old Mac adventures!

[OVERKILL]

@bunnspecial can likely relate this this.

So, after going down the rabbit hole on OpenCore, I of course was pulled back into the enthusiast community, something I'd been out of when I was just comfortable with my Mac the way it was.

I had an odd video issue that a post on MacRumours gave me a lightbulb moment for a workaround, which I then posted there. Basically, with a Kepler architecture GPU, if you have both HDMI and DisplayPort screens connected, you'll only have video on HDMI. However, if you boot with just DisplayPort, it will work fine. Ergo, I just disconnected my HDMI screen as a troubleshooting step and then reconnected it once the OS had booted and it showed up with both displays perfectly. Weird quirk.

This got me reading through threads there.

Another odd issue developed: AirPlay would stop working when the screen locked. On most Mac desktops the default is for the screen to go to sleep, then, after a period, it locks. The music would continue to play when the screen went to sleep, but would stop and then do little "blips" of music once the lock had kicked in. Wake it up and log back in, problem stops and music plays normally. I'll be playing around with that a bit, going to try disabling screen lock as a troubleshooting measure. I've already disabled it going to sleep, as when it tries to do that, it seems to cause several applications to crash and I have to reboot before being able to launch any of them again, or at least that's my theory as to what seems to be causing it to crap out when I wake it up in the AM.

So, after posting about that one, I saw a firmware thread. I had installed Mojave the instant it was available and was subsequently on bootROM 138.0.0.0.0. Despite being on the latest version of Mojave, subsequent updates didn't update the bootROM. Interesting.

So, that was my adventure for today. Download High Sierra. Install another SSD. Install High Sierra, download Mojave 10.14.6 full installer, run it, it prompts for firmware update, do the update. Check that computer is now on 144.0.0.0.0? Golden! Shutdown, swap back to my Big Sur SSD.

Apparently, there was a relatively long list of fixes that were implemented between the version I was running and this most recent. Odd that Apple didn't push it out as part of the cumulative updates, but then, it's Apple, so...

We'll see how the adventure continues!

I find it quite amusing that there are so many people out there that are continuing to use these now 12 year old (and in some cases older, if they have a 4,1) computers as their daily machines. They have an incredible following.

 

[Deleted member 89374]

I have a MacPro 3,1 and a 5,1 (single socket), and they now gather dust. If you're still running the EVGA GTX 680, then you should know that NVIDIA never bothered with updating the EFI for that GPU. The EFI is embedded in the middle of the Video BIOS. At the time, that portion of the firmware for NVIDIA cards was empty, with a "00" placeholder for future PC EFI. Eventually, they started adding EFI support for PCs starting with the 7xx series of cards. The GTX 770 is identical to the 680, and with a few hacks, the 770 4GB card can use the 680 EFI on the Mac Pro. Of course, once the OS boots up, the NVIDIA driver takes over from the EFI driver. I'm speaking from the memory, as I haven't messed with these in years. These days I run virtual machines on Linux or Windows for the most part. It's speedy and convenient, and I can test various things without messing up the main OS.

Does this info help you in any way? Probably not. Except that Apple, after Steve Jobs passed, wasn't too happy with the success of the Mac Pro tower. Hence they "reinvented" it in the form of the trashcan, something that I ordered and then decided to cancel while it was on its way to my house. It was akin to an mATX PC, and I wouldn't say I like small factor PCs (except for trivial tasks) with a passion. It just didn't feel right to be locked into such a restrictive platform.

My two cents: the MacPro was pretty niche, and most professionals and enthusiasts bought it anyway. They could have thrown the enthusiasts a bone and made a tower version available that's easy to upgrade and maintain with commodity hardware. As it sits, today's MacPro is priced out of this world while delivering the same level of performance as the second generation AMD Threadripper.

 

[OVERKILL]

I have a MacPro 3,1 and a 5,1 (single socket), and they now gather dust. If you're still running the EVGA GTX 680, then you should know that NVIDIA never bothered with updating the EFI for that GPU. The EFI is embedded in the middle of the Video BIOS. At the time, that portion of the firmware for NVIDIA cards was empty, with a "00" placeholder for future PC EFI. Eventually, they started adding EFI support for PCs starting with the 7xx series of cards. The GTX 770 is identical to the 680, and with a few hacks, the 770 4GB card can use the 680 EFI on the Mac Pro. Of course, once the OS boots up, the NVIDIA driver takes over from the EFI driver. I'm speaking from the memory, as I haven't messed with these in years. These days I run virtual machines on Linux or Windows for the most part. It's speedy and convenient, and I can test various things without messing up the main OS.

Does this info help you in any way? Probably not. Except that Apple, after Steve Jobs passed, wasn't too happy with the success of the Mac Pro tower. Hence they "reinvented" it in the form of the trashcan, something that I ordered and then decided to cancel while it was on its way to my house. It was akin to an mATX PC, and I wouldn't say I like small factor PCs (except for trivial tasks) with a passion. It just didn't feel right to be locked into such a restrictive platform.

My two cents: the MacPro was pretty niche, and most professionals and enthusiasts bought it anyway. They could have thrown the enthusiasts a bone and made a tower version available that's easy to upgrade and maintain with commodity hardware. As it sits, today's MacPro is priced out of this world while delivering the same level of performance as the second generation AMD Threadripper.

Yes, I'm running the Mac (flashed) version of the GTX 680 still, though it requires some "tweaking" (driver injection) to work in anything beyond Big Sur, which is when they dropped support for Kepler. The actual Mac version of the cards were an arm and a leg, but any EVGA generic reference card can be flashed with the Mac-specific firmware to give you the boot screen, so that's what I did when I bought it and have been quite happy with the card as an upgrade over the 5770 that came in the box.

I'm reluctant to spend any more money on the rig just due to the diminishing returns. I know a lot of guys are running much more modern GPU's (all the new MacOS releases have fantastic ATI support OOTB) but with current GPU prices, and the usage profile of this machine, it doesn't really make sense. Apple's "feud" with NVidia is what spurred that of course.

Because I still run the odd game (WoT, Borderlands 2...etc) on this old rig, I can't readily virtualize what I do on it. I considered putting Linux on it (and actually did run a live USB for a bit) but it runs so well with MacOS that it's really hard to stay away from it, particularly now with OpenCore making running these newer OS's so easy.

 

[Deleted member 89374]

Except for the GPU, your MacPro is not an expensive upgrade, given that commodity DDR3 works in it (that's what I used in mine), and the fastest CPUs for them (used, of course) can be had for exceedingly reasonable cost these days. Of course, you're limited to PCI-E 2.0.

However, you wouldn't benefit a ton from something like an RX 6900XT due to the CPU bottleneck. I would enjoy it for what it is. The AMD 5950X is an excellent CPU that will come down in price even further.

Now that I stumbled on this thread, I'm tempted to play with OpenCore. It's not like I needed another curiosity to satisfy, lol.

 

[JHZR2]

I find it quite amusing that there are so many people out there that are continuing to use these now 12 year old (and in some cases older, if they have a 4,1) computers as their daily machines. They have an incredible following.

I routinely use a 2010 MacBook Air, and when I need windows I boot camp into an older (2009?) MacBook Pro. Both are c2d processors. Both work perfect less the battery charge retention.

I have a 2013 MBP I use for editing high res full frame photos and backing up my phone, and it too is perfect… I am getting a desire for one of the 14” units though, primarily because I keep multiple offline backups of my phone and photos, and I think the USB connections will be much faster.

But yes, old Mac computers can still run great. I archive emails on a G4 Mac mini 1.4Ghz/512MB from around 2003…

 

[Deleted member 89374]

I routinely use a 2010 MacBook Air, and when I need windows I boot camp into an older (2009?) MacBook Pro. Both are c2d processors. Both work perfect less the battery charge retention.

I have a 2013 MBP I use for editing high res full frame photos and backing up my phone, and it too is perfect… I am getting a desire for one of the 14” units though, primarily because I keep multiple offline backups of my phone and photos, and I think the USB connections will be much faster.

But yes, old Mac computers can still run great. I archive emails on a G4 Mac mini 1.4Ghz/512MB from around 2003…

My favorite MacBook Pro was the 2015 15 inch unit. I had two of them. They were the model just before the gimmicky touch bar, so it was still a "Jobs Era Design." I love old Macs what they release now, eh, not that much.

 

[OVERKILL]

Except for the GPU, your MacPro is not an expensive upgrade, given that commodity DDR3 works in it (that's what I used in mine), and the fastest CPUs for them (used, of course) can be had for exceedingly reasonable cost these days. Of course, you're limited to PCI-E 2.0.

However, you wouldn't benefit a ton from something like an RX 6900XT due to the CPU bottleneck. I would enjoy it for what it is. The AMD 5950X is an excellent CPU that will come down in price even further.

Now that I stumbled on this thread, I'm tempted to play with OpenCore. It's not like I needed another curiosity to satisfy, lol.

I was specifically meaning GPU, I already bumped the CPU up and the RAM (32GB), which were both super cheap to do, but the current GPU situation is a gong show and as you note, the system is CPU limited.

OpenCore is super easy to do and I think you'll like the results, just make sure you are 144.0.0.0.0 before you start so you don't have to fart around and do it afterwards like I did.

You can run Monterey with the OpenCore patcher, as it will install the Big Sur NVidia drivers if you are using an NVidia GPU.

 

[OVERKILL]

I routinely use a 2010 MacBook Air, and when I need windows I boot camp into an older (2009?) MacBook Pro. Both are c2d processors. Both work perfect less the battery charge retention.

I have a 2013 MBP I use for editing high res full frame photos and backing up my phone, and it too is perfect… I am getting a desire for one of the 14” units though, primarily because I keep multiple offline backups of my phone and photos, and I think the USB connections will be much faster.

But yes, old Mac computers can still run great. I archive emails on a G4 Mac mini 1.4Ghz/512MB from around 2003…

Yeah, my 2014 MBP is still my daily laptop and is running Big Sur, I'll likely expense a new MBP in the next few months and will keep the old one around for legacy stuff.

I have a few older macs too, like a clamshell Powerbook as well as three different generations of iMac all running different different vintage MacOS versions. I used to have a Mac Plus but it somehow went missing in the move from New Brunswick. Of course my collection is nothing compared to what @bunnspecial has amassed, which is truly wild (we discussed it in a previous thread).

 

[bunnspecial]

The cMP community continues to amaze me, and it's even more striking that a maxed out 4,1/5,1 is still a much more capable computer in virtually every way than a 2013 Mac Pro(6,1, AKA Trash Can). Whenever Apple throws a roadblock, someone seems to find a way.

The 1,1/2,1 has largely died out since they hit a brick wall at 10.11, although at one point a friend of mine was trying to mess around with the bootrom to get it to boot with an SSE 4.1 CPU installed. He had to give it up for space reasons, but just recently was able to spread out more and it's one of his projects on his to-do list. If he could do it, it would probably take up to at least 10.14 or 10.15, although a lot of other things in these systems are still long in the tooth and I forget what the memory ceiling is on them(I think I left mine at 16gb, 8x2gb, and I THINK 4gb modules that will work exist although RAM temps are actually a legitimate issue in these systems and Apple fitted massive heatsinks to the DIMMs they supplied to keep temperatures under control).

I do love playing with old Macs, and there's a surprisingly large enthusiast community keeping even G4 computers alive and capable although it gets more difficult every year. When I first started getting serious about this stuff around 2013, you could still do A LOT on higher spec G4s and all the G5s. In 2015, I was still using a G5 Quad as an office computer. Mid to late 2015 is when a lot of stuff quit working, like Dropbox first needing a bit of trickery to initially connect, and then not working at all, or other things like Youtube closing some "back doors" that some programs use to use to play videos in Quicktime. One of the big browsers, Tenfourfox, hit EOL last year-it was a one-man operation and he finally(understandably) reached a point where it was just too difficult to keep things working and consuming too much of his time for a browser that regularly lost functionality.