Kernel Panic Crash Report Reading Help?

Good morning my new best friends!

Here are the upgrade options for my Aug 7, 2006 MP:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30

Configuration Options

8-core processing

• Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5300 series processors
• Intel Core microarchitecture
• 8MB of L2 cache per processor (16MB total; each pair of cores shares 4MB)
• 128-bit SSE3 vector engine
• 64-bit data paths and registers
• Energy efficiency optimization

What's really odd is that I have never had any of the Apple reps I've worked with concur about the diagnosis and thus I can't fix the computer without consistancy and my panics continue...

Before I would hope that Apple would, like you guys, say that I need a MP2 firmware upgrade but they disagree! And say I have a MP1 and don't need any firmware upgrade. Talk about contradictory and confusing... this is the most convuluted case I've experienced or even ever heard of.

I think Apple should buy me a new Mac and be done with it...

I wish I knew a bit more to be helpful. I get the impression that you feel/think my friend upgrade the computer. He did not. He ordered it from Apple with the prescripbed available upgrade uptions and then picked up the custom ordered MacPro from his Apple Store. He never did any tinkering DYI. It was ALL done by Apple at the Factory or at the Apple Store. As such, I hold Apple fully responsible for this upgrade and insidst that they apply the appropriate firmware to suppor the upgrade that they sold him.

I'm a bit lost as to why you keep taking the postion that I or my friend did some upgrades on our own outside of Apple. I must impress upon you, regardless of how old this computer is, all modifications were done by Apple at an bonafide Apple facility.

Does that change things in your mind? Other than simply doing the MacPro2 firmware upgrade.

But again NO ONE at Apple agrees that my Mac is a MacPro2,1 or that it requires a MacPro2 firmware install. Personally I believe you and not Apple at this point what so ever. Apple, in this matter, has proven to be pretty useless and has wasted an exhorbitant amount of my time and money.

THanks, Steven

Grant and Hatter,

I may have stumbled on to something. It appears that the FW updater for a MP1 and MP2 is the same exact file:

On: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237

At the bottom you will find the versions of FW for the MP Original and MP 8 Core, or MP2

While the FW name/numbering is different:

Computer: Mac Pro (8-core)

Model Identifier: MacPro2,1

EFI Boot ROM version: MP21.007F.B06 (EFI 1.2)

SMC Version: 1.15f3 (SMC 1.1)

Computer: Mac Pro (Original)

Model Identifier: MacPro1,1

EFI Boot ROM version: MP11.005C.B08 (EFI 1.2)

SMC Version: 1.7f10 (SMC 1.1)

Both FW links for both computers take you to the same EXACT file download with the file named the same:

Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.2

The same is true for the SMC update Links:

Mac Pro SMC Firmware Update 1.1

Granted, this updater could be dual purpose and based your computer will apply the appropriate FW. But what if the updater gets its cue from the Mac identifier? Well, mine in my "About this Mac" says: MacPro1,1.

And if the Apple employees are looking at the same info I am now, and there seems to be a lack of information available about an upgraded MacPro1,1 such that no one gets that it is a MP2 now, if that is true then could this explain why after coming on 2 years, that ALL the Genius Bar techs, covering 8 stores, and all the over the phone AppleCare Senior Techs... that not a one has been able to see the descrepencies and that a MP1,1 - 8 Core machine doesn't and can't exist?

I STILL don't have anyone at Apple that understands the problem, and now I can't even seem to be able to upgrade the FW because there's only one file online to download, when you'd expect one for each computer.

Thoughts?

You're right. My apologies. I spoke with my friend yesterday. The computer was bought new from Apple having the upgrade done by Apple to 8 core.

So doesn't that make them responsible? Or is just that it's too old a machine and there's no one at Apple around that will be able to make sense of this even though Apple did the upgrade.

But doesn't it make it their responsibility at all?

Hi Guys,

Hatter if you look to the top of this page, 2nd reply is what I copy/pasted direct from the apple.com spec page for my exact MP based on inputting my S/N. You've mentioned before about PSU which is a new term for me, but regardless, you say Apple never did upgrade to 8 core.

Excuse my ignorance, but since we bought it with 8 core, and it shows 8 cores in my About this Mac, and also in the options you could purchase, which we did, at the time, I just must not understand what your trying to tell me.

Because I "thought" we bought an Apple upgraded MP1 with the 8 core upgrade option. What I had no idea about until talk with you two, is that upgrading a MP1 to 8 cores would yield a MP2 computer.

But then Hatter you're saying Apple didn't do this kind of upgrade and Grant saying that if I keep pushing Apple their gonna get upset. Although, I've spoken to one senior AppleCare Tech who was aware of the upgrade, but another who didn't have a clue, who was probably one of the 12 year olds Grant was referring to.

Either way guys, regardless of what the staff remembers, my friend did buy and pay extra for this upgrade to Apple, so while I appreciate that no company wants to support legacy things, I'm hoping that Apple will see that when I started crashing awhile back and they may have misdiagnosed the motherboard needing to be replaced, and they had no problem taking my money for that. That's what you were saying I guess Grant.

But Hatter since they did install it, I feel there is some responsibility here. but I may very well be barking up the wrong tree and wasting everyone's time.

OK.. so if I just shut up and leave Apple alone, when I go to the firmware download page, the installer file for both computer shows FW: MP11.005C.B00

However in my About this Mac my FW is one letter off: MP11.005D.B00. No one at Apple knows the diff between the C version that supposedly came with the MP1 (original) and what I have in my computer which could have been put there by the Apple store that put in my Motherboard.

The MP1 (MP11.005C.B08) and MP2 FW (MP21.007F.B06) links, link to the same exact file. So it seems that it doesn't matter which link I click to get the FW installer, but the page of description about this refers to

Mac Pro EFI Firmware UPdate 1.2

http://support.apple.com/downloads/Mac_Pro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_2

So if I use this installer, how is it gonna know to install the later FW for a MP2 which I'm "assuming" is MP21.007F.B06? since I already have MP11.005D.B08. Or might it reinstall MP11.005C.B08 and blowout the "D" version? and then I definitely have the FW for the MP1 and not one with the 8 core upgrade.

Do you know how to find the link to a MP1 with a 8 core upgrade?

Hi Grant,

This is new to me, so I'm just curious to understand better. How can you tell/know someone installed a 3rd party "About this Mac" (ATM)?

Again the only one(s) that upgraded this Mac was Apple (either at factory or at the Apple Store) when the the 8 cores were added at time of purchase (ordered by my friend with Apple).

And then the motherboard replacement, which Apple Genius Bar Techs recommended & I had them do.

To be clear, my Mac has never been worked on by anyone other than Apple. It has never been worked on by an indy store that works on Macs for example. And the only things I've ever added: was a Sonnets 4-port USB PCI Express card and additional hard drives in bays 2, 3, and 4.

Are you saying that when you do either or both of these hardware changes, that you also have to install a 3rd party "ATM" and can't use the one that comes with it?

Question: if per chance my friend had a 3rd party ATM installed lets say, wouldn't the Lion install I did last week, install the original Apple "ATM" and overwrite a 3rd party "ATM" if one existed?

WOW. Very interesting indeed. Way more going on than I realized. From what my friend tells me, he simply ordered the MP and added to the order the 8 core upgrade and doesn't have a clue which flavor of CPU he got and never requested any in particular.

Is it important I know which CPU is inside? If so, how do you find out what you have? I hunted thru my ATM pages the only mention of "processor" was the speed (3GHz) and # of them (2) on Hardware Overview.

But lastly, since the firmware file is the same for a MP1,1 or MP2,1: am I correct in guessing that this installer may be dual purpose and will install the correct firmware after it ascertains which computer you have, a 1 or a 2.

And if that's true, I wonder how the version 1 firmware ever got on my computer since you and Grant are sure I have a MP2,1 even though my Modele identifier in my ATM says: MacPro1,1. Is that a glitch or something?