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.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Geekbench Dell Optiplex 9020 MT Hackintosh High Sierra

So this is an almost completed system.  I am thinking about doing videos and guides on the system dependent on requests and time. 

At the moment I am running the Dell Optiplex 9020 MT with OS X High Sierra 10.13.6 installed
Processor is an Intel Core i5-4570
Memory is Corsair DDR3  PC3 12800 16GB of ram
2 x SSD's 860 EVO SATA 6Gb/s 250GB drives one for OS X, the other for Windows 10 and surprisingly enough clover boot works well to boot in to either system from the clover screen.
 Running 3 monitors 1st off the internal Intel GPU through display port for boot up display, 2nd and 3rd off of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 card.

So far every thing seems to work (have not tried sleep though) 
Only problem at the moment is iMessage and other Mac style programs that require Apple's qualified hardware.  Will work through that later.

But on to the GeekBench scores.  I have not done any tuning or adjusting clover for any thing other than what kexts or settings that were recommended.


So the Single-Core score was 3654, and the Multi-Core Score is 9068

Tried running Cinebench multiple times with different scores on Cinebench 15 getting wildly different scores in Windows and Mac any where from 361 all the way up to 567 so have no clue what all of that is about.

Hope this helps if you are thinking about a Hackintosh on one of the Dell Optiplex's series best for 7020 or 9020 it just seems to work.

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Hackintosh High Sierra 17G66 NVIDIA Web Drivers Fix

Mac OS X version 10.13.6 (17G4015) is required for this update. Please update your OS version and try again

This has been an ongoing work in progress for the past 2 weeks solid.  I picked up an inexpensive Dell Optiplex 9020 MT to try out some content creation and video work.  After trying several options of using Windows 10, then trying Manjaro Linux with pass through (fail) due to not wanting to get a secondary usb card immediately to pass through to OS X.  I finally settled on High Sierra seeing that I am comfortable with the OS due to owning a 15" MacBook Pro, iMac, and many others. Also needed that to try out DaVinci Resolve 16 available for free.
***Warning : This is for educational use and testing this is not suggested or recommended to put in to a working environment. Apple OS X versions are free to down load but the license agreement specifically states to only use on Apple hardware.  Also do this at your own risk this worked for me but your configuration may be different and I can not help with other configurations.   ***

So with the latest version downloaded from Apple of High Sierra OS X you get the version macOS 10.13.6 (17G66) of which I could not find any web drivers for NVIDIA on Tonymacx86 web site or any where else. But was able to find a script that worked for the NVIDIA card I am using which is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750.

Open a terminal in /Application / Utilities Terminal

and type in <(curl -s https://vulgo.github.io/webdriver) 387.10.10.10.40.113

Enter your password at the prompt and you will see.

Password:
URL: https://images.nvidia.com/mac/pkg/387/WebDriver-387.10.10.10.40.113.pkg
Downloading package...
######################################################################## 100.0%
SHA512: Verified
Extracting...
Installing...
Modify installed driver for the current macOS version? [y/N]
NVDAStartupWeb.kext: 17G4015 -> 17G66
Updating caches...

Installation complete. You should reboot now.


On re-boot you should have you NVIDIA card installed and working.
You may not have the NVIDIA panel functions in settings but the card is working.

Good Luck and I will update the blog with more information as I get things sorted.  Will try to do a beginning to end set up when I have everything the way I like it.
#hackintosh #osx #High Sierra #NVIDIA

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Wordpress Malware Livestatsnet.services help removing

Wordpress Malware Livestatsnet.services help removing
One of our sites was infected with LIVESTATSNET.SERVICES when anything was clicked on the site it would open another browser tab going to http://iyfsearch.com/?dn=livestatsnet.services&pid=9PO755G95

I am still tiring to get rid of all of it but this may help.

1. Verify your ftp credentials and download an ftp client. I recommend filezilla client

2. Verify that you have access to your database file and can edit it

3. Find and install ASTROGREP
This program will let you search the contents of files for strings of text

4. Create a folder then use your ftp client to download your wordpress folder to it…

5. Use astrogrep to search for the text livestatsnet it will be contained in code
in quite a few files mostly .js (java script files)
This is the Source you will see 

6. Now that you know where the malicious code is open filezilla client and edit the files found by astrogrep delete the code including.  You can use note pad or Free JavaScript Editor.
The source code may look like this


7. When all done, open your browser and browse your site…
refresh… and browse again…
if still there

8. If problem still persists… you may have a few complications…
1. you may not be able to see all the files in your ftp client so you may have to use your online editor given to you by your host provider
2. not all the editing might have been applied… which means use your online editor supplied by your host provider to verify the changes

9. If all is good… Now its time to make a few changes…
1. in your wordpress installation set your folder permissions recursively to 755 via ftp clinet
2. in your wordpress installation set your file permissions recursively to 644
3. change all your admin user passwords
4. delete user accounts or change user accounts passwords

10. If that didn’t do it… its probably in your database as well… backup your db… do a search for livestatsnet in your db… and delete it wherever you see it… if you mess up… just restore the db


Monday, December 15, 2014

Winbook TW700 Adobe Flash player for Firefox

So I have picked up a great little Winbook TW700 with Windows 8.1 More on that later. But after installing FireFox (my most used browser) I was faced with this
issue installing Adobe Flash player.  

Adobe Flash Player will not install on my Winbook tw700!!!

The problem is the blank install screen for Adobe Flash Player for FireFox.  Now Internet Explorer already comes with flash so if you like IE and use it.  You will not need this File or work around.


Head out to Adobe's Web site here  and make sure you scroll down, don't click the Flash player to the right, go down to where it says download the exe installer file for Windows plug-in based browsers.  Flash Player 16.0.0.235.

This will work for FireFox and you can now watch your YouTube videos, Play your Flash Based Games, and get all the latest greatest info off of cnet.  

Happy computing every one.

Now with the FireFox updates you will be confronted with  FireFox blocking the outdated Flash Player... but click on allow till they get this problem fixed... and I will still work great..




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