Update 5,1 from Mavericks to El Cap or Sierra?

[Tacos4everyone]

So it seems like I have to update my 5,1 after years and years of using Mavericks due to the fact that I'll need a specific piece of software that requires me to update my 5,1 to a newer OS version.

With that being said, I really love the stability that Mavericks has given me and I would like to know which version of OS X is better for a 5,1 Mac Pro: El Capitan or Sierra?

• Are these two as fast as Mavericks on an old computer such as the 5,1?
• Have you guys had any issues with a particular version?

PS: FWIW, my Mac Pro is the mid-2010 Quad-core @3.2 GHz with a Radeon HD 5870. I've also upgraded my 5,1 with 24gb of RAM and a 500 GB OWC Mercury Accelsior PCI SSD.

Thank you for your time

 

[frank4]

I have a 2011 base Mini on El Capitan and it runs fine for me even on the 500GB spinner HD, very stable and no major issues. Probably your 2010 Mac Pro would be super fast in comparison. I'm really happy with this Mac and El Cap and would probably not get a new Mini even if Apple came out with a fantastic new one.

My only issue is that I updated iTunes to the latest and there is a photos sync problem with my iPad Air. I think the problem would go away if I updated the MacOS to Sierra. I was thinking I would freeze the Mac on El Cap, but have the impression Sierra would be OK and run about same speed so I will likely update soon, Sierra just adds a bunch of stuff that I don't really think I need and there is a slight risk of a performance hit on this low-end hardware.

 

[Demigod Mac]

I've had an annoying issue ever since upgrading from El Cap to Sierra on my Accelsior E2 (gen 1)... If I leave the computer for a few minutes and come back, it acts like the SSD is asleep and the whole system locks up for ~30s, then goes back to normal. Workaround is to keep the disk active with something (I play a silent audio file on loop in the background). Not sure if this affects all Accelsiors, what generation is yours?

Other than that, Sierra runs well. You should also consider if System Integrity Protection will impact anything you use.

 

[Squuiid]

Sierra runs very well indeed on a 5,1
With the next macOS just around the corner, to be announced in June at WWDC, El Capitan's time for security updates is running out. I'd recommend skipping it. You will be very happy with Sierra. It is at a .4 release currently and is very stable and fast.

 

[pigsyn]

So it seems like I have to update my 5,1 after years and years of using Mavericks due to the fact that I'll need a specific piece of software that requires me to update my 5,1 to a newer OS version.

With that being said, I really love the stability that Mavericks has given me and I would like to know which version of OS X is better for a 5,1 Mac Pro: El Capitan or Sierra?

• Are these two as fast as Mavericks on an old computer such as the 5,1?
• Have you guys had any issues with a particular version?

PS: FWIW, my Mac Pro is the mid-2010 Quad-core @3.2 GHz with a Radeon HD 5870. I've also upgraded my 5,1 with 24gb of RAM and a 500 GB OWC Mercury Accelsior PCI SSD.

Thank you for your time

Hello,
To be honest there is no much difference between El Capitan or Sierra.

You may notice a less reactive UI compared to Mavericks, because your Radeon HD 5870 is kind of a vintage GPU nowadays.

Anyways, I'm recording audio (Logic Pro X) with my mac pro under sierra with a steinberg ur44 interface card and everything works fine.

Regards.

 

[MSastre]

I'm using a 5,1 with a drive for each .. El Capitan and Sierra. I use the El Capitan drive the most so far (no issues), but am starting to use the Sierra drive more and more (no issues so far). I like to keep drives with previous OSs on hand in case functionality with a new OS suffers.

 

[databaze]

It depends on what you use, I use mine for Audio and Sierra was, at the time, not ready for pro audio so I run El capitan

 

[mcnallym]

Use mine for FCP X and run headless with aHDMI dongle so appears as if has a Monitor connected to make the Screensharing smooth.

No problems with Sierra on mine.

 

[h9826790]

I've had an annoying issue ever since upgrading from El Cap to Sierra on my Accelsior E2 (gen 1)... If I leave the computer for a few minutes and come back, it acts like the SSD is asleep and the whole system locks up for ~30s, then goes back to normal. Workaround is to keep the disk active with something (I play a silent audio file on loop in the background). Not sure if this affects all Accelsiors, what generation is yours?

Other than that, Sierra runs well. You should also consider if System Integrity Protection will impact anything you use.

For any drives that considered internal, there is a setting in system preferences -> energy saver to keep them awake.

For external drives, there is a software called "KeepDriveSpinning", which may be the solution for this situation.

 

[Tacos4everyone]

Update (May 2nd, 2017):

So I decided to give El Capitan a try since I did a bit more digging online and it seemed that for a lot of people, Sierra seemed to run a bit slower.

Given that I have a fairly old 7-year old mac, I decided to play it a bit safe and go for the older OS.

Lo and behold, El Capitan ran just fine... until today.

What happened was that I put my computer to sleep. Suddenly, the fans started to spin crazy fast just before going to sleep and while the sleep light went fading in and out, the fans were still spinning like crazy.

I decided to force shut down the computer and then I reset the SMC. Then I booted up again and I got the Apple logo with the small progress bar below it. The fans start to progressively spin louder and louder and once it gets to the middle of the progress bar, the computer shuts itself down automatically.

I reset the SMC once again and decided to boot into my backup with Mavericks. It loaded up fine. It seems like the SSD with El Capitan became corrupted because the moment Mavericks booted up, I couldn't see the El Capitan SSD until a few minutes later. I opened up Disk Utility and it gave me a message saying that the drive couldn't be repaired.

In any case, it seems like my computer didn't like El Capitan upgrade. Maybe I should try a clean install of Sierra instead?

Has anyone here experienced similar issues?

Quick sidenote (I think this **might** had something to do with the crash since it seems like this was the only real change I had done since I upgraded to El Capitan):

I also remember installing SwitchResX and using a non-supported resolution (1920x1080) on my LED Cinema Display (no idea why that resolution isn't supported, but it just didn't show up in the Display preferences, so I went ahead and used SwitchResX to force that resolution).

Not sure if this had anything to do with the crash and the SSD becoming corrupted... just thought I'd point this detail out.

 

[Squuiid]

Maybe I should try a clean install of Sierra instead?

Yes. And if that results in continued instability then you likely have faulty RAM or that horrible OWC SSD is acting up.

 

[Tacos4everyone]

Yes. And if that results in continued instability then you likely have faulty RAM or that horrible OWC SSD is acting up.

Update May 4th, 2017:

So I did a clean install of Sierra.

Everything was going fine. Have been able to put my computer to sleep successfully for about 4-5 times since I clean installed Sierra.

Just now, I tried putting the Mac Pro to sleep and it proceeded to do the same exact thing that happened before El Cap crashed—basically the monitor turned off but the computer didn't and the fans went full blast.

I pressed the power button to force shut down the system.
This time around, however, I was able to boot Sierra and the hard drive seemed to be OK... but the sleep issue was exactly the same...

 

[Squuiid]

Update May 4th, 2017:

So I did a clean install of Sierra.

Everything was going fine. Have been able to put my computer to sleep successfully for about 4-5 times since I clean installed Sierra.

Just now, I tried putting the Mac Pro to sleep and it proceeded to do the same exact thing that happened before El Cap crashed—basically the monitor turned off but the computer didn't and the fans went full blast.

I pressed the power button to force shut down the system.
This time around, however, I was able to boot Sierra and the hard drive seemed to be OK... but the sleep issue was exactly the same...

Try this. Remove the OWC SSD and install onto a regular SATA hard drive or SSD and see what happens. My money is on the OWC being the problem.
If that fails then try removing your RAM upgrade and replacing with the original Apple RAM.
Its very likely that one of those two is the root cause of your problem.
Once you identify which of the two it is you can then do something about it.

Let's be clear though, the issue you're seeing has nothing to do with macOS (or which version of it) and everything to do with your hardware upgrades.

 

[Tacos4everyone]

Try this. Remove the OWC SSD and install onto a regular SATA hard drive or SSD and see what happens. My money is on the OWC being the problem.
If that fails then try removing your RAM upgrade and replacing with the original Apple RAM.
Its very likely that one of those two is the root cause of your problem.
Once you identify which of the two it is you can then do something about it.

Let's be clear though, the issue you're seeing has nothing to do with macOS (or which version of it) and everything to do with your hardware upgrades.

It seems like my video card is the culprit as the 5870 is showing signs of aging with its fan sounding a bit weird. Just ordered a 7950 (not cheap!) hoping that it'll do the trick.

fingers crossed!

 

[h9826790]

It seems like my video card is the culprit as the 5870 is showing signs of aging with its fan sounding a bit weird. Just ordered a 7950 (not cheap!) hoping that it'll do the trick.

fingers crossed!

You order the 7950 from OWC?

 

[Squuiid]

It seems like my video card is the culprit as the 5870 is showing signs of aging with its fan sounding a bit weird. Just ordered a 7950 (not cheap!) hoping that it'll do the trick.

fingers crossed!

Not trying to be contrary here but I really doubt the issue is with your gfx card.
Keep us posted, I hope you're right

 

[Tacos4everyone]

You order the 7950 from OWC?

Yea, should I cancel it?
[doublepost=1494204187][/doublepost]

Not trying to be contrary here but I really doubt the issue is with your gfx card.
Keep us posted, I hope you're right

I'm curious as to why it wouldn't be my gfx card?

Lately, I've been hearing a really odd fan noise coming from the gfx card when I played Civ V. It would get really loud and make a sound that seems like something was hitting the fans while it was spinning (no cables interferring with the fans though).

 

[Number Curtain]

[QUOTE="Lately, I've been hearing a really odd fan noise coming from the gfx card when I played Civ V. It would get really loud and make a sound that seems like something was hitting the fans while it was spinning (no cables interferring with the fans though).[/QUOTE]

I leave my entry latch lever half open. That's how I finely solved my 4 years of fan rattle noise. That lever locks in place lots of things inside a 5,1, like hardrive sleds, and the optical bay.

 

[h9826790]

Yea, should I cancel it?
[doublepost=1494204187][/doublepost]
I'm curious as to why it wouldn't be my gfx card?

Lately, I've been hearing a really odd fan noise coming from the gfx card when I played Civ V. It would get really loud and make a sound that seems like something was hitting the fans while it was spinning (no cables interferring with the fans though).

IMO, yes, you should cancel it if you can get a full refund. That card is seriously overpriced now.

You can buy almost any 7950 and flash it buy yourself, which only cost you ~ 20% of that cost. I own that Sapphire HD7950 Mac Edition card. I also flash another R9 280 by myself. I can tell you the my flashed card works better in most area. All you need is just pick the right card to flash (a reference card).

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...tem-information.1808938/page-14#post-21607156

If you don't need the boot screen, then you don't even need to flash it, just plug and play OOTB.

P.S. The R17 mod in that post is more for fun / experiment. That will not let the card perform better in real world, unless you install the card in a X4 slot.

 

[Tacos4everyone]

IMO, yes, you should cancel it if you can get a full refund. That card is seriously overpriced now.

You can buy almost any 7950 and flash it buy yourself, which only cost you ~ 20% of that cost. I own that Sapphire HD7950 Mac Edition card. I also flash another R9 280 by myself. I can tell you the my flashed card works better in most area. All you need is just pick the right card to flash (a reference card).

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...tem-information.1808938/page-14#post-21607156

If you don't need the boot screen, then you don't even need to flash it, just plug and play OOTB.

P.S. The R17 mod in that post is more for fun / experiment. That will not let the card perform better in real world, unless you install the card in a X4 slot.

Is there any card out there that is cheaper than the 7950 AND will have the boot option without having to tinker? I'm just not interested in modding cards

[doublepost=1494224350][/doublepost]

I leave my entry latch lever half open. That's how I finely solved my 4 years of fan rattle noise. That lever locks in place lots of things inside a 5,1, like hardrive sleds, and the optical bay.

Are you referring to the latch on the back of the MP that opens up the side panel?
You just leave that latch half open?

 

[Number Curtain]

[QUOTE}Are you referring to the latch on the back of the MP that opens up the side panel?
You just leave that latch half open?[/QUOTE]

Yes that latch.

 

[h9826790]

Is there any card out there that is cheaper than the 7950 AND will have the boot option without having to tinker? I'm just not interested in modding cards

[doublepost=1494224350][/doublepost]
Are you referring to the latch on the back of the MP that opens up the side panel?
You just leave that latch half open?

Plenty of cheaper flashed card out there if you don't want to flash it by yourself. I've been through this route. From an official card, tends toward to the flashed card, and eventually found out it's best to flash the card by myself.

Anyway, if you MUST need a NEW card that has boot screen OOTB with official support. I think that HD7950 from Sapphire is the only choice.

I also found out that latch position has direct relationship with some noise. But in my case, I just have to open the panel, give all HDD tray a little push (or swap them around, if you don't mind the numbers are not in sequence), then the noise stopped.

 

[Yahooligan]

If you're insistent on getting a new GPU, don't waste your money on a crappy AMD 79xx. If you want a faster card for less money then get a GTX 680, you can get a flashed one from MVC for $255 and it will be 2x-3x as fast as that 79xx card. Full boot screen support and no tinkering required.