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Issue Upgrading Mac Pro from 4,1 to 5,1

TimotheusOnline

TimotheusOnline

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2016
15
1
So, After seeing the video that the guys from Tek Syndicate uploaded, and seeing a 4,1 for $50 on craigslist, I decided to try to take this project on.

I downloaded the Firmware update tool (supposedly all you need) and installed OSX 10.10 on an external drive (since apparently there have been issues running this utility on OSX 10.11). When I try to run the Tool, I am getting an error message that says "This Program Requires Internet Access. Please Connect your Mac Pro to the Internet and Try Again". I am connected via ethernet, so I am not quite sure what could be the issue. I have researched through the various Mac forums, but I have yet to run across a fix for this issue (or anyone with this issue for that matter). Anyone have a fix for this?

First Time posting on here, so I apologize if this is an issue that has been resolved already. Thanks in advance.
 
No solution yet. After some back and forth with mac8867, it seems that the only fix we could find is by using my phone as a access point, then connecting online that way. However, Sprint does not allow me to use my phone as an access point (cant afford that extra feature). So, if this is indeed an issue at the router level, is there anything I can do to fix this?
 
You don't need any router if using the iPhone's network. The data can transfer via the USB port, nothing to do with the Ethernet cable or router, but you need to set the iPhone network has higher priority than the cable network.
 
h9826790 said:
You don't need any router if using the iPhone's network. The data can transfer via the USB port, nothing to do with the Ethernet cable or router, but you need to set the iPhone network has higher priority than the cable network.
Click to expand...

What I was saying is it seems to be an issue at the router level, and a work around is to use the iPhone as an access point. However, Sprint (my service provider) charges you extra for that feature and it's a feature that I cannot afford. My question is: are there things I need to to with my router so that the updater will receive an internet connection?
 
I see, sorry for my poor English, I totally miss the point. Anyway, router problem usually can be fixed by port forward.
 
h9826790 said:
I see, sorry for my poor English, I totally miss the point. Anyway, router problem usually can be fixed by port forward.
Click to expand...
No worries. I've never messed around with that before? How do I find out what ports I am forwarding to and whatnot?
 
I'm not so sure that it's an router/access issue based on your response in post #3. The web address of the 5,1 firmware upgrade file (hosted by Apple) was changed some time ago, but the firmware upgrade utility still looks for it in the old location. You need to manually download the file and mount it on the desktop before running the upgrade utility.

It's been a little while since I've done an upgrade but I don't remember direct Internet access being required.
 
scott.n said:
I'm not so sure that it's an router/access issue based on your response in post #3. The web address of the 5,1 firmware upgrade file (hosted by Apple) was changed some time ago, but the firmware upgrade utility still looks for it in the old location. You need to manually download the file and mount it on the desktop before running the upgrade utility.

It's been a little while since I've done an upgrade but I don't remember direct Internet access being required.
Click to expand...
I have been doing that.
[doublepost=1460075906][/doublepost]Update: Was able to "Complete" the process by using my Girlfriends iPhone as a access point over USB. After doing the shut down, then hold power button steps, it takes just as long to reboot as it normally would, and it is still reading as a 4,1.

Am I missing something? Should I not have a certain number of things plugged into it?
 
Disable SIP if you ever install El Capitan. That's info is stored inside the PRAM, may affect your firmware upgrade even though you have Yosemite in your machine.

You better disable SIP. Shut down, remove the El Capitan HDD. Boot to Yosemite and try again.
 
h9826790 said:
Disable SIP if you ever install El Capitan. That's info is stored inside the PRAM, may affect your firmware upgrade even though you have Yosemite in your machine.

You better disable SIP. Shut down, remove the El Capitan HDD. Boot to Yosemite and try again.
Click to expand...


Okay, So I finally got a chance to run this again: Disabled SIP, shut down, removed harddrive with El Capitan and booted from External Yosemite drive. Mounted the firmware, ran the installer, ram disk was made, then after shutting down the machine and holding down the button until the light flashed/ loud beep was made, machine booted up like it normally would and no update was applied. I tried this several times using different firmware dmg's (since I couldn't remember which one was the most recent).

Am i missing something/ doing something wrong?
 

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That's strange, so, you have a 4,1, with the B07 firmware, a EFI GPU, Yosemite (SIP disabled from the El Capitan recovery partition), mounted the required firmware on the desktop, but cannot finish the firmware upgrade process. Am I correct?
 
h9826790 said:
That's strange, so, you have a 4,1, with the B07 firmware, a EFI GPU, Yosemite (SIP disabled from the El Capitan recovery partition), mounted the required firmware on the desktop, but cannot finish the firmware upgrade process. Am I correct?
Click to expand...

Yes. The only step in the process that seems to be giving me trouble is the restart. It says to shut down the system, hold down the power button until it flashes, release it and then it should take longer to start up/ should install. But the only thing happening is it is just booting up like it normally would.
 
h9826790 said:
The only uncertainty I can think of is if this upgrade can be done with an external HDD.
Click to expand...

I'll replace my internal Boot SSD with the external drive and see what happens then (external drive is in a drive dock so I should have probably tried this sooner come to think of it). Will report back once this has been tested.
 
Any add-on cards on board? Some 3rd party cards could prevent update from complete. Make it "as Apple" as possible and try again. External drive shouldn't matter, because procedure has started what means NVRAM variable was set correctly and updater utility was invoked from EFI partition.
 
666sheep said:
Any add-on cards on board? Some 3rd party cards could prevent update from complete. Make it "as Apple" as possible and try again. External drive shouldn't matter, because procedure has started what means NVRAM variable was set correctly and updater utility was invoked from EFI partition.
Click to expand...

the only "non-stock" things that have been added so far have been the SSD and a 2nd HDD. I intentionally tried to keep things as stock as possible in order to make it an easier process. The only other things I've swapped out has been the 3v PRAM battery, which was done after pervious attempts which yielded the same result so I don't think that that has anything to do with it
 
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