BTW a Apple iMac "Core i5" 2.8 21.5-Inch (Late 2015) benches at 11342

More planned obsolescence by Apple.

macOS Sierra hardware compatibility list (no longer supported):

• Late 2009 and later
  • MacBook
  • iMac
• 2010 and later
  • MacBook Air
  • MacBook Pro
  • Mac mini
  • Mac Pro

Anyway:

I have read that all I need to do is update the firmware from 4,1 to 5,1 and I will be fine.

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,...

Downloaded the update but I get Error 5570 when tying to run it.

A web search says I need to run Apples EFI Mac Pro firmware 1,5.

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1321?loca...

But it will only install on the 2010.

I know we are going to have a lot of questions on Sierra when it hits next week and I would really like to be able to learn the system.@danj I hope you might be able to help.

UPDATE 9/15/16

I got by the 5570 error code by opening the MacProEFIUpdate dmg but not running it.

Then running the MacPro 2009-2010 Firmware tool ( ran OK without getting the error).

Said to shut down and restart holding down the power button until it started flashing.

I did this a couple of times. It looked like it was going to work but I did not get a firmware progress bar, it just booted normally. And I still have Boot ROM Version: MP41.0081.B07. The problem is the same as stated here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/anot...

Mine is at the B07, so the EFI updater should work but still will not.

FURTHER UPDATE

Tried it three times and failed. Booted from a clean system on an external drive and success. Now have Boot ROM Version: MP51.007F.B03

I do not get the error message when trying to download the macOS Sierra Master Beta, it's just doesn't download.

UPDATE 9/20/16

Installed Sierra on external drive and booted from it on the MacPro. All appears to be running well, just one incompatible software and that was Symantec Endpoint Protection. Will play with it this way for a few days to see if there are any other issues but it's really starting to look like Apple just wanted to make the machine obsolete prematurely.

UPDATE 9/29/16

After testing for a few days using an external with Sierra and finding no problems, I went ahead and installed without issue on my MacPro. Using a Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro Webcam w/ Mic camera and microphone. The camera does not do well in low light and is not near the quality of an iSight. Siri runs fine with it and I can now send messages verbally to anyone in my address book.

I will be trying an install on a 64 bit early 2009 MacBook Pro this weekend.

update

2009 would not boot from external Sierra drive. Circle with bar.

UPDATE 10/5/17

This MacPro is now running 10.13 High Sierra with no problems.

⟐ Commented March 16, 2023 at 7:18 MST

I've made a video so you can see the problem yourself. The ASP was unable to locate the problem.

Mac pro won't boot up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq2LHDMFm...

⟐ Commented March 07, 2021 at 3:54 MST

I hope to have some advice about my situation with my Mac Pro 1.1..

I'm little late I know but only in these days I have had the change to upgrade my Mac.

I'm an expert user and have repaired, tweaked, hacked a lot of devices so for me Apple hardware and software are thing that i'm deal with almost every day.

This time I have decide to take time to upgrade my old:

Mac Pro 1.1 (2006)

The upgrade plan was:

- Max Ram 32Gb

- Ssd Boot HD

- Airport Extreme Card

- Mac OS X 10.9.5 with TIAMO Boot (SFOTT)

- Ati Radeon 5770 HD 1Gb (Original Apple not flashed from Pc hardware)

- Netkas 2.1 Firmware Update (since I need to upgrade CPUs for have more computing power)

I have done all of these upgrades successfully without any problems till the CPUs swap..

I have choose to upgrade my Mac Pro with a matched pair of Xeon X5365 (I've already successfully done this kind of operation a lot of times).

After I complete the CPUs swap and bring back all the inside of the Mac Pro (cleaned everything), I also changed the Logic Board Battery,

when were time to turn on, the Mac was "working" but NO CHIME and black screen.

This was the exactly sequence of events:

1) Before proceed to turn on the Mac I have reset the SMC with his own button on the Logic Board for 5 seconds

2) closed the case and attached back the AC plug

3) the Mac immediately turn on WITHOUT pressing the POWER BUTTON (light on the power button is on and stable)

4) Dvd drive turn on, front and rear fan spin normally and the HD drives other than the SSD Boot, spin.

5) No Chime - No Boot - no chance to use keyboard for a NVR reset

Checked immediately the DIAG_LED button:

Led 1 - Trickle Pwr ON

Led 6 - GPU Present ON

Led 7 - Power On ON

Led 8 - EFI Done OFF WHILE SHOUD BE ON (as stated in the Apple Service Manual) Indicates: EFI is done loading

I have try to reset again the SMC and change again the Logic Board Battery but nothing, the Mac start up but NO CHIME.

Swapped out the GPU, no chime, same with the Ram dims, I have try to pull out every dims and leave only 2 in the upper riser althought the memory riser diagnostic leds are all OFF (so no faulty dimms). Also removed Airport Card.

For test purpose I also have try to swap back the old CPUs but the things remain the same; NO CHIME, NO BOOT.

What lead me here before buy a new logic board or power supply is the LED 8 from the DIAGNOSTIC LEDs.

On every post I have find googling around NO ONE ever report the behave of the Led 8 in they'r Mac Pro:

LED 8 - EFI DONE - In my case OFF while as stated in the Apple Service Manual, should be ON.

also notice that Led 6 - GPU Present in my case the light is ON also if the GPU card is pulled out, strange uh?

Could someone here please help me to understand better what's happen to my Mac Pro?

The only other clue I can provide about a strange behave of my Mac before the upgrade is that from about a year ago after I have installed the ATI RADEON 5770 HD Instead of his standard GPU, when I hit the POWER BUTTON, before to hear the CHIME I had to what 5-10 seconds and after the Netkas 2.1 Firmware Update the time to have the CHIME was the same.

This delay of the chime sound could be related with the LED 8 EFI DONE OFF?

I also have try to PUSH the Power Button for 10 seconds for check if I eventually could be able to restore the original EFI but doesn't work, the light of the power button remain ON and don't blink.

What's happen could be related to the 2.1 Firmware Update?

I notice the the Netkas 2.1 Firmware Update for Mac Pro 1.1 in my case update only the Firmware and not the SMC (still 1.7f10), is this normal?

Thanks in advance to everyone….

Mik

⟐ Answered May 10, 2019 at 2:06 MST

Does it influence the performance in any way when the firmware is not updated?

⟐ Answer edited May 14, 2019 at 6:06 MST

1. Motherboard

2. CPU

3. Yosemite or El Capitan?

⟐ Answered November 27, 2023 at 1:23 MST

None of the machines had hard drives or video cards. I bought a couple of new hard drives and a couple of new (MSI F5450 MDIGH) video cards, installed one of each into each of the two Xeon machines, and pressed the button.

Both machines turn on and the power lights are on steady. But I get no video from either machine (I have two monitors plugged into each - one via HDMI and one via VGA). I don't understand why I'm not getting any video (and no video is making it hard to troubleshoot anything else). Is it because there's no drivers on the brand-new hard drive?

For what it's worth, I opened up the case and started each machine, and I see no LED indicator lights anywhere inside (I think there are supposed to be some, but I don't know where).

Today, I connected my MBP to one of the machines via Firewire and started the Pro in Target Disk Mode. I immediately got the "The disk you inserted is not readable..." dialog on the MBP and used Disk Utility to format it. Then ran OS X installer and installed Yosemite on the newly-formatted HD in the MP. Unplugged everything and restarted...still nothing.

Any ideas on what's going on here?

⟐ Commented August 24, 2022 at 2:52 MST

This one has had me busy for a couple of days. Came in with three blinking lights on the power button and kernel panic on start up. After testing for an hour it would not boot at all. The machine had two 1 GB sticks and four 256 sticks. After extensive testing I found all the sticks were fried. Replaced RAM with two good 256 sticks of my own. Switched hard drive to a known good system and it booted to the kernel panic screen again. After testing for another hour it fried my RAM and I get no boot. I ask this question because I don't know if the power supply might be involved and I don't want to replace the motherboard just to have it fried again. I haven't seen a machine that keeps frying RAM before. Suggestions?

⟐ Edited January 20, 2014 at 17:41 MST

My Mac Pro 1.1, with 2-2,66Ghz dual-core Intel Xeon processors is not working proper anymore. I would like to change out the CPU's. instead I'll get 2 Xeon Quad x5355 CPU's and push up my system to an 8 core. I'm told it should work by my technical dealer, but I'm not sure if the power supply will supply enough power.

I would also like to change my graphics card, which should i get? My dealer recommend an ATI 5870 or ATI 4870. How loud are they compared to NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT? or which would you recommend? Also how can I find the information on what works.

Can someone with experience in changing out the CPU's on the Mac Pro systems help me here.

i just want to know, if my Mac will work with the new CPU boost, and which graphics card you recommend?

Many thanks!

Serious Stets

⟐ Commented March 30, 2019 at 19:29 MST

I did have them professionally clean the inside because I noticed the fan would come on stay on after a certain point.

It's also well ventilated.

If I do not use the computer for days, it will work fine for a while. However if I use it consecutive days, the problem appears and happens more frequently. I spent $700 having the "repair" place clean it and tell me nothing was wrong.

Please advise.

⟐ Commented May 17, 2021 at 7:40 MST

Is it possible to repair the PSU I already have? Any ideas?

Thanks everybody for your replies. I do not understand much of PSU, and was wondering if it was a matter of simply replacing specific parts, like the ones that are usually faulty, I thought that kind of knowledge would be good to have documented out there.

But given the fact that it might be extremely dangerous, or excessively complicated, I now understand the reason the information is unavailable, and conform to the fact that I will have to replace it via Apple.

On a tangent matter,the problem seems to me, that this sort of information is really not available even to certain technicians. I took the computer to an Apple Authorized Center and they told to replace the logic board. I still have the same problem and it really seems to be the PSU, but I can't pinpoint the diagnostic.

⟐ Commented April 13, 2025 at 8:35 MST

with 4 gb of extra ram,all seemed fine until complete shutdown.

i had a look and when trying to boot first all the dim lights on ram boards lite up,no matter what ramboard i put in and on what order,tried all the

combinations with old and new ram,also i get the cpu warning 1 and 2 blinking little leds telling me there might be a processor issue?

i did all the resets that are possible,all the little buttons pressed

and smc restes etcetc..i know the drill..took out graphic card

,ram,hd's ,fans,re plugged the connectors where ever i could reach

gave it a good clean,still same problem.

any idea?

change or clean the processors or(hopefully not) even logic board?

let me know please

thanks

daniel.

⟐ Answered October 05, 2022 at 16:29 MST

I have gone through many steps of fixing this, but all in vain.

When I switch on my machine the CPU & GPU fans power on. No Chime/Bong is heard. Screen remains black.

I have tried all methods of doing SMC reset & PRAM reset. I had noticed that my PRAM battery had died. So I replaced it with a new one. But! Still the same problem.

The Diagnostics lights on the mother board show the trickle power as yellow, PWRG on is Green and GPU is green, EFI remains Off.

I tried connecting the keyboard and resetting PRAM as it worked for somebody but in my case it's not working.

Holding the power button for firmware restoration doesn't work as it does not start blinking. it just remains solid white.

Also useful to know. I wanted to upgrade this system to 2,1 so I tried to upgrade the firmware but that did not work although it did follow all the steps (was trying this using USB and pressing power button as stated in netkas procedure) .

Anyhow I upgraded the OS to El Capitan by just changing the Boot EFI. it worked properly for few days until this happened.)

Basically the system is a stock 1,1 with OS-X El Capitan.

I have read through many forums to try to make this work but still not able to solve it..

Please suggest something so I can get this back to life.

Extremely urgent! Thanks

Link to what happens when I start: No Chime , Black screen.

⟐ Answered April 11, 2023 at 0:27 MST

I have a customer's Mac Pro, mid 2012 machine which won't boot at all. When I press the power button, nothing happens at all, except a light odor of the magic smoke (from electronics, that is). The only time something noticeable happens is when you are looking at the logic board while plugging in the power cord. What I see are the top two LEDs that blink red momentarily in the upper left corner, below the #1 HDD. Those lights go out almost immediately and do not illuminate again when pressing the power button. I can get the lights to stay on if I depress the power button while plugging the machine in and hold the button in for about 7-10 seconds. They will stay on permanently after that.

When I press the Diag button near the LEDs, the 4th LED lights up amber, but nothing else notable happens. This also happens if I have the red lights switched on as I mentioned above. I tried the SMC button, but that didn't do anything either. Nothing at all in either case.

The customer already replaced the power supply, so I am wondering if the logic board is bad. I am going to get another power supply to be sure, but what else could it be??? Is there some other board I don't know about? Can someone help me interpret the LEDs?

Thanks!

Bodhi

⟐ Commented October 22, 2022 at 2:24 MST

Anybody has any good advice for me?

⟐ Commented December 14, 2017 at 11:33 MST

For the past 4 months my Mac Pro 1,1 quad 2.66 has been crashing. I replaced the ram using the specific fully buffered ram, in a pair etc. Blew out all the dust from fans and power supply with a blower. running smoothly all day and left it running overnight. this morning found it to be dead.

when i press the power button not a single light on the logic board comes on, no fans starting up or electronic noise.

i tried to reset the SMC and the button above it on the logic board with no result. removed the graphics card and tried again. took out the optical drive to find incredible amounts of dust so once again blew all that out and blew air through the power supply and sent dust all over the room. plugged it back in and no result. With everything that i have read i think it has something to do with the power supply. could it also be the tiny flat battery on teh logic board prehaps short circuting the system? If it is the power supply is there just a fuse blown that i can replace? Also if i put my ear right u against the power supply when its plugged in i can hear a very very faint ticking sound, similar to perhaps the sounds ignition sparks make on a gas stove.

I dont want to take it into the shop and pay the $70 odd dollars to just have it diagnosed if it is such a simple asnwer so can anyone please please help me!!!!

⟐ Commented July 13, 2020 at 6:43 MST

⟐ Commented April 23, 2020 at 8:22 MST

its about 6 years old, i got a second hdd installed before, worked fine but then the mac would not start up (flashing question mark) seems to be a common enough issue but that was resolved, the hdd was not installed correctly.

This time the mac is dead, at first there was no noise, no lights nothing, (it turned off while i was running final cut pro 7) Now after i disconnected all cables everything, reconnected everything and pressed power button for 5 seconds i looked back at machine and noticed led on monitor is on, and i can hear some very low noise at the back of the tower, where the power cable connected

This was left idle for over a year but the last 6 weeks i have been using it solid most days, and i did notice it was a bit nosier than usual, kind of a humming noise but i did not think much of it? Its full of dust inside it, anyway this machine did turn off and on by itself for no reason a number of times since i started using it again, and sometimes did not turn back on by itself.

So i am not sure if it is the powersupply or logic board, but if its the power supply I plan on buying a replacement , do i need a specific one for my model? And i dont know how to replace the power supply, so any advice or videos would be great.

And if its the logic board... im completely lost there...

I will try to give enough details for you about my machine,

Mac Pro MacPro1,1

2.8 Ghz Xeon

Intel Core 2 Duo

3gb Ram

Model number - A1186 EMC

Serial - YM63400RUQ2

If anyone can help me id be grateful, i will be attempting this myself as i can not afford anything else, eg apple repair store ect

Thanks

Shane

can anyone help :) im not sure what to do

⟐ Commented December 09, 2017 at 22:27 MST

Identifiers: Mac Pro Early 2009 - MB535LL/A - MacPro4,1 - A1289 - 2314

Apple has requested that I do a diagnostic on the above machine and we have nothing on it. (Unusual, but it's under warranty and I assume they want to know what's wrong before shipping this monster in for a depot repair). I'm getting the first two red lights on the logic board lit. Maybe Oldturkey can put me on to the manuel. The 2009/Nehalem is very different than my Quad Core 2008. Logic board LEDs #1 & #2 are lit red, indicating a lower processor error on older machines.

⟐ Comment deleted June 26, 2017 at 4:39 MST

⟐ Answer deleted November 09, 2015 at 13:16 MST

I've got a weird one: I have a couple 8-core 2008 2.8GHZ Mac Pros. I started with some 2TB Western Digital drives, which worked fine, but I decided to upgrade to 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 drives. These are SATA3 6GB/s drives. The first of these drives worked for a while, but after a few days Lion stopped letting me log in. It went to a white screen after entering my password, then went back to the password screen again and I was stuck. Previous to not letting me log in, I had been getting an error when trying to get into system prefs. So I wiped the drive and reinstalled Lion from scratch, and a few days later I noticed that DMG packages suddenly wouldn't open. I rebooted, and again, I couldn't log in. Next, I tried another identical drive on an entirely different Mac Pro, assuming the initial drive was failing and causing corruption. An hour ago, DMGs would not open again, and simple functions like Launchpad are excruciatingly slow...it seems obvious that the OS is being corrupted. In each case the machine works for a while, and then the OS eventually fails as the corruption builds.

As I mentioned, I've tried entirely different drives of the same model number, and entirely different Mac Pros with no shared components, and still experienced the issue. I've tried different Lion installer media, and done a clean install each time. I've repaired the disk and permissions. I've run a virus scan on my files. My 2TB Western Digital works fine with my files and software (I'm using it now) and has never suffered from corruption, so I can only conclude that my files/software/Mac Pros are fine, and the issue is with the Seagate ST3000DM001. If I was installing bad software or doing something wrong, it would have affected the 2TB drive as well, because I have treated that drive exactly the same as the 3TB drives. I'm formatting the partition GUID, so that's not the problem.

I've Googled the issue to no avail. This is a SATA3 drive at 6GB/s, whereas the 2008 Mac Pro has a SATA2 3GB/s SATA interface, but that really should not be a problem. I recall that with some laptop drives the jumper has to be set to 3GB/s or weird behavior happens, however this drive does not come with a jumper to bridge its pins, and the manual for the drive does not appear to address jumpers, so I don't know if that is related to the issue. A friend has the 2TB version of the same drive in an identical computer and it has worked fine for weeks.

Anyway, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I've been dealing with this a month now and having to rebuild every few days is killing me.

Thanks!

John

⟐ Edited January 20, 2014 at 17:39 MST