Accessing EFI Menu

Question

Accessing EFI Menu

I would like to be able to access the EFI menu on my Mac Pro in order to determine whether the sound card has been disabled.

I bought this machine used from a guy who did audio work. I believe that he had another audio input device in it when he had it, and had disabled the sound card because I cannot get the on board audio card to work (output or input, I have not tried optical though). Other than the sound card not working everything else on the machine is fine.

If anyone could direct me to documentation on booting into the efi menu that would be great. I have done some searching and can't seem to find anything.

2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon (1st gen), Mac OS X (10.5.7), 9 GB RAM

Posted on Jul 13, 2009 2:29 PM

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Answer 1

nerowolfe

Level 6

13,090 points

Jul 13, 2009 4:05 PM in response to poopshipdestroyer

The System Profiler will give you all the info you need about the sound card and other hardware.
if you are interested in EFI, I suggest first learning FORTH, the command language upon which it is based.
Also read my EFI references in my other post regarding EFI:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2055463&tstart=0

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Answer 2

Jul 13, 2009 3:06 PM in response to direwolf8

I figured there would be a preferences menu as with BIOS.

In output/sound/settings I have three items listed with name and type fields as follows

Name /Type

Headphones/Built-in Output
Line Out/Built-in Line Output
Digital Out/Built-in Digital Output

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Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Jul 13, 2009 3:07 PM in response to poopshipdestroyer

"Booting" into an EFI menu isn't possible. It's not like BIOS where the settings are intended to be easily user-alterable. EFI editing can be done with this utility:

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

but it's not something people who don't know exactly what they're doing should mess with. I doubt that the person who had the system before you did anything to the EFI, even if it were possible to disable the audio that way. Most likely something's been changed in the OS settings or drivers.

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Answer 4

Jul 13, 2009 3:31 PM in response to direwolf8

in settings/sound/input

Name/Type
Line In / Audio Line-in port
Digital In / Optical digital-in port

After messing around with it some more I have discovered that I can only get the headphone jack or the audio out on the back to work by clicking on them, but cannot get both to work at the same time. I'm not sure why clicking on the desired output is necessary. Shouldn't both work if something is plugged into them without having to click on the desired output?

It seems that the audio input on the back will not work at all.

Message was edited by: poopshipdestroyer

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Answer 5

varjak paw

Level 10

182,668 points

Jul 14, 2009 6:29 AM in response to poopshipdestroyer

mic input from a analog mic does not work on mac pro,

Just for completeness, Macs haven't had microphone inputs in years, and even then they only accepted Apple's own PlainTalk mic which derived power from the system to deliver a higher-level signal. If you need to use a mic that doesn't deliver line-level output, you do indeed need third-party hardware.

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Answer 6

direwolf8

Level 4

1,286 points

Jul 13, 2009 3:00 PM in response to poopshipdestroyer

Once you're in EFI how will you determine whether or not the sound features have been disabled?

There are other troubleshooting steps that you should take first. How are the audio preferences set?

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Answer 7

Jul 13, 2009 3:20 PM in response to varjak paw

when I got it I installed a clean copy of OS X, would that not reset the drivers and settings?

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Answer 8

Lyssa

Level 8

41,405 points

Jul 13, 2009 3:35 PM in response to poopshipdestroyer

Did you use the discs that came with the computer?

~Lyssa

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Answer 9

Jul 13, 2009 3:37 PM in response to Lyssa

I used a copy of os x that I bought.

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Answer 10

Jul 13, 2009 4:09 PM in response to nerowolfe

we can close this discussion out. mic input from a analog mic does not work on mac pro, and accessing efi is not recommended. I can post about my problems with audio out preferences somewhere else.

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