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Possible to upgrade?

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Print-N-Tees

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2013
9
0
Greetings,

Dont laugh...

In 2006 I bought the top of the line Mac Pro. I think with the 30" display at the time I spent a almost $7,000 on my mac. Business was good and I figured why not treat myself to a nice mac for home. I like doing web graphics etc on the mac over the PC. But at work we use corel a lot for t-shirt printing.


My system:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B04
SMC Version (system): 1.7f8
Serial Number (system): ***********
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-************


Is there anything I can do to upgrade this system to be more up to date?

Can I put in a new motherboard and processor etc? or would it make sense to just buy new Mac? Money is tight... is I have to really weigh out the options. Hurricane Sandy devastated my business so any extra money I had went to rebuilding... But my mac is acting up and I think I need to do something very soon.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Tim
 
Thank you for the reply!!!

I dont think its the OS... I thought it was but installed Snow Leopard... and updated recently. The problem I am having jas been going on for a while (12 - 16 months) now but seems to be getting worse:

I get a series if ticking sounds... Like a rythm. It happens in succession... about 3-4 times... and while it is doing that... I cant do anything... the mouse moves... but I cant do anything else. Once it stops then Im free again. Lasts about 5-6 seconds. But happens every couple of minutes. Really annoying.

The other day... It did not stop clicking... so I waited an hour... still clicking... so I tried to reboot. Reboot took a few minutes... and when the system came back up... I noticed all my emails... over 40,000 emails were gone. Well they are in the email file but the file is corrupt. Luckily I have email download to all my computers... so I did not loose anything really. Just a pain in the but.

I used Disk Warrior... and dont see anything really unusual... well except I can defrag today and have to again defrag tomorrow. So Im buying a new drive tonight on Amazon... But dont know if that is the true problem.

Sounds familiar?

I mainly use photoshop CS5 and quark some other basic things... nothing big. Browser is Google Chrome which I think may be giving me problems in itself. Email if Thunderbird.

Any suggestions?
 
I'll just write in-between your list here:

  • Model Name: Mac Pro
  • Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
    You can upgrade it to a MacPro2,1 including a microcode fix here.
  • Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
  • Processor Speed: 3 GHz
  • Number Of Processors: 2
    Sell these for about $100 for the pair.
  • Total Number Of Cores: 4
    Buy two matching X5365 procs which are 4-cores each and 3.0GHz (about $300)
  • L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
  • Memory: 3 GB
    Oh my, this is an atrocity! Make keychains out of them and Buy 32GB (8x4GB) for $275 without the silly Apple fins or with them for almost $600 (your choice) on ebay or etc. You can move the finned heat-sinks over to the new RAM but it's a total waste of your time. It does look cooler tho. ;) Just this upgrade alone will make it seem like a totally different machine!
  • Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
  • Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B04
  • SMC Version (system): 1.7f8
    You can also upgrade the EFI to full 64bit if you want to install Mountain Lion and whatever the next cats will be. Just do a search for "How to install OS X 10.8 on MacPro1,1" and one of the hits will walk you through it. You need a little 32 or 64GB SSD boot drive to make it elegant.
  • Serial Number (system): ***********
  • Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-************

Also if all you have is 3GB of RAM I'm assuming your storage I/O are lacking as well? How you configure this will depend on what you use the machine for. Faster booting and a more responsive system will result from a single 750GB SSHD drive (about $100). Perfect for person who uses their system in a focused manner (for example you're regularly starting up and opening PhotoShop, doing Mail, and a few other activities <-- with the emphasis on "regularly". To put it in user terms, an SSHD will try and remember your usage patterns. I assume it does this by keeping the group of files you access most in a huge SSD-like NAND cache and additionally biasing cache candidacy by some ratio of file size and access frequency. What isn't selected for caching is basically loaded at typical 7200 RPM HDD drive speeds. Although the NAND memory also acts as a write cache (high speed buffer) when writing to the drive. As least that's my condensed version based on what I have read. ;) You can see at that link that the increase in 4K random file reads (for example) is around 3,000% - or about 30 time as fast. The cache space is 8GB so it's substantial enough to have a fairly large impact on all the versions of OS X you're ever likely to run on that machine.

You can read more here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/momentus-xt-750gb-review,3223.html or do a search. After that you can decide or ask what other drives you might want or need for whatever it is you use the machine for.



After you install 32GB or RAM and an SSHD boot drive buy Lion OS X 10.7.x from Apple and install that. It's by far the smoothest and fastest version of OS X yet and will also make the machine seem even more upgraded to you. After you install it turn off Apple's (rather silly IMO) dynamic pager. This is accomplished by the terminal command:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist

followed by a reboot. You can of course turn it on again with:

sudo launchctl load -wF /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist​
:)


Then of course there's a whole slew of options for GPU... from some really wild combinations of GPU cards and PSU implants to just simple and cheap next step single card upgrades. Do a search and you'll be bombarded with options, hacks, and benchtests.


.
 
Last edited:
Print-N-Tees said:
Thank you for the reply!!!

I dont think its the OS... I thought it was but installed Snow Leopard... and updated recently. The problem I am having jas been going on for a while (12 - 16 months) now but seems to be getting worse:

I get a series if ticking sounds... Like a rythm. It happens in succession... about 3-4 times... and while it is doing that... I cant do anything... the mouse moves... but I cant do anything else. Once it stops then Im free again. Lasts about 5-6 seconds. But happens every couple of minutes. Really annoying.

The other day... It did not stop clicking... so I waited an hour... still clicking... so I tried to reboot. Reboot took a few minutes... and when the system came back up... I noticed all my emails... over 40,000 emails were gone. Well they are in the email file but the file is corrupt. Luckily I have email download to all my computers... so I did not loose anything really. Just a pain in the but.

I used Disk Warrior... and dont see anything really unusual... well except I can defrag today and have to again defrag tomorrow. So Im buying a new drive tonight on Amazon... But dont know if that is the true problem.

Sounds familiar?

I mainly use photoshop CS5 and quark some other basic things... nothing big. Browser is Google Chrome which I think may be giving me problems in itself. Email if Thunderbird.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...


Why don't you put a new hard drive in it..It appears to be going bad..

Then do all the fun stuff..
 
GermanyChris said:
Why don't you put a new hard drive in it..It appears to be going bad..

Then do all the fun stuff..
Click to expand...

That's what I normally think of as well, but this is going on for a long time, most of the time if not always they will die within a short while, this ticking is going on for more than a year.

BUT, OP, if you have another disk lying around try installing the OS on that disk and test if the sound goes away, if it did then it was the HD and time to get a newer one, Tesselator has some good advise.
Even a 8 GB USB stick will do, if you have one install OS X on it and boot from it, if the ticking is gone and it works well (besides being slow on USB thumb drive) you know it's the HD which gives you trouble.

I Myself think to spend a bit of money on it, a new HD (if it was the HD), a small SSD, like 128 GB or a 256 GB and definitely more RAM, way too low for a MacPro, but I think the 32 GB mentioned above by Tesselator is a bit much if you don't need it, 16 GB already goes a long way.

Now, lets say it is not the HD, then I think it's the Power Supply, they aren't that expensive on Ebay, secondhand mostly.

Tesselator also mentioned switching off the dynamic Pager, I did and I am on 8 GB, be aware though that if the RAM needed by the system will come close to the Maximum RAM installed it will become slow and will crash soon, if you are fast to quit a program it will recover, if you're too slow you'll see the spinning wheel and you're too late.
 
justperry said:
That's what I normally think of as well, but this is going on for a long time, most of the time if not always they will die within a short while, this ticking is going on for more than a year.

BUT, OP, if you have another disk lying around try installing the OS on that disk and test if the sound goes away, if it did then it was the HD and time to get a newer one, Tesselator has some good advise.
Even a 8 GB USB stick will do, if you have one install OS X on it and boot from it, if the ticking is gone and it works well (besides being slow on USB thumb drive) you know it's the HD which gives you trouble.

I Myself think to spend a bit of money on it, a new HD (if it was the HD), a small SSD, like 128 GB or a 256 GB and definitely more RAM, way too low for a MacPro, but I think the 32 GB mentioned above by Tesselator is a bit much if you don't need it, 16 GB already goes a long way.

Now, lets say it is not the HD, then I think it's the Power Supply, they aren't that expensive on Ebay, secondhand mostly.

Tesselator also mentioned switching off the dynamic Pager, I did and I am on 8 GB, be aware though that if the RAM needed by the system will come close to the Maximum RAM installed it will become slow and will crash soon, if you are fast to quit a program it will recover, if you're too slow you'll see the spinning wheel and you're too late.
Click to expand...

His HDD has failed..long boot corrupt files and ticking..I'm of the make it dependable again then start upgrading to make it faster..
 
That's pretty common actually.

The pattern usually goes:

A couple of secretly reallocated sectors after 1.5 to 2 years in use.
Immediately followed by 10 or 20 more in the months following.

If all could be reallocated it usually stops there until another year or two.
If all couldn't be then every time data is read from the bad sectors the drive ticks and hangs.
OS X usually won't complain too much unless it's an app or a system file.

The ticking and hanging can go on for another year or maybe two before the mechanism gives out and the drive dies all together. Of course sometimes the drives die right away but usually not. Usually users chuck the drive at the first signs of ticking and hanging - even though the rest of the platter will last a lot longer. In many probably most, cases they could just as easily move the directory tree pointer of those related "bad files" to a different logical location in the "directory structure" via folder creation and Move and continue using the drive. Maybe call the folder something like: "-=> CAUTION BAD SECTORS <=-" or something. :D If your data is important and you don't have backups it's not very smart tho. :D This works with single drives, RAID 0, 1, and concatenations. About the only time this would not work is if the bad sectors belong to some logical or physical data structure which the drive needs in order to operate normally - either part of the file system or drives own housekeeping areas.


.
 
Last edited:
Tesselator said:
That's pretty common actually.

The pattern usually goes:

A couple of secretly reallocated sectors after 1.5 to 2 years in use.
Immediately followed by 10 or 20 more in the months following.

If all could be reallocated it usually stops there until another year or two.
If all couldn't be then every time data is read from the bad sectors the drive ticks and hangs.
OS X usually won't complain too much unless it's an app or a system file.

The ticking and hanging can go on for another year or maybe two before the mechanism gives out and the drive dies all together. Of course sometimes the drives die right away but usually not. Usually users chuck the drive at the first signs of ticking and hanging - even though the rest of the platter will last a lot longer. In many probably most, cases they could just as easily move the directory tree pointer of those related "bad files" to a different logical location in the "directory structure" via folder creation and Move and continue using the drive. Maybe call the folder something like: "-=> CAUTION BAD SECTORS <=-" or something. :D If your data is important and you don't have backups it's not very smart tho. :D This works with single drives, RAID 0, 1, and concatenations. About the only time this would not work is if the bad sectors belong to some logical or physical data structure which the drive needs in order to operate normally - either part of the file system or drives own housekeeping areas.


.
Click to expand...

Very informative thanks.
Thought those drives wouldn't last long but it seems I was wrong.

Hopefully this solves the problem for the OP.
 
justperry said:
Very informative thanks.
Thought those drives wouldn't last long but it seems I was wrong.

Hopefully this solves the problem for the OP.
Click to expand...

With 3GB of RAM... Hehehe, he has more problems than a failing drive. :D

And that's probably why his drive is failing in the first place. :p



.
 
Now that I think about it... I have to look at my actual ram and the receipt from the apple store. 3GB ram does sound awfully low. Im wondering if that may be part of the problem. Tonight I will open up my case (have not been inside there at all ever) and see what I got. I ordered the 2 TB drive... for $149 from Amazon... and I am ordering a SSD today too. I have SSD's in all my PCs... so Im familiar with them and could always use the physical HD in my Drobo if I dont use it in the Mac.

So thats what I will do. Confirm all my ram is in there... because when I bought the machine I thought I had them max it out at that time. Seems od its only 3gb. Then i will install the new HD and install Snow Leopard and see how that goes.

If I use the new drive to boot up with... I can still run my applications from the old drive right? Or can I simply back up everything from time machine? or do I have to re-install everything?

Thanks again for the suggestions and stop laughing about the 3gb. Im thinking something is really wrong there now that I think about it. Is there a way to test the ram?

Thanks!

tim
 
Print-N-Tees said:
If I use the new drive to boot up with... I can still run my applications from the old drive right? Or can I simply back up everything from time machine? or do I have to re-install everything?
Click to expand...


There are a number of ways to go about it. I like OS X's migration tools... either during the new installation or afterward.

Other's like cloning but that's kinda dangerous with a clicking drive.

And if you're jumping from something like 10.5 all the way up to 10.7 I think there may be some advantages to a migrationless clean install.

Whichever version you install do allow all the patch and upgrade downloads Apple tries to send you. And you may have to "Check For Upgrades" 4 or 5 times before all the bug-fixes and everything gets installed.
 
Print-N-Tees said:
Now that I think about it... I have to look at my actual ram and the receipt from the apple store. 3GB ram does sound awfully low. Im wondering if that may be part of the problem. Tonight I will open up my case (have not been inside there at all ever) and see what I got. I ordered the 2 TB drive... for $149 from Amazon... and I am ordering a SSD today too. I have SSD's in all my PCs... so Im familiar with them and could always use the physical HD in my Drobo if I dont use it in the Mac.

So thats what I will do. Confirm all my ram is in there... because when I bought the machine I thought I had them max it out at that time. Seems od its only 3gb. Then i will install the new HD and install Snow Leopard and see how that goes.

If I use the new drive to boot up with... I can still run my applications from the old drive right? Or can I simply back up everything from time machine? or do I have to re-install everything?

Thanks again for the suggestions and stop laughing about the 3gb. Im thinking something is really wrong there now that I think about it. Is there a way to test the ram?

Thanks!

tim
Click to expand...

Brother you are about as computer literate as my sister and brother in law,,get RAM from OWC and use migration assistant to move stuff..Don't fret just replace your HD ad upgrade to Lion.
 
I dunno if I would invoke literacy on him - it sounds more like he's a windows user bringing a mac machine out of mothballs. 3GB of RAM wasn't uncommon when MacPro1,1 first released so there's probably no problem - it just needs upgrading.

BTW, you can check what RAM is installed by opening the "About This Mac" :apple: menu item
 
Tesselator said:
I dunno if I would invoke literacy on him - it sounds more like he's a windows user bringing a mac machine out of mothballs. 3GB of RAM wasn't uncommon when MacPro1,1 first released so there's probably no problem - it just needs upgrading.

BTW, you can check what RAM is installed by opening the "About This Mac" :apple: menu item
Click to expand...

You're likely right I'm just not patient enough to see through the question…

I have a very short attention span and don't answer questions that can be found in google….

It has soothing to do with South Florida MUG's and their desire to have only people that will turn to the internet for answers first..
 
Tesselator said:
I dunno if I would invoke literacy on him - it sounds more like he's a windows user bringing a mac machine out of mothballs. 3GB of RAM wasn't uncommon when MacPro1,1 first released so there's probably no problem - it just needs upgrading.

BTW, you can check what RAM is installed by opening the "About This Mac" :apple: menu item
Click to expand...

Thanks Tesselator... that's where I got the initial specs. I will be leaving the office soon and check on the ram. My new drive will be here tomorrow... I found most of my original software... so I should be ok. I may have to re-purchase Quark as that was damaged in Hurricane Sandy. CS5 I have.



GermanyChris said:
Brother you are about as computer literate as my sister and brother in law,,get RAM from OWC and use migration assistant to move stuff..Don't fret just replace your HD ad upgrade to Lion.
Click to expand...

You are right. when business was good and I needed computers or networking done... I simply hired someone to do it and bought the best computers that money could by at the time. Not many people drop $5,000 - $8,000 for a new mac system every 1-2 years. thats what I did until the economy hit. Soon I will be able to do that again... but right now I have a problem and need to try to get some help where I can. Get myself through this issue and when money rolls in again... I will simply buy the best macs once again.
 
@Print-N-Tees. I think the Mac Pro 1,1 2006 is still adequate for web print graphics and T-Shirt design for your business. I had a 2006 Mac Pro before my uncle "forced" me to sell it to him. Once you get your new HD, if it does not take much of your time, just try to do a clean reinstall of the OS and the applications.
 
GermanyChris said:
You're likely right I'm just not patient enough to see through the question…

I have a very short attention span and don't answer questions that can be found in google….

It has soothing to do with South Florida MUG's and their desire to have only people that will turn to the internet for answers first..
Click to expand...

Sometimes the answers in google are not the best solution. Its not always that easy. So I figured I would ask on a forum where people know their stuff... thats what forums are for to share information.

In the areas I know... Law Enforcement, Tactical Medical Emergencies and Rescue as well as Screen printing and Embroidery... I am very active and a moderator on 2 of the 5 forums I frequent. Sure it gets annoying when Im asked how do you become a Tactical EMT 100 times in a forum... but you know what? I answer each time as it is my first time... because I may just be able to help someone reach a goal in their police or EMT career... and what did it really cost me to help? It takes as much effort to reply with rants and raves about using a forum search or google search as it would be to simply answer the question.

thats how I feel about it. But I also Understand not everyone is the same.

thankfully there are people who enjoy helping others on here... regardless of how illiterate the person asking for help is in the area of subject.

----------
Macsonic said:
@Print-N-Tees. I think the Mac Pro 1,1 2006 is still adequate for web print graphics and T-Shirt design for your business. I had a 2006 Mac Pro before my uncle "forced" me to sell it to him. Once you get your new HD, if it does not take much of your time, just try to do a clean reinstall of the OS and the applications.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. i have not even played with the new macs at an apple store. I have not been in one since I got my mac pro so i thought my mac was fast. LOL Aside from these issues I think it did great for me for these past few years. I dont do video editing or watch movies or anything like that. So for what I do it seemed ok.

I will install my HD tomorrow... and see what happens. I have to see how the ram is set-up. Maybe I need to get more ram just because CS6 etc are getting more demanding on ram... so I will take a look at that too.

again thanks for the reply.
 
Ok I did confirm I have 3 gb of ram. They are on these little mini mother boards and not like regular sims. Whats that all about? Do I have to replace them with the same ones? I will do some searching to see what type of RAM I can use on this and order some ram too. :)
 
Print-N-Tees said:
Ok I did confirm I have 3 gb of ram. They are on these little mini mother boards and not like regular sims. Whats that all about? Do I have to replace them with the same ones? I will do some searching to see what type of RAM I can use on this and order some ram too. :)
Click to expand...

It's part of Apple's original thermal design. When buffered ram first released the processors on each DIMM could hit temps of over 120˚C (considerably over). So it's my hunch that their design moved the DIMMs up off the main-board where it could be cooled more efficiently and more quietly. It was a great idea at the time. However, by the time the 1GB DIM Modules hit their processors were generally much better behaved and 80˚ or 90˚ C was all they ever reached. In later designs (MacPro3,1 MacPro4,1 and MacPro5,1) they placed the RAM on the CPU riser board (like DEC used to do). Again the idea of a riser board is usually to get hot or noisy components up off the mani-board. And/or make it easy to upgrade and service. ;)

The above explanation also explains why Apple's finned heat-sink'd RAM is no longer needed. We can now use normal heat spreaders like everyone else and not have to worry about heat issues - (when buying RAM larger than 1GB per DIMM).
 
Tesselator said:
It's part of Apple's original thermal design. When buffered ram first released the processors on each DIMM could hit temps of over 120˚C (considerably over). So it's my hunch that their design moved the DIMMs up off the main-board where it could be cooled more efficiently and more quietly. It was a great idea at the time. However, by the time the 1GB DIM Modules hit their processors were generally much better behaved and 80˚ or 90˚ C was all they ever reached. Later designs MacPro3,1 MacPro4,1 and MacPro5,1 place the ram on the CPU riser board (like DEC used to do). Again the idea of a riser board is usually to get hot or noisy components up off the mani-board.

The above explanation also explains why Apple's finned heat-sink's RAM is no longer needed. We can now use normal heat spreaders like everyone else and not have to worry about heat issues - (when buying RAM larger than 1GB per DIMM).
Click to expand...


What do you think of the RAM suggested above?
 
Print-N-Tees said:
What do you think of the RAM suggested above?
Click to expand...

A little pricy. I've seem a lot worse but. Well, for example I just purchased 32GB (8x4GB) of ram for just a little more than they are charging for 16GB (4x4GB) - for the same machine as you have. Some Apple folk don't want to have to find out what kind of RAM their systems take and then suss out the cheapest prices (like Windows users do). They would rather pay 1.5 to 3 times the price to a vender who does not disclose the kind of RAM it is... only that it is "Apple approved" with an accompanying general spec just like that add:

8GB [2 X 4GB] FULLY BUFFERED FBDIMM PC2-5300 DDR2 ECC SPECIAL APPLE KIT Memory
240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM Fully Buffered DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) 4-core and 8-core systems For Apple Mac Pro System"​

Where's the manufacturer's part number? Who makes it? Some apple users pay to not have to know those things. And that's OK but for those on a budget it's not the most optimal solution. ;)

Here's the 32GB of RAM I bought:

And I paid $50 to $75 too much because he had a misleading image which makes it look like apple fins are attached to the modules. You should be able to find similar sets (32GB, no fins) for $280 (shipped). 16GB for $150 to $160 is pretty common. And notice with these all information is presented for my approval:

  • Kingston 32GB 8x 4GB PC2-5300F DDR2 667 ECC FB-DIMM Memory KTH-XW667/8G DL580 G5
 
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