Updating a Mac (Pro)s CPU Microcode

[Yojx21]

I know it's not MacPro related but, I was wondering:
I own a early 2009 20" iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8135. If i put a Core 2 Extreme X9100, i think it basicaly won't start. But if i add this CPU microcode to my bootrom it could possibly work ?

 

[LightBulbFun]

I know it's not MacPro related but, I was wondering:
I own a early 2009 20" iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8135. If i put a Core 2 Extreme X9100, i think it basicaly won't start. But if i add this CPU microcode to my bootrom it could possibly work ?

that CPU should work in that system, (it uses the same microcode regardless)

what does the system do with the CPU and have you verified the CPU works in another system?

 

[Yojx21]

Really ? I didn't tryed yet.
I have made some search on the web and i can't find someone that did it.
That's why i though it would not work. 🙂

 

[LightBulbFun]

Really ? I didn't tryed yet.
I have made some search on the web and i can't find someone that did it.
That's why i though it would not work. 🙂

its the Core 2 Quad Mobile chips that dont work, so maybe your confusing it with the Core 2 Extreme QX9300?

while I dont know exactly what a X9100 will do in an iMac Early 2009 I do know that a X9000 in an iMac7,1 will work but apparently be stuck at the lowest multiplier. (but that iMac has no offical Penryn support to start with)

so considering that configuration will post, Id say theres a good chance an X9100 will work in an Early 2009 iMac

 

[Yojx21]

Ok thanks you very much !
I have another project : swapping a C2D T7700 in a MacBook Pro 15-inch Mid/Late 2007, 2.4/2.2GHz with a C2D T9500 (of a 15" inch early 2008) by doing some BGA reworking. Then i will set up High Sierra or mojave. Do you think it require to add some micro-code to the BootROM ?

 

[Roman78]

Thanks 🙂 a kind forum member here (@Gamer9430 ) helped me to get a pair of (C0 stepping) L5410s, so those should arrive pretty soon and then ill be able to have a go at getting Harpertown working in my Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 😀

May I ask what is the Temperature of those CPU's? I have 2 L5420 here i planned to put into a MP3.1 but i have very high Temperatures.

The MP3.1 i has used to have 2 X5472 3Ghz 130W CPU. Those running idle on below 40°C. Than i putt some E5450 on there, also 3Ghz but 80W. Temperature rises to above 50°C Idle. That i installed the L5420 2.5 Ghz 50W and the temperature rises to 70°C Idle. Somehow i think the MP3.1 does not change the Core Voltage. Also the power consumption did not changes as suspected, no wonder with a to high VCore.

 

[LightBulbFun]

May I ask what is the Temperature of those CPU's? I have 2 L5420 here i planned to put into a MP3.1 but i have very high Temperatures.

The MP3.1 i has used to have 2 X5472 3Ghz 130W CPU. Those running idle on below 40°C. Than i putt some E5450 on there, also 3Ghz but 80W. Temperature rises to above 50°C Idle. That i installed the L5420 2.5 Ghz 50W and the temperature rises to 70°C Idle. Somehow i think the MP3.1 does not change the Core Voltage. Also the power consumption did not changes as suspected, no wonder with a to high VCore.

your probably looking at relative to Proc hot, which is inverted so the colder the CPU gets the higher the number rises, the hotter the CPU the lower the number gets till you hit "0" at which point the CPU is over heating.

so if that says 70c your CPU is prolly running at 30c 🙂
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Ok thanks you very much !
I have another project : swapping a C2D T7700 in a MacBook Pro 15-inch Mid/Late 2007, 2.4/2.2GHz with a C2D T9500 (of a 15" inch early 2008) by doing some BGA reworking. Then i will set up High Sierra or mojave. Do you think it require to add some micro-code to the BootROM ?

in theory that should work, since the iMac7,1 which came out at the same time works with those CPUs as well 🙂 you should not have to inject microcode although in theory you could if you wanted to.

(PS make sure the CPUs you install are of the 10676 CPUID as im not sure if a 1067A CPUID CPU will work)

 

[Roman78]

your probably looking at relative to Proc hot, which is inverted so the colder the CPU gets the higher the number rises, the hotter the CPU the lower the number gets till you hit "0" at which point the CPU is over heating.

so if that says 70c your CPU is prolly running at 30c 🙂

Öööhhhh i looked at the Temp MacFanControll gave me. That should be the right one, or not?

 

[LightBulbFun]

I dont own a MacPro3,1 sadly nor do I use MacFanControl so I cant say what that program is reporting

try installing iStatmenus and see what that reports 🙂

 

[h9826790]

Öööhhhh i looked at the Temp MacFanControll gave me. That should be the right one, or not?

Screen Capture please, otherwise hard for us to determine if the reading is normal. MacsFanControl can report that "relative to ProcHot" temperature.

 

[Roman78]

Were can i find an older version of istatmenu? The one on the website needs at least 10.11+

But MacfanControl is reporting Temperatures, and gives the possibility to adjust the Fan speed. I use it on all Macs.

Gonna make a Screenshot next time. Have to change the CPU first.

 

[powerg5]

I am afraid just plugging in a different CPU will have no hope of success.
Besides the difference in hardware I pointed out earlier in this thread, getting the Mac to post is just the first small step.

Since Mavericks OS X requires a 64Bit EFI to boot and we are lucky that people like @tiamo and @pike-r-alpha provided a modified bootloader that thunked the 64Bit EFI calls from the OS X to the 32Bit EFI in the BootROM of the Mac Pro 1,1 (see this threads: Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan). I would also like to highlight @rthpjm´s installer script pikify.
There is even an early version of that boot loader for Sierra on GitHub, but with the lack of SSE4.1 support by the XEON 53xx it was never brought to life.
There is a little bit of discussion of options at the end of this thread for starters.
Mojave then introduced another limitation. Graphic drivers for AMD-GPUs require SSE4.2, which disqualifies the Harpertown CPU once more unless you are running a Metal compatible NVIDIA graphic card.

In my mind we have to options to succeed in running Sierra, High Sierra or even Mojave on an MacPro1,1/2,1 (besides any needed hardware modifications):

1. Supporting XEON 54xx: Back porting the MacPro 3,1 EFI to the MacPro1,1/2,1. It will overcome the 32Bit limitations and may come with some other nice improvements. However it will have to be adopted to the MacPro1,1 hardware and considering that circuit diagrams or even core information on chips used are hard to come by, it will require some heavy duty reverse engineering on the hardware and quite some mature skills in EFI programming. An additional complication is that additional code may be needed to re-enable the use of the XEON 5300/5100 to be more flexible in testing.
   I don´t know, if there might be a size limitation of the BootROM of the MacPro1,1/2,1 getting in the way.
2. Staying with XEON 53xx/51xx: Finalizing pike-R-alpha´s boot loader and create a kext to emulate the SSE4.x instruction set using this library provided by Intel for developers. There are people who ran it under Windows to enable their Games to run with SSE4.x support. That of course will come with a burden to performance. If anyone is interested in details about SSE4, you can find it here. Again that requires some heavy engineering work and a tightly connected community for testing.

I used to do similar stuff when we were still using 8-Bit CPUs and even then more simpler challenges could easily suck up weeks of continuous work.
I would be delighted if some bright mind would point out other options that are less involved.

I test many CPU in Italy my friend work in factory server IBM.

Mac Pro 1.1 work x5365 but not recognize model CPU, view fine 8 core and speed.

Mac Pro 1.1 to firmware 2.1 work x5365 view exact model cpu and 8 core and speed.

Mac Pro 2.1 work x5450 but only CPU A installed, not recognize model but run OS el Capitan, if put the second CPU only power-up and not pass firmware efi check.

Mac Pro 3.1 Work x5450 dual, x5482 dual.

Mac Pro 3.1 x5470 and x5492 only power-up but not pass firmware efi check, test one CPU and two CPU.

 

[LightBulbFun]

ed.

Mac Pro 2.1 work x5450 but only CPU A installed, not recognize model but run OS el Capitan, if put the second CPU only power-up and not pass firmware efi check.

this is very interesting do you have some more info on this? some screen shots for example?

im guessing the X5450 is a C0 stepping one? (since the E0 CPU I tried in my MP1,1-2,1 did not POST)

also is this a Genuine MP2,1 or a MP1,1 flashed to 2,1?

 

[powerg5]

Hello

Logic 1.1 to hack to 2.1.

Original logic 2.1 is very hard ti find but i seen to ebay i buy for make other test, this night i install the x5450 into my 1.1 hack to 2.1 and make couple photo.

I download the all microcode from Intel but is very different found in firmware Mac Pro.

Impossibe to diasemble the firmware becouse Ida not have include the engie firmware efi apple to 64bit.

I think the in frmware the stepp is’nt in microcode but incripted in the entire firmware but impossible to diasemble. Other problem i think the core voltage the logic board Mac Pro not change as the same but the plc change in automatic.

Sorry for my english my native language is the Italian.

 

[powerg5]

Logic 1.1 hack to 2.1.

Original logic 2.1 is very hard to find but when i find one in ebay i buy for make other test, this night i install the x5450 into my 1.1 hack to 2.1 and make couple photo.

I download the all microcode from Intel but is very different found in firmware Mac Pro.

Impossibe to diasemble the firmware becouse Ida not have the engie firmware apple in 64bit.

I think into frmware the stepp not have the microcode but incripted into firmware and impossible to diasemble. Other problem i think the core voltage in the logic board Mac Pro not change and but the plc change in automatic.

Sorry for my english my native language is the Italian

 

[Yojx21]

in theory that should work, since the iMac7,1 which came out at the same time works with those CPUs as well 🙂 you should not have to inject microcode although in theory you could if you wanted to.

(PS make sure the CPUs you install are of the 10676 CPUID as im not sure if a 1067A CPUID CPU will work)

Cool ! that would probably be the first MBP 2007 to run Mojave 🙂

Mac Pro 2.1 work x5450 but only CPU A installed, not recognize model but run OS el Capitan, if put the second CPU only power-up and not pass firmware efi check.

Very interesting ! That mean that you can setup Mojave on it (with patches)!

 

[DADAAA]

EFI scripts for IDA Pro
https://github.com/snare/ida-efiutils

Greets.

PS: https://github.com/gdbinit/EFISwissKnife

 

[Iggy1981]

Logic 1.1 hack to 2.1.

Original logic 2.1 is very hard to find but when i find one in ebay i buy for make other test, this night i install the x5450 into my 1.1 hack to 2.1 and make couple photo.

I download the all microcode from Intel but is very different found in firmware Mac Pro.

Impossibe to diasemble the firmware becouse Ida not have the engie firmware apple in 64bit.

I think into frmware the stepp not have the microcode but incripted into firmware and impossible to diasemble. Other problem i think the core voltage in the logic board Mac Pro not change and but the plc change in automatic.

Sorry for my english my native language is the Italian

You sure it was x5450? I've tried both stepping revisions and they never got passed initialization of the GPU. As stated do you have any screenshots?

 

[LightBulbFun]

You sure it was x5450? I've tried both stepping revisions and they never got passed initialization of the GPU. As stated do you have any screenshots?

it is worth remembering in a Mac Pro 1,1 that the primary CPU socket is the one marked "CPU B"

very helpful markings from apple right there /Sarcasm

just figured its worth mentioning for when your testing 1 CPU configurations 🙂

 

[Iggy1981]

it is worth remembering in a Mac Pro 1,1 that the primary CPU socket is the one marked "CPU B"

very helpful markings from apple right there

just figured its worth mentioning for when your testing 1 CPU configurations 🙂

Thank you, I'll retest in CPU B

 

[Iggy1981]

Even in Socket B is a no go, Fan Ramps up with no chime / Boot.

Tried both in my Mac Pro 1.1 and 2.1, maybe I'm just not lucky.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Even in Socket B is a no go, Fan Ramps up with no chime / Boot.

Tried both in my Mac Pro 1.1 and 2.1, maybe I'm just not lucky.

thats a shame, to confirm you are using a X5450 of the C0 stepping correct? out of curiosity did any CPU_ LEDs light up?

but thanks for trying 🙂

 

[Iggy1981]

thats a shame, to confirm you are using a X5450 of the C0 stepping correct? out of curiosity did any CPU_ LEDs light up?

but thanks for trying 🙂

Yes it's a stepping C0, CPUB had a Red Light.

Willing to try other CPU's if anyone has suggestions.

 

[highvoltage12v]

Today I tried to make a Core 2 Quad Q8200S (65w-tdp) work in a 2009 iMac 21.5" 10,1. I added Microcode 10677 and updated 1067a from 2015 (orig was from 2008 before the Q8200s launched) Microcode to the iMac's ROM and Flashed the EEPROM with a ch341a/clip. The iMac will only put the CPU fan on full speed and not post. I know the MCP79 works with core 2 quads because there Zotac m-ITX boards that support it. Any other ideas before I give up on this?

There are varying results on the web that say the Q8200S uses the 1067a microcode, while Intel's Microcode PDF says it uses 10677, neither of them made a difference.

 

[LightBulbFun]

interesting results 🙂

an iMac10,1 is very much a machine I wish to add to my collection and play with (especially as I have a large number of LGA775 CPUs and LGA771 CPUs id like to test in one)

did you try the Core 2 Quad before modding the BootROM? its worth checking what it does before you start fiddling with things so you have a baseline so to speak 🙂

its interesting to see that it does not POST, from what little information there is on the matter. and from some own personal poking around at an ioreg kindly provided to me by @AphoticD the iMac10,1 should at least post with a C2Q however only 2 cores will be detected/usable (because of the APIC tables in BootROM)