MP 6,1 Bad choice of the day, Sealed NIB 6-Core, D700, 64GB and 1TB

[AngryRedTicTac]

They get a new serial number after refurbishment. Refurbished Mac Pros have a 6 as the second digit instead of 5.

Mine is a 5, so if that is correct it remains new production.

 

[AngryRedTicTac]

Yes, the real Build Date is stored right in the last sector of the SPI flash, some bytes before the X86 Reset Vector, address 0X7FFF50:

I've spent a fair amount of time hatcheting things in terminal over the years, and am comfortable with that. Is there any hazard associated with the ROM dump procedure? I want to do it now, before I actually turn this into my primary computer.

 

[tsialex]

I've spent a fair amount of time hatcheting things in terminal over the years, and am comfortable with that. Is there any hazard associated with the ROM dump procedure? I want to do it now, before I actually turn this into my primary computer.

Nope, just disable SIP with Recovery csrutil disable, boot macOS again and run ROMTool.

After dumping your BootROM image, you can re-enable SIP.

 

[arw]

Just to get an idea what coconutBattery displays vs. the bootrom (1st hand retail units):
2014-02-17 ___ 140129140129p
2018-01-08 ___ 180110180110p

 

[A Hobo]

I had a friend tour the plant in 2018, and they were definitely still producing new 2013 Mac Pros

This is known as an anecdote. It’s not true. And you know you can neither prove it or disprove me: so your ‘friend’ who apple somehow allowed to tour a secretive Texas apple plant could well be an argumentative tool.

Apple were not making ANY 2013 Mac Pros in 2018, feel free to buzz me your serial number, I’ll be able to describe where and when It was produced, when and to who it was sold, ect. This is an open invite to anyone who worries about their d500/d700 Mac Pros

 

[conmee]

This is known as an anecdote. It’s not true. And you know you can neither prove it or disprove me: so your ‘friend’ who apple somehow allowed to tour a secretive Texas apple plant could well be an argumentative tool.

Apple were not making ANY 2013 Mac Pros in 2018, feel free to buzz me your serial number, I’ll be able to describe where and when It was produced, when and to who it was sold, ect. This is an open invite to anyone who worries about their d500/d700 Mac Pros

Hope you’re ready to eat your words when he posts the selfie of his buddy with Tim and Jony in front of what are clearly 6,1 cylinders flowing down an assembly line.

 

[zackkmac]

Hope you’re ready to eat your words when he posts the selfie of his buddy with Tim and Jony in front of what are clearly 6,1 cylinders flowing down an assembly line.

Yeah, what would a hobo know anyways?

 

[tsialex]

LOL, that is a very dumb take, at work I have 4 late-2013 Mac Pros made in 2018, all bought back in early 2019.

My own personal late-2013 Mac Pro was made in 20180716…

 

[AngryRedTicTac]

Nope, just disable SIP with Recovery csrutil disable, boot macOS again and run ROMTool.

After dumping your BootROM image, you can re-enable SIP.

I'm not finding a valid download of ROMTool, do you have a link?

 

[tsialex]

I'm not finding a valid download of ROMTool, do you have a link?

Boot your Recovery partition or boot a createinstallmedia USB installer, open Terminal and then disable SIP with the command:

csrutil disable

Note: Yosemite SIP is not compatible with ROMTool/flashrom. Don’t use Yosemite at all - ROMTool/flashrom work from Mavericks to Mojave, except Yosemite. SnowLeopard/Lion/Mountain Lion/Yosemite won’t work.

[*]Do a BootROM dump using ROMTool, zip password is "rom". You need SIP disabled and no AV or any anti-malware running. ROMTool is usually a false-positive to any AV/anti-malware because it uses flashrom and DirectHWAccess.kext. If you have any AV/Malware detection tool installed, do a clean install on another disk, it will be easier and less time consuming than disabling/removing kexts/etc.

 

[Chucks4me]

This is known as an anecdote. It’s not true. And you know you can neither prove it or disprove me: so your ‘friend’ who apple somehow allowed to tour a secretive Texas apple plant could well be an argumentative tool.

Apple were not making ANY 2013 Mac Pros in 2018, feel free to buzz me your serial number, I’ll be able to describe where and when It was produced, when and to who it was sold, ect. This is an open invite to anyone who worries about their d500/d700 Mac Pros

So, in other words you are saying Apple was holding on to MacPros for years to wait for an order to come in to install an SSD with MacOS Mojave to
make it look like a 2019 6,1 Mac Pro?

Or maybe Apple had Mojave already 4 years prior release ready to go?

I bought my first 6,1 last year with a 02/2018 production date. Came with High Sierra preinstalled.

 

[Chucks4me]

Tadaa 🎉
The MacPro arrived today.
Production date 01/2019 with Mojave 10.14.2 pre installed.

 

[AngryRedTicTac]

Boot your Recovery partition or boot a createinstallmedia USB installer, open Terminal and then disable SIP with the command:

csrutil disable

Note: Yosemite SIP is not compatible with ROMTool/flashrom. Don’t use Yosemite at all - ROMTool/flashrom work from Mavericks to Mojave, except Yosemite. SnowLeopard/Lion/Mountain Lion/Yosemite won’t work.

[*]Do a BootROM dump using ROMTool, zip password is "rom". You need SIP disabled and no AV or any anti-malware running. ROMTool is usually a false-positive to any AV/anti-malware because it uses flashrom and DirectHWAccess.kext. If you have any AV/Malware detection tool installed, do a clean install on another disk, it will be easier and less time consuming than disabling/removing kexts/etc.

Every time I try to download ROMTool I get a "decompression failed" message, no matter how long I leave it in the download before I try to open it.

 

[AngryRedTicTac]

Tadaa 🎉
The MacPro arrived today.
Production date 01/2019 with Mojave 10.14.2 pre installed.

View attachment 2141785

Are you ready for you Apple call? Hopefully you have the same easy experience I did.

 

[Chucks4me]

Are you ready for you Apple call? Hopefully you have the same easy experience I did.

I did and it was in deed very easy this time around.
Now I have 60 days to add Apple care, either 299 for 3 years or 109 until cancelled.

 

[AngryRedTicTac]

I did and it was in deed very easy this time around.
Now I have 60 days to add Apple care, either 299 for 3 years or 109 until cancelled.

I'm still talking myself in circles, the potential payoff for the AppleCare+ is theoretically pretty darn good. I may just start the $109 thing, it's a pretty small difference over the three years....

 

[zackkmac]

I'm still talking myself in circles, the potential payoff for the AppleCare+ is theoretically pretty darn good. I may just start the $109 thing, it's a pretty small difference over the three years....

For the small price difference, I would definitely do the $109 option just to have a bit more leftover cash from the overall purchase. Not like Apple will make it hard to charge you again for next year's payment.

 

[Chucks4me]

I'm still talking myself in circles, the potential payoff for the AppleCare+ is theoretically pretty darn good. I may just start the $109 thing, it's a pretty small difference over the three years....

I might do the exact same thing.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I suggest to purchase the full 3 years because if Apple stops offering repairs then they won't let you renew the annual plan. It will be considered vintage next year and continued service will depend on availability of parts.

 

[avro707]

I suggest to purchase the full 3 years because if Apple stops offering repairs then they won't let you renew the annual plan. It will be considered vintage next year and continued service will depend on availability of parts.

This is a very good suggestion. These machines are very old now and they have a lot of bespoke (and expensive) parts like the GPUs. You can't just go out and buy replacement GPUs easily.

 

[SpotOnT]

Hope you’re ready to eat your words when he posts the selfie of his buddy with Tim and Jony in front of what are clearly 6,1 cylinders flowing down an assembly line.

😂
No it is nothing that spectaulcar. He was writing an article on manufacturing jobs for the local paper and the interview was held at the plant. Apple wasn't even part of the interview and the story was about multiple manufacturing facilities. I can see if he has any content I could share, but I am not sure how some photo would prove the date. Best bet is probably to just see if I can track down that article.

Although we already have ROM dumps showing a 2018 production date, so I am not even sure if it is worth it.

 

[tsialex]

Every time I try to download ROMTool I get a "decompression failed" message, no matter how long I leave it in the download before I try to open it.

Link works fine, just downloaded with Safari and decompressed with Finder. Password is "rom".

 

[SpotOnT]

Every time I try to download ROMTool I get a "decompression failed" message, no matter how long I leave it in the download before I try to open it.

I just tried downloading ROMTool from the link provided by tsialex and had no problem opening the zip on my MBP running Sierra. I can repost that for you if you want (the thing is under 1 MB).

Edit: woops, looks like I was beaten to the punch. Ignore my comment.

 

[conmee]

😂
No it is nothing that spectaulcar. He was writing an article on manufacturing jobs for the local paper and the interview was held at the plant. Apple wasn't even part of the interview and the story was about multiple manufacturing facilities. I can see if he has any content I could share, but I am not sure how some photo would prove the date. Best bet is probably to just see if I can track down that article.

Although we already have ROM dumps showing a 2018 production date, so I am not even sure if it is worth it.

Of course I was just bringing some levity/humor to the topic, but ironically, if you actually do manage to provide a published news story that aligns with the production timing in question that would probably be more convincing than a personal selfie with Tim and Jony, although maybe not as cool.

Not to mention it looks like the ROM dumps from tsialex confirm late production dates for the 6,1 so the point is moot.

At any rate, cool topic and interesting to theorize about how/why/when of 6,1 production run.

 

[MBAir2010]

It came with Mojave installed, I guessed these would be pretty fresh builds, and I was right. The build date code is Y10, so well into 2019. It’s a beautiful baby 🤣 View attachment 2139808

Mojave is great I'm using this on a MacBook Pro 2012 with lighting speed!

as far as Grilling your purchase, im setting up a discarded Mac mini to Mojave now.
my 4th active Mac in the house!