Mac Pro 1,1 with 1GB graphics card

[Charmie91752]

I have an oldie Mac Pro 1,1 I bought new in 2007.
OS 10.6.8

A few years later, the graphics card went out. Bought a new one on eBay; a 1Gb Radeon (just moved so finding the original receipt with the full description is not going to happen anytime soon). Adding the 1Gb didn't make much difference in refresh rate or speed. I suspect the Mac is just too old.

After a recent move back to my hometown, I hooked everything up, booted and the following happens each time:
Hear the chime. See Mac smiling face logo. See spinning icon indicating it's loading, then the screen goes black. Everything is still running.

Prior to the move, the Mac had been getting finicky about rebooting. I'd have to do it a couple times or more before it would boot completely and stabilize, so I left it on all the time.

After reconnecting this time, I thought at first it was the mouse. When the display would go to sleep, I'd have to move the mouse to get the display to turn on. Pretty sure that's not it.

I'm thinking the graphics card is dying or dead. Am I correct?

 

[Charmie91752]

This is the card I had bought a few years ago and may be the problem now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Apple-M...764191?hash=item415e683e1f:g:NkQAAMXQb29R0TGw

 

[harryb2448]

Sounds like youn need a new hard drive. Boot from the Snow Leopard DVD if you have bit and run Repair Disk.

 

[Charmie91752]

I still have my disks. I have a problem getting rid of anything. I still have a 56k dial-up modem!

I keep all files on external disks and almost everything on the internal is backed-up, too.

Tell me, what makes you think it's the HD? I want to learn.

 

[harryb2448]

Well what you describe and the fact the machine has been moved of late which can throw them off.

 

[Charmie91752]

I didn't realize moving it would have such a devastating effect. Wow!

 

[harryb2448]

The drive may have been jolted and is this the original hard drive that came with the Mac Pro?

 

[Charmie91752]

Yes, it is the original...10 years old. Remarkable, isn't it?

 

[harryb2448]

What a great run!

 

[Charmie91752]

Just finished typing an update about the steps taken to fix this and when I hit post, the page timed out and i lost what I had written. <sigh>

I put in new apple power supply for Mac pro 1,1. Put new drive in bay 2, old in bay 1; didn't work. Switched them. Didn't work. Took out 1Tb graphics card with 512Gb. Eventually, the Mac booted.

But after about 10-15 minutes, El Capitan (came with the new drive) began crashing, auto shutting down and auto boot. I'm thinking that was an issue with that OS, but the patch that also came in the new drive does not work for Mac pros 1,1 and 2,1. Mine is 1,1.

Tried booting from Yosemite (also on new drive), and all I got was the Y logo floating on my screen.

Tried booting from Snow Leopard CD and after about 10 min or so display went black with its power light on, and CPU continued running. I let it set like that for an half hour while I worked thru my emotional frustration. Then shut it all down for the night.

Ideas?

 

[harryb2448]

El Capitan will not run on a Mac Pro 1.1 without major hacks. Neither will Yosemite.

Your options are Snow Leopard OS X.6 or Lion OS X.7. I suggest going with Snow Leopard. The problem is that whilst the Mac Pro 1.1 is 64 bit architecture, Apple for some reason went with a 32bit Firmware so it cannot boot later operating systems. Tell me about the Snow Leopard DVD. Trust it is not the silver grey disc that abounds on eBay and such and are extremely individual model specific. Ypu need the full retail DVD with the cat on the label.

 

[Charmie91752]

The Snow Leopard disk is from the disk pack that came with the Mac Pro. At the moment I can't see the disk because it is in the drive, and I haven't turned the Mac back on after yesterday's "fun". As I mentioned previously, the Mac was installing SL (onto the new disk), the display showed normal imagery, apple and spinning gear (spinning gear indicated to me I was dealing with SL). I remember the alert stating the install would take 44 mins. After about 10-20 mins (guessing) the logo and gear disappeared leaving just grey. I let it set for quite awhile before I gave up and shut it all down.

The consistency throughout this seems to be the 10 minutes before stalling out. Am I wrong? Would that indicate anything?

 

[harryb2448]

Do you mean it came with the pack when you purchased the Mac Pro?

The model 1.1 came with Tiger OS X.4.7 or Leopard OS X.5 when originally released according to MacTracker. These two different threads are very confusing.

 

[Charmie91752]

Yeah, there are two threads. They started out being different issues, but after working the problem, they seem to be related now. Sorry.

You're right. I completely forgot about Tiger. I bought the Leopard, I think, from the Apple store in Overland Park, KS, but it could also have been from a Mac reseller online. I got the disk out of the drive and it has a snow leopard picture, so I'm good.

Now, here's what I've done so far today. This time I wrote it all down...(I've gotten lazy about that.)

Booted up cpu to CD
At OS Install screen, went to Start UP disk and changed back to original (named Tara) in bay 2.
Restarted boot on boot disk.
Installer screen again.
Selected Disk Utility [DU], then Tara
Ran Verify Permissions.
In the resulting log I found the following:
User differs on "System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Libs", should be 0, user is 95.
Don't know how that happened...
.....Contents/Home/lib", should be 0, user is 95.
Ran Repair Permissions.
Saw this that worried me big time:
Warning: SUID file "System/Lib/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.


While in DU, just for GPs [general principles], I ran Verify Permissions on El Capitan and Yosemite on the new HDD. Both Ok.
Quit DU.

Back to Installer screen.
Clicked OK
[Noting to myself that system hasn't shut down yet after about an hour.]
Clicked Continue.
Agreed to license
Selected Tara (oldie)
Clicked Install (setup indicated 44 mins)

About 4 mins in, screen went black!
Moved the mouse. Screen had gone asleep.
This time, moving mouse brought it back. (Didn't work in all the previous troubleshooting here.)

Install continued.
About 3:50 pm CST, finished install and rebooted itself.
3:52 pm CST, booted to my original desktop before I moved to hometown.

Disks show on desktop in following order:
Tara (original, still in bay 2)
EL Capitan
Yosemite
Leopard Install disk.

System asked me to reinstall Rosetta. Clicked Not Now.

Reality:
The fact I can see my original desktop and all apps that were still loaded tells me I didn't wipe the drive.

Next:
I have already backed up all this previously onto an external Passport 4Tb disk formatted Mac Journaled.
Hope I can find the disks for some of it. Made sure my Adobe CS3 disks came with me, in my purse!
Not sure why I packed boot disks, but is moot now.
Need to switch to new 1Tb disk....
Researched this initially in YouTube and Mac-Forums (I think), and I think FixIt.com
I'll have to look that up again. It's saved on my Kindle.

I guess I'll need to delete El Cap and Yose off the new disk first?
Then install Snow Leopard on that disk?

Did research on how to switch disks, but I had to put that away until I could even get this thing working again.

Anything to add? Advice?

Thank you soooooo much for your help!

Charmaine

 

[harryb2448]

AGAIN let me say your Mac Pro 1.1 cannot run El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks or Mountain Lion natively because of the 32bit EFI firmware. Nothing later than Lion OS X.7 which is not as good as Snow Leopard OS X.6. The only way is to do this is via a a kext hack which can sometimes make a doorstop out of your Mac Pro. The problem with the hack is you are bound to the operating system the hack was done to accommodate. And if that was done you cannot go back to Snow Leopard either.

 

[Charmie91752]

I'll stick with Snow Leopard.

 

[Charmie91752]

<sigh>

Hate to bug you but....

I currently have old drive in bay 2 and new drive in bay 1.
I want to convert the new drive to be the startup disk in bay 1.
I'm guessing I need to dump the El Capitan and Yosemite included with the new disk.
Then...just reinstall Snow Leopard to the new disk? (When installing yesterday, I had a choice between the 2 OSXs and my old hdd.)
Then copy data from old disk to new disk?

Not feeling confident today, so be patient.



Charmaine

 

[harryb2448]

Yep. Boot from Snow Leopard, go in to Utilities, erase and format the drive Mac OS Extended (journaled), back to Installer and proceed, then u[pdate to OS X.6.8 via the link I gave you.

Do you think someone may have updated the kext, or tried to, to run E; Capitan etc? If so Snow Leopard may not even install.

 

[Charmie91752]

"Do you think someone may have updated the kext, or tried to, to run E; Capitan etc? If so Snow Leopard may not even install."

Oh God. I hope not. If you're right about that, I guess you'll be hearing from me again.

<sigh>

Charmaine