Saturday, February 22, 2020

2006 Apple Mac Pro 1,1 in 2020 REALLY, WHY??? Pt.1




Friday, February 21, 2020

Mac Pro 1,1 to 2,1 Error 5530 firmware MP11.005D.B00


Mac Pro 2006-2007 Firmware Tool Mac Pro 1,1 to 2,1.

Check out our YouTube Channel for future Videos of these adventures

And the reason to do the Firmware Upgrade is here:

Finally after pulling my hair out (What little I have left!) I have successfully upgraded the Mac Pro 1,1 to 2,1.  I had been trying unsuccessfully to upgrade the firmware for a few days continually getting the dreaded 5530 error just after the ram disk was created.  With netkas Mac Pro 2006-2007 Firmware Tool

Little back story on this. WHY Would You Do this?? 

I have since installed OS X El Captain 10.11.6 on the Mac Pro 1,1 it currently resides on a 250GB SSD living where the supper drive use to live.  And drive bay 3 and 4 now are populated with 3TB drives in a Raid 1 (Mirror) set.  It is running great other than a few minor issues.  

First the GPU has been replace with a GTX 750 1GB which will not run in 16x pcie configuration.  
Second the system seems to have a problem whit the second memory board.  Will work through all that later.   But now the Firmware.

My firmware was MP11.005D.B00 apperantly a notorious version that resisted all attempts of flashing to MP21.007F.B06.
And even worse my system matched a user going by ant0 over at netkas forum saying he patched the file to work with exactly my system MP11.005D.B00.0709141354
So downloaded it tried it on Lion to no avail with original GPU and every thing back to base still Error 5530 after the ram disk was mounted.
Out of desperation tried an older version 10.6.8 Snow Leopard that I keep around on an old hard drive to work on older system.
Still Error 5530 AAAAGGGHHH!!

Maybe it is not that important to upgrade to 2,1 right... WRONG I want to put a Matching Pair of Intel Xeon Processors X5365's in the system and already have them ordered and on their way!!

And 2,1 is the only way they will show up in the system and work properly.

****WARNING DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR SYSTME BECOMES A BRICK OR JUST A VERY LARGE PAPER WEIGHT!!!***


Finally this worked..  step by step.

    1.    Get the Upgrade tool from netkas.org
    2.    Download the Apple firmware update
    3.    Mount the .dmg files and run both.  Leave them both running in the background during every step with errors and all
    4.    Use the upgrade tool to create the RAM Disk which in my case directly failed after creating   the RAM Disk with the error code 5530 (Leave it open in the background)

    5.    Right click the upgrade tool and click show package of the upgrade tool




 and copy the following scripts from /Contents/Resources to the RAM Disk:

    1.    ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh
    2.    UpgradeEFI2006-2007.sh

    3.    DowngradeEFI2007-2006.sh

    4.    MacProEFIUpdater2006.patch

    5.    MacProEFIUpdater2007.patch



    6.    Open ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh with textedit

    7.    Remove the following lines:
    1.    Code: 
hdiutil attach -nobrowse MacProEFI2006and2007.dmg



    2.    Code: 
rm -R Expanded



    3.    Code: 
rm -R System



    4.    Code: 
rm Payload



    8.    Save the script


    9.    Open a terminal Application/Utilities terminal and run it with Code: 
./ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh




eazy way of doing this is to type the period . then click on the file and drag it in to the terminal it will give the right path for it and it will run.

    10.    Run the actual upgrade script with sudo rights via Code: 
sudo ./UpgradeEFI2006-2007.sh


 same with this one type sudo .  then drag the file to the terminal
    11.    If everything runs trough without error proceed with the firmware upgrade:

    1.    Shut down the Mac
    2.    Press and hold the power button until it blinks
    3.    Wait for the upgrade to finish
    4.    Check the firmware version
    5.    Reboot in case it does not detect your CPUs correctly until it does.
That did the trick for me.

BOOM!!!! 

Now I also did the SMC update as well but that will be in a different Post.

Thanks..

$20 Mac Pro saved from the Grave Yard BUT WHY???

Why would any one want to get a Mac Pro Xeon 1,1 in 2020???

I did it!!

Check the Upgrade here


Check out our YouTube Channel for future Videos of these adventures

Also Check This out!! Upgrading the  Mac Pro 1,1 to a 2,1 for Dual Quad Xeon support

 A bit over a week ago I was stumbling through OfferUp looking for storage related hardware.  Just on a whim I came across a listing that I almost bypassed out of shear disbelief. I have been wanting to pick up a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 for some time now but the prices on these computers even though they are 10 years or more old is outrageous local listings of over $500 to $1200 USD for systems of this age.

The title just stated Computer desktop apple.  No other context just saying need it gone with a price tag of $10 bucks USD.

Here are some of the pictures of it.


Now from the pictures I knew that this was at least an Intel model not a Power Mac G5 model (Had one of those a few years ago) but I was unsure if I were to get lucky and come up with a 4,1 or 5,1 (hind sight those models don't have fire-wire 400 connections).
Messaged the seller, they got back to me in an hour or so.  I want to buy it.  Sight unseen not even asking if it works.  He said he had another buyer that was interested but would meet me right now for $20.  "Heck ya be there in 15 min"

Twenty buck later back in my office opened it up to find it had all of its internals 2 GB's of ram in the memory boards. All of the Hard Drive trays intact with a 250GB hard drive and a Radeon x1900 GPU.  Good enough to get at least to get a semblance of an OS on it.

Plugged it in crossed my fingers as I pressed the power button.  And was greeted with the Apple classic Chime.  YAY!!! Boots directly in to Lion recovery.  Not bad but when I try to install it wants to verify that it eligible for Lion and down load it.  After plugging in a network cable and waiting for over an hour for something to happen.  I said screw it and went to the internet low and be hold an hour later I had a fully working Mac Pro 1,1 running 10.7 Lion.

2 Xeon Dual-Core processors running at a blistering speed of 2.66 GHz and now a total of 8 GB of DDR 2 ECC  memory scavenged from an old Dell Server.

Running Lion in 2020 is a futile attempt to call something usable.  Safari is sourly out of date, Chrome will not run, and even though I have old versions of FireFox available to install web browsing and any type of media will just not be pleasurable to run.  Even at the $20 price tag still would be mostly a hot running paper weight.  Possibly a file server and that is about it.

Bit more research and yes I can get El Capitan running on it wich is still useable in 2020 and I can upgrade the ram, processors, Hard drives (too SSD) and have at least a cheap NAS and usable system. 

Stay tuned as I will try and cover all of the upgrades as they get done.

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Tonor BM-700 Microphone Kit? WHY?

Unboxing the Tonor BM-700 kit and hopefully that is not $48 bucks wasted.  Let me know what you think and don’t forget to hit the subscribe button.  Like, Share, Comment… WhatEver!!

#Condencer #Tonor #BM-700 #NW-700 #Microphone #Studio #Office


Free project music: This is Not Jazz by True Cuckoo of youtube’s project audio library

How is it going,  in an effort to possibly revive this channel and to make some better quality videos as well as other content creation I order this inexpensive Microphone kit from Tonor.

The kit cost was just over $48 use on amazon after ordering a Newer NW-700 kit off eBay for $20 buck less but that never shipped and the seller refunded the purchase.

This is a Condenser mic so phantom power is required for it to work properly
What is phantom power?  Phantom Power is a term given to the process of delivering DC (Direct Current) to microphones requiring electric power to drive active circuitry. For studio microphones it is 48 volts


Why is it called phantom power?
Condenser microphones made in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s required a special power supply to operate. This power supply would often be located quite near the microphone and was usually large, heavy, and cumbersome. In the 1960s, work began on a new powering concept that would eliminate the need for a separate power supply.

Schoeps and Neumann (German microphone manufacturers) were leaders in this development. Eventually, a new condenser mic powering standard emerged. The DC power to operate the condenser mic was provided by the mixing board and delivered via the mic cable; eliminating the need for an external power supply. And what does one call a power supply that is working, but invisible? It is a phantom power supply! - Source Shure Inc Applications Engineering

So I wanted to make sure what I was ordering was a full kit including the mic, suspension scissor arm, shock mount, phantom power, and pop filters..  This kit also says it includes a USB sound card as well not sure we will need that. 
Well lets get in to it.

Cardioid polar pattern reduces pickup of sounds from the sides, improving isolation of desired sound source, which is ideal for podcasting, streaming, youtube video and also can be used for recordings at home or professional studio.
Specifications
Polar Pattern:Uni-directional (Cardioid)
Sensitivity:-38dB±2dB
Frequency Response:20Hz-20KHz           
Sample Rate:44.1KHz-48KHz         
Bit Rate:16 bit     
Let me know what you think.

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