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Apple MAC PRO expert required

jcdammeyer

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
One of the things I found in Misha's stuff (and there's a lot of it as he was a bit of a hoarder) (not like us...) was a 2008 vintage MAC PRO system.

Mac Pro "Eight Core" 2.8 (2008) Specs (Early 2008, MA970LL/A, MacPro3,1, A1186, 2180): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Mac Pro "Eight Core" 2.8 (2008). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.
everymac.com everymac.com
The hard drive and carrier was missing. I later found it in a box of hard drives. It's toast as are the special screws that hold it to the mount.
So I cleaned up a couple of 2TB drives that were in his stash and first used a USB dongle I had with Linux Debian and Raspberry Pi Desktop that I had also installed on my wife's old laptop. Put that one one of the hard drives and the system works great.
Next I downloaded and created a USB dongle with LUBUNTU and put it on a different hard drive. Works too.
Doesn't let me open the DVD drive though. Even the button didn't open the drive. Took it apart. Works a bit better but still doesn't open most of the time when the button is pressed.

OK. So why this posting? What I'd like to do is have someone help me create a USB dongle that can install MAC OS El Capitan version which is supposed to be compatible with this hardware.

Anyone out there that is a MAC expert?
 
Metal working related. The hard disks are held in special brackets that slide the drive into the SATA connector. The screws have shoulders and recesses into rubber grommets that isolate the drive but also hold it an exact distance from the edge of the bracket. Misha (my son) likely screwed up the philips heads since he marked both the broken drive and the bracket with a comment "Do not unscrew, stripped".

And they aren't the prettiest anymore.

DVD_Screw-2.webp


The shoulder is important has that how the 6-32 screw fits into the rubber but also sets the distance.
DVD_Screw-1.webp


So I had to draw it out. With a 0.8mm slitting saw I think I can replace the Philips head with the slot. The square ER32 collet holder with the 3-4mm collet holds the screw nicely. So I think I'll first take a stab at slotting an existing screw. Otherwise just make new ones.

DVD_Screw-0.webp
 
USB? That machine only has USB 2.0 ports so the interface is going to be a real choke point. The Firewire 800 ports would offer much better throughput.

You can probably buy the screws you need from OtherWorldComputing. OWC has been around for ages and specializes in upgrades for Apple machines. For example, their page for internal hard drives for the 2008 Mac Pro is at:

ca.macsales.com

OWC SSD Upgrade Kits For Mac Pro 2008

Get everything you need to upgrade your Mac Pro 2008 SSD for a total system performance and capacity boost. All OWC SSDs backed by a lifetime warranty.
ca.macsales.com ca.macsales.com

OWC now has a "Canadian" store with prices in CAD and shipping from Ontario.

Craig
(BTW, I see someone has one listed on Kijiji for $400 currently.
 
trlvn said:
USB? That machine only has USB 2.0 ports so the interface is going to be a real choke point. The Firewire 800 ports would offer much better throughput.

You can probably buy the screws you need from OtherWorldComputing. OWC has been around for ages and specializes in upgrades for Apple machines. For example, their page for internal hard drives for the 2008 Mac Pro is at:

ca.macsales.com

OWC SSD Upgrade Kits For Mac Pro 2008

Get everything you need to upgrade your Mac Pro 2008 SSD for a total system performance and capacity boost. All OWC SSDs backed by a lifetime warranty.
ca.macsales.com ca.macsales.com

OWC now has a "Canadian" store with prices in CAD and shipping from Ontario.

Craig
(BTW, I see someone has one listed on Kijiji for $400 currently.
Click to expand...
Has two more USB on the back. The carriers for hard drives are available for about $14 on amazon.ca IIRC.
Overall I'm impressed with how fast that machine actually is. It's fully loaded with RAM. An SSD would definitely improve the overall speed.

Haven't been able to install WIN-10 or WIN-11 on it. Just Linux.

Finally figured out why the DVD tray wouldn't come out. Likely stiff oil or sticky slides. With button press it does eject but most of the time it just gives up. Even with a disk in it doesn't read.

Pulled one from my Light Show PC (just a DVD reader not R/W) and that drawer does go in/out and once a disk is installed it even reads it. However although Linux detects the Eject Button from a MAC keyboard and reverses the text of the DVD drive name nothing else happens. I'm guessing a driver problem there. Which is a problem when the DVD drive is in the machine. No access to the button.

That link with the video on DVD tray cover removal is very handy. This 2008 drive did not have it removed but it was missing the button. So strange.
Also found this:

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Use an external drive or secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install macOS.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
Mac Pros are tanks. Only reason I retired mine is it wouldn’t run the current Mac OS. Pop in an SSD, max out the RAM and there aren’t many tasks that they can’t do.
 
jcdammeyer said:
Overall I'm impressed with how fast that machine actually is. It's fully loaded with RAM. An SSD would definitely improve the overall speed.
Click to expand...
Really shows just how little progress Intel made for years. I'm ready now to jump on the Apple Silicone train!

Craig
 
trlvn said:
Really shows just how little progress Intel made for years. I'm ready now to jump on the Apple Silicone train!

Craig
Click to expand...
The problem is what software does someone run? For most desktop oriented projects I've used Delphi (Object Pascal) for decades. I also use MPLAB and the ICD series of programmers to do Microchip PIC stuff. Add to that a variety of other applications that don't exist on either Linux nor the MAC and it's pretty easy to see why I haven't changed. And I could still write once and compile for MACs, iPhones, Android Phones and tablets in addition to PCs so the latest Embarcadero system is pretty awesome.

OTOH, my sons both used MACs for MUSIC and GRAPHIC design. For a while the MAC was the goto system for anything to with publishing and graphics. Not so sure that's the case now. There are some pretty impressive music applications on PCs too.

Compared to PC cases the MAC PRO is a tank. But then the latest MAC PRO is also listed at $6999 (US I think) so you do get what you pay for. They've always been more expensive than PCs.
 
I’m very tempted by the M1 chips. My older brother has one of the new M1 Mac Minis, and it’s screaming fast. But I love my Intel 27” iMac, so I'll likely wait until Apple release a 27” Apple Silicon iMac.
 
whydontu said:
Mac Pros are tanks. Only reason I retired mine is it wouldn’t run the current Mac OS. Pop in an SSD, max out the RAM and there aren’t many tasks that they can’t do.
Click to expand...
I was totally cheesed off when I discovered that because I upgraded my SSD from 128GB to 1TB, the new OS would not be supported.
At that point I shelved my MBP and bought a super-zoot windows laptop.
 
DavidR8 said:
I was totally cheesed off when I discovered that because I upgraded my SSD from 128GB to 1TB, the new OS would not be supported.
At that point I shelved my MBP and bought a super-zoot windows laptop.
Click to expand...
I wonder if that will be an issue with the MAC PRO from 2008 and El Capitan OS? There was a 640GB Western Digital Caviar Blue from 2009 drive in the MAC PRO. I have some more of these 640GB drives all marked with felt pen lihe hd1, hd2. But only once hard drive bracket for the system. Unless they were tossed out as scrap at some point. The fact that the hard drive with bracket wasn't in the machine suggests it may have been a few years since he last ran this system.
 
jcdammeyer said:
I wonder if that will be an issue with the MAC PRO from 2008 and El Capitan OS? There was a 640GB Western Digital Caviar Blue from 2009 drive in the MAC PRO. I have some more of these 640GB drives all marked with felt pen lihe hd1, hd2. But only once hard drive bracket for the system. Unless they were tossed out as scrap at some point. The fact that the hard drive with bracket wasn't in the machine suggests it may have been a few years since he last ran this system.
Click to expand...
Maybe? My MB was from 2015 and I was trying to update to the OS of last year, I want to say Sierra?
 
DavidR8 said:
Maybe? My MB was from 2015 and I was trying to update to the OS of last year, I want to say Sierra?
Click to expand...
My Windows 7 from 2009 is currently running a 2TB drive and doesn't have issues but I think Windows Home Server 2001 (WIN-XP backbone) has issues with ultra long file names. I wrote a special program to walk through the entire hard drive and list all file names longer than X characters and sure enough there were a bunch. Once I trashed those or renamed the folders which had long names suddenly backups worked again. That was last spring.

Now lately if it's on the WHS system hangs after a major cleanup/backup. With the WIN-7 Off it continues to back up the WiFi attached HP WIN-10 laptop but I can't get a connection to the WIN-10 workstation for backups etc. I think that's because the network card is too high a speed for the WIN-XP system.

Ah progress...
 
gerritv said:
Apple likes to limit OS updates to machines 7 years old or less (if I recall correctly). I'm confident the world would end if Microsoft tried that. But for Apple it is ok. Helps with their HW sales of course.

www.macworld.com

macOS compatibility: Here's the latest version your Mac can run

Find out what version of macOS your Mac can run with our macOS compatibility checker & which version of macOS is best for your Mac
www.macworld.com www.macworld.com
Click to expand...
Exactly. Which is why I say that if Apple were told that if they discontinue software support for working hardware they have to make the software open source. So when HTML changed to allow more incipient advertising and tracking of course the browsers had to be able to handle this. And therein lies the problem. If the Safari is the only one that runs on your iPhone and you need the Apple gateway to be able to install something all they have to do is not update it and web pages no longer show properly. And you can't update to a third party because you can't update anymore.

BTW. Linux isn't any better on this. When I tried to do an apt update on my LinuxCNC 2.8 the web page for that was invalid. Apparently I can do something to one of the files to get it to check archived web pages but if I want to make a USB WiFi dongle work and not lock up the system I have to update to the latest Linux which likely in a year won't be able to find the web pages for updating either.

Frustrating...
 
Thanks to @whydontu who sent me a USB drive I now have MAC OS running on the hardware.
1709357577441.webp

The problem isn't so much the speed of video or the processor. The problem is that the Safari browser is out of date for the current type of web pages. So I can't use it to actually post text to this forum. I can post photos but can't post using the keyboard.

But this is definitely progress!
 
jcdammeyer said:
Thanks to @whydontu who sent me a USB drive I now have MAC OS running on the hardware.
View attachment 44986
The problem isn't so much the speed of video or the processor. The problem is that the Safari browser is out of date for the current type of web pages. So I can't use it to actually post text to this forum. I can post photos but can't post using the keyboard.

But this is definitely progress!
Click to expand...
And if I boot Debian 11 with the Raspberry Pi look alike desktop I can post messages from it onto the forum. So I guess in the long run there doesn't seem to be a good reason to use MAC OS unless if can be updated. This version of the Debian Pi is from 2022.
 
whydontu said:
If you don’t mind fiddling about a bit, the hardware you have is actuall pretty good, even by 2024 standards. It will run almost-current Mac OS, check out https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/how-to-keep-older-macs-secure-a-geeky-approach/
Click to expand...
The open core legacy patcher was also referred to on the Facebook MAC PRO group. Looks like that link gives great instructions and since I have nothing to loose I think tomorrow between Slitting Saw Arbour manufacturing I will take a stab at it.
Tomorrow will be busy.
42. Required to watch rowing competition of older son's fiance's kid. Chris, my son, has been the Dad now for about 8 years. So I guess you could say Grandfather duties.
42. Another trip to Misha's rented room to retrieve yet more stuff to sort through. Who knows. Maybe I'll find some more MAC PRO Disk Caddies. Going through his stuff is always hard.
42. Try and update OS on MAC PRO. Worst that can happen is trash the OS.
...
42. Finish machining arbour for slitting saw and cut slits in MAC PRO Disk Caddy mounting screws since the Philips sockets no longer exist.
 
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