MP 1,1-5,1 Sony Bravia says no signal when Mac Pro is in Startup Manager

[Moorgan]

I’m trying to update the OS of my 2008 Mac Pro from El Capitan to Monterrey using a 3rd party utility that configures Macs with dropped support to work with it (OpenCore Legacy Patcher). When installing I put it on the internal I only use for Time Machine as it had the free space and I didn’t want it messing with drives that already had partitions. Nothing shows up when it’s complete, but the guide says it creates a hidden partitioned “EFI” drive that I need to enter via Startup Manager which will then allow me to choose the Monterrey installer (which I got from Apple then burned to a partition on my SSD using their guide).

The problem is my TV always says there’s no signal during the boot phase of the computer, not showing anything until the login screen is up. Apparently this includes the Startup Manager. I can still force shutdown and reboot back into my default boot drive fine though.

Doing some searching I think it might be an “unsupported output signal.” Is there any way around that or do I have to dig up an actual monitor? My 28” 4k monitor broke and I couldn’t bare to go back to my original 1080p 15” so I used it in my 4k/UHD TV instead.

Although technically that old one might be a TV too. It’s a Polaroid brand from the 90’s meant for their revolutionary top of the line (at the time) HD digital cameras, but it still works great and it’s super durable so I keep it around. It’s buried in storage right now though, so I’d prefer not to lose half my day on that.

 

[Moorgan]

Update:

I borrowed a real (HP) computer monitor to try it, and got the newest version of OpenCore Legacy Patcher. Which now requires an external. So I used my old 512GB WD My Passport that contains a clean/unused copy of El Capitan installed for emergencies. However on trying to boot into Startup Manager I had the same issue of being without signal on the HP monitor.

Looking into it more it seems I messed up when I upgraded my video card. The NVIDIA GTX 780 I have is for Windows, and doesn’t support Mac OS. It does however work perfectly with my Mac Pro on El Capitan; or so I thought.

It apparently lacks something called GOP Part; the thing which enables stuff like Verbose Mode and Startup Manager to display. It has the original/stock never updated VBIOS ROM on it. I found a free user-written ROM for my video card to include GOP Part on a backup site for the uploads of a forum website that sounds similar to Mac Rumors: Where the community supported each other in otherwise unsupported (but legal sfaik) upgrades and such for Mac hardware.

The only problem is that I have no means of installing it. All the sources I found on it say to plug it into a Windows PC and run NVIDIA’s bios updater cmd line tool NVFlash, and I don’t have access to one of those. My MacPro3,1 is just before Boot Camp / Windows support, so running off Windows isn’t an option as far as I know.

I do have a Windows 10 virtual machine in Parallels 14, but the video card gets emulated. That causes the NVFlash to not detect an NVIDIA video card. That did give me another idea though.

I tried creating a new macOS virtual machine and running the EFI from there, and I was able to boot into it via New VM Setup and start the installer. I can’t run the installer on the OS currently in use, but I wanted to test it first anyway. So I chose to install it on the external.

My computer crashed, and it looked like there was some kind of kernal panic like I was warned might happen by the OpenCore Legacy Patcher Installation Guide. So I pulled out my bluetooth card and dug up a USB Keyboard and Mouse, then tried it again. This time my computer “exploded.”

For about 4 years now give or take my computer randomly does this thing where the video input cuts out, bluetooth devices lose signal, and my fans start kicking up like in the movies just before the computer the super villain hacked explodes in a fiery display. Mine doesn’t actually explode; instead just continuing at max fan speed indefinitely until I hold the power button down; but one still feels the suspense of the windup. At first it was rare and completely random, now it happens every time I boot up the computer (even out of sleep) for 1-3 times. Then the computer works, and it happening while running is still pretty rare.

I have multiple security programs like Little Snitch, CleanMyMac, MacBooster, et cetera, to block hackers and eliminate any viral threats. I have had spyware and malware it took care of before, but it’s mostly adware from legitimate companies I end up with. There are no warning lights on inside my computer either, but I think it’s just a malfunction in my ancient (2008) logic board.

Since it’s normally random I figured it was just bad luck, and tried again… a couple more times…, and it keeps happening. I checked Console, but as always there’s nothing unusual happening before the “self-destruct sequence initiated.” I did see some activity from this plugin I’d never seen before called Dont Pirate Mac OS though.

I mean I downloaded Monterey from Apple, and I’m installing it on a Mac Pro. So it isn’t pirating nor a violation of the ToS. However maybe the plugin doesn’t understand what’s going on, or maybe it’s not even really Apple and is some kind of viral intruder with a name that makes it sound like it’s Apple.

So I just deleted the plugin and tried the install again, but my MP still “exploded.” It was probably just doing something normal that I happened to have just never noticed before… Oh well. Hopefully deleting it wasn’t a problem.

Does anyone know how I might ”disable the self destruct protocol?” Perhaps someone knows a way to install the VBIOS so I can try installing macOS without an emulator? Anyone know another way I can install a functional OS on this ancient tower?