MacPro 5,1 firmware upgrade for Mojave… is it safe?

Question

Level 1

5 points

MacPro 5,1 firmware upgrade for Mojave… is it safe?

Hi everyone,

try to explain my strange situation.

Last year I bought a 5,1 MacPro equipped with a metal capable GPU, Nvidia Quadro k600. The seller had installed Catalina with OpenCore, but I wanted to work with officially supported OS so I tried to install Mojave but, for some reason (which I read was a known unresolved issue), Mojave did not recognize the metal GPU and did not start installation. So I decided to install it on my MacBookPro 9,1 and then move the Ssd on MacPro, and it worked perfectly, I am still using it.

Now I have changed my GPU to a flashed Radeon Rx 480 that works good with Mojave.

And then I bought a 4.2 Bluetooth+Wifi module to use AirDrop and Handoff. The first one works, the latter not. I don’t want to use Continuity Activation Tool because I already tried it with a bluetooth 4.0 Asus Dongle and it freezed my MacPro.

So I decided to have a clean install of Mojave on a different Ssd to see if it depends on the fact that OS was not directly installed on MacPro.

I followed the usual procedure from usb boot drive but when I launched install it told me firmware must be upgraded. So I verified the firmware version and I realized that it is MP51.0089.B00 and not 144.0.0.0.0, and this makes sense because I did not install Mojave directly on MacPro, and maybe previous owner/s never upgraded it to OS 10.14.

And I even supposed that the first time I tried to install it (last year) this message did not come out because maybe installer first checks for GPU compatibility and then for firmware version.

My answer is: if I make this firmware upgrade, will Mojave that I installed from MacBookPro keep on working on MacPro?

Thanks a lot

Pale77

Posted on Sep 11, 2023 12:18 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

143,397 points

Sep 11, 2023 7:11 AM in response to Pale77

<<. if I make this firmware upgrade, will Mojave that I installed from MacBookPro keep on working on MacPro? >>

Yes, it will continue to operate perfectly, and you will get a few additional supported features.

The firmware update is staged on your specified boot drive as if it were an incoming macOS install. But only the firmware updater is placed there, and it will try to chain to the Installer in your MacOS 10.13 High Sierra Applications folder, or wherever you have placed it. Just cancel the re-install before it gets too far and does its restart, or you will have to wait for the re-install to complete.

You can not have OpenCore or REFiT or anything that changes the 'regular' boot process in place at the same time. If you miss your cue and fail to hold the power button correctly, you need to go back to the beginning and set it up again.

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 12, 2023 8:03 AM in response to Pale77

The firmware is installed into re-writeable ROM chips on the mainboard, not on ANY Drive. It makes an essentially semi-permanent change to the computer itself, that cannot be removed by swapping drives around.

Mac firmware has been extensively tested for maximum forward-and-backward compatibility. There are no pervasive reports of problems caused by installing these firmware upgrades, only by NOT installing them.

No drives in drive bays will be affected in any way, other than 'parking' the firmware upgrade on the boot drive momentarily while it is applied. You may see some improvement is PCIe slot cards, and an SSD drive mounted on a PCIe slot card may be more trouble-free.

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 11, 2023 1:38 AM in response to Pale77

I recommend you install two Mac OS on two Partition 1 High Sierra and 2 Mojave. instill High Sierra First so you can have access to run Boot Camp( if you want). While in High Sierra Download Mac OS Mojave Apple Apps Store now make a USB bootable. Use your Radeon 480 instead of Nvidia Quadro k600. you can try that card after you install Mojave OS. I would start fresh

An Grats on owning one of the Best Mac Pros, don't let Apple get you on Silicon Macs, 5,1 and 6,1 still can run the latest games, Apps without problems.

hxxps://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-pro/2009-2012

hxxps://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusion-dual-u2-ssd/overview.html

hxxps://www.transintl.com/product/mac-pro-air-filter/

Reply

Answer 4

Pale77 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 11, 2023 4:47 AM in response to Porthos40

Thanks for the reply,

but it does not seem to be the answer for my question.

I'm asking if firmware update could prevent my MacPro 5,1 from booting from a Mojave SSD which was not directly installed on this machine, but that has been working fine for over a year with the old firmware.

And I don't want to swap my GPU back to Nvidia Quadro, never mentioned that.

Pale77

Reply

Answer 5

Pale77 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 11, 2023 11:35 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for the reply Grant Bennet-Alder.

Just to be sure I’ve explained well and we are talking about the same thing

ACTUAL MACPRO 5,1 CONFIG

Firmware: MP51.0089.B00
GPU: flashed Radeon Rx 480 (recently changed)
Bluetooth+Wifi module: 4.2, Apple Broadcom original (recently changed)
SSD1: MacOs Mojave 10.14.6, clean installed on MacBookPro 9,1 then put in MacPro, perfectly working except Continuity/Handoff; recent changes of GPU and bluetooth+wifi module haven’t affected it at all
SSD2: empty, here I want to perform a clean install of Mojave, to try and solve Continuity/Handoff issue; this has been prevented by old firmware
No OpenCore, no REFiT in any SSD, only officially supported stuff
No disk with MacOs 10.13.x installed

OBSERVATIONS

As far as I know, firmware 144.0.0.0.0 will be installed on the PRAM or somewhere else on the logic board
Then, since it will be on the MacPro, I suppose it will “affect” the behavior of the whole machine, therefore of any of the installed SSD

QUESTIONS

Is it 100% sure that this new firmware will not freeze SSD1 at startup, or prevent it from fully working?
How is it possible that SSD1 could have worked with old firmware if update is required during clean install? Did I cheat the system without knowing it?

Sorry if I repeated everything, but I felt like I hadn’t explained the situation enough, and I don’t want to take any risk.

Of course I have Time Machine backups, but in my experience, sometimes they fail, especially when you manage with boot stuff.

Thanks again to everyone

Reply

Answer 6

Sep 13, 2023 9:07 AM in response to Pale77

High Sierra MUST be installed first, to obtain firmware version MP51.089.B00. [Which you said you already have installed.]

It is not clear that you need to be actually RUNNING 10.13.6 to move forward from there. You will know in a few minutes.

NB>> it will NOT explode or fail. if not adequate, you will get an error message.

Reply

Answer 7

Pale77 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 14, 2023 8:15 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi again,

just finished 10.13.6 clean install.

Firmware is still MP51.089.B00.

Before I try 10.14, and firmware upgrade, I thought that Continuity&Handoff should work on 10.13.6, because already supported at the time it was released. But nope, they don’t work!

So, I think it would be useless to upgrade, it’s not an OS issue, in my opinion, since hardware is the same. I am missing something that I don’t understand…

Any idea would really be appreciated!

Reply

Answer 8

Sep 14, 2023 10:50 AM in response to Pale77

You said you upgraded your Wi-Fi and bluetooth.

Did you bypass the tiny stand-alone Bluetooth module, add a 12-in antenna extender cable, and connect the Bluetooth antennas to the new card, making a total of FOUR antenna connections to the new card?

Did you also connect the two-wire USB bus connection back from the Wi-Fi card back to the old Bluetooth slot?

Reply

Answer 9

Pale77 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 13, 2023 7:49 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks again!

Would you suggest, as Apple itself does, to install High Sierra first and the upgrade to Mojave to prevent any issue?

Reply

MacPro 5,1 firmware upgrade for Mojave… is it safe?

Similar questions