Building a MacPro, Yes, a MacPro not a Hackintosh Options

[aqua-mac]

A few things to report.

I ordered the wrong screws for mounting the power supply, doh! There are 2 sets of mounting holes on the PSU, one set is M3 which is what I ordered the other is M4 which is what you need. Luckily Lowes carries M4s. Unluckily I bought Socket Head screws and these prevents HD Sled 3 from sliding in. I removed the one screw that was the issue and HD Sled 3 went right in. At least I have 3 of the 4 mounting screws in.

Hooking up a variable resistor to the CPU heat sink sensor jack did nothing which is odd. The thermal sensors are just thermistors which are heat controlled variable resistors. I tried a 500K Ohm and 5M Ohm variable resistor and no difference in CPU heatsink temp read outs. I am wondering if my "developer" firmware has something to do with it.

A post in Aqua-Macs mod thread got me thinking. His Hack was reporting as a Mac Pro. At the time I could not remember which kext was responsible but I did remember later on that it is AppleSMBIOS.kext. Now there is nothing in the Info.plist that controls these variables so I download the source for AppeSMBIOS.kext and I am installing Xcode right now. I am going to compile my own kext that will report the proper values for Model Name, Model Identifier and Boot ROM Version to System Profiler. I am *hoping* once this is done, the MacPro EFI Firmware Updater will run. Its a long shot as there is no telling where the EFI Firmware Updater gets the values it uses to determine if it is running on the appropriate machine.

Here is the AppleSMbios.kext you were talking about. I had this in an email I sent to myself at work, you might be interested to look at it. This reports my Hack as a GA 33M DS2R though.

Attached File(s)

 AppleSMBIOS.kext.zip ( 15.34K ) Number of downloads: 34

 

[nagal]

Thanks. I found the AppleSMBIOS I used with EFI. With it installed System Profiler now shows this:

Model Name: Mac
Model Identifier: Mac Pro
Processor Speed: 2.13 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 8 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: Hack.int.0sh
SMC Version: 1.7f0
Serial Number: YM8659M6W0A

I am hoping once I figure out how to compile my own AppleSMBIOS.kext I can then figure out how to get it to report the values I know the MacPro EFI Firmware Update is looking for. As I said before, this is assuming the EFI Update gets its values through AppleSMBIOS. I have been looking over the AppleSMBIOS source code and it is fairly straight froward. Its just a matter of figuring out what is what as their is not a variable of structure member called ModelName or ModelIdentifier.

Looks like I am going to buy a lot of junk food and soda and pull an all weekend coding session. Have not done one of those in a long long time.

[Harloe]

Good luck Nagal! =D If you manage to sort this will you put the necessary things up for download so others who want to build a MacPro and encounter the same issue can just download and install what you code so it'll recognise it as a MacPro and enable firmware updates?

I'm not a coder and I got no clue what a kext is (enlighten me? lol)

[nagal]

Kemmi,

I doubt very many people will run into this issue. It is my firm belief that the logic board sold to me was part of some kind of Apple Developement kit but if I do sort this out and anyone that runs into the issue I will be more than willing to help out.

So a little progress to report. I did managed to compile the AppleSMBIOS.kext from source code. I then installed it (saving the one aqua-mac gave me) and it loaded up with out issue on reboot. System Profiler is showing the original information as before. NOW I just need to figure out what values are what in the source code. Sadly this is going to be a lot of trail and error with a lot of reboot to see if it worked.

[Harloe]

Thanks for the offer of your willingness to help =D and tip on the Logic Board buy, I'll make sure not to buy an Apple Development model! It's good to have a lot of genuine people on this board

Thanks! =D

[Korrupted]

Any updates?

[nagal]

Nope. Nothing to report on the firmware. I am 99% positive I was sold a development board and with that I will not recommend anyone use Mac-Pro.com. While it might be the exact same logic board as used in the quad core MacPro, the firmware prevents it from being flashed with any of the other updated firmwares.

[Harloe]

So what do you plan on doing, nagal? Replacing the Logic Board? Or just sticking with what you have now?

[Kiko]

nagal, you dont need to use the efi updater app from apple, you boot into the shell and use the efi flahing app from there, use refit to boot into the efi shell

[nagal]

Kemmi,

It depends. I did talk with Apple and while they did not come out and say its possible to flash it, they did imply I could take it an Apple Authorized Repair Center or Apple Store and have it flashed. There is an Mac only shop near by me and I am going to go in and talk with the tech guys to see if it is possible. I do not know want to drive to the nearest Apple Store just to be told to go away and they might even be able to do it. I have just been super busy and have not had a chance to get over there before all the tech people leave for the day and this is a conversation I want to do face to face.

More than likely, I will just stick with it for the time being as I have other things I would like to drop $500 on and there is a possibility of a job change and move in the near future so buying toys might have to go on hold for abit.

Do not get me wrong, this board WORKS but I think the issue with the CPU sensors not working and the processors not running at the correct speed (2.13 GHz vs 2.4 GHz) is due to the firmware. Still, I got a hell of a computer legally running OS X for a good price.

Kiko,

I did try using rEFIt to get into the EFI shell and update using the efi updater app I extracted from the Firmware Update package. I do not know the command parameters to use with it. I tried EFIUpdaterApp -x <efi rom file> and it quickly flashed something on the screen and then the computer rebooted. If you know the magic commands, tell me and I will be your best friend forever

[Kiko]

awesome a friend

Install refit with the shell.efi app if you haven't already, in which case you should anyway because it just pulls everything together so nicely

Then grab the firmware update package, pull out the firmware image and the .efi loader for it from the Resources section by ctrl-clicking the package and selecting 'show contents' (for this example I'm using the 'Smc firmware update' that was released just recently), then reboot, go into the efi shell from refit, go to the volume holding the firmware image and the efi loader, in my case this is fs1:, do this just by typing 'fs1:' at the efi shell and hit enter
then cd to the dir, in my case 'Users\anomaly\', then run the efi loader and point it at the firmware image, for the smc update this is 'SmcFlasher.efi -LoadApp m1.smc', hit enter, wait a second, and done! type 'reset' and hit enter, boot back into osx and you should be finished with the updated firmware.

To recap:

refit -> efi shell
fs1:
cd Users\anomaly (or wherever)
SmcFlasher.efi -LoadApp m1.smc
reset

[nagal]

Oh sweet BUT my problem is with the BootROM Firmware not the SMC I will try the same the -LoadApp parameter on with the BootROM and see what happens.

[Kiko]

yeah, its the same thing with the mainfirmware, just not the smc flasher app. and if u have have any troubles gettting command options, just open the efi app in a hex editor and look for strings

[nagal]

yeah, its the same thing with the mainfirmware, just not the smc flasher app. and if u have have any troubles gettting command options, just open the efi app in a hex editor and look for strings

Actually I had thought of opening the efi app and looking at it but I kept getting side tracked. Good to know my brain still works now if I could fix the memory part.

Dude, you rock!

Will report back tonight if successful tomorrow if failure because it fired my firmware

[Kiko]

if failure and it fried ur mobo, u can always drop it off at a apple service center and say your mobo is fried

[nagal]

Well did not work.

If I use the app packaged with MacProFirmwareUpdate nothing happens. I type command after command and nothing. If I use the app packaged with MacProFirmwareUpdate1.2 something flashes on the screen then the computer reboots. I tried doing the SmcUpdate and it runs but comes back with invalid config error after parsing the SMC file. I used a Hex Editor to look at the EFI Updater app and notice a series of boot rom strings in it. I *think* it is still trying to make sure you are not flashing the incorrect board. I am going to try to find the boot rom string (its more than what is displayed in System Profiler) and edit that into the EFI Update App and see if it will then run.

Even if it does not work, Kiko is still my new friend

[Kiko]

boo ya! 3rd base with a guy

hmm, the best i can recommend is taking the mp into apple store and say it doesnt upgrade firmware

[nagal]

I would not hesitate to take it in but as soon as they look inside someone is going to go "hmmmm". I am going to try to get off work early tomorrow and swing by my local Mac place and talk to the techs there.

Who said anything about 3rd base? I never go to 3rd base on the first date sober

[nagal]

Minor update. Talking with Mac-Pro.com and we might be working out a motherboard swap. If they make this right, I will take back everything bad I said about them. They should have been up front about the firmware from the beginning and when I first contacted them about it made the effort to make things right, right then.

[Harloe]

Good luck, nagal! Do you happen to know if they sell like mostly development logic boards or did you just happen to unknowingly draw the short straw on this one?