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Updating my MacPro 5.1 from 140.0.0.0.0 to 144.0.0.0.0 does not work
- Thread starter The Spirit
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It's a collateral effect of MVC flashing service for NVIDIA GPUs to have pre-boot configuration. Seems to happen with some Maxwell/Pascal GPUs, midway boot this happens.
I had a problem updating the Boot ROM in my MacPro5,1 (2010, X5690 x2, MVC-flashed GTX980ti (PCIe Slot 1)) from 142.0.0.0.0 to 144.0.0.0.0 like many of you who were unable to update from 140.0.0.0.0.
I finally succeeded, however, by flashing it from the latest Mojave installer 14.5.2 which nested on an eSATA external SSD boot drive (Samsung SSD 860 EVO in OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini case), running the latest High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G7024), which was connected to the SATA port of Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus (PCIe Slot 3). Neither a Samsung 970 Pro NVMe SSD blade on Amfeltec Squid Gen 3 carrier card (PCIe Slot 2) or SanDisk Extreme Pro SATA SSD RAID on Highpoint 4520 RAID card (PCIe Slot 4) worked.
I have a particular setup and I don’t know if this could be of any help to any of you but I wanted to point out that in my case an internal SATA SSD on the RAID card didn’t work but an externally connected SATA SSD worked.
I finally succeeded, however, by flashing it from the latest Mojave installer 14.5.2 which nested on an eSATA external SSD boot drive (Samsung SSD 860 EVO in OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini case), running the latest High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G7024), which was connected to the SATA port of Caldigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus (PCIe Slot 3). Neither a Samsung 970 Pro NVMe SSD blade on Amfeltec Squid Gen 3 carrier card (PCIe Slot 2) or SanDisk Extreme Pro SATA SSD RAID on Highpoint 4520 RAID card (PCIe Slot 4) worked.
I have a particular setup and I don’t know if this could be of any help to any of you but I wanted to point out that in my case an internal SATA SSD on the RAID card didn’t work but an externally connected SATA SSD worked.
It was an update from 141.0.0.0.0 to 144.0.0.0.0 which I was having problem with. Not from 142.0.0.0.0. I had decided to skip 142.0.0.0.0 entirely. Sorry for the misinformation.
I updated from 141 to 144 using my backup drive in sata bay 1. as i have an rx580 the screen was dark for a while but no problems, all went well
Out of curiosity, what problems were you having, and was it resolved with 144.0.0.0.0?
141.0.0.0.0 was working and I had no problem with that but since I have a NVIDIA 970ti installed and I need CUDA for image processing, I’m stuck with High Sierra. So I want to keep my cMP up to date with as much assistance I can get. I’m still undecided about protection from MDS though because it’s supposed to slow down the system. 141.0.0.0.0 seemed to boot a fraction faster than previous FW and Verbose text message went away quicker but 144.0.0.0.0 feels unchanged in that regard. That’s only my subjective impression, however.
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Gotcha... Thanks for that. I had seriously annoying boot problem (rather fail to boot problem) until 144.0.0.0.0. Newest firmware cured it like magic...
Yes... agreed. I had the “fail to boot” thing and it appears to have been fixed in 144.
OK, I can confirm, I just updated straight from 140.0.0.0.0 to 144.0.0.0.0 WITHOUT moving my boot drive (1TB Samsung 860 EVO) off my Velocity Solo x2 into one of the internal Sata drive bays.
Btw, 10.9 can't access a NVMe drive/blade. Support for NVMe start with Sierra for 4096 bytes per sector drives/blades and High Sierra for 512 bytes per sector.
I upgraded a friend's 5,1 running Sierra from BootROM 007F.B03 to 0089.B00 using the High Sierra installer from Sierra. We then swapped the Sierra drive in sled-1 with a separate 10.13.6 installation on an SSD in sled-1 and swapped the ATI 5770 video card with an MVC NVidia GT640. I used the option-boot picker to select the 10.13.6 SSD and downloaded the Mohave installer. I then ran the Mohave installer and it prompted to update the firmware (to 144) and shut down.
I held the power button until the tone sounded but it did not update. The computer booted, hesitated, then went back to Mac OS 10.13.6. The Finder returned to the Mohave installer and the firmware upgrade prompt. Since I had option-booted to get to the 10.13.6 installation, I was unsure what startup disk the machine had saved, so I used the control panel to select the 10.13.6 installation as the boot drive and then ran the Mohave installer firmware update prompt again and shut down.
After again holding the power button until the tone sounded, it installed the BootROM 144 update with no issue (gray screen on HDMI port, Superdrive eject, shutdown, restart). The update completed very quickly, faster than the update to BootROM 0089.
There may have been other issues causing it to fail the first time. Some have noted the length of time holding the power button, however both times it was held until the tone sounded. Assuming it is not related to the power button or some other factor, I would surmise that some of the delays and or failures of other users are from the machine trying to find the correct boot drive, especially if booting from PCIe adapters or SSD blades or have installed another OS.
As a side note, the SSD drive used is formated HFS+, and was updated to 10.13.6 from a 10.13 installation. I had not seen anyone mention a way to update High Sierra on an HFS+ disk. I don't recall the exact steps I used and have not tried this since the initial upgrade, but I did note when the software update download completed and prompted to restart the computer, I had held the option key (out of habit) and saw a new partition listed, something like "Install Mac OS" in the boot picker. Selecting this partition did not successfully boot the machine but when it restarted again the machine proceeded to perform the upgrade to 10.13.6.
When I ran the Mojave installer first time on my 5,1 dual CPU Mac Pro, it updated the EFI from 0089.B00 to 138.0.0.0.0, not 144.0.0.0.0. It is August 8, 2019; 10.14.6 has been out for over two weeks. So I installed 10.13.6 on a freshly-wiped internally-connected SATA SSD, then ran the Mojave installer, which applied the EFI update to 144, as recommended in this thread (thanks all!). Yeah, it worked. EFI is now 144.
Then came the mystery, and probably the reason the Mac Pro had gone to EFI 138 when I first ran the Mojave installer: somehow, I had navigated (as I recall, via the App Store) to an installer for Mojave 10.14.0. I hadn't noticed this until I re-booted the drive upon which I had initially installed Mojave... I was running 10.14.0!
I was sorta' freaked when I saw the EFI was at 138. Now it makes sense. But I have no idea how I came to download and install the .0 release of Mojave... how the heck did THAT happen?
Anyway, all's well that ends well. As I type this, I am installing 10.14.6 on my Mac Pro, and everything appears to be progressing swimmingly. Again, thanks all, and particularly tsialex, for your kind and generous support.
Now I'm gonna install a pair of X5680s in this old dual-quad beast. Renaissance!
Then came the mystery, and probably the reason the Mac Pro had gone to EFI 138 when I first ran the Mojave installer: somehow, I had navigated (as I recall, via the App Store) to an installer for Mojave 10.14.0. I hadn't noticed this until I re-booted the drive upon which I had initially installed Mojave... I was running 10.14.0!
I was sorta' freaked when I saw the EFI was at 138. Now it makes sense. But I have no idea how I came to download and install the .0 release of Mojave... how the heck did THAT happen?
Anyway, all's well that ends well. As I type this, I am installing 10.14.6 on my Mac Pro, and everything appears to be progressing swimmingly. Again, thanks all, and particularly tsialex, for your kind and generous support.
Now I'm gonna install a pair of X5680s in this old dual-quad beast. Renaissance!
I've got some cheat with 144 update and RX580 and I hope it helps somebody 
So... I have cMP5.1 with 140 firmware, GTX680 2Gb (flashed) and RX580 8 Gb(Gygabite), SSD in first bay with 10.14.6 and no other SSD/HDD for experiments
I've got many ways and many trys… but I don't want swap GPUs, install 10.13 with GTX680 (in recovery mode installer says my 680 got no metal support) and other many-steps-things…
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Well. That's my trick for update with RX580 only in Mac:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1. Reboot with Cmd+R —> you don't see anything (no bootscreen)
2. Wait for 10 or 15 minutes —> Mac will going to sleep
3. Press any button on keyboard —> Mac awakes with full screen functional (all ports works well and support many displays)
4. Go to reinstall option and get upgrade!
BTW
Use this method for SIP disabling & get H.264/HEVC hardware support in RX580
So... I have cMP5.1 with 140 firmware, GTX680 2Gb (flashed) and RX580 8 Gb(Gygabite), SSD in first bay with 10.14.6 and no other SSD/HDD for experiments
I've got many ways and many trys… but I don't want swap GPUs, install 10.13 with GTX680 (in recovery mode installer says my 680 got no metal support) and other many-steps-things…
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Well. That's my trick for update with RX580 only in Mac:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1. Reboot with Cmd+R —> you don't see anything (no bootscreen)
2. Wait for 10 or 15 minutes —> Mac will going to sleep
3. Press any button on keyboard —> Mac awakes with full screen functional (all ports works well and support many displays)
4. Go to reinstall option and get upgrade!
BTW
Use this method for SIP disabling & get H.264/HEVC hardware support in RX580
I've got some cheat with 144 update and RX580 and I hope it helps somebody
So... I have cMP5.1 with 140 firmware, GTX680 2Gb (flashed) and RX580 8 Gb(Gygabite), SSD in first bay with 10.14.6 and no other SSD/HDD for experiments
I've got many ways and many trys… but I don't want swap GPUs, install 10.13 with GTX680 (in recovery mode installer says my 680 got no metal support) and other many-steps-things…
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Well. That's my trick for update with RX580 only in Mac:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1. Reboot with Cmd+R —> you don't see anything (no bootscreen)
2. Wait for 10 or 15 minutes —> Mac will going to sleep
3. Press any button on keyboard —> Mac awakes with full screen functional (all ports works well and support many displays)
4. Go to reinstall option and get upgrade!
BTW
Use this method for SIP disabling & get H.264/HEVC hardware support in RX580
Command + R work with RX580 or GTX680 natively. Step 2 and 3 should be irrelevant.
If the GPU can't show anything, no matter how many times your sleep / wake it, the GPU still won't able to show anything.
If monitor doesn't show anything after boot to recovery partition. Remove all monitor but leave only one connected to the primary GPU. Or simply power cycle the monitor. Or unplug / replug the cable.
Wait for that 10-15min should be irrelevant and not necessary.
I'm in the same state as @MorMot at #66 was: macpro5,1, fw 140, GTX 680, just one monitor connected. The only other thing out of the ordinary is a USB3 PCI card.
I have downloaded and installed 10.13.6 the other day (after the recent expiry of installer certs) onto an internal HD, then booted from it (even removed the PCI card with my regular NVMe disk). Then run the 10.14.6 installer (also freshly downloaded). It tells me I need to update the firmware first. After clicking the button it asks me to enter my admin pw, then it stalls for a few seconds, and then it is back, doing nothing.
System Profiler says "Metal: Supported" for the GTX.
I also tried booting with Cmd-R, which gets me into the rescue system. When I choose to Reinstall macOS from it, it says:
FileVault is indeed disabled, and there's only this one graphics card installed.
I also did a full (4 chimes) PRAM reset. After that, Mac even boots right away into the installer, but still refuses due to the Metal issue.
So, why isn't this working, when @h9826790 and @MorMot say it should? What could I be missing, please?
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Yes, I tried, but that is irrelevant because the firrmware doesn't even get written to the EFI partition so that it would get installed on power-on with the long button press. The installer refuses to get that far because it thinks the graphics card is not Metal capable, and thus doesn't install the firmware file and doesn't shut down the Mac as it would otherwise.
And the fact that it won't do that is even documented elsewhere, ie. that the GTX 680 is not correctly identified and therefore won't work for this procedure. Yet, above posts claim that it does work.
Others say that it would work with the original graphics card that came with the Mac Pro. Unfortunately, I don't have such a card. All I have is the GTX 680 and a RX 580 (I installed that, too, and again the System Profiler said that it supports Metal, but the installer would claim it's not Metal capable).
And the fact that it won't do that is even documented elsewhere, ie. that the GTX 680 is not correctly identified and therefore won't work for this procedure. Yet, above posts claim that it does work.
Others say that it would work with the original graphics card that came with the Mac Pro. Unfortunately, I don't have such a card. All I have is the GTX 680 and a RX 580 (I installed that, too, and again the System Profiler said that it supports Metal, but the installer would claim it's not Metal capable).
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I think you need the full installer, it runs the firmware update first.. i did it with both high sierra and mojave BUT i had some trouble , i THINK the firmware update wants to write to an HFS+ volume, not an APFS. In any case i think that the firmware update is not getting written correctly before shutdown thats the problem... I used my nvidia gtx680... oh , i remember now, the firmware Will install (hfs+) but THEN the mojave installer did not recognise the 680gtx as a metal card so i used the dosdude installer of 10.14, but obviously i did not need to patch anything later as the 5,1 is fully supported.