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video card upgrade

hotrod351

hotrod351

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 3, 2007
309
12
Mohave Valley Arizona
im going to be doing a video card upgrade and in doing so ill be removing 4 NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT's cards and going with a single ATI Radeon HD5870. but noow im going to have three open slots in the back of my 2006 Mac Pro. where ddo i get some of the original block off plates for the openings.
 
ok, thanks. now as for upgrading to a ATI Radeon HD5870, am i going to see that much improvement. im stuck on OSX Lion now and would like to upgrade to something newer.
 
hotrod351 said:
but noow im going to have three open slots in the back of my 2006 Mac Pro. where ddo i get some of the original block off plates for the openings.
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Please send me a message with your address . I have a bin full of Mac Pro PCIe brackets and can send you some for just the cost of the postage .
[doublepost=1456936306][/doublepost]
hotrod351 said:
from everything ive read the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB video card is what prevents an OS upgrade.
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You need to have a 64 bit EFI video card to perform a modern (10.8.x to 10.11.x) OS X install on your 2006 Mac Pro . The video cards that shipped with your System are all 32 bit .
 
Machines said:
You need to have a 64 bit EFI video card to perform a modern (10.8.x to 10.11.x) OS X install on your 2006 Mac Pro . The video cards that shipped with your System are all 32 bit .
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Actually that's not the reason. Apple just dropped drivers for certain video cards (e.g. GT 7300 or HD 2600XT) when moving to 64bit kernel. You still need a card with a 32bit EFI (or EBC) if you want boot screens on a MacPro1,1.
 
Fl0r!an said:
Actually that's not the reason. Apple just dropped drivers for certain video cards (e.g. GT 7300 or HD 2600XT) when moving to 64bit kernel. You still need a card with a 32bit EFI (or EBC) if you want boot screens on a MacPro1,1.
Click to expand...

I get full EFI support - including boot screens - with a Mac Edition ATI 5770 installed in a Yosemite upgraded Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) . Isn't the 5770 a 64 bit EFI card ? Isn't there some EFI handshaking necessary during Start Up ?
 
All official AMD cards are EBC (= EFI Byte Code, platform independent), so your 5770 works on all cMPs.
That "EFI handshaking" is necessary to get boot screens, but not for OS X. Three examples:

- GTX 680 Mac Edition is EFI64, so it won't show any pre-OS display output in a MacPro1,1, but OS X will work perfectly fine if you have drivers (Mavericks and up)
- 8800GT is EFI32, so it will show a boot screen on a MacPro1,1 (but not on 3,1+!) and works fine up to El Capitan
- 7300GT is EFI32 as well, but doesn't have any drivers in 10.8+, so you're limited to OS X Lion and below
 
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well if i could figure how to send a private message to Machines with my address, but how
[doublepost=1456954456][/doublepost]so to upgrade to Yosemite i would need a ATI 5770 or 5870. the 5770 is cheaper, not much.
 
Fl0r!an said:
All official AMD cards are EBC (= EFI Byte Code, platform independent), so your 5770 works on all cMPs.
That "EFI handshaking" is necessary to get boot screens, but not for OS X. Three examples:

- GTX 680 Mac Edition is EFI64, so it won't show any pre-OS display output in a MacPro1,1, but OS X will work perfectly fine if you have drivers (Mavericks and up)
- 8800GT is EFI32, so it will show a boot screen on a MacPro1,1 (but not on 3,1+!) and works fine up to El Capitan
- 7300GT is EFI32 as well, but doesn't have any drivers in 10.8+, so you're limited to OS X Lion and below
Click to expand...

What about the EFI 64 bit version of the 8800 GT , which shipped in the Mac Pro 3,1 (2008) workstations ? If we install that in a Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.x or later Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) , then I suppose we won't get a boot screen (or other EFI functions at Start Up) but the card will work properly since the drivers are built into these OSes .
 
well just installed a HD5770 and what a difference. Yosemite works like a charm. havent tried the HDMI output yet.
[doublepost=1457982253][/doublepost]just checked HDMI output, works perfect. i do have longer boot times.
 
Last edited:
hotrod351 said:
well just installed a HD5770 and what a difference. Yosemite works like a charm. havent tried the HDMI output yet.
[doublepost=1457982253][/doublepost]just checked HDMI output, works perfect. i do have longer boot times.
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Out of curiosity , what's your boot time ? Cold boot to working desktop please and disable all login / fire vault features . A good configuration with a SATA SSD should be around 25-30 seconds .
 
ill have to time it next boot up, fire vault is disabled. but now i find that every time i boot into Yosemite ive lost all my settings. Safari opens with there induction page, my mouse is back to the factory settings, the dock isnt hidden anymore. i still have Firefox in the app. folder but missing from the dock and settings for it are as a new install. so im missing something or done something wrong. Yosemite works great but for saving my settings.
 
hotrod351 said:
ill have to time it next boot up, fire vault is disabled. but now i find that every time i boot into Yosemite ive lost all my settings. Safari opens with there induction page, my mouse is back to the factory settings, the dock isnt hidden anymore. i still have Firefox in the app. folder but missing from the dock and settings for it are as a new install. so im missing something or done something wrong. Yosemite works great but for saving my settings.
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That's very sad . These Macs are fully capable of running a modern (64 bit) OS X in a stable fashion . Did you verify that your Mac has a working battery ? This battery stores user preference settings .
 
i have four internal HD's. each one will boot with all the settings i have on them installed. its only Yosemite HD that looses its settings. now i did install Firefox in the app folder and it stays there but no other settings stay. yeah its a puzzle. im sure ill figure it out. cant think that when i shut down and start back up its suppose to forget all the settings.
 
well almost perfect, ive lost refit boot. my mac pro use to brring up the screen on startup and list all the HD's i have, giving me the option to pick which one i wanted to startup on. thats gone now.
 
hotrod351 said:
well almost perfect, ive lost refit boot. my mac pro use to brring up the screen on startup and list all the HD's i have, giving me the option to pick which one i wanted to startup on. thats gone now.
Click to expand...
I think that's normal on the 1,1 if you use a 64 bit OS
 
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