MP 1,1-5,1 Accelsior S freeze Mac Pro 3.1 (Early 2008)

[sgouver]

Hello all,

This is my debut on the Mac universe.
I recently bought a Mac Pro 3.1 (Early 2008) from ebay for 50£.

The specs are 1 x Quad Core E5462 and 8gb of Ram.

I am really excited with the capabilities and quality of this machine. As such, I have already bought another Quad core, added an airport wifi card and an SSD.

I was unable to install Dosdude Mojave, so I settled with High Sierra from dosdude.

In my effort to boost the speed of my SSD (Samsung EVO 960), I bought an Accelsior S PCIe to 2.5".

I successfully connected the two and plug Accelsior to ×16 PCIe card. I installed the Mac OS without issues but after 10-15 minutes the Mac freeze / crash without any warnings.

* Please note that I have formatted the SSD in APFS and did a clean installation.

I tried different PCIe socket (including x4) and NVRAM reset but no matter what I did the same thing happened.

Is this card working with the Mac Pro 3.1 ? Is there any way to fix this?

Thanks for your support!

 

[JedNZ]

I have two of each, one each in my cMP 4,1>5,1, and have not had an issue with them. I had my first one installed in a cMP 1,1>2,1 and this never caused issues either.

Maybe the pattern I'm picking up here is that your cMP freezes after 15mins. I'm thinking maybe it's a thermal issue causing your Mac to freeze. Have you checked it all over and given it a clean lately with an air brush/compressed air? How about checking your ram card - remove and reseat each of your ram modules.

Check Console to see if there are any patterns to the crashes.

Maybe re-install macOS onto the SSD in one of your direct connect bays, instead of in the Accelsior S.

Have you tried Apple Hardware Test (you can download an image from here which you can create a bootable USB stick with, which will do a bevy of hardware tests)?

 

[flygbuss]

I have two of each, one each in my cMP 4,1>5,1, and have not had an issue with them. I had my first one installed in a cMP 1,1>2,1 and this never caused issues either.

Maybe the pattern I'm picking up here is that your cMP freezes after 15mins. I'm thinking maybe it's a thermal issue causing your Mac to freeze. Have you checked it all over and given it a clean lately with an air brush/compressed air? How about checking your ram card - remove and reseat each of your ram modules.

Check Console to see if there are any patterns to the crashes.

Maybe re-install macOS onto the SSD in one of your direct connect bays, instead of in the Accelsior S.

Have you tried Apple Hardware Test (you can download an image from here which you can create a bootable USB stick with, which will do a bevy of hardware tests)?

How are the r/w speeds with the card in a cMP 2,1?

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

I had some trouble with my Accelsior S + Samsung SSD EVO 850 after upgrading to Mojave. But after reformatting the SSD (APFS) and using CCC problems seems to be solved. I only had one lockup after sleep and wake up, the desktop picture was white and the computer froze. My Radeon 580 RX pulse is running hot, therefore I installed the Accelsior in slot 4. If you install it in slot 2 close to the videocard, it could be risky. (temperature issues). If you don't use Mojave, I advise you to stay with HFS+. I have a second Mac Pro where High Sierra runs rock solid.

 

[JedNZ]

How are the r/w speeds with the card in a cMP 2,1?

I can't remember to be honest. Not sure if they maxed either SATA III or the Samsung 850 EVO max R/W speeds. But it was so much faster than a spinner in a direct connect bay (SATA II) for some tasks, particularly larger file transfers. Don't think it made much (if any) difference to boot speeds versus the SSD being is a direct connect bay.

 

[sgouver]

Have you checked it all over and given it a clean lately with an air brush/compressed air?

Maybe re-install macOS onto the SSD in one of your direct connect bays, instead of in the Accelsior S.

It definitely needs a good cleaning, however, if the SSD is plug to the internal SATA there are no issues.
On these PCIe there were also GPUs plugged in and they did not cause any issue.

Have you tried Apple Hardware Test (you can download an image from here which you can create a bootable USB stick with, which will do a bevy of hardware tests)?

How about checking your ram card - remove and reseat each of your ram modules.

I will give a try to all the above suggestions.
Is there any possibility for this to work only to a Mac Pro 4.1 ? Are you sure mine can handle this ?

I had some trouble with my Accelsior S + Samsung SSD EVO 850 after upgrading to Mojave. But after reformatting the SSD (APFS) and using CCC problems seems to be solved. I only had one lockup after sleep and wake up, the desktop picture was white and the computer froze. My Radeon 580 RX pulse is running hot, therefore I installed the Accelsior in slot 4. If you install it in slot 2 close to the videocard, it could be risky. (temperature issues). If you don't use Mojave, I advise you to stay with HFS+. I have a second Mac Pro where High Sierra runs rock solid.

I will try also the rest of the PCIe slots. What is CCC ?


Thanks all of you for the support, it is much appreciated.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

CCC is Carbon Copy Cloner. You can try it 30 days for free.
https://bombich.com/download

 

[JedNZ]

Is there any possibility for this to work only to a Mac Pro 4.1 ? Are you sure mine can handle this ?

Yes - from cMP 1,1 to 5,1
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL6G.S/
(click on the Compatibility tab)

 

[sgouver]

Hello @JedNZ @flygbuss and @Mac Hammer Fan ,

The Accelsior S is now working !!!

I was placing the second CPU to have two Quatro 2.8gHz, so this was a perfect time for a clean up.

Oh boy, I have never seen so much dust on a PC. The previous owner should have never cleaned it since 2008.

Afterwards, I used the last PCIe x16 and started working without freezing anymore !

Now I have around 500mb/s Read-Write speeds ! I have never before owned such a fast computer.

I really wonder how people are giving these gems away like trash. I got mine for £50 with an Apple keyboard and a Samsung screen.

It already had a GTX 760 so I had to buy a ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT to install Dosdude High Sierra* OS and the Samsung SSD EVO 960 with Accelsior S, overall £150.

Now I have a perfect Mac with only £200 .

The same thing happened when I was searching for a low cost good laptop, all the new were crappy and bought a Lenovo x220 only for £160, without a doubt one of the best purchases I have ever made.


Thanks again for the support.


*For some reason Mojave from Dosdude is extremely laggy. I will try Catalina if Dosdude supports the Mac Pro 3.1. I am more than happy with High Sierra for now.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

I am glad your problem is solved. Good luck.

 

[JedNZ]

That’s great news. Well done.

Over here in New Zealand, the price of all models of cMP appear to have increased on the local auction site, with cMP 5,1 12-Core with SSD, plenty of ram and a sub metal GPU starting at NZ$1500. Lucky I bought mine 2 years ago for half that.

 

[Ludacrisvp]

The GTX 760 should be a Kepler Card and should just work for Mojave. (I suppose maybe it’s a maxwell card, but I thought it was Kepler).
Mojave on a 3,1 does work fine. You may have missed a step in the patching process.
[doublepost=1562558896][/doublepost]If Mojave is laggy I’d think you did a legacy video patch when you should not have done so.

 

[sgouver]

The GTX 760 should be a Kepler Card and should just work for Mojave. (I suppose maybe it’s a maxwell card, but I thought it was Kepler).
Mojave on a 3,1 does work fine. You may have missed a step in the patching process.
[doublepost=1562558896][/doublepost]If Mojave is laggy I’d think you did a legacy video patch when you should not have done so.

I didn't knew that architecture of the GPU played a role.
To be honest I mostly tried Mojave with the HD 2600. It runs smoothly on high sierra but it is almost unusable on Mojave.

The GTX 760 was definitely an improvement but still didn't get the breezy feeling I was getting with High Sierra. Especially when I was working with workspaces.

However, I did not tried GTX760 on Mojave after cleaning from dust, CPU upgrade and Accelsior S.

So, I will try again.

I saw that GTX760 is with Kepler architecture. The best would be Maxwell?

Thanks for the tips and support.

 

[Ludacrisvp]

Kepler is the most recent Nvidia architecture that will work in Mojave. Therefore a maxwell card wouldn’t work because of the Nviida / Apple fued.
I’m not surprised that the 2600 was terrible in Mojave. As it is an ancient card.