Fun with Three Early MacPro models: 1,1 2,1 3,1

[phunguss]

I really love Free Geek Minneapolis. I grabbed a $10 MacPro1,1 a while back, and within the last month grabbed a MacPro2,1 for $5. Both were listed as projects with issues. While a 2,1 is technically the same as a 1,1 with just an updated firmware, EveryMac lists them as separate platforms.

"Trouble booting, video card not included, As-Is project $10"

"No RAM, no HD, Froze while installing, $5"

I already owned a flaky MacPro3,1 (HD 2600XT) so I thought between the three I could at least get one good working machine. The 3,1 was donated to me because of the flakiness... The original owner had purchased a GTX 770 PC card and with it installed, the computer had random crashes and problems booting. I thought it was a RAM issue as some of the red lights would come on the RAM risers. I pulled that RAM and donated it to Free Geek in 2023, and set the machine aside until recently.

I flashed the GTX 770 to Mac, and was able to install Ventura on the 3,1 with OCLP.

Come to find out, there was nothing really wrong with any of the three machines. I moved the video card (7300GT) from the 2,1 to the 1,1 and installed a hard drive and got 10.7 installed without issue. I transplanted the RAM, HD, Video to the 2,1 and it booted just fine. I have also been collecting random low end $1,$2,$5 PCI video cards from Free Geek for other Hackintosh projects, but decided to test them in a real mac as well. Turns out most do not support EFI boot screen, but actually do show up after the OS boots.

So now I have 3 fully functional early MacPro machines.

I have ordered some super cheap faster CPU pairs for one of the machines and some additional 800Mhz FB-Dimms for the 3,1.

 

[phunguss]

Stopped by FGM this afternoon, another MacPro1,1 for $5.

??? They had two 512MB dimms in one riser. I replace with two 4GB and it booted fine.

I guess I could start using them as furniture.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Nice. I enjoy my cMP 1,1 alot. I have Lion and El Cap on mine.

 

[Volvo242GT]

My daily for a few years was a similarly equipped 3,1. Difference was that I had only 6GB installed, and my video card was a Radeon 5770. Worked quite well. Did have an issue when I decided to move the video card to a different slot. Turns out, that doesn't work very well. Pulled one of the clips for the heatsink on one of the chips on the board, causing the heatsink to fall off. Fans started randomly revving up all the way.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

This is my garage/workshop cMP 1,1. It still crushes it. At some point I figure I'll throw linux on here but El Cap still runs great on this machine so there's little incentive. I guess if I ever run out of things to do LOL. The GPU I'm using is a NVIDIA 240 GT that I've had for ages. No boot screen but loads into desktop with out issue and works great for any content/media I throw at it. IIRC I used the pike r alpha bootloader.

 

[phunguss]

Spent some more time with the 2,1 and 3,1 this weekend.

Upgraded the 3,1 from 2.8GHz to 3.0GHz for $12. Previiously flashed the GTX 770 for Mac boot screen, and got OCLP to install Ventura (2nd time). More RAM coming next week.

Flashed and old HD 4870 for Mac boot screen, installed wifi and bluetooth internal cards. Currently running 10.6.8 Snow, 10.7.5 Lion, and El Capitan 10.11.6 with PikeR installer.

Next week I will dig into the two MacPro1,1's and see what happens. I have an HD2600, 7300GT, and X1900 XT for video card options.

 

[phunguss]

Oops, I did it again. Another stop at Free Geek Minneapolis and I found this 3,1 for $5. Says chimes but no video. Even an empty case on eBay is going for over 50 dollars, so I can't say no.

No hard drive, 4 x 1GB 800MHz PC2-6400 FBDIMMS, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB. Removed video card, fans, and optical drive, blew out the dust, inserted my 10.4/10.5 mechanical hard drive. When I reinstalled the video card, it felt like the motherboard 6pin power connector was not pushed in all the way... hmmm?

FIrst power on, all is good!

Now I have 5 Intel, 3 PPC waiting for next year's PPC Challenge, and 1 empty PPC case being converted to a Hackintosh. I am going to need another shelf.

Had to move the fans out 3/4 of an inch, plasma cut, then epoxied. Just started drilling out the air holes (above the two fan holes on the epoxy line).