Upgrading a Mac Pro a1186

[pommedeterror007]

So as my title says im hoping to upgrade an old mac pro, the exact model is the A1186 (MA35LL/A). As of now it has the X5150s but I bought a pair of E5462 (Quad Core @ 2.8ghz 80Watts) and a pair of X5355 (Quad Core @ 2.66ghz 120Watts). It has 18GB of Crucial ECC Ram (4 x 2GB, 2 x 1GB , 2 x 4GB). I have a 500GB Seagate drive installed but I wanted to know if it supports SAS drives as I have a 3tb Seagate one lying around. Lastly I wanted to get a better GPU for it and cant find an exact list of compatible GPUs. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Technomancer__]

i thing you will fry the mobo.

apple probably locked it or something

[Not_Sean]

Check out the GTX 770 Reference IIRC you can re flash the bios to the Mac one and it runs 100% in them, I wouldn't have a clue on the CPU's 

 

As for SAS drive don't bother rather just get a SSD won't have any interfacing issues there. 

[pommedeterror007]

43 minutes ago, Not_Sean said:

Check out the GTX 770 Reference IIRC you can re flash the bios to the Mac one and it runs 100% in them, I wouldn't have a clue on the CPU's 

 

As for SAS drive don't bother rather just get a SSD won't have any interfacing issues there. 

I dont feel like spending more and would rather use parts I have laying around.

[Electronics Wizardy]

any gpu will work, you just won't get a image until the mac os x drivers load, so no boot menu. Just keep the current gpu in aswell and you can see those menu's

 

 

For sas drives, you need a raid card to do so, there is a apple one and here it ishttp://www.ebay.com/itm/Mac-Pro-RAID-Card-for-Mac-Pro-3-1-1-1-2008-/201852034442?hash=item2eff519d8a:g:GjAAAOSwdGFYxuci

 

Really don't buy it, unless you need sas drives or raid, its not supported well any more.

 

 

[Not_Sean]

17 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

any gpu will work, you just won't get a image until the mac os x drivers load, so no boot menu. Just keep the current gpu in aswell and you can see those menu's

 

 

Thats exactly why it wont work Apple only built drivers for very very specific graphics cards. its why the hackentosh guys always aim for Reference models of very select GPU's

 

Its not plug and play just add drivers its mac

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Not_Sean said:

Thats exactly why it wont work Apple only built drivers for very very specific graphics cards. its why the hackentosh guys always aim for Reference models of very select GPU's

 

Its not plug and play just add drivers its mac

Well I have put random gpus in a mac pro just fine.  There are drivers for any recent amd card built-in to the os and nvidia has drives in their site. 

[Not_Sean]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well I have put random gpus in a mac pro just fine.  There are drivers for any recent amd card built-in to the os and nvidia has drives in their site. 

I find that hard to believe as Nvidia is only doing mac drivers for the 10x series and ones like the 770 that were official, you do get lots of 3rd party drivers but I find it very hard to believe that a mac would auto install drivers for a graphics card that drivers dont officially exist. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

29 minutes ago, Not_Sean said:

I find that hard to believe as Nvidia is only doing mac drivers for the 10x series and ones like the 770 that were official, you do get lots of 3rd party drivers but I find it very hard to believe that a mac would auto install drivers for a graphics card that drivers dont officially exist. 

They have mac drivers for all the cards from the last 10 ish years

 

Aftermarket cards use the exact same drivers. 

 

Osx has drivers included for most recent cards. 

[pommedeterror007]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

They have mac drivers for all the cards from the last 10 ish years

 

Aftermarket cards use the exact same drivers. 

 

Osx has drivers included for most recent cards. 

The problem is I dont have the original drive with  OS X on it. and when I try and boot it will do the chime and will display a grey screen and random black flickers will occur. But it only senses a display output when I use a  ATI 5770.

[Electronics Wizardy]

35 minutes ago, pommedeterror007 said:

The problem is I dont have the original drive with  OS X on it. and when I try and boot it will do the chime and will display a grey screen and random black flickers will occur. But it only senses a display output when I use a  ATI 5770.

You need a apple gpu to get the boot output. Once on the os any gpu will work. 

 

Now you need to hunt around for a osx install image. 

[pommedeterror007]

2 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You need a apple gpu to get the boot output. Once on the os any gpu will work. 

 

Now you need to hunt around for a osx install image. 

I have one but it doesnt get passed the grey screen and eventually it reboots itself.

[Electronics Wizardy]

43 minutes ago, pommedeterror007 said:

I have one but it doesnt get passed the grey screen and eventually it reboots itself.

Then I'd try a new install image and a different USB stick. 

[pommedeterror007]

56 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Then I'd try a new install image and a different USB stick. 

Found out it may be a logic board malfunction, sometimes it gets stuck in a loop where the chime goes over and over again. And I look at the Debug LED and the CPU B FAIL is lit up. I replaced the cpus so im 95% sure ill have to buy a new one.