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MacPro 3.1 upgrade options

Apolloza

Apolloza

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 14, 2018
27
5
South Africa
Hi all,

I have a MacPro 3.1 that I purchased second hand. The unit was badly gutted but im happy to say I got it running and doing exactly what I was hoping it would do.

But I want to know how far I can still push it.

I removed the wifi and bluetooth board, reports said it could cause kernel panics in newer versions of mac os.

Im running BigSur 11.7.4.

How far can I upgrade the OS without major work. Can I get a supported bluetooth dongle somewhere? Ive also read that some users have flashed their 3.1 to support NVME in the second PCIe slot, anyone with experience on this?

Thanks
 
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Apolloza said:
But I want to know how far I can still push it.
Click to expand...
  • 2× Xeon X5482
  • 64 GB RAM (but macOS needs to be limited to 62 GB to avoid slowdowns)
  • AHCI or NVMe PCIe SSDs (AHCI PCIe SSDs work and boot OOTB)
  • Newer GPUs
  • Thunderbolt 3 (Gigabyte GC-TITAN RIDGE)
  • USB 3.x
  • eSATA and/or SATA III
Apolloza said:
How far can I upgrade the OS without major work.
Click to expand...
Ventura looks to have quite a few issues on the MacPro3,1, so I'd say stick to Monterey until those have been resolved.
 
Last edited:
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Amethyst1 said:
  • 2× Xeon X5482
  • 64 GB RAM (but macOS needs to be limited to 62 GB to avoid slowdowns)
  • AHCI or NVMe PCIe SSDs (AHCI PCIe SSDs work and boot OOTB)
  • Newer GPUs
  • Thunderbolt 3 (Gigabyte GC-TITAN RIDGE)
  • USB 3.x
  • eSATA and/or SATA III

Ventura looks to have quite a few issues on the MacPro3,1, so I'd say stick to Monterey until those have been resolved.
Click to expand...
Excellent. Thanks for all the links.

In terms of the USB 3.x, any references for cards that work?

Also, in terms of Bluetooth, I did some googling and one site suggested a TP-Link UB400, got one, plugged it in, doesnt even detect. Any suggestions there?
 
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