Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Hennesie2000

macrumors 68000
Sep 29, 2007
1,514
42
Maryland
Thx Guys for the input in this thread.

Are the owner of a mac pro1 (2x2.66mhz 5150 zeon with the original std. 256 mb Nvidia grafik GT Card and with 7GB 667 ram)

Useally im 95 % of the time booted up in Windows, and it Works great, ewen thow the grafikcard from times to time comes short, when running realtimes stock & quotes streaming program on multiple screens, but its okay, and useable at the time.

Are planning a clean OSX install on one of the disks (got 4 sata, and 1 Intel 80 GB SSD inside and some external Networks disks)

And was wondering when I lately have heard about the new free Mavericks OSX in the news, if that was a choice.

But it seems it aint, due to some lack in grafic codes and same goes for ML.

But what is preferable then.. Lion ' or Snov Leopard for this older mac pro on a SSD intel disk?

There are plenty of other threads discussing 10.6 vs 10.7. This thread is about getting 10.9 to run on older Macs.
 

kylew01

macrumors newbie
Feb 14, 2008
8
0
Quick Question...

I have a Mac Pro (MacPro1,1), which I put into target disk mode. I used my newer MacBook Pro and booted up off of my Mac Pro, and was able to run software update and get it up to 10.9 (still booting my MacBook Pro off of my Mac Pro's internal HDD). My question is, will the steps mentioned earlier still work? Is there an easy thing I can do to it (with the pro still in TDM, target disk mode, preferably) to allow it to now natively boot its newly upgraded installation?

I hope that made sense... Thanks so much!
 

H00NER

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2007
15
0
I'm happy to report success in installing Mavericks OS X 10.9 on my mid-2006 MacPro 1,1. I have the ATI Radeon HD 5770, so there were no problems with video display during install.
I followed batmanofzurenar's guide almost to the letter, but prepared a USB install drive of Mavericks first. If you download Mavericks from the App Store on a supported Mac computer, you can easily create a bootable USB install drive using DiskMakerX 3, which is free to download. (This is the full 5GB install and not the 20MB installer file.) Bring the Mavericks USB boot drive over to your MacPro (it won't boot), but you can use it instead of the Developer Preview DMG in Step 3 of the guide.
I pretty much ignored the post install instructions in the guide. I did not copy over the "mach_kernel” and “boot" files to the new install of Mavericks. Instead, I boot from the Startup Disk HDD (1 GB partition) and have it select the Mavericks HDD from Chameleon as the default partition.
 

Snowshiro

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2008
387
6
I pretty much ignored the post install instructions in the guide. I did not copy over the "mach_kernel” and “boot" files to the new install of Mavericks. Instead, I boot from the Startup Disk HDD (1 GB partition) and have it select the Mavericks HDD from Chameleon as the default partition.

Yup. I think it's becoming apparent from the number of successful reports in this thread that once booted, the Mavericks installer will run pretty much untouched - the previous kernel and boot files required for Mountain Lion don't seem to be necessary any more - the installer will use the packaged kernel that comes with the distribution. Which is great news really, because presumably it means we're running the full native Mavericks kernel instead of some alternative provided for the purpose.

The Mac Pro 1,1 marches onwards.

By the way I benchmarked mine with Geekbench yesterday on Mavericks and got a score of about 10,500 which puts it only about 5% behind the average score of the base 2012 15" Quad Core Retina MacBook Pro. (My spec is dual x5355, 10 Gig RAM, HD 5770). It's running as smoothly as I can ever remember it. Even though Apple had abandoned us, this is still a great upgrade for 1,1 owners.
 
Last edited:

Hennesie2000

macrumors 68000
Sep 29, 2007
1,514
42
Maryland
Yup. I think it's becoming apparent from the number of successful reports in this thread that once booted, the Mavericks installer will run pretty much untouched - the previous kernel and boot files required for Mountain Lion don't seem to be necessary any more - the installer will use the packaged kernel that comes with the distribution. Which is great news really, because presumably it means we're running the full native Mavericks kernel instead of some alternative provided for the purpose.

The Mac Pro 1,1 marches onwards.

By the way I benchmarked mine with Geekbench yesterday on Mavericks and got a score of over 10,500 which puts it only about 5% behind the average score of the base 2012 15" Quad Core Retina MacBook Pro. (My spec is dual x5355, 10 Gig RAM, HD 5770). It's running as smoothly as I can ever remember it. Even though Apple had abandoned us, this is still a great upgrade for 1,1 owners.

Did you do your processor swap yourself? Easy?
 

adam4og

macrumors newbie
Oct 27, 2013
1
0
Hi, I followed instructions I die, unfortunately without success. starts every time my macbook air 1.1 (A1237), with gray prohibition sign. Even non camelion goes, whether I. 1 GB or 20GB patition I Internally generated SMBplist ect. Not going well.
The instructions only marking a MacbookPro? Someone can give me a MacBookAir at the beginning of 2008 1.1 Help?

sorry for english , Germany:)
 
Last edited:

Antoni Nygaard

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2009
801
893
Denmark
Hi, I followed instructions I die, unfortunately without success. starts every time my macbook air 1.1 (A1237), with gray prohibition sign. Even non camelion goes, whether I. 1 GB or 20GB patition I Internally generated SMBplist ect. Not going well.
The instructions only marking a MacbookPro? Someone can give me a MacBookAir at the beginning of 2008 1.1 Help?

sorry for english , Germany:)

This is for The Mac Pro NOT Macbook Pro og Macbook Air
 

Snowshiro

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2008
387
6
Did you do your processor swap yourself? Easy?

Not that difficult as long as you are careful to take your time and not rush. The two hardest parts were:

  • Finding a hex wrench long enough
  • Removing the heatsinks
The heatsink screws are made of really soft metal and the heads can deform really easily. If you're really patient though and go very very slowly at that point, the rest is pretty easy. The hardest part was finding a wrench - no local hardware stores sold one with a long enough handle, and I ended up finding one company to mail order from.

Also, despite doubling the number of cores, my machine actually runs about 4-5 degrees cooler now because the thermal paste on the CPUs loses its effectiveness and isn't always applied that well at the factory. I bought a high quality paste and applied it carefully (a lot of people apply too much) and it now runs at around 27 degrees most of the time (with a little boost from smc fan control), which is barely warmer than the room it's in.

But yeah, long story short, it's pretty straightforward. So many people have done it now, that its really well documented and there are a wealth of videos and 'how-tos' on the web. You might even consider X5365s now - most people used to go for the 5355s like me because they were much cheaper in comparison and got more bang for the buck, but the 65s have dropped a lot in price.


Here's my benchmark - it identifies as a 3,1 (from the Mavericks install) but it's a bona fide 7 year old 1,1 with the 2,1 firmware installed to facilitate the quad core processors.


tHkALuL.png
 
Last edited:

scara

macrumors newbie
Oct 26, 2013
2
0
No, there isn't a "trick" as such. Make sure your syntax and the volume name are correct. My advice is that you look for Jabbawok's blog and follow it with attention, taking care to "translate" his "ML instructions" to the corresponding "Mavericks instructions" contributed by several people in the blog.

I've been able to successfully install Mavericks on my Mac Pro 1,1 - 6GB RAM, 8800GT.

The issue was probably an incomplete Chameleon installation. It ran fine after I updated Snow Leopard to the most recent version. :)
 

tripmusic

macrumors 6502
Oct 26, 2012
455
86
Switzerland
Not that difficult as long as you are careful to take your time and not rush. The two hardest parts were:

  • Finding a hex wrench long enough
  • Removing the heatsinks
The heatsink screws are made of really soft metal and the heads can deform really easily. If you're really patient though and go very very slowly at that point, the rest is pretty easy. The hardest part was finding a wrench - no local hardware stores sold one with a long enough handle, and I ended up finding one company to mail order from.

Also, despite doubling the number of cores, my machine actually runs about 4-5 degrees cooler now because the thermal paste on the CPUs loses its effectiveness and isn't always applied that well at the factory. I bought a high quality paste and applied it carefully (a lot of people apply too much) and it now runs at around 27 degrees most of the time (with a little boost from smc fan control), which is barely warmer than the room it's in.

But yeah, long story short, it's pretty straightforward. So many people have done it now, that its really well documented and there are a wealth of videos and 'how-tos' on the web. You might even consider X5365s now - most people used to go for the 5355s like me because they were much cheaper in comparison and got more bang for the buck, but the 65s have dropped a lot in price.


Here's my benchmark - it identifies as a 3,1 (from the Mavericks install) but it's a bona fide 7 year old 1,1 with the 2,1 firmware installed to facilitate the quad core processors.


Image

I did the X5355 upgrade and agree the Hex screws on the heat sinks are soft. Makes sense... it does heat up in there. Actually, the tutorial I used I believe initially said to use a phillips head or hex and I stripped them a little with the phillips head. I was getting a little nervous... if you screw up those heat sink screws it would be a sad day . The Hex fit perfectly. Got mine for $100. Yes the SMC fan control utility is a must have to control the temps.

I haven't tried putting Mavericks on my 2,1 MP yet. I've never done any kind of programming/code before, so I'm just trying to read as much info on this before I try. Plus I'm not sure if my flashed HD4870 will work. However, if I get it running Mavericks nicely, I may go for a final CPU upgrade to the X5365's and maybe an SSD and ride this old beast into the sunset
 

Thoughtsponge

macrumors newbie
Jan 11, 2013
18
0
Looking for a brief tutorial.

Any thoughts for someone trying to do this with the final release on a Mac Pro 1,1 (firmware set to 2,1) and an unflashed Geforce GTX 550ti?
 

Caesar_091

macrumors 6502
Jan 18, 2005
289
12
Italy
Thanks for all the posts on here. Have spent a few hours today getting Mavericks up and running on my MacPro 1.1.

If anyone is experiencing any issues in getting Chameleon to boot (EBIOS errors, flashing cursor) , reset your PRAM and it'll kick into life ;)

Is there a guide or something to install 10.9 on a 1,1 Mac Pro? Will future OS X 19.9.x updates will be a issue using Chamaleon? Will I have to use SoftwareUpdate or I'll have to hack for every new system update? How is actually working with ML?
Everything will work on OS X 10.9 (all RAM available, sounds, dual or 3 monitor configs, Bluetooth communications, USBs, FWs, sleep/stop, AirPort connections, dual Ethernet connections)?

TIA
 
Last edited:

PeterHolbrook

macrumors 68000
Sep 23, 2009
1,617
439
Is there a guide or something to install 10.9 on a 1,1 Mac Pro?
Will future OS X update will be a issue using Chamaleon?

TIA

Jabbawok's blog probably contains the best tutorial for installing ML on a Mac Pro 1,1 using Chameleon. Look for it (Google is your friend). Adapting it to Mavericks is trivial.

Future iterations of OS X might be a problem for unsupported Macs if they require newer graphics cards (probably not a problem for a Mac Pro) or when they become a 128-bit operating system!
 

cyberish

macrumors member
Oct 26, 2013
47
9
"How To" on that late 2006 iMac

HackerWayne!

can you tell us how you succeeded for that late 2006 iMac please? - Reading all these posts here it's mostly about the Mac Pro 1.1.
- Which GPU .kext is working with your iMac?

thank you!




We'll be downloading it first hand and get it tested out :p - From HackerWayne & MLForAll (MLPostFactor)

What we know so far.

- Won't work with anything that doesn't run Mountain Lion.
- EFI64 only, just like 10.8.
- 64-bit support for older Macs (that currently runs MLPFv0.3) is not going to be easy as many things has changed.

SUCCESS!!! Maverick on old 2006 iMac!! Pics up later.

Got it working on X3100 based MacBooks too. Tons of issues. Bugs and glitches everywhere and graphics doesn't quite work yet. Its gonna be like how MLPF started at first. So be patient. :)
 

Cryder

macrumors newbie
Apr 28, 2013
26
0
I'm interested too in knowing how to install Mavericks in the late 2006 iMac. I haven't been able to boot in Mavericks install partition, neither with chameleon nor with refit/refind. So, I couldn't test if it's possible to update MLPF to Mavericks.

Please, hackerwayne, could you share that first version of MVPF in order to being able to boot in Mavericks installation?

Thank you!
 

Thoughtsponge

macrumors newbie
Jan 11, 2013
18
0
Originally Posted by rubberjabber View Post
Thanks for all the posts on here. Have spent a few hours today getting Mavericks up and running on my MacPro 1.1.

If anyone is experiencing any issues in getting Chameleon to boot (EBIOS errors, flashing cursor) , reset your PRAM and it'll kick into life

When you say, "flashing icon", do you mean when it flashes between the apple logo, prohibit, and question mark folder? Right now, that's my issue after trying to get it to boot into the Startup Disk/EFI Boot.
 

Mjsais

macrumors member
Feb 29, 2012
40
3
Looking for detail instructions

I have read most of the posts in this site and I'm still somewhat confused. I have a Mac Pro 1,1 with apple's 5770 video card. A year ago, i followed Jabbawok's guide an installed ML. I'm looking for detail instructions on how to upgrade my ML drive to Maverick. Do I need to get another drive? Do I need to modify my chameleon installation? Can I run the installer from a ML itself - like if it was an update?Because I don't do this often, step by step instructions is what I need. Thank you for your assistance?
 

DK Hedgefund

macrumors newbie
Oct 26, 2013
2
0
This thread is about getting 10.9 to run on older Macs.

Nope, not really..

dont let the title fool you, the majority of thread lately ' is regarding older mac pro's and get the 10.9 in play here, and that was mainly the basis for possible mac pro1 OSX preferable..

and for some it seems to Work, when you upgrade the CPU's fm etc..

but still some variety regarding older mac pro1 specs (cpu/gpu)

and if was worth the while (cost, time, maverick's pro & cons) or if it ' for the simple main mac pro1 user, doesnt really make sense to challenge Mavericks in a mac pro1 clothing.

unless your cherise the challenge, there for some can be a reward in its own.

But newermind, you seem to have you mind full, trying to comprihent the approach and the cpu upgrade..
and mine intention was mainly just to get an Picture ' if mavericks was worth the while, or one of its predessesor is still the best solution, when all is said and done.. and not least a plain mac pro1 user with an setup, like mine wich are old and basic.. (2*2.66 / 7GB 667 / 7300GT / on SSD) and where Snow Leopard still seems to be choice of merit regarding a new clean install ' with that specs...
 
Last edited:

gio64

macrumors member
Aug 22, 2005
44
0
Trying to Wrap up and Failing

Hi all,
I am all setup with Mavericks on my MacPro 1 1 (5770, Xeon 3.0).
I had 4 drives, I moved some stuff around, I put everything back in and:

1) The drive with Windows is out: all works well. My Lion drive boots, my EFI boot works and chameleon allows me to pick Mavericks, which starts up fine.

2) I put the drive with Windows in and all I get is a failed boot of EFI boot. Or it starts Windows. I don't know what to do and I am getting extremely annoyed.

First off, hitting arrow keys, F8 key or F10 key, does not change the outcome of the boot once I have selected to boot the EFI disk.
Second, although I fiddled with a couple of things, this does not seem to affect chameleon.

If anyone can help me out, I am really losing my patience, but before I smash the Windows HD into a wall, I would like to hear from somebody who's better than me at this stuff.

Thank you in advance and sorry for venting frustration.

Edit: I forgot to mention: I have Mavericks on one drive, Lion on another drive, Windows on a third drive.
Bay 1 Lion, Bay 2 Mavericks, Bay 3 Windows. Windows is on a partitioned HD. Mavericks is on a partitioned SSD (second partition is the Startup Disk), The HD with Lion is one volume.

Edit 2: I do not intend to boot Windows from Chameleon. It was booting on its own before.
 
Last edited:

Thoughtsponge

macrumors newbie
Jan 11, 2013
18
0
Hi all,
I am all setup with Mavericks on my MacPro 1 1 (5770, Xeon 3.0).
I had 4 drives, I moved some stuff around, I put everything back in and:

1) The drive with Windows is out: all works well. My Lion drive boots, my EFI boot works and chameleon allows me to pick Mavericks, which starts up fine.

2) I put the drive with Windows in and all I get is a failed boot of EFI boot. Or it starts Windows. I don't know what to do and I am getting extremely annoyed.

First off, hitting arrow keys, F8 key or F10 key, does not change the outcome of the boot once I have selected to boot the EFI disk.
Second, although I fiddled with a couple of things, this does not seem to affect chameleon.

If anyone can help me out, I am really losing my patience, but before I smash the Windows HD into a wall, I would like to hear from somebody who's better than me at this stuff.

Thank you in advance and sorry for venting frustration.

Edit: I forgot to mention: I have Mavericks on one drive, Lion on another drive, Windows on a third drive.
Bay 1 Lion, Bay 2 Mavericks, Bay 3 Windows. Windows is on a partitioned HD. Mavericks is on a partitioned SSD (second partition is the Startup Disk), The HD with Lion is one volume.

Edit 2: I do not intend to boot Windows from Chameleon. It was booting on its own before.

I was about to give this a shot, but now I'm concerned because I have a Windows partition. Is this an issue for anyone with a Windows partition or is it just under certain circumstances? (ie. which drive the Windows partition is located).
 

Hennesie2000

macrumors 68000
Sep 29, 2007
1,514
42
Maryland
I was about to give this a shot, but now I'm concerned because I have a Windows partition. Is this an issue for anyone with a Windows partition or is it just under certain circumstances? (ie. which drive the Windows partition is located).

I have 3 partitions and dual boot Mavericks and Windows. I got Mavericks booting with Chameleon first and then installed Windows. Once done the windows install you have to set the active partition, using the cmd prompt and DiskPart.exe, to the Mavericks partition. My 3rd partition is where Chameleon is located.

When partitioning the drive (using your existing OS 10.7 install) set the drive up as a GUID. 1GB partition HFS+, OS X partition HFS+ and Windows partition FAT. When installing Windows you will have to reformat the FAT partition as NTFS using the Windows installer.

----------

Nope, not really..

dont let the title fool you, the majority of thread lately ' is regarding older mac pro's and get the 10.9 in play here, and that was mainly the basis for possible mac pro1 OSX preferable..

and for some it seems to Work, when you upgrade the CPU's fm etc..

but still some variety regarding older mac pro1 specs (cpu/gpu)

and if was worth the while (cost, time, maverick's pro & cons) or if it ' for the simple main mac pro1 user, doesnt really make sense to challenge Mavericks in a mac pro1 clothing.

unless your cherise the challenge, there for some can be a reward in its own.

But newermind, you seem to have you mind full, trying to comprihent the approach and the cpu upgrade..
and mine intention was mainly just to get an Picture ' if mavericks was worth the while, or one of its predessesor is still the best solution, when all is said and done.. and not least a plain mac pro1 user with an setup, like mine wich are old and basic.. (2*2.66 / 7GB 667 / 7300GT / on SSD) and where Snow Leopard still seems to be choice of merit regarding a new clean install ' with that specs...

What? I already have a Mac Pro 1,1 running Mavericks just fine so I am not sure whatever it is that you are talking about. Further more your original question was about what is better, 10.6 or 10.7 and like is said this thread is about 10.9. The only thing you need to upgrade to run Mavericks is that 7300GT, nothing else.
 
Last edited:

Thoughtsponge

macrumors newbie
Jan 11, 2013
18
0
That makes sense. After restarting and selecting EFI Boot it flung me into my Windows partition. I'll go ahead and create a disk image of my Windows partition and then restore it once I have Mavericks working.

Update: Even better, I just create a VM in Parallels and then delete the Windows partition.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.