MP 1,1-5,1 SurPlus - The Big Sur/Monterey fix you've been waiting for.

[Inspector42]

@Syncretic : Awesome! Your work reminds me very much of my younger days when I did heavy reverse engineering and software tweaking on Z80 platforms. Things were a lot less complicated then but involved more hardware tweaks.
I was never able to keep up with all the development leading to multicore CPU and modern kernel based operating systems and have lost the patience to put that much time and effort in it as you have done.
Your work still allows me to do some of that tweaking and messing today and I pretty much enjoyed reading your comprehensive explanation on GitHub.
I just put forward a donation and added the patch to my MacPro 3,1 running BigSur 11.5.1 and OCLP 0.2.4.
Works perfect. Will try it on my MacPro5,1 very soon.

 

[lamegordon]

Depends on your hard drive config.

Assuming there is no other boot drive in the cMP, and you are using my package. Then OC should stay enabled after 3x NVRAM reset.

If you aren't sure, then you better remove all other drives, but just leave the macOS drive, and the OpenCore drive (if not on the same one) installed.

If still doesn't work. Then please try to boot to Big Sur recovery partition, and re-install Big Sur from there (no need to format any drive, just re-install Big Sur on top of your existing one. All user data should be preserved).

3x NVRAM Reset did the trick! Great, thank you! I removed my windows drive before doing the NVRAM reset and then I read in your readme file that it might be safer for me to install open core on the windows drive instead? I guess its just a matter of following the guide in the readme, bless that partition and then remove the files from the current drive which has open core on it?

 

[StarPlayrX]

Donations gratefully accepted. @Syncretic Count me in on a donation very soon. I haven't even tried it out yet, but you deserve something in your tip jar today!

 

[jameslmoser]

Donations gratefully accepted. @Syncretic Count me in on a donation very soon. I haven't even tried it out yet, but you deserve something in your tip jar today!

I am away from my 4,1>5,1 until this weekend, but as soon as I add it I will be making a donation as well!

 

[PeterHolbrook]

It will probably be roughly one week before I can try this out, but I’ve already contributed a modest amount to this wonderful development. Many thanks, @Syncretic.

 

[JohnD]

I tried it with installing Monterey Beta 6 (installed from a USB) on NVME drive using a Sonnet card (and Samsung 980 Evo).

This wasn't successful. Installer got to about 80%, did a restart and that was it, black screen, system wouldn't boot up and powered down. I took the Sonnet card out and then the system eventually started up on my normal 11.2.3 but without the Opencore bootscreen. So it looks like that went.

I'm just running the bless script again and about to restart and hoping I get my boot screen back.

My Config plist is attached.

Hello @avro707 - The Samsung 980 series NVMe SSD's are not compatible with the Mac Pro. Per a Samsung support agent I spoke with, the 980 is a PCIe v4.0 NVMe, and is not backwards compatible with PCIe v2.0. What's likely happening is your machine only sees the drive on a cold boot, but it won't survive a warm boot. Is it new? Have you previously installed an OS to it?

One way to make the 980 compatible would be to use a PCIe v3.0 switch card (multiple NVMe's).

 

[Flocarino]

Hi, Starting with OpenCore is actually not as difficult or as dangerous as many of the discussions seem to suggest. From your signature you've already done a lot to your 5,1 so you're clearly not a complete level 1. I simply followed cdf's instructions on this thread (and I mean really, really follow each instruction one at a time). I now have 11.6 installed and I'm looking forward to Monterey. I'm still baffled by most of the discussions, but hey.

Yes, I love playing with hardware any day, but software it is totally a new world for me. I had problems several days just to get Patched Sur working.....I ended up using Micropatcher.
Catalina Patcher (DOSDude) was the simplest, right off the bat it worked, but this Open Core Mambo Jambo is totally another world for me. Sincerelly I'm completely lost with all the directions I've been sent in the replies here allready.
I need a video instruction (YouTube) step by step...no copy here...paste there, etc....
I sound frustrated and honestly, I am, only remembering the trouble I had getting to 11.2.3...after days of black screen and data lost....
Maybe in the future, when a clear guide, I hope, will show up on YouTube, I ''might'' give it a try, but for now I have simply NOT A CLEAR direction on the steps to follow, things to download, etc...
But I sincerely appreciate all the help received so far. Thank you once again

 

[paalb]

Maybe in the future, when a clear guide, I hope, will show up on YouTube, I ''might'' give it a try, but for now I have simply NOT A CLEAR direction on the steps to follow, things to download, etc...
But I sincerely appreciate all the help received so far. Thank you once again

Just wait for an update to this: Mr.Macintosh Guide. on YouTube

 

[MacRumors3590]

B8 - OCLP 0.3.0 - SurPlus
just updated (4) cMP 5,1 and a mBP 2010 GT 330M via OTA and all went perfect!!!!
THANK YOU GUYS!!!!! ?

 

[abaxworld]

Updated OC with Martin Lo's package ( 0.7.3 V2 ) on a MacPro 4.1->5.1 and macOS Monterrey Public Beta 4. All was smooth and is running perfectly. Also tried ( can I say it? ) to upgrade to Beta 7 after the upgrade, but just the same "Firmware Error" that takes me back to Beta 4. At least is working fine with SurPlus+Martin Lo's OC+Beta 4.

I finally have been able to update to macOS Monterrey Beta 8 changing the VMM flags to ON in OpenCore config file and making a ROM backup with dosdude ROMTool as suggested by Ausdauersportler with SurPlus running. It was the smoother update I have had until now.

But when I started the computer today in the morning, I had to force quit manually the computer. I'm using Martin Lo's OC 0.7.3 V2 and I only modified config.plist to change the VMM flags for the update to appear in System Preferences->Software Update. This also happen before with Latebloom, somedays I had to manually switch off the computer and start it again to make it work. Seems the race condition appears sometimes and sometimes the patch/workaround works. I include the config.plist but, as I said, only VMM have been modified and this situation also happen before I changed VMM to ON status.

 

[avro707]

Hello @avro707 - The Samsung 980 series NVMe SSD's are not compatible with the Mac Pro. Per a Samsung support agent I spoke with, the 980 is a PCIe v4.0 NVMe, and is not backwards compatible with PCIe v2.0. What's likely happening is your machine only sees the drive on a cold boot, but it won't survive a warm boot. Is it new? Have you previously installed an OS to it?

One way to make the 980 compatible would be to use a PCIe v3.0 switch card (multiple NVMe's).

I already use exactly this kind of card - Sonnet:

M.2 4x4 NVMe SSD Silent PCIe Card - Sonnet

Four M.2 NVMe SSD slots on a PCIe 3.0 x16 card. Silent operation. Add your own ultra-fast SSDs for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

www.sonnettech.com

the drives always appear in 11.2.3, Previously have booted from Mojave using those drives and that card.

 

[kencu]

Hello @avro707 - The Samsung 980 series NVMe SSD's are not compatible with the Mac Pro.

I have one installed in my MacPro 4,1 -> 5,1, and just bought a second set for my MacPro 5,1 as it is working well.

Samsung 980 Series - 1TB PCIe Gen3. X4 NVMe 1.4 - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V8V1T0B/AM)​

with this adapter:

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution

www.amazon.ca

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution​

 

[Ludacrisvp]

just wanted to chime in that this works great (perfectly) on my dual X5680 based hack that has to load opencore via EFI emulation which resides on a small SATA based SSD allowing it to boot from NVME (it is a bios only board) which LateBloom worked for as well, without those it was unable to ever make it to desktop beyond the 11.2.3 break point.
I was able to upgrade direct from 11.2.3 to 11.6 via the software update in system preferences using SurPlus (latebloom removed).

Now I'll finally have a reason to get my 3,1 off of Mojave and to a later OS (Catalina wasn't desirable for the efforts).

Syncretic has single handedly provided so much longevity for old machines (SSE4.2 emulation for modern AMD GPUs in the 3,1) and then a great bandaid via LateBloom and now this amazing patch that makes the latest OS viable on hardware that could run Leopard (or snow leo in the westmere/nehalem case)

 

[avro707]

I have one installed in my MacPro 4,1 -> 5,1, and just bought a second set for my MacPro 5,1 as it is working well.

Samsung 980 Series - 1TB PCIe Gen3. X4 NVMe 1.4 - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V8V1T0B/AM)​

with this adapter:

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution

www.amazon.ca

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution​

What I can do is install Big Sur 11.2.3 on one of those drives and eliminate those as a cause. I know these crashed on Mojave when I ran them with Highpoint 7101A, but with the Sonnet card the same install booted up immediately and ran without any problems.

 

[MacRumors3590]

this was unexpected... RC Beta(i think) 11.6.1 went perfect. SurPlus

 

[JohnD]

I finally have been able to update to macOS Monterrey Beta 8 changing the VMM flags to ON in OpenCore config file and making a ROM backup with dosdude ROMTool as suggested by Ausdauersportler with SurPlus running. It was the smoother update I have had until now.

But when I started the computer today in the morning, I had to force quit manually the computer. I'm using Martin Lo's OC 0.7.3 V2 and I only modified config.plist to change the VMM flags for the update to appear in System Preferences->Software Update. This also happen before with Latebloom, somedays I had to manually switch off the computer and start it again to make it work. Seems the race condition appears sometimes and sometimes the patch/workaround works. I include the config.plist but, as I said, only VMM have been modified and this situation also happen before I changed VMM to ON status.

I've installed every beta of Monterey in a VM on my 6,1 (a currently supported machine), and every time, the final reboot hangs at 50%. I have to reset the VM, then it boots normally. Beta 8 was supposed to fix that, but looks like it didn't. It's a beta (albeit a late beta), so hopefully things get smooth for the release version.

 

[JohnD]

I have one installed in my MacPro 4,1 -> 5,1, and just bought a second set for my MacPro 5,1 as it is working well.

Samsung 980 Series - 1TB PCIe Gen3. X4 NVMe 1.4 - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V8V1T0B/AM)​

with this adapter:

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution

www.amazon.ca

M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution​

We've had a handful of people reporting various issues with the 980 series in the OpenCore and MacProUpgrade Facebook groups. I reached out to Samsung, who stated these PCIe v4.0 SSD's are not backward compatible with PCIe 2.0, and their website doesn't claim PCIe 2.0 compliance (but does claim PCIe v3.0 compliance). I'm glad you're not having any apparent issues, but something to keep in the back of your mind should you start having any issues.

 

[JohnD]

What I can do is install Big Sur 11.2.3 on one of those drives and eliminate those as a cause. I know these crashed on Mojave when I ran them with Highpoint 7101A, but with the Sonnet card the same install booted up immediately and ran without any problems.

That's a good test, but since you have a switch card, the 980's are running in PCIe v3.0, and the switch card is in turn running in PCIe v2.0, so I'd expect it to work fine. But, if you do run that test, I'd be curious to hear the results.

 

[Geepsy1969]

Before anything else, thank you @Syncretic, thank you Martin Lo and everybody else here for your efforts.
Now my two cents, in case it helps somebody, who still is having issues:
My rig: 2010 cMP 12 core 2.66 running OS Mojave installed with MVMe 1TB, RX 580 8GB and 48GB 1333 ram.
I had OC 0.6.8 installed in a USB thumb drive, which I never remove. I upgraded it to 0.7.3 v2, blessed it and succeeded at installing Big Sur straight from the app store. Installation was done using a 500GB SSD with OWC adapter, connected to SATA bay one. After three restarts, without any action from me, it failed to boot, it hanged at a third of the bar.
I thought, may be the upgrade to 0.7.3 v2 had to do with it, so I removed the OC thumb drive, and lost the boot screen with my RX 580. Since I had to disable SIP, I removed the RX 580 and used an older Nvidia K5000 which has the boot screen. Reinstalled a clean 0.7.3 v2 in the USB thumb drive and installed OS Big Sur 11.6 again, clean install; this time booted normally and very fast. Success.
I switched the GPU, back to RX 580, did a bunch of test runs, between yesterday and today, and everything works as it should. Bluetooth works, but my original wifi card is not recognized.
Hope my little adventure helps someone. I'll try the new OS Beta this weekend and post.
Again, a huge THANKS to @Syncretic, what you've accomplished is not an easy task to achieve, at least for me, and it takes a lot of effort. Thank you! This weekend I'll post a donation. You deserve that and more.

 

[ZNDK]

I posted in #35, but then I had success using SurPlus. The cause seems to be that the specification by the BLESS command was wrong. I had a situation where nothing showed up when I booted my Mac after a PRAM reset. I used the belss command to specify an unrelated EFI partition, and then specified the correct EFI partition again, and I got the apple logo and progress bar when I booted my Mac. I then tried patching SurPlus, and this time it booted successfully.

This is a trivial matter. With Latebloom on my Mac, (When the boot is successful) the time between pressing the power button on the Mac and the desktop appearing is shorter. The certainty of success is higher with SurPlus.

@Syncretic ,
I'm able to start my Mac with just one press of the power button. I couldn't be happier. Again I thank you for your help. You have really accomplished a great feat. Thank you very much.

 

[h9826790]

3x NVRAM Reset did the trick! Great, thank you! I removed my windows drive before doing the NVRAM reset and then I read in your readme file that it might be safer for me to install open core on the windows drive instead? I guess its just a matter of following the guide in the readme, bless that partition and then remove the files from the current drive which has open core on it?

This is not SurPlus related anymore, we better discuss this item in the OpenCore thread.

But anyway, yes, just backup the file in the Windows drive's EFI partition, and follow the steps in the readme file. Then your cMP can never boot directly into Windows without via OpenCore.

 

[TECK]

Thank you @Syncretic for your great findings. I finished coding the Patch feature, allowing an user to easily insert patches, see #116 in progress. I linked your repo into documentation.

I'm waiting for OC 0.7.4 to be released, so I can also add the new release settings. You can take a peak how the new setup.py file will look with @Syncretic's patches applied, which will generate a proper EFI. If you have any questions, ask them into Plistlib Generator thread.

 

[AlexEmme]

Made the update yesterday night, from BigSur 11.2.3 on a NVME drive.
First attempt fail, second attempt ok (with sysop updater).

 

[avro707]

That's a good test, but since you have a switch card, the 980's are running in PCIe v3.0, and the switch card is in turn running in PCIe v2.0, so I'd expect it to work fine. But, if you do run that test, I'd be curious to hear the results.

Okay, did two tests:

1. Tried to install Big Sur 11.6 on the NVME - this failed in the same way, ended with the forbidden symbol. Removed that.
2. Installed Big Sur 11.2.3 on the NVME - this worked without any issues and I'm using it now to reply to you. The installer migrated everything across no issues.

Both these were done using the downloaded installers and creating a USB installer from them and attempting to install a fresh copy. The only other thing to note is I have csrutil disabled, probably unrelated.


I've definitely got the 0.7.3 installer running as provided, the PLIST is attached. I can't pick what's going on - it's a bit beyond my abilities I'm afraid. But I'm happy to keep trying.

System report shows:

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name:    Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:    MacPro5,1
  Processor Name:    6-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:    3.46 GHz
  Number of Processors:    2
  Total Number of Cores:    12
  L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB
  L3 Cache (per Processor):    12 MB
  Hyper-Threading Technology:    Enabled
  Memory:    128 GB
  System Firmware Version:    9144.0.7.3.1
  SMC Version (system):    1.39f11
  SMC Version (processor tray):    1.39f11
  Serial Number (system):    (removed)
  Hardware UUID:    44B9E501-9C11-561C-B8D9-11A75B185A17
  Provisioning UDID:    44B9E501-9C11-561C-B8D9-11A75B185A17

 

[The Spirit]

today i update my "handmade" oc install via Martin Lo's latest package (0.7.3 V2).
After everything went fine, i wanted to reenable sip. I did this and now i see the following if checking sip is enabled or not.

Any tips how to fix this?
Thanks