PC fettling and repairs thread

[pubrunner]

Make sure the firmware is flashed to 5,1- six-core chips won't work in an unflashed 4,1, and the flash will mean the RAM works at 1333mhz rather than 1066 (with compatible CPUs).

Hi @StuAff , please forgive what might seem a 'stupid' question, but it's just occurred to me that my Mac Pro 4.1 -'might' already have been upgraded to 5.1; how can I find out if this is the case ? Might it be under 'System' information within Windows Control Panel ? {I'm making the assumption that it hasn't been upgraded, but it would be as well to check}.

 

[StuAff]

Hi @StuAff , please forgive what might seem a 'stupid' question, but it's just occurred to me that my Mac Pro 4.1 -'might' already have been upgraded to 5.1; how can I find out if this is the case ? Might it be under 'System' information within Windows Control Panel ? {I'm making the assumption that it hasn't been upgraded, but it would be as well to check}.

I don't think so- on mine, under Windows everything in system info is pretty much generic, no way to ID firmware version etc. Given you still have four-core chips (and, therefore, 1066mhz RAM) there won't be any way to tell from system specs either.

 

[Grant Fondo]

Thank you for the suggestion of an RX580 - they look ideal and would just be Plug & Play,

Hi ... check your power supply has the wattage and connectors to upgrade the graphics card, the one you have takes its power only from the pcie socket on the motherboard, an RX580 needs a 500W supply and 6 (or 8?) pin connector ... so maybe not plug & play, but good luck.

 

[StuAff]

Hi ... check your power supply has the wattage and connectors to upgrade the graphics card, the one you have takes its power only from the pcie socket on the motherboard, an RX580 needs a 500W supply and 6 (or 8?) pin connector ... so maybe not plug & play, but good luck.

Mac Pros (all of them, except the 'trash can' 2013 which doesn't have PCI slots) need custom power cables for graphics cards or anything else needing additional power, as the additional power connectors on the motherboard are mini 6-pin. There's no way of running power connections direct to the PS. In this case (RX 580) the cable will need to be 2x mini 6 pin to 8 pin (eg, the one I bought).

 

[Grant Fondo]

Mac Pros (all of them, except the 'trash can' 2013 which doesn't have PCI slots) need custom power cables for graphics cards or anything else needing additional power, as the additional power connectors on the motherboard are mini 6-pin. There's no way of running power connections direct to the PS. In this case (RX 580) the cable will need to be 2x mini 6 pin to 8 pin (eg, the one I bought).

I'm learning as I go along with this Mac Pro modding!

So in theory you could run the latest AMD GPU's if you have enough connectors and enough power?

The RX 580 is a pretty bad choice if you want to play the latest games at a decent resolution, its nearly 8 years old.

 

[StuAff]

I'm learning as I go along with this Mac Pro modding!

So in theory you could run the latest AMD GPU's if you have enough connectors and enough power?

The RX 580 is a pretty bad choice if you want to play the latest games at a decent resolution, its nearly 8 years old.

On Windows, yes. On Mac OS, dependent on driver support, and to run newer OSs than Mojave on cheesegraters, you need to go down the OpenCore route, which can be fiddly and some features may not work. A 5700XT requires Catalina, and 6000 series cards require Big Sur or Monterey depending on model. More powerful cards need to be undervolted or either a modded PSU (to give extra power taps), or a second PSU. RX580s are fine for older games & lower settings (and much of the time the old Xeon's as much of a problem anyway). That, and the fans doing their impression of a jet fighter taking off! 2019 Mac Pros have it rather easier, but they're not exactly budget-friendly in the UK yet.

 

[Grant Fondo]

On Windows, yes. On Mac OS, dependent on driver support, and to run newer OSs than Mojave on cheesegraters, you need to go down the OpenCore route, which can be fiddly and some features may not work. A 5700XT requires Catalina, and 6000 series cards require Big Sur or Monterey depending on model. More powerful cards need to be undervolted or either a modded PSU (to give extra power taps), or a second PSU. RX580s are fine for older games & lower settings (and much of the time the old Xeon's as much of a problem anyway). That, and the fans doing their impression of a jet fighter taking off! 2019 Mac Pros have it rather easier, but they're not exactly budget-friendly in the UK yet.

sounds like a real faff but i guess Macs were designed for other things anyway. I remember years ago, 10+? you could get Mac specific cards but that seems to have died a death for some reason.

 

[StuAff]

sounds like a real faff but i guess Macs were designed for other things anyway. I remember years ago, 10+? you could get Mac specific cards but that seems to have died a death for some reason.
View attachment 754601

Yup, there was a GTX680 Mac edition as well. They just died a death. Supported AMD cards Just Work - no boot screens on older Mac Pros but otherwise fully functional. OpenCore added boot screen support as well. My RX580 is Mac flashed, in any case.

 

[Proto]

Wife's iMac has died - 21" iMac, 2013 (ish), SSD. Google suggests its reporting that no operating system.
Anyone able to give a quick diagnosis, I'm guessing the drive is borked? (I'm blaming a power cut. Is that possible?) Or could the SSD just have lost a partition (out of my depth).

If drive has failed, bit of a bastard as screen has to come out, which is not so easy.
Anyone?

Standard boot gives blank screen and eventually a flashing '?'

Restart in Recovery mode and I can get to Disk Utility which gives me this:

 

[DRM]

If iirc had this on a MacBook Pro, it was the ribbon cable to the SSD that had rubbed through/broken, once replaced all worked correctly

 

[CXRAndy]

Microsoft has just announced older PCs can now upgrade to Windows 11. If you have TPM2.0

https://www.pcworld.com/article/255...ing-windows-11-on-older-incompatible-pcs.html

 

[lazybloke]

Just looking in my box of skiing clothes under the bed and found a load of hard drives and an PATA DVD-ROM drive!
Do all geeks have old tech hidden away?

Alas i no longer have my RLL 5.25" 20 Megabyte hard drive...

 

[Grant Fondo]

Just looking in my box of skiing clothes under the bed and found a load of hard drives and an PATA DVD-ROM drive!
Do all geeks have old tech hidden away?
View attachment 756970
Alas i no longer have my RLL 5.25" 20 Megabyte hard drive...

Yes, a fair bit that I should really take to the tip sometime!

 

[Dadam]

Just looking in my box of skiing clothes under the bed and found a load of hard drives and an PATA DVD-ROM drive!
Do all geeks have old tech hidden away?

Alas i no longer have my RLL 5.25" 20 Megabyte hard drive...

Yup. Anyone want an AMD Athlon 700MHz chip with Slot A motherboard?
A couple of full tower PCs in the garage too! 😲

 

[Conrad_K]

I built a quite high-end box in 2014. A couple of years ago it started crashing once a week or so. Then months went by after a kernel update. (it runs Linux) A couple of days ago I shut it off when a storm was rolling in. When I pushed the "on" button later, nothing.

I've been getting about three years out of a power supply, no matter what brand or wattage it's supposed to be. Based on that experience, I had a new replacement power supply on hand. Nothing. Not even a fan twitch.

Okay, ten years isn't bad. And, because I'm a careful and paranoid sort, I had a spare machine ready, which I last tested six months ago. I swapped all the cables over, pushed the power button, and all it gave was a blinking cursor. Six months ago it was running KDE Neon happy as a clam.

No amount of cross-breeding parts from the two machines and the boxes-O-spares resulted in a running machine.

Well, ain't that a kick in the head.

Shopping for a replacement motherboard turned into a voyage of discovery. I'm at least two generations behind now, and I'll need a CPU and RAM to match a new, equivalent motherboard. And most of them only have one or two slots, and I need at least three.

So I kicked the can down the road a bit; I found a used motherboard of the same model on eBay. It should hold me while I accumulate knowledge and funding to make the next hardware leap.