MP 1,1-5,1 Remote usage of cMP without graphic card?

[macstatic]

My cMP 5,1 graphic card's fan (ATI HD5870) is making an awful lot of noise (it's temporarily fixed because of a damage and awaiting a replacement) but as I also have a MacBook Pro I'm wondering if it would be possible to:
remove the cMP's graphic card, power it up and control it from my Macbook Pro (via an ethernet cable connected to the additional cMP ethernet connector perhaps)?

I'm in the process of getting a bigger replacement internal hard drive in the cMP and need to transfer all my files from the old internal HDD. This will take hours and for the sake of my sanity and ensuring that the fan doesn't break down and over-heat the GPU while I'm not babysitting the computer this would be very helpful.

 

[tsialex]

A Mac Pro can work without a GPU, but you can't install macOS without it. Said that, you can remove the GPU and use it with screen sharing, no problem.

 

[macstatic]

Cool!
The new OS (10.13) has already been installed, so no problem with that.
Is it just a matter of selecting the correct startup drive and enabling screen sharing on the cMP first, then remove the GPU, and finally booting up with the Macbook Pro attached?

 

[tsialex]

Cool!
The new OS (10.13) has already been installed, so no problem with that.
Is it just a matter of selecting the correct startup drive and enabling screen sharing on the cMP first, then remove the GPU, and finally booting up with the Macbook Pro attached?

I don't understand what you call attached here. You will just access your Mac Pro via screensharing like you always do.

Screensharing needs to be enabled before removing the GPU, unless you know how to do it via ssh.

 

[macstatic]

Never mind. My ignorance.
I figured it out (testing it before removing the GPU) and it works great now without the GPU installed. Thanks for the suggestion, tsialex!

 

[mangombia]

I thought a GPU-less Mac (mini or cMP) would graphically run sluggish. When I was researching setting up my headless media server (originally a mini, now a cMP) I understood that I needed to have a dummy-HDMI plug in order to activate hardware acceleration otherwise it would draw sluggishly when accessing via Remote Desktop.

 

[tsialex]

A Mac Pro without a GPU don't have hardware acceleration or METAL support, but it's more than enough for administrative tasks. With Mojave/Catalina apps than depend on METAL won't work, but most will work.

 

[chrfr]

I thought a GPU-less Mac (mini or cMP) would graphically run sluggish. When I was researching setting up my headless media server (originally a mini, now a cMP) I understood that I needed to have a dummy-HDMI plug in order to activate hardware acceleration otherwise it would draw sluggishly when accessing via Remote Desktop.

That issue doesn't happen with the Mac Pro, it's specific to the Mini, from what I've experienced.