to a cell phone repair shop and ask them for the desoldering/soldering part.

If you live in the US, it's more cost effective to buy a used logic board on eBay.

Scary to think that someone with your skill and knowledge got bricked with an EFI Mod update. It gives me pause on doing my own down the road. I wouldn't have the skillset needed to recover from this on my own.

I think I'll stick with booting from my SSUBX/SATA and leaving the higher speed NVME for storage only.

 

[Synchro3]

Maybe I have a bad SPI Flash memory too.
Tried to update Hexacore Mac Pro 4,1 -> 5,1 to 10.13.6 with non-flashed GTX 980. Didn't come back after a while, so force shutdown and replaced GTX with flashed 7950. Didn't come back either. FANs running, disks spinning but no boot chime. Diag LEDs on mobo look fine. Resetting PRAM and SMC and replacing battery didn't help. So I'm wondering, whether SPI Flash memory has become corrupted. As it doesn't even react on a long press on the power button, I cannot flash it from CD either.

Any links on the SPI Flash memory desoldering and reprogramming?

I also bricked my former board with a forced shut down. Forced shut downs must be avoided....

Not sure if the SPI Flash memory is the issue. Could just be a dead MoBo: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-no-boot-up-black-screen.2124447/#post-26201323

 

[crjackson2134]

I also bricked my former board with a forced shut down. Forced shut downs must be avoided....

Not sure if the SPI Flash memory is the issue. Could just be a dead MoBo: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-no-boot-up-black-screen.2124447/#post-26201323

Did the force shutdown occur during an EFI update attempt? If yes, was it an Apple update, or a custom (injected) firmware?

 

[Synchro3]

Did the force shutdown occur during an EFI update attempt? If yes, was it an Apple update, or a custom (injected) firmware?

No, no EFI update, just power off normally, but the Mac Pro didn't power off. So I forced shutdown with 10 seconds holding the power button.

To mention: I had the firmware with 0 microcode then.

 

[crjackson2134]

No, no EFI update, just power off normally, but the Mac Pro didn't power off. So I forced shutdown with 10 seconds holding the power button.

To mention: I had the firmware with 0 microcode than.

Wow, could it be that it didn’t shutdown because it already failed during the process and locked there until you forced a power off? Hard to understand how cutting power alone would brick the thing.

 

[Cecco]

In my case I had 10.13.5 running on a Mac Pro 2009 (4,1). I've updated the machine years ago to 5,1 and swapped CPU to a hexacore 3650. Sysdrive is an Amfeltec PCIe board with 4 blades in a RAID 0 configuration and GPU is a non-EFI-flashed GPX 980. All running fine for a couple of years.
Did the 10.13.6 update via the App Store not the combo installer. Usually the machine boots up with a black screen after a system update due to outdated NVIDIA drivers and I connect via ARD from my MacBook and update the NVIDIA drivers remotely.
This time the Mac Pro didn't show up in the network. So I shut it down by pressing the power button for 10 seconds. Exchanged the GTX 980 with a spare EFI-flashed 7950, to get a boot screen, and started again. It didn't boot, no chime, but fans running. Tried SMC and PRAM reset, exchanged battery, even replaced CPU with original quad core cpu as I thought the update might have flashed a 4,1 bootROM, that is incompatible with the 3650. Still no change.
Cannot flash a new firmware via CDROM as it doesn't even react on a boot with long press of the power button to initiate a firmware update. Diagnostic LEDs on mobo show no error and light up as expected when pressing the diag button.

Well of cause can be something died just during the update but it would be a weird coincidence so currently I suspect a damaged bootROM caused by the forced shutdown. Maybe the timing was bad.

If anyone has another suggestion what the problem is, that is easier to check than doing the SPI flash, I'd be happy to give it a try.

That said it is a major annoyance that Apple now is flashing the bootROM with every minor update. Meanwhile I feel quite uncomfortable to do any system update as I fear to brick my Mac Pro.
[doublepost=1532384702][/doublepost]

I also bricked my former board with a forced shut down. Forced shut downs must be avoided....

Not sure if the SPI Flash memory is the issue. Could just be a dead MoBo: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-no-boot-up-black-screen.2124447/#post-26201323

I've seen your post already. But you do not know what exactly died on your mobo. Could as well been a corrupted bootROM. By replacing your mobo you got a new bootROM as well that would have fixed it.

Flashing is ways cheaper than buying a replacement mobo, thus I'd try that first. If that fails, a replacement mobo would be the next step.