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MacPro 5,1 Relic: what to do with it.....

I so wish I could say that worked, but alas, in this case the flashed graphics card did not help. I get the same exact error as before: install of both Big Sur AND Monterey works just fine, but once the system boots after installation, screen goes black with either card.

It's still very nice to be able to see the boot screen in my workhorse Mojave (managed to do a little work in between pulling my hair out).

I am now trying a clean install of Monterey. After this I'll have to take a break for about a week due to work, but plan to try Catalina if all else fails.

By the way, I can confirm that Monterey is actually running on my Mac (as was Big Sur) because I'm able to screen share into it just fine. Seems snappy, too. If only it gave me a display output from one of the cards!
 
When it goes black did you try to hit the return key or anything like that? How long did you wait? But to me that sounds like open core configuration possibly. I’m sorry I can’t help more details right now because I’m in Bali and my Mac is far away. But check the Macrumors forums some more. What physical display are you using? This to me sounds line simple video driver issue and literally could be a small tweak to opencore to get you going. Maybe.

The fact that macOS is fully booted but you can’t see anything means video driver issue of some kind.

Also did you try to also clear the nvram again? Make sure to hold command pr until you hear it beep three times, three full cleans. Also are you able to boot into recovery mode?
 
Lastly I would encourage you to go back to the first post I made and go to that thread on Macrumors I referenced which is a thread dedicated to getting the 5,1 working with opencore manually. Forget about Martin lo or OCLP and just try to do it manually. It’s not that hard. For one thing you will know exactly how your opencore is configured. For another thing if you are following that plan the people on that thread will try to help you. They will provide absolutely zero help for OCLP or martin lo questions. But one of them might be able to sort you out. You are close!
 
I've been MIA over work, apologies. Monterey is now up and running! I can't work with it yet because it's a clean install, so I have to get my software and drivers on there, but it's showing up!

It looks like there was some low-level incompatibility in my cloned system (ported from Mojave, but originally from a "Mirrored door" G4). As a last resort, I tried a clean install with the new card and that did the trick. Both the new card and the 560 boot just fine into Monterey now.

Silly me, should have tried a clean install a week ago.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in to help, and particularly @Dewdman42 and @pinki
 
Way hey!!

Well done for persevering. It's a great feeling to finally get it working eh?

And good shout on the clean install..

I imagine you want to get back to making music on that super powerful beast of a machine for the next couple of years ...:)
Enjoy those 5 internal bays, replaceable ram, replaceable cpu and configureable pcie slots because after this there will be non of it!:dancedance:
 
I finally got there... I just ordered an i9 24 core 5.8ghz 13900k CPU. I can't breathe such a breath of fresh air enough 😂
 
With the update of LogicPro 10.8, some in this group may be wondering..should you try to use OpenCore to update your 5,1 or 6,1 macPro to Ventura or Sonoma? Some people are apparently doing it using OCLP so why not?

The answer is no. don't do it. it's very unlikely this will ever become a realistic alternative. AVX2 is now a pretty hard requirement in MacOS. In Monterey it became a slight issue but only in a few isolated things like Siri use. So generally, Monterey is fine. But nothing after Monterey, don't even think about it. Trust me, if I find out otherwise I will post something here, but there is about 0.0001% chance that is going to happen at this point.

Monterey should be the end of the road for Mac 5,1 and 6,1. Once you can't do what you want to do with Monterey...then you gotta do what you gotta do.

Note, the 5,1 can for now run windows 11 just fine. So that is also always a possibility for this beast once Apple completely obsfucates it through OS updates.

I personally still see myself using my 5,1 well into 2025 and possibly longer. I can live without the very latest LogicPro. still working great, no complaints other then that. I still feel there is more compatibility generally with Intel then ARM, so...personally I prefer that despite all the bragging from folks that already bought a Mac Studio. So for me, it's going to be years yet ahead. And when I finally do get a MacStudio, I will almost certainly continue using this 5,1 as a VePro server, probably running Monterey...or possibly I will switch it over to Windows10 or Windows11 at that point, but hard to say right now. I'm sure i will use this beast for at least 5 more years, at least.

Anyway just wanted to issue the warning about going past Monterey. Don't do it.
 
Nick Batzdorf said:
I'd still be setting up the new machine I got 15 months ago without Migration Assistant.

You just have to tell it to import the right things, i.e. not programs.
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So out of curiosity what kind of content(documents etc…?) would you feel good importing via MA that you think will not affect the new Mac installation?
 
kgdrum said:
So out of curiosity what kind of content(documents etc…?) would you feel good importing via MA that you think will not affect the new Mac installation?
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Gawd, the last time I used Migration Assistant was 15 months ago, but the data in Mail (about 28 years of email), Contacts, Messages, of course word processing documents, photos, art projects (I use Affinity Photo for modern art), music projects... my Logic preferences and key commands, patches created in softsynths, sample library content, Audio MIDI Setup studio settings...

There are many other things I'm not mentioning or thinking of. You just don't want to bring over programs, plug-ins, utilities like BetterTouchTool and SwitchResX (although macros and monitor settings were imported), and of course the new machine is going to have a new macOS.

It took me a couple of hours to set up the new machine after using the previous one for several years, as opposed to a couple of weeks without Migration Assistant.

If you run into problems, you just wipe your disk clean and start over by hand.
 
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When I moved from my 5,1 Mac Pro to my 1 Mac Studio, I used Migration Assistant for Network Settings only. The lack of granularity Migration Assistant allows caused me to refrain from further use; I wanted to know exactly what I was bringing over and where it was gonna' be placed. I set up my Mac Studio with a number of external drives.

All programs/plugins installed fresh, latest versions.

Data (docs, VI samples, photos) was all moved via Sneaker Net (external SSD/HD) or kept in DropBox.

Mail... I just started over. I've still got the old machine ready to roll if something ancient must be found.

Contacts made it over somehow; iCloud? iCloud also brought along Messages and Notes.

Took me two days part-time to have the new Mac up and running and handling with aplomb the score I was then in the middle of producing.

The Mac Pro has seen very little use since.

Nick Batzdorf said:
If you run into problems, you just wipe your disk clean and start over by hand.
Click to expand...
This isn't bad advice. Might work great if you can get everything where you want it to go. I just didn't want to have to wait to find out if issues were created. Also, I had a bit of an advantage in that I had purchased and set up an M1 MacBook Air two years prior, so there was overlap there.
 
HCMarkus said:
Took me two days part-time to have the new Mac up and running and handling with aplomb the score I was then in the middle of producing.

The Mac Pro has seen very little use since.
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Took me a week part time: and I am glad I did it that way.
 
Hmm that is kind of interesting but way riskier than I would personally be comfortable with. Opencore has a boot picker for one thing. Additionally it’s possible to chain another boot picker in front of open core if you want the option to choose open core or not, all without hacking the actual firmware. I cannot recommend hacking the firmware unless you are willing to risk bricking the machine
 
Thanks for keeping this threat alive; yes I'll be keeping my 5,1 running as long as possible. It's all VEP'd up and nothing needs to change on it as long as VEP runs on it. Good to know others run Monterey/Big Sur on it.
 
Last night, I (finally) pulled my G5 Power Mac from the studio and put it into storage. It was either that or use it as a coffee table.

The 5,1 shepherds on, although it doesn't see much (actually, any) use at the moment. But my stalwart 12 core friend is standing by, ready to leap into action in case of emergency.
 
Dewdman42 said:
Hmm that is kind of interesting but way riskier than I would personally be comfortable with. Opencore has a boot picker for one thing. Additionally it’s possible to chain another boot picker in front of open core if you want the option to choose open core or not, all without hacking the actual firmware. I cannot recommend hacking the firmware unless you are willing to risk bricking the machine
Click to expand...
Well I did it without any problems with the reconstructed firmware by Alex from macrumors.com forums, so there was no risk...maybe minimal. But it is so much better than Dayo's chainer, i tried that - it was pain. Right now i basically can see all parts of the boot process, just like on a supported machine.
 
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