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Free Mac Pro 1,1

fenderbass146

fenderbass146

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
1,481
2,653
Northwest Indiana
I recently just got a Mac Pro 1,1 for free. It's the 2.66 dual cpu model with the Geforce 7300 and 1 GB of ram. It is currently running 10.6.8.

I already have installed a SSD and have ordered 4 gb of ram which will bring it up to 5 GB total.

I have two video cards sitting around that I would ideally like to use if possible. They are not mac cards. I have a ATI Radeon HD 6750 and a nVidia 8800 GTX. (I bought 2 6pin video card cables) From what I have been reading it sounds like once I get 10.7.5 on this computer nearly any video card will work, I just won't see the bootup screen. Then assuming I can get the video card's working I would like to update to a more modern OS.

Bottom line I'd like to get this computer on Mavericks or better with either one of those listed video cards. Would this be possible?
 
With Tiamo's boot.efi you can use Mountain Lion and Mavericks, and for Yosemite and El Capitan there is Pike R Alpha's boot.efi so no worries there.
 
I'm running a Mac Pro 1,1 with El Cap, all the iMessage and iCloud features, everything works perfectly.

My only suggestion to you is that you buy MORE ram. Even 5 gigs is pretty slim. In fact I seem to recall you have to have at least 12 gigs to get El Cap up and running?

Also, to get the handoff stuff working properly I replaced my airport card with one of these,

http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p33/Wifi_AC_and_Bluetooth_Airport_Card.html
 
Tower-Union said:
In fact I seem to recall you have to have at least 12 gigs to get El Cap up and running?
Click to expand...
You can run El Cap with any amount of RAM (but no 512mb sticks, 1GB sticks are min), but i agree.
16GB is so cheap now (15-20usd) that it is really a shame to have less than that. :)

Edit: I forgot to mention, you need 12GB minimum RAM to install El Cap directly from USB to 1,1. But if you install it on HDD which you then put into 1.1 (with replaced boot.efi) you don't need that limit.
 
Last edited:
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06 mac pro for free whats not to like look around on amazon for ram deals I got 16 gig with the large heat sinks for 38 dollars about a year ago
 
owbp said:
To quote user 666sheep:"P0rn and tiny bit of Facebook"! :)
Click to expand...

Hahaha! :D


OP: you might think you don't need 16GB, but believe you won't go too far with 5GB these days, just consider the amount of memory required by the OS itself, you think the fancy flat UI and transparency comes free? ;)
 
Morpheo said:
Hahaha! :D


OP: you might think you don't need 16GB, but believe you won't go too far with 5GB these days, just consider the amount of memory required by the OS itself, you think the fancy flat UI and transparency comes free? ;)
Click to expand...


I understand memory usage. 4 GB still operates fine on my wife's 2013 13" rMBP

5 GB is plenty for the light stuff and I may bump it up. The previous poster made it sound like it was a requirement to have more to get newer os to work on this machine.
[doublepost=1475084649][/doublepost]
CapnDavey said:
06 mac pro for free whats not to like look around on amazon for ram deals I got 16 gig with the large heat sinks for 38 dollars about a year ago
Click to expand...

Yea I saw some cheap kits. I may get but just wanted the 4 Gb quick with prime
 
So I got it working. I now have a 1,1 Mac Pro with 5 GB of Ram (I plan on getting more), a 8800 GTX 769 MB from an old Gateway, and a solid state boot drive. It's running Yosemite 10.10 right now. I want to at least get it to 10.10.3 which gives it the photo app i believe. I did the thing that is suppose to save the .efi files on reboot. Can I do updates like normal. Also in light of that. Can I upgrade to El Cap or Sierra easily?
 
fenderbass146 said:
So I got it working. I now have a 1,1 Mac Pro with 5 GB of Ram (I plan on getting more), a 8800 GTX 769 MB from an old Gateway, and a solid state boot drive. It's running Yosemite 10.10 right now. I want to at least get it to 10.10.3 which gives it the photo app i believe. I did the thing that is suppose to save the .efi files on reboot. Can I do updates like normal. Also in light of that. Can I upgrade to El Cap or Sierra easily?
Click to expand...

El Capitan is no problem. Here's the dedicated thread, instructions are on the first page - if you've done it with Yosemite it's a fairly similar procedure.

As for Sierra, right now it's impossible. El Capitan is most likely the last OS that can be run on these macs.

[edit] ooops, works better with a link ;)
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-el-capitan.1890435/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
fenderbass146 said:
So I did the thing that is suppose to save the .efi files on reboot. Can I do updates like normal?
Click to expand...
What I do in situations such as this where I'm not quite sure, is to make a cloned backup with CarbonCopy before I attempt the update, that way if things go south I can restore my system from the clone.
 
jbarley said:
What I do in situations such as this where I'm not quite sure, is to make a cloned backup with CarbonCopy before I attempt the update, that way if things go south I can restore my system from the clone.
Click to expand...


yea thats a good idea.


Thanks for all the help guys. I'm going to upgrade the firmware tonight before I update to el cap...(I was gonna just stay on Yosemite but since it seems this computer won't ever get Sierra I might as well just update and never have to worry about it again.)

This thing is pretty solid. If your willing to put a little work in the 1,1 can still be a hell of a machine.
 
I you haven't used pikes patch download the single updates from apple's site and install them it will work fine the combo update will break the hack.
 
So I have el Cap installed and it's kinda working but if keeps crashing every couple minutes. I recently updated the firmware. Is there anyway that's causing the problem? Any other ideas as to what is causing the problem?
 
Read the 6th post from this topic ;)
512 ram sticks are causing crashes and kernel panics on 1,1 with El Capitan.
Lose those two sticks and see if it works ok.
 
fenderbass146 said:
Great. I'll have to try that tomorrow. Thanks a lot. Didn't realize it was a physical limitation
Click to expand...

So I removed the sticks. Still having crashes...I read somewhere else and it may have been alluded to on this thread. Do I really need at least 12 GB? Is there something with this low of ram that could be causing the crash.

If thats the case I'll just get more, otherwise I am about to go back to Yosemite as El Cap doesn't really offer that much more.
 
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