Thanks for sharing! My main Mac is one of these 3.1, 3 Ghz, same graphic card, 24 GB RAM. It´s great. And while my wife´s Air is being repaired I bought another 3.1 Mac Pro (2.8Ghz, 32 GB RAM, SSD +1 TB HD, Radeon 4870) for less than $300. Until we get one of those gorgeous new M1 these Mac Pros do the job!!!
Mac Pro 3,1 probably the best computer ever made. As long as you have an octacore, get an ssd and upgrade the gpu to something nicer. The most you can go is a gtx960, the CPU will bottleneck the card if you get something nicer. Rather that over a 680 it's newer, just save your original gpu, if ever need a boot screen. You can also just choose the start up disk right in settings anyway. Itll run Monterey fine. The cpu dual 2.8ghz is still better than the minimum spec MacBook Pro that can run Monterey. Computer will last to 2030 and be usable for multitasking, presentations. I have mine set up with 3 HD's. One 500gb ssd with the dosdude Catalina patched os, (will prob wait a few years before trying a Monterey patcher) an old 1TB Hd 500gb partitioned for time machine of the ssd and 500gb as bootable version of El Capitan. Then the original 320gb partitioned as a boot disk, and 250gb partitioned to keep the patched version of the OSs. Always have backups!! Especially when you start playing around with the patching.
It looks like your aftermarket RAM is overheating. It's not built for that machine, since it doesn't have the proper heatsinks. I believe on the MacPro3,1 the temperature of the RAM is only measured on slot 1 and 2 of riser A, and it looks like you have OEM RAM in there. If so, then what is happening is your Mac Pro is measuring the temp of the RAM with the giant heatsinks which will be cooler, and keeping the fan speed low to match those lower temps. This means there is not enough air going through for the other RAM, so the other RAM will overheat. If your new RAM has temp sensors, you'll want to move those RAM modules to DIMM slots that can utilize those sensors, to allow the Mac to more quickly raise fan speeds to keep the RAM cool. Unfortunately, with this type of RAM, often that means more fan noise. OTOH, if your RAM does not have temp sensors, then you are out of luck.
@@nelizmastr I'm not sure if I explained it correctly. I'm not saying you shouldn't ever use that RAM. I am saying that if you are going to use that RAM, then then it should be in the DIMM slots which the Mac Pro can monitor. If I interpreted what was in your video correctly, you had the OEM type RAM in the temp monitored DIMM slots, but put the new server RAM in the other unmonitored DIMM slots. It should be the other way around (if that new RAM has temp sensors that is). That type of RAM tends to increase in temperature much more quickly than OEM RAM, and the only way the Mac Pro can compensate for that is if it can detect that RAM's temperatures. With the way you had placed the RAM in the video, the Mac Pro can't do this.
All RAM slots are monitored in the Mac Pro. All memory modules have temp sensors, so it’s okay. Fan speed increases occasionally when RAM is loading up so all is well :)
some minutes ago, i found on the internet a mac pro 3.1, with 2 xeon 2,8 ghz quad-core CPUs, and the nvidia quadro fx 4600, 32 gb of ddr2 ram, and macOS catalina installed. i thought of buying it and then upragind it maybe a lot, with things like an rx 570 or an ssd. now that i watched this video, holy crap, i buy that thing right now!
Catalina will not run properly on that FX so definitely throw that RX570 in there. Should run well. I’m going to properly upgrade to a newer card at some point as well.
@@nelizmastr thank you for the tip, i will leave it high sierra. Is it ok if i add a gpu? the guy who sells the mac pro, says that you can have maximum 4 graphics card working together, snd if it's true i tought to buy an rx480 and a rx 570, put them in, and make a beast out of that mac pro
Indeed: Two Slots from one of my 3.1 riser cars died months ago; I was pissed off. But I bought two second hand risers (they included like 16 GB of RAM too) for maybe 30 euros.
Are dirty ram slots of mid-seated ram modules a common cause of the red led’s on riser boards? I had 4 of 6 sticks show as an issue and just removed them thinking they had died.
If the slots have been unpopulated for years, it becomes an issue, yes. Dust builds up in there. Some compressed air or a soft brush should fix it though. Another cause of the red LED is improper configuration. RAM has to be inserted in a certain order to work properly in dual or quad channel configurations.
I have this machine laying around and want to start using it in my studio. What video card should I get to support one 4K monitor? Where did you get the ram for five bucks each in China? Since this machine is so old. I obviously don’t want to put too much money into it but would like to use it and when my 16 inch MacBook Pro is not at the studio.
@@nelizmastr Yeah. True. I must admit the one I picked up three days ago was 50 euros because it was supposed to be broken. I didn't (want to) believe that and I was right: it's fine. Found 24Gb of 667Mhz memory and bought a 120Gb SSD. Total money spent is now 81,30 euros and it is plenty fast! Will install Catalina on it. And if we get lucky dosdude1 might be able to get Big Sur on it? That would be INSANE. There's an offer for two 4,1 Mac Pro's around the corner for 200 euro's the two. Missing memory and disk. Might be buy-in those to resell for that insane price ;-)
It depends on which connections the graphics card has. It can have a combination of many different ports. Most have one or more DVI ports (large white rectangle), others have mini-displayport (small almost square port) or HDMI or full Displayport (both black). You'll need a cable that fits those ports and can also connect to your monitor. If your monitor doesn't have DVI or Mini-displayport you'll need an adapter as well, i.e. DVI to VGA or Mini-displayport to DVI/HDMI/DP.
I bought them on eBay. This is a good deal: www.ebay.nl/itm/303595603172?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=1346-175129-2357-0&ssspo=kGh-YMUqQWq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=E22IGyycRpy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
Hey NeilzMastr! Wow stuff with the video! Ive got a 3,1 as well.. the RAM upgrades and the SSD upgrades are what Im Looking for too! I can clone my other MBP running Mojave onto the new drive.. question is.. SSD PCIe / SSD NVMe.. does it have any specs? Will any of these cards fit the motherboard of the Mac Pro 3,1? Could you put down some suggestions on which PCIe card I can get? Thanks a tonne sir! You're amazing!
NelizMastr - Tech for PC & Mac I can run it as an OS disk.. and will mostly be running Mojave .. I can settle for a SSD PCIe if this NVMe is gonna be an issue
Google for Dosdude high sierra patcher ;). He made a patcher that downloads and installs newer versions of macOS that Apple wouldn’t support on certain machines.
@@inakisayar3220 Did you ever get this problem solved? I think I had that same problem back when I tried. Can't seem to find the stand alone installer either
Would you know how to Diagnose Slot 1 in a MacPro 2008? I get power but I can't seem to get video, i have zapped the pram, nvram, etc. I have tried 2 of the original cards that came with the device, they are working cards and work fine in slot 2 but I can't seem to get video in slot 1 no matter what I do. Any suggestions?
Hi. I haven’t upgraded yet. Can’t currently justify the cost of a new card so it’ll happen eventually. Flashing is out of the question, as there are no cards with Mac ROMs that support Metal, aside from the GTX680 and HD7950. Everything else will work, but without a boot screen.
@@nelizmastr @NelizMastr - Tech for PC & Mac does it mean whatever card that compatible with the machine (like Mac Pro 3,1) then it's good to Mojave or Catalina, but just without Boot Screen? Still, only GTX680 & HD7950 could be Flashed at the moment?
I run gtx780 on mine (was thinking about 1080) with High Sierra, 32gb RAM, 2ssds, the original 500gb Sata disk, and I have the boot screen. No flash needed. I was looking to upgrade the CPUs from 2.8 to 3.0, but I'm not sure it's worth it. Probably just look to the PCIe SSD upgrade n update to Catalina, then can't do much more with it.
Once you go beyond High Sierra, keep in mind newer Nvidia cards won't work, so stick to that 780 if you can. If your 780 gives you a boot screen, it has to be flashed, not a single PC card without a modified ROM will show a bootscreen until the operating systems finishes loading.
OWC (Other World Computing) has awesome parts for old Mac Pro's. I just grabbed 64GB RAM, 2 SSD's on PCI trays, 4 HDD's, USB 3.0 PCI card, and an RX580 for my 2008 Mac Pro. Just make sure you get the fully buffered ECC (error-correcting code) memory for your Mac Pro. And avoid the cheap ($5 DIMM's) China RAM.
Were you able to boot from the PCIe SSD? I have Mac OS installed on a 1TB SSD, but its installed in the SATA II sled. I would love to try to have it in the PCIe and gain some speed.
The SSD I used was SATA internally. If you want a proper PCIe SSD for boot, then you can try to find the older Samsung PCIe AHCI SSDs. NVMe is unsupported for boot.
NelizMastr - Tech for PC & Mac I’m currently running a 1TB SSD that I believe is in AHCI mode. I’m picking up a PCIe SATA adapter tomorrow to try out. Hopefully I can get SATA 3 speeds over the SATA 2 from the standard drive ports. You are right about nvme on the 3,1. I think it’s only the 4,1 and up that support nvme.
The PCIe SATA adapter did work. I'm able to boot, and my read and write speeds have hit the full potential of my SSD instead of being bottle necked by the 3,1s SATA II.
Hi. You need an upgraded graphics card (Radeon HD77xx or higher, Nvidia GTX650 series or higher) and then you can use the Mojave/Catalina patcher from Dosdude or use OpenCore for either Big Sur or even Monterey. Guides exist for that online. Ideally, you want a macOS supported graphics card with Mac EFI because you won't have a boot screen without one.
Hello, my mac pro 3.1 (early 2008) with Mac OSX El Capitan, have: 2x2,8GHz QuadCore Intel Xeon - SSD 500Gb - RAM 10Gb at 667MHz - ATI Radeon HD2600 XT 256Mb.... One question: if I change my graphic card with the Invidia GeForce GTX 680 2Gb, is possible to upgrade at Mac OSX Sierra? Tkanks!
Yes. Of course you’ll still need an unofficial patcher to get to Sierra and beyond, but your graphics card should work. The GTX680 can be flashed with an EFI ROM for Mac, should you choose a PC card.
The boot sequence of the Mac is Sata ports first and Pcie after. So you have to wait the long check to get your OS booting. You get better speed with Pci but the boot time is longer.
Gebruik de Dosdude1 high sierra patcher :) Als je een videokaart met Metal ondersteuning plaatst (Nvidia Kepler of AMD HD7xxx of beter) kan je ook Mojave en Catalina draaien, met de Mojave en Catalina patchers.
I'm thinking about buying a 3,1, but I've read online about serous motherboard issues. Has anyone had any sorts of issues? The symptoms for a broken board are: screen turns black and fans ramp up to full speed.
I’ve never heard about that on 3,1s myself. I’ve had 2 and neither of them had motherboard issues. I did have issues like that when I had a PowerMac G5. I only ever had one that worked properly, and I’ve had a few over the years.
@@nelizmastr Thanks for the reply, well I think I gonna take the risk and buy a 3,1. I had a quad core G5 with kernel panic issues as well, which very likely were cause by antifreeze dripping on the logic board.
I've not confirmed this myself, but I've been reading that while the "system" can handle larger capacity drives the *screws* on the chassis of HDDs over 4TB are both larger and placed a tad differently than the Mac's sleds accommodate. With that in mind, a "max capacity" would look like this: • Sleds 1-4: 4TB HDD ea = 16TB (SATA 2.0 ~ 300MB/s) *OR* you can buy adapters and put all SSDs in there. Or jury-rig them if you feel lucky. • Find and install a (now discontinued) Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro Plus in a PCIe slot. This allows you to mount one or two (2) SSDs internally. Heck, install three Sonnets and have six SSDs! And yes, you can boot from here. At 960 MB/s (!). Just be mindful of the 300W limit for the combined PCIe slots (inc the graphics card). Oh - and this card includes two external eSATA ports as well so you don't lose the slot for external storage. • Lastly (although I have not done this myself), install OWC's MM352A52MP Multi-Mount adapter kit, which supports two 2.5" SSDs - in the optical bay (SATA 2.0 ~ 300MB/s). Or use both bays if you don't need a disk drive. I am uncertain of boot capability here. So - 16TBs in HDDs plus up to ten (10) SSDs of whatever capacity your Credit Card can handle. Or just go all out for 14 SSDs. All internal. Externally, you also have four (ancient) unused USB ports (there are five, with one used for your keyboard/mouse), four (adequate) FireWire ports (2 x 400; 2 x 800), and an extra Gigabit ethernet port (likely for your NAS). Plus the eSATAs on the Sonnet card. Of course, you can install a USB-3 PCI card if you have any unused slots for further more modern external storage, but I'd think the Sonnet's eSATA would suffice. Just be careful that both hardware *and* software specs can be met. The main letdown is the inability to support Thunderbolt. But USB 3.0 can work. And this is just one reason why a lot of us have called these machines some of the best Macs ever produced.
Please, Tell me, e5462 tô x5482.... Haver much Very much diference tô work???? Can u give me example, how much.... Tô me see, If i buy x5482 or not..... X5482 is the best for Mac pro 2008 right???? Im from Brazil, Sorry bad english
@@nelizmastr i have already paíd, 69$ two cpu's on eBay... I dont have more option lol...now wait tô see.... And wait nvme too... About my other question, is the latest for Mac pro 2008?
I really like that card too. They were $50 in 2018 or so + I got one then. I like the basicness of your videos I hope you don't make them slick+fancy am really getting tired of the 'clean' look and sound on these tech videos. Good job.
@@nelizmastr wow I did not expect a reply so fast. Im new (got mine last week) to Mac Pro just got the 3,1 and since learning lots just from youtube. What would you suggest in 2022 for a M.2 pciexpress cards been seeing many videos out there using the Sonnet drives cards. maxing out ram to apple supported 32gigs have 4 SSd sleds aka hard drive caddy.
Good video, enjoyed the content, subscribed and look forward to more of your videos. I guess when I move on from my Mac Pro 1,1 I might consider a 3,1 since it runs Catalina. My main fear is losing Skype and brew installation support at the command line... which usually happens to me when my machines are 12 years old or so.
@@zacharyschwanke7160 Yes, under Apple's "Bootcamp" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Camp_(software) And, of course, you can also run Virtual Machines using GmbH' Parallels or VMware's Fusion software.
Hoi , ik heb een oude mac pro 3,1 / 2 x 2,8 ghz quad core intel xeon /ATI Radeon HD 5000 1024mb / 32 gb / 500 GB ssd / 2 TB sata / 500 GB sata , hij draait momenteel op osx 10.11 el capitan en vroeg me af hoe jij High sierra op jou mac pro heb geinstalleerd en werkt het zonder problemen ? ik gebruik mijn mac pro vooral voor muziek productie en zou graag willen upgraden naar osx 10.13 High sierra .. Hopelijk kan je mij hier verder mee helpen Groeten Justin
Hoi, er is een gast hier op RU-vid, Dosdude1, die patchers heeft gebouwd om nieuwere macOS versies te laten draaien op niet ondersteunde Macs. Hij heeft een patcher voor High Sierra, Mojave en Catalina die op deze Mac Pro kunnen draaien. Als je geen videokaart vervanging gaat doen, is High Sierra de beste optie. Hij heeft zowel geschreven als video tutorials, zijn website is dosdude1.com
@@nelizmastr bedankt voor jou reactie , ik heb de originele videokaart vervangen met een radeon hd 5000 zou dit evt. een probleem kunnen vormen als ik de mac pro patch en werkt alles nog ik heb ergens gelezen dat sommigen problemen hebben met de wifi kaart ? Groeten Justin
Zolang je de instructies volgt en de goede patches kiest voor de Mac Pro 3,1 komt dat allemaal goed. Zelf ervaar ik geen problemen onder High Sierra met WiFi en een ATI HD5870.
@@nelizmastr Hoi sorry dat ik jou weer lastig val maar heb geprobeert om de patcher te gebruiken maar als ik de option / Alt key gebruik om naar de boot menu te gaan dan lukt het niet , hij gaat niet naar de boot menu en krijg een zwart scherm.. kan dit zijn omdat de radeon hd 5000 kaart geen boot menu heeft ? zo ja (of nee) weet jij misschien een oplossing ? ik heb ook geprobeert om de usb stick met high sierra erop als start up disk te selecteren maar hij is nergens te zien in de startup disk menu dus dat lukt ook niet
NVMe requires support from within the firmware, you can’t put it in any slot and it will work for booting. The 2009 and 2010 have special firmware that allows NVMe to work, even as a boot disk. The 2008 does not.
Hello - I'm looking to upgrade my Mac Pro (Early 2008) see specs below: Processor - 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Memory - 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM Graphics - ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB is it even possible? Would it be worth it? I use a lot of stuff on my current Mabook 15inch 1tb but want to move over to my desktop for editing videos, producing music, graphics design. You'll have to forgive my 'noobyness' with this all, very new to the upgrade world...(sigh)
The biggest perceivable performance upgrades are RAM and SSD. Get the memory off eBay, it’s like $30 for 16GB (4x4 or 8x2). SSDs are pretty affordable too these days. Get a caddy to convert to 3,5”.
Hey I bought the same gpu but i start up and it loads more than half way and then stops and then the screen goes black and then white and again i need help plss O yeah i am running high sierra on an ssd plsss help me i dont know what to do
I got this Mac pro 2018, I want to install a msta or nvue ssd through the express pci 16x usb2.0, it can be installed and that of good reading writing speed, I have done that in a 2009 but not in a 2008 I have tried
