MP 1,1-5,1 OpenCore and the 2008 Mac Pro 3,1

[DeltaMac]

The OCLP Root Patch install shows a progress list as it installs.
Are you saying that when booted to the installed system on your thumb drive, that the OCLP root patch progress never, well, progresses at all, or are you saying that the progress list never appears?
How did you determine that the patch install is NOT installing anything? My oldest OCLP Mac is a 2008 iMac, and a fresh OCLP patcher install (on a clean installed system, takes more than 30 minutes to complete, and even apppears to be doing nothing at all for several minutes at a time. I know now to find something else to do when installing on that old Mac. Takes some time, but it does eventually finish.

That's why I asked how long you waited for something to happen. I do see the patch install stall with some kind of error. I just run it a second time, and it usually completes successfully then.

 

[HeadstrongZodiac]

The OCLP Root Patch install shows a progress list as it installs.
Are you saying that when booted to the installed system on your thumb drive, that the OCLP root patch progress never, well, progresses at all, or are you saying that the progress list never appears?
How did you determine that the patch install is NOT installing anything? My oldest OCLP Mac is a 2008 iMac, and a fresh OCLP patcher install (on a clean installed system, takes more than 30 minutes to complete, and even apppears to be doing nothing at all for several minutes at a time. I know now to find something else to do when installing on that old Mac. Takes some time, but it does eventually finish.

That's why I asked how long you waited for something to happen. I do see the patch install stall with some kind of error. I just run it a second time, and it usually completes successfully then.

I'll go into detail of how I'm installing it so you can hopefully understand what I'm saying (it'll be long)

I plug my USB into my MP through the usb 2.0 bus hub. I'm doing this just in case there's any issues with the usb 1.0 ports. I downloaded OCLP, and when I open it I click on "Create OCLP installer" and create the installer (my mac has El Capitan installed btw.) Once the OCLP installer downloads, I click on the button that downloads the patcher to the USB. That's whenever I encounter the error of 0 bytes being written, and it's stuck on that tab until I either shut the Mac down, or exit OCLP. I'm insanely confused, and I've followed almost every guide. I've tried ethernet, wifi, removing the BT card, PCIE cards that aren't needed, everything. I have no idea what is causing this.

 

[Bigwaff]

Attach USB stick directly to Mac Pro USB 1.1 port. Will be very slow, but should work to create installer. You will need hub for keyboard & mouse when booting from USB OCLP install stick.

 

[HeadstrongZodiac]

Attach USB stick directly to Mac Pro USB 1.1 port. Will be very slow, but should work.

Alright, I will try this instead. I've had enough of this thing for today.

 

[Mika_]

I successfully installed macOS Sonoma with OpenCore Legacy Patcher. Here is a note for future reference for all the steps I have taken to install the OS. Installing newer versions of macOS on the cMP3,1 is definitely much more a hassle compared to the 5,1, which I also own, due to the lack of Apple official EFI updates.

Reason for OS selection: macOS 15 Sequoia currently only runs on 4 cores/ 1 CPU instead of both CPUs. Thus Sonoma might be the end of the game for the 3,1, which runs (surprisingly) well considering its 16-year-old age.

List of the bugs that I needed to fix, that is currently not in the OCLP codebase:

1. As referenced by earlier posters in this thread, OpenCore only recognizes the internal APFS partition (i.e. during the macOS Installer stage) while the bootloader is installed on an internal disk. If the EFI folder is on the USB, it will still recognize and boot the Install macOS USB partition, but it will not pass the second stage of install and will send the machine into a recovery loop.

My solution: Technically, adding the APFS dxe into the Boot ROM could work. However, because I wanted to do a vanilla installation, I simply mounted both my USB drive's EFI folder and my internal drive's EFI folder in Recovery, copied the OpenCore boot files to the internal drive and booted from there.

2. The OCLP EFI, by default, breaks sleep (hibernatemode=0) due to two issues with the config. (1), The supplied USB Map kext will not allow the machine to sleep for even one second due to conflicts with the UHC3 port (used by internal bluetooth). (2), RTC will break Power Nap, forcing the Mac to wake up (DarkWake) at least once per hour during sleep.

My solution: For issue (1), I disabled the USB Map kext in config.plist. From my understanding, this should not break any functionality unless you are running moderate/full machine model patching. USB 1.1 still worked even without the USB Map kext, though hot plugging is not working (it was not working with the USB Map kext on, so nothing to lose).

For issue (2), I used this patch, referenced from the TonyMac forum thread:

            <dict>
                <key>Arch</key>
                <string>Any</string>
                <key>Base</key>
                <string>__ZN8AppleRTC18setupDateTimeAlarmEPK11RTCDateTime</string>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>Disable RTC wake scheduling</string>
                <key>Count</key>
                <integer>1</integer>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <false/>
                <key>Find</key>
                <data></data>
                <key>Identifier</key>
                <string>com.apple.driver.AppleRTC</string>
                <key>Limit</key>
                <integer>0</integer>
                <key>Mask</key>
                <data></data>
                <key>MaxKernel</key>
                <string></string>
                <key>MinKernel</key>
                <string>19.0.0</string>
                <key>Replace</key>
                <data>ww==</data>
                <key>ReplaceMask</key>
                <data></data>
                <key>Skip</key>
                <integer>0</integer>
            </dict>

Putting this into the Kernel - Patch section should now disable RTC-induced random wakes.

 

[pullman]

Well done, so Sonoma might be the end of the road for the 3,1.

Is the below bit about sleep Sonoma-specific? I have Monterey on mine and don't have any sleep troubles, even with peripherals connected.

2. The OCLP EFI, by default, breaks sleep (hibernatemode=0) due to two issues with the config. (1), The supplied USB Map kext will not allow the machine to sleep for even one second due to conflicts with the UHC3 port (used by internal bluetooth). (2), RTC will break Power Nap, forcing the Mac to wake up (DarkWake) at least once per hour during sleep.

 

[Mika_]

Well done, so Sonoma might be the end of the road for the 3,1.

Is the below bit about sleep Sonoma-specific? I have Monterey on mine and don't have any sleep troubles, even with peripherals connected.

I haven't had the chance to personally test Monterey on the 3,1, but I have heard from the OCLP team that Sonoma, even with the USB 1.1 kexts patched, does not function well with the ports. One significant regression that I can think of with the USB 1.1 ports is hot-plugging. Since the internal Bluetooth chip runs on UHC3 (the USB 1.1 MUX that prevents sleeps on Sonoma) it is possible that this is a new bug that does not exist on Monterey. Still, the bug is fixable and might not be reproducible on other 3,1s with the internal Bluetooth chip removed.

 

[pullman]

Interesting, thank you for explaining. On mine I replaced the internal bt/wifi card years ago and now have a BCM94360CD, so perhaps that prevents the issue on Monterey.

I haven't had the chance to personally test Monterey on the 3,1, but I have heard from the OCLP team that Sonoma, even with the USB 1.1 kexts patched, does not function well with the ports. One significant regression that I can think of with the USB 1.1 ports is hot-plugging. Since the internal Bluetooth chip runs on UHC3 (the USB 1.1 MUX that prevents sleeps on Sonoma) it is possible that this is a new bug that does not exist on Monterey. Still, the bug is fixable and might not be reproducible on other 3,1s with the internal Bluetooth chip removed.

 

[DeltaMac]

Attach USB stick directly to Mac Pro USB 1.1 port. Will be very slow, but should work to create installer. You will need hub for keyboard & mouse when booting from USB OCLP install stick.

I guess you meant one of the native ports. No Mac Pro has USB 1 ports, it depends on the device that is attached.
OPs MacPro3,1 has all USB 2 ports.
But, I agree, the built-in USB ports would be another option to try.

 

[HeadstrongZodiac]

I guess you meant one of the native ports. No Mac Pro has USB 1 ports, it depends on the device that is attached.
OPs MacPro3,1 has all USB 2 ports.
But, I agree, the built-in USB ports would be another option to try.

I'm going to try doing it without the bus hub today. Will update if it works or not, or any errors i see along the way.

 

[HeadstrongZodiac]

UPDATE:

Even without using the USB bus, it still refuses to write onto my usb. I know this usb works, and it is formatted correctly. At this point, I'm at a loss.

Picture will be linked.

EDIT
After around like 3-5 minutes it started copying files. I don't know why it's so slow considering the generation of the USB drive, but it is slowly installing now. Will continue with updates.

 

[840quadra]

That all seems really strange. I am in the process of installing Ventura on my 3,1 , upgrading from Monterey. OCLP rejected my thumb drive, so I am using a Multi-reader and a 16gb Compact Flash card. I am currently within my 2nd reboot.

So far so good, GOP is letting me see my boot selector, which has never worked on previous attempts with my 8 Core 3,1.

 

[HeadstrongZodiac]

That all seems really strange. I am in the process of installing Ventura on my 3,1 , upgrading from Monterey. OCLP rejected my thumb drive, so I am using a Multi-reader and a 16gb Compact Flash card. I am currently within my 2nd reboot.

So far so good, GOP is letting me see my boot selector, which has never worked on previous attempts with my 8 Core 3,1.

Currently in the process of installing Monterey. All seems to be going well at the moment.

 

[HeadstrongZodiac]

Currently in the process of installing Monterey. All seems to be going well at the moment.

UPDATE TO ALL WHO WERE FOLLOWING THIS THREAD:

I have successfully booted into Monterey, after several (and I mean around 14) attempts. Thanks to all of you who helped me!

 

[joevt]

I guess you meant one of the native ports. No Mac Pro has USB 1 ports, it depends on the device that is attached.
OPs MacPro3,1 has all USB 2 ports.
But, I agree, the built-in USB ports would be another option to try.

Right. The USB 2.0 ports may be connected to a USB 1.1 controller (OHCI) or a USB 2.0 controller (EHCI) in the Mac Pro. Check System Profiler.app or IORegistryExplorer.app or ioreg. To force connection to a USB 2.0 controller, use a USB 2.0 or USB 3.x hub.

 

[840quadra]

Update to Ventura went fine. Ventura brought back the option of using Line Out Audio that was missing before, and greatly wanted.

I forgot about the stupid Processor limit that is activated by default in new OCLP builds, and turned my 8-Core into a 4 core. I rebuilt OCLP and root patches with that function bypassed, however there must be a bug in the code as my install now only has TWO cores visible to MacOS.

Thankfully that was just a test build, I am going to do a fresh install of Ventura on another drive. It appears that my main Monterey boot drive is still seeing 8 cores just fine.

 

[pullman]

Excellent news. Just so I understand, under which OS did you not previously have Line Out working (as in the port on the back) on the 3,1?

And how can one check the number of cores recognised? I don't see this in Sys Info.

cheers
philip

Update to Ventura went fine. Ventura brought back the option of using Line Out Audio that was missing before, and greatly wanted.

I forgot about the stupid Processor limit that is activated by default in new OCLP builds, and turned my 8-Core into a 4 core. I rebuilt OCLP and root patches with that function bypassed, however there must be a bug in the code as my install now only has TWO cores visible to MacOS.

Thankfully that was just a test build, I am going to do a fresh install of Ventura on another drive. It appears that my main Monterey boot drive is still seeing 8 cores just fine.

 

[840quadra]

Excellent news. Just so I understand, under which OS did you not previously have Line Out working (as in the port on the back) on the 3,1?

And how can one check the number of cores recognised? I don't see this in Sys Info.

cheers
philip

Greetings,

Lack of Audio Out issue
My 3,1 had this issue in Big Sur & Monterey. I could not se ANY of my Audio input or Output devices, could only output via HDMI.

With my fresh Ventura install, all options have now returned to normal.

Regarding checking cores
The method I use (there are likely others) is to open Activity monitor and open CPU monitor, or CPU History. On one of my boots it currently only shows 2 cores, but on my main SSD I am (thankfully) able to see all 8 being used.

 

[pullman]

Thank you, great that all cores have reappeared. On mine, all eight show, as well as all audio options. I'm wondering what might cause this difference between two very similar systems. Still I'm happy it's working well now in Ventura

Greetings,

Lack of Audio Out issue
My 3,1 had this issue in Big Sur & Monterey. I could not se ANY of my Audio input or Output devices, could only output via HDMI.

With my fresh Ventura install, all options have now returned to normal.


View attachment 2456365

Regarding checking cores
The method I use (there are likely others) is to open Activity monitor and open CPU monitor, or CPU History. On one of my boots it currently only shows 2 cores, but on my main SSD I am (thankfully) able to see all 8 being used.

View attachment 2456366

 

[840quadra]

Thank you, great that all cores have reappeared. On mine, all eight show, as well as all audio options. I'm wondering what might cause this difference between two very similar systems. Still I'm happy it's working well now in Ventura

View attachment 2456568

Great that is working for you!

Only thing I can think of is the fact that I had a 1yo copy of OCLP, or something went weird with my install. Regardless, I wanted to put my system on a currently supported (will receive patches) copy of the OS, as it is nice to get Safari patches, as well as security patches.

Monterey is going back on a 2nd drive on this system as it was an awesome OS for the 3,1.

Still amazed these things still do so well here in 2024! I actually browse and do quite a bit of work on this remotely via VNC from my 2008 Unibody MacBook Pro.

 

[MarkWalberg]

I saw many posts about people successfully updating OS from El Capitan on my Mac Pro 3.1 that i've had since new in 2008. It has an SSD and a GeForce GTX 780 4MB card that is said to be metal compatible.

I've followed the

Dortania's OpenCore Install Guide to use OpenCore Legacy Patcher​

However, after getting the installer on the usb drive I've been stuck for the past two days looping back to the recovery page. I tried EdNeeves advice of resetting PRAM and that did get me to the language page, but clicking next always brings back the recovery page. I can see that my taget SSD is now labeled Monterey, but it will not boot.

If I had a brain that worked better, I would have tried this with a drive that did not have all the important files I have on the disks in there now.

In any case, I do not see an easy way out of this. The SSD has Monterey on it now. So, I cannot just boot it as El Capitan again.

Can I safely use Time Machine from the Recovery Screen to bring back El Capitan?

 

[MarkWalberg]

So, I've given up on trying to get Monterey going on the MAC PRO 3.1.
I want to go back to El Capitan. However, using Time Machine seems to require a bootable OS.
My Recovery screen now has Monterey as the OS to install, no longer El Capitan.
Sorry, I'm a beginner at this (probably obvious). Any advice on how to get back to El Capitan would be greatly appreciated.

 

[madmac66]

Any advice on how to get back to El Capitan would be greatly appreciated.

Erm, can you reformat the drive in Recovery Mode? From the tools menu select Disc Utility.

And then you should be able to install a fresh OS from scratch. Dunno about TM tho. This is why I recommend installing a new OS on a fresh drive, dont overwrite your El Cap in case you need to go back to it. I have a drawer full of old OS boot drives, just in case.

In any case dont go back to El Cap just yet, try the dosdude patchers. You can install Catalina just fine which is still a big improvement on EL Cap and you can get up and running at least.

 

[OldSchoolVideo]

IDK about using Recovery to restore a Time Machine backup (I prefer Clonezilla for bare metal backups) but if you made a full backup of your original configured El Capitan volume using Time Machine and need to get back to an OS that can restore from it, you may want to go back and create a new bootable El Capitan first. Apple has both instructions about recovery and old OS installers available online at https://support.apple.com/en-us/102662 (the downloads seem to work best using Safari). I would try creating a new clean El Capitan volume and then run a Time Machine restore from the last full backup (and then any incremental backups) of your previous El Capitan volume to get back to where you were when you last ran Time Machine.

Once you've got El Capitan with your original data restored, you may want to reconsider upgrading to Monterey again - but by going about the upgrade a bit differently. OCLP is an amazing way of getting your cMP up to date, but it can be a bit tricky to get a 3,1 fully operational - especially if you are using it with a non-metal compatible GPU. My advice would be to update El Capitan to the latest OCLP first and then use it create a new bootable flash drive OCLP Monterey installer. Use a second drive (or partition) for the new Monterey OS and once you have a clean bootable Monterey installation run the Migration tool to bring over anything you want from the restored El Capitan volume and determine what still works and what doesn't. As long as you don't do a PRAM reset after selecting the (normally hidden) OCLP EFI boot patcher (by holding down the option key the first time you boot it) you can then select either mounted OS from the OCLP boot picker.

Without a metal GPU you will have some limitations under Monterey (or later OSes). You may also find the legacy WiFi & Bluetooth need hardware upgrades and the built-in USB ports may require a USB 2.0 hub in order to work with a keyboard and/or mouse. Being able to dual-boot will allow you to go back if needed.

I hope you find this somewhat helpful.

 

[MarkWalberg]

OldSchoolVideo, your advice is much appreciated. I made the El Capitan bootable thumb drive, but now I find that my hard drives will not allow installation. They look full in disk utility even when they are not. To get around this, I will put a new drive into the mac and install El Capitan on that drive. I'm pretty sure that this will work. I'll find out in a couple days.