Mac Pro 1,1 EFI bootscreen card compatibility

[mikiotty]

Hi everyone!
I just got an OG Mac Pro without a graphics card. I can boot in the OS and use the Mac perfectly with my PC GT210 GPU, but obviously I cannot see any EFI screen.
I will soon upgrade the firmware and the CPUs in the Mac Pro, but to do that I need to see what's happening during the boot process.
Excluding the 7300GT and 2600XT cards, which are nowhere to be found in Italy at a reasonable price, is there any other card (including flashable ones) that can display the bootscreen on a 1,1 Mac Pro?
Thank you!

 

[eyoungren]

Hi everyone!
I just got an OG Mac Pro without a graphics card. I can boot in the OS and use the Mac perfectly with my PC GT210 GPU, but obviously I cannot see any EFI screen.
I will soon upgrade the firmware and the CPUs in the Mac Pro, but to do that I need to see what's happening during the boot process.
Excluding the 7300GT and 2600XT cards, which are nowhere to be found in Italy at a reasonable price, is there any other card (including flashable ones) that can display the bootscreen on a 1,1 Mac Pro?
Thank you!

@LightBulbFun and @Amethyst1 might be able to help.

I was going to link to a card I got, but I checked the description and unfortunately it won't work on your model.

 

[Amethyst1]

In addition to the GeForce 7300 GT and Radeon HD 2600 XT (that one was standard in the MacPro3,1 and EFI32/EFI64-compatible), the MacPro1,1 and MacPro2,1 optionally came with

• GeForce 8800 GT (part number 630-9492 for EFI32-compatible card)
• Quadro FX 4500
• Radeon X1900 XT

so those are known to be EFI32-compatible.

 

[LightBulbFun]

In addition to the 7300 GT and HD 2600 XT (that one was standard in the MacPro3,1 and EFI32/EFI64-compatible), the MacPro1,1 and MacPro2,1 optionally came with

• GeForce 8800 GT
• Quadro FX 4500
• Radeon X1900 XT

so those are known to be EFI32-compatible.

the GeForce 8800 GT was a post production upgrade option, and you have to be careful to get a MacPro1,1/2,1 one (unlike AMD cards NVIDIA cards are not universal)

but you can flash PC cards


other options include

pretty much any ATI/AMD card mac card

like the Radeon HD 4870, 5770 5870 7950/7970/R9 280/R9 280X etc

of which many types can be flashed, but you can also pickup Genuine Mac ATI Radeon HD 5770's for pretty cheap I find due to them being dumped on-mass for Metal cards


Oh and the Dual link DVI ATI Radeon X1300 card for the Xserve also works in a Mac Pro but I have only ever seen these on ebay once before LOL

 

[mikiotty]

the GeForce 8800 GT was a post production upgrade option, and you have to be careful to get a MacPro1,1/2,1 one (unlike AMD cards NVIDIA cards are not universal)

but you can flash PC cards


other options include

pretty much any ATI/AMD card mac card

like the Radeon HD 4870, 5770 5870 7950/7970/R9 280/R9 280X etc

of which many types can be flashed, but you can also pickup Genuine Mac ATI Radeon HD 5770's for pretty cheap I find due to them being dumped on-mass for Metal cards


Oh and the Dual link DVI ATI Radeon X1300 card for the Xserve also works in a Mac Pro but I have only ever seen these on ebay once before LOL

Thank you! I have a Sapphire Radeon HD5770, but unfortunately even flashed, it won't display the EFI bootscreen (as stated on Netkas' forum).
I will try and find a Mac 5770 or one of the other cards listed.

 

[Amethyst1]

the GeForce 8800 GT was a post production upgrade option, and you have to be careful to get a MacPro1,1/2,1 one (unlike AMD cards NVIDIA cards are not universal)

I've just added the part number for the EFI32 version. You beat me to it My MacPro1,1 had an 8800 GT but I threw it out because there are no drivers for Tiger LOL!

 

[theMarble]

The Quadro FX 4800 might be 1,1 compatible though having a 5770, 5870 or flashed 8800-series card is better.

 

[hwojtek]

This topic is extensively covered here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gpu-compatibility-list-for-cmp.2174600/

 

[mikiotty]

Thank you!
I actually have a Gigabyte R9 280 from Gigabyte (the Windforce 3x version). I know I can flash it, but I'm quite concerned about power requirements. I really don't want to mess with additional power cables, but I fear I might damage my Mac Pro motherboard or even PSU.
It says "recommended" and not "required" for additional power in the thread, but I know those cards are quite power hungry. Is anyone actually using one of those cards without any additional power, just running from the two 6pin connectors on the motherboard?

 

[NewbiePPC]

Hi, I have a sapphire vapor x Radeon HD 5770 (1gb, 2 DVI, hdmi, dp) and it works perfectly until now as far I remember I flashed following a video from dosdude, also have the 8800gt, and the 2600xt but both died recently, none of those were in use but just checking them i found that (i believe that cards were from the era of bad solder joints).

 

[LightBulbFun]

Thank you!
I actually have a Gigabyte R9 280 from Gigabyte (the Windforce 3x version). I know I can flash it, but I'm quite concerned about power requirements. I really don't want to mess with additional power cables, but I fear I might damage my Mac Pro motherboard or even PSU.
It says "recommended" and not "required" for additional power in the thread, but I know those cards are quite power hungry. Is anyone actually using one of those cards without any additional power, just running from the two 6pin connectors on the motherboard?

Yeah me, LOL

Write up on flashing a Gigabyte AMD Radeon 7950

hello all :) so I own a Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 that I have upgraded substantially over time and I am always looking to upgrade it when possible. now one thing I have wanted for it was a ATI Radeon 7950/7970/R9 280/X for it as they are the fasted GPUs you can fit to a EFI32 Mac Pro with Boot screens...

forums.macrumors.com

(the 7950 and R9 280 are the same card pretty much, just make sure that your outputs are 2 mDP HDMI and 1 DVI)

 

[mikiotty]

Yeah me, LOL

Write up on flashing a Gigabyte AMD Radeon 7950

hello all :) so I own a Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 that I have upgraded substantially over time and I am always looking to upgrade it when possible. now one thing I have wanted for it was a ATI Radeon 7950/7970/R9 280/X for it as they are the fasted GPUs you can fit to a EFI32 Mac Pro with Boot screens...

forums.macrumors.com

(the 7950 and R9 280 are the same card pretty much, just make sure that your outputs are 2 mDP HDMI and 1 DVI)

Yes it’s the 2mDP, DVI and HDMI one.
Thank you for the reference, the link on Netkas’ forum is dead, but I found another bundle. Going to try it tonight.
So I shouldn’t be concerned about power draw from the motherboard, right? I might try to balance power between the 6 and 8 pin connectors on the card, to avoid overloading one of the power rails.

 

[hwojtek]

I ran my R9 280x off the mobo and it only overdraw power (resulting in immediate shutdown) when playing some graphics-heavy simulations in Windows, never in MacOS.

 

[mikiotty]

I ran my R9 280x off the mobo and it only overdraw power (resulting in immediate shutdown) when playing some graphics-heavy simulations in Windows, never in MacOS.

Nice. Considering that the 280 (7950) draws 50W less power than the 280x, I should be fine. I could also downclock the GPU to save some power, as I don't need a lot of graphic performance. Thank you!

 

[mikiotty]

Oh yeah!!! Going to try some benchmarks and stress tests tomorrow, but I finally have a boot screen on this Mac Pro! I edited the power limit and the clock speeds on the ROM to lower the TDP down as much as I could, we'll see how it goes.
Let's hope the two 4GB sticks of RAM I purchased arrive tomorrow, so I can install El Capitan (I have the kernel panic issue with 1GB RAM sticks, unfortunately).
Thank you very much.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Oh yeah!!! Going to try some benchmarks and stress tests tomorrow, but I finally have a boot screen on this Mac Pro! I edited the power limit and the clock speeds on the ROM to lower the TDP down as much as I could, we'll see how it goes.
Let's hope the two 4GB sticks of RAM I purchased arrive tomorrow, so I can install El Capitan (I have the kernel panic issue with 1GB RAM sticks, unfortunately).
Thank you very much.
View attachment 1993891
View attachment 1993892

glad to see its working for you

the issue with el cap is not the 1GB sticks, but simply that the PikerAlpha boot.efi has an issue where simply in any machine with less then 8GB of RAM it eventually kernel panics

if you have 8x1GB sticks then it will work fine

but FB-DIMMs are pretty damn cheap, a while back I managed to pickup 8x8GB for about £30

 

[Amethyst1]

but FB-DIMMs are pretty damn cheap, a while back I managed to pickup 8x8GB for about £30

Yeah, just max it out and be done with it.

 

[mikiotty]

glad to see its working for you

the issue with el cap is not the 1GB sticks, but simply that the PikerAlpha boot.efi has an issue where simply in any machine with less then 8GB of RAM it eventually kernel panics

if you have 8x1GB sticks then it will work fine

but FB-DIMMs are pretty damn cheap, a while back I managed to pickup 8x8GB for about £30

Wow that wasn’t made clear at all. Thank you. The kernel panics are totally random, not tied to a specific process (they are more frequent with AppStore actually).
I can now upgrade my Mac to 14GB with the sticks I have ?

P.S. I added your thread about the 7950 to the GPU upgrade wiki!

EDIT: @LightBulbFun do you have, by any chance, OS X Lion drivers for the 7950? I read that the Mac Edition card had a driver disc for 10.7.5, but every link I find is either dead or removed.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Wow that wasn’t made clear at all. Thank you. The kernel panics are totally random, not tied to a specific process (they are more frequent with AppStore actually).
I can now upgrade my Mac to 14GB with the sticks I have ?

P.S. I added your thread about the 7950 to the GPU upgrade wiki!

EDIT: @LightBulbFun do you have, by any chance, OS X Lion drivers for the 7950? I read that the Mac Edition card had a driver disc for 10.7.5, but every link I find is either dead or removed.

somewhere I do because I was messing with them a while back (you can force install them into Snow Leopard, and although you dont get GPU acceleration sadly it does give you full frame buffer control and monitor detection)

however frustatingly I cant find em for the life of me... im sure they will turn up when im not looking LOL

but I dont think they work with a MacPro1,1 in that, although I think they may contain 32bit binaries, they sadly dont work and cause a kernel panic, although I have not personally tried

 

[mikiotty]

somewhere I do because I was messing with them a while back (you can force install them into Snow Leopard, and although you dont get GPU acceleration sadly it does give you full frame buffer control and monitor detection)

however frustatingly I cant find em for the life of me... im sure they will turn up when im not looking LOL

View attachment 1994090

but I dont think they work with a MacPro1,1 in that, although I think they may contain 32bit binaries, they sadly dont work and cause a kernel panic, although I have not personally tried

Ah, that’s unfortunate. I’ll keep a spare GT210 to boot Lion. Thanks!

 

[LightBulbFun]

Ah, that’s unfortunate. I’ll keep a spare GT210 to boot Lion. Thanks!

you can still boot into Lion with the HD 7950 you just wont have any graphics acceleration

 

[mikiotty]

you can still boot into Lion with the HD 7950 you just wont have any graphics acceleration

I know, I did that yesterday, but I use Lion to play some old games that don't play nice with 10.8 and later, so it's handy to keep a spare GPU

 

[mikiotty]

So RAM came in yesterday, but only 2 of the 6 sticks were usable ?
One of the sticks lit the LED on the riser card (even though it was recognised just fine), and another one from a different pair was running so hot that the fans would ramp to 1700rpm when idling, and the voltage on the riser card with that stick was showing 11.7v instead of 11.9 like the other one. I replaced the thermal paste on the heatsink but the problem remained. Such a pity.
I contacted the seller, we’ll see how it goes.
In the meantime, having reached at least 8GB, I reinstalled El Capitan and it seems to be working flawlessly now!

EDIT: aaaaaaaand it just kernel panicked randomly during a clone. What the hell. And now it’s frozen and kernel panicked again.

 

[mikiotty]

@LightBulbFun I’ve sent you a DM!