Need a video card for early Mac Pro

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Need a video card for early Mac Pro

I have an early Mac Pro from 2007. I need a video card for it, as the original 7300 died prior to me being given the computer in 2009 (so it has nothing at the moment). I've seen other posts recommending the ATI 5770, and that sounds good, but I have no idea what OS is on this machine, so that card might not boot up. What are my best options? Would it be possible to hook up the hard drive via USB adapter to another Mac to possibly identify the OS? If so, what file and version (and where) would I be looking for? Thanks in advance!

Posted on Jul 10, 2014 9:00 PM

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Answer 1

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lllaass

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Jul 11, 2014 1:43 AM in response to zalant

User Tip: Mac Pro silver tower (2006-2012) Replacement Graphics cards

-Your 2006 Mac Pro (there really is no 2007 one) can only go as high as Lion

- What you can do is connect the two Macs via FireWire and place the Pro in Target Disk Mode

How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode

and boot the other Mac with Option key and select booting from the Pro startup disk.

Note this will not work if the other Mac shipped with an OS later than that on the Pro or if the other Mac is old and not compatible with the OS on the Pro.

- With that Target Dis mode you could boot normally from the other Mac and then access the disks on the Pro. I do not know where you would fine the OS version that way.

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Answer 2

zalant Author

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Jul 11, 2014 2:47 PM in response to lllaass

Thanks for the info, particularly the page about which graphics cards should work. I know there was no actual version of Mac Pro released in 2007, but the serial number lookup tool tells me the machine was manufactured in 2007. I should have clarified. Also, I forgot to mention that there's no RAM in it at the moment, and I don't have a firewire cable to perform the suggested testing. I'm thinking that if I could just get access to the hard drive's content, I could hopefully find something on it which would indicate the OS that's installed, which is why I was hoping to just add it as a second hard drive to a running Mac and explore the disk content. I would need to know what to look for, though, as identifying marker for the OS.

About that firewire test, though, let's say I do get the RAM so I can at least boot it up connected to another Mac in Target Disk Mode, would I also be able to upgrade the OS to Lion at that point, or would the hard drive from the graphic-card-less machine just show up as an external drive on the computer which has a display card? With Target Disk Mode, which hard drive is being used as the OS boot disk?

Thanks!

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Answer 3

Jul 11, 2014 3:41 PM in response to zalant

Putting a computer into Target Disk mode invokes a ROM routine that turns it into a glorified Hard Drive. It is not running Mac OS X.

The computer that is running for purposes of Installing is the other one. The Target Mac is just a Disk Drive (but it needs a working processor and some RAM to get there.)

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Answer 4

zalant Author

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Jul 15, 2014 10:43 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks Grant! So, if target disk mode just makes it so that I can access the hard drive of the target machine, is that any different from me removing it and adding it as a second hard drive to another working Mac? If it's all the same, and if I can access the content, is there any way to determine the OS which is installed on it? Perhaps a specific file whose version updates with each OS release? Something like that?

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