macOS High Sierra (10.13) Unsupported Macs Thread

[Funkstar2]

I have a MacPro 3.1 with an AMD 7950. Unfortunately the graphic performance in the UI is almost unusable. Is there anything I can do? Did I do something wrong?

 

[Funkstar2]

Apple moved AMD drivers for anything newer than Northern Islands (HD 7xxx and beyond) to SSE4.2. They never intended to support Mac Pro 3,1 beyond El Capitan, so it's not a problem of, like you said, shoddy driver integration. It's just using the resources provided by the supported processors.

To use a HD7xxx with MP3,1 and 10.13, you have to use Sierra patched drivers. The loss of sleep/hibernation is the victim of this. If you tolerate the problems of the hacked Sierra drivers with AMD GPUs newer than HD6xxx, fine by me.

Nvidia didn't yet updated her drivers to use SSE4.2 instruction set, so you still have full support for Nvidia GPUs using High Sierra/Mojave with a MP3,1. If we want to use High Sierra with a 2008 Mac Pro and want full GPU support, working sleep and a almost clean install, you have to use Nvidia GPUs, period. But even that has a expiration date.

Btw, Mojave don't even load Sierra drivers and you can't use HD7xxx and newer cards with 10.14 on a 2008 Mac Pro.

Where can I find these hacked drivers? I have a MacPro 3.1 with a 7950 and performance is terrible. Unusable in fact.

I did apply the patches for MacPro3.1 after installation but it made no difference.

Thanks!

 

[tsialex]

Where can I find these hacked drivers? I have a MacPro 3.1 with a 7950 and performance is terrible. Unusable in fact.

I did apply the patches for MacPro3.1 after installation but it made no difference.

Thanks!

Forget AMD GPUs with MP3,1. Hacked drivers from Sierra included in the patcher have abysmal performance. Swap for a GTX 640/680/740/780.

 

[Funkstar2]

Forget AMD GPUs with MP3,1. Hacked drivers from Sierra included in the patcher have abysmal performance. Swap for a GTX 640/680/740/780.

Thank you. A 680 is now on its way.

 

[avz]

First time I've seen this long lost old friend all year, but here she is:

View attachment 857902

Oh well, one or a few occurrences per year of this video bug ain't so bad.

MacBook5,1 with GeForce 9400M running 10.13.6 High Sierra

This "video bug" has been long fixed. Use AppleGVA.framework from the Low Sierra. Enjoy!

 

[EugW]

This "video bug" has been long fixed. Use AppleGVA.framework from the Low Sierra. Enjoy!

Thx. Is that in the latest patcher or is it manual? What about the AppleGVA.framework patcher people are using for Mojave?

Does the swap cause any other issues?

 

[avz]

Thx. Is that in the latest patcher or is it manual? What about the AppleGVA.framework patcher people are using for Mojave?

Does the swap cause any other issues?

In Mojave patcher people use High Sierra's AppleGVA.framework for a smoother HD playback. The problem is that the High Sierra's "video bug" carry on to Mojave with this framework so I came up with the idea to use the Low Sierra's one as I really wanted to get it fixed. I kept quiet about it as almost nobody complained about it. You have to do it manually at this stage.

P.S. I believe it is only limited to the 9400M GPU's so it is not useful for everybody.

 

[lxlx]

Hi

I am in the middle of highsierra update steps on macbook 5,1
I succeeded step7 install, but fail on step8 post install patch.
I should reboot onto USB again, but the USB is no longer in the startup list (alt key startup). If I change harddrive to old macos 10.6, the USB highsierra is there again.

Any ideas welcome
thanks

 

[lxlx]

Phew, done.
I had to have SSD externally connected during install and post install, also I chose APFS Filesystem.
Only with old internal HDD always inside I was able to alt boot to USB... not sure why.
When post install done, I exchanged HDD and SSD, all good.

 

[Bill Forest]

Hi,
I have a 2009 imac running High Sierra (unsupported) thanks to DosDude1's patch.
I recently upgraded to the most recent version of iTunes (12.8.2), which no longer allows me to manage my old iPhone 5 apps. So, I needed to downgrade to the previous version of iTunes (12.6.3). Here's how I did that:
1. First I Duplicated iTunes 12.8.2 in my Applications folder. After the duplication, I had iTunes (12.8.2), plus another version called iTunes Copy (12.8.2) in my Applications folder
2. Next, I installed the previous version of iTunes 12.6.3. Now I had iTunes (12.6.3) and iTunes Copy (12.8.2) in my Applications folder.

This works great because I use iTunes Copy 12.8.2 for all my music. I can use iTunes 12.6.3 to manage my iphone apps.

However, I know that soon there will be an iTunes update, which will overwrite my 12.6.3 version.
So, my question: How can I rename iTunes Copy 12.83 to iTunes, and my iTunes 12.6.3 to Old iTunes, or something similar?
Since this is an unsupported iMac running High Sierra, I cannot boot into the Recovery partition to use Terminal to remove the protections to the Applications folder.

Does anyone know another way for me to rename these two copies of iTunes?
Thanks for your help!
Bill

Edit: I figured out a solution to this.

1. First, I duplicated iTunes (12.6), which left me with two copies of 12.6-one called iTunes, and one called iTunes Copy 2, since I had already duplicated iTunes 12.8, and that was already called iTunes Copy.
2. Next, I downloaded and installed iTunes 12.8. This installed iTunes 12.8 over iTunes 12.6. So, now my iTunes 12.8 was just called iTunes, and can be updated without deleting iTunes Copy (12.6).
3. Last, I deleted my old copy of iTunes Copy, which was 12.8.

That's it! Hope this helps.

 

[lilhaloshaka]

hi guys, sorry if this has been asked already. i'm just really stumped.
i'm on an early 2008 Mac Pro [ 3,1 ] trying to install High Sierra.

I'm stuck here:
View attachment 862270

i've tried different USB sticks / internal drives and i'm formatting it journaled + GUID
i also downloaded different versions of the patcher and High Sierra.

still nothing. can someone please help me figure this out ?

 

[ZippoStyle]

Hi everybody,
within the last few days I managed to set up High sierra on a MacBookPro 5.5 with the package from dosdude1.

It wouldn't boot into the USB after the first step but after eleven rounds I got it to work.
Had to use an external Clone of an older system where I set the usb as startup disk and then it went on with no further problems.

Yesterday I applied the security update 2019-004 and apart from the moaning about RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg it seems fine now. Says macOS 10.13.6 (17G65).

Now I downloaded SecUpd2019-005HighSierra.pkg and tried to install but it just tells me "this software is not supported on your system".
Since this update didn't show in my AppStore I downloaded it from Apples support site. Could that be the reason for not being able to install it ?

I would be grateful for any information regarding this security update

 

[=RS=]

Did you read all about security updates on the first site of this thread?

 

[nospamboz]

Not sure why there's not much discussion on last week's SecUpd2019-005. After a (supposedly) sufficient safety wait, I did a non-Recovery install. On my mid-2009 Macbook5,2, it took a few tries for a successful boot post-install, hanging during the Apple-logo progress screen. Maybe it was the (cmd-V) verbose that finally helped. Anyway, now everything seems fine, logs and statuses as expected.

 

[moalv]

#4,674
Went well again.
No errors.

 

[ZippoStyle]

Hi,

maybe it helps others to read how I got SecUpd2019-005HighSierra.pkg installed.

I followed the instructions on the first site of this thread on how to prepare security updates.

Then I followed these instructions: High Sierra security updates also update the Recovery HD
First with and then without support for Recovery HD - no success.

Then I tried using the Terminal to download and install updates (softwareupdate -i -a).
Here is what happened:

Downloading macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Update
Downloaded macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Update
Installing macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Update

Done.

Error installing updates.

From then on my MacBookPro refused to work and even refused to restart.

After force quit for what was still open, including Terminal, I finally got it to restart and ... it was fine again. The version unchanged macOS 10.13.6 (17G65).

Being stubborn I tried again to install the modified SecUpd2019-005HighSierra.pkg - I used the version without Recovery update (prepared as explained in the post linked above)

And it worked !!!
It is now macOS 10.13.6 (17G8037)

 

[frabice]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to install high sierra on my MacBookPro5,5 13" mid-2009 but with no success. I am using the latest patcher app and I downloaded the High Sierra installer through this app. When I boot from the USB, I get the "NO" symbol. I have disabled SIP and I tried several re-installs.

Does anyone have an idea on what could be causing this?

 

[ZippoStyle]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to install high sierra on my MacBookPro5,5 13" mid-2009 but with no success. I am using the latest patcher app and I downloaded the High Sierra installer through this app. When I boot from the USB, I get the "NO" symbol. I have disabled SIP and I tried several re-installs.

Does anyone have an idea on what could be causing this?

Hi,
I just went through the process sucessfully with a MacBookPro5,5 13" mid-2009.
I had to try eleven times and use an old partition to boot before I got it working.

But one thing I read when preparing was that it has to have the Memory DDR3 chips.
Check that in System Information under "Memory".

 

[ZippoStyle]

you didn’t say at which point it shows the "NO" symbol.

I did an upgrade, not a clean install.
The "NO" symbol came after the upgrade when trying to boot into the stick again.

The trick was to boot from an external clone of an older system, there define the stick as startup partition. Restart from within that dialog.
That forces the system to really use the prepared stick and you can run the patch.

I had to run patch and clean caches a few times.
Saw some weird code twice when booting - tried again.


Latest security upgrade was a story by itself, see posts before

And now the MacBookPro is faster and some bugs are gone.

 

[frabice]

you didn’t say at which point it shows the "NO" symbol.

I did an upgrade, not a clean install.
The "NO" symbol came after the upgrade when trying to boot into the stick again.

The trick was to boot from an external clone of an older system, there define the stick as startup partition. Restart from within that dialog.
That forces the system to really use the prepared stick and you can run the patch.

I had to run patch and clean caches a few times.
Saw some weird code twice when booting - tried again.


Latest security upgrade was a story by itself, see posts before

And now the MacBookPro is faster and some bugs are gone.

Thank you for you help.

I have the "NO" symbol when I am trying to boot with the USB stick for the first time.

The MBP is able to have DDR3 memory so I think I am good on this point.

I will try again then!

 

[Hackintosh HD]

This "video bug" has been long fixed. Use AppleGVA.framework from the Low Sierra. Enjoy!

@avz : Thank you very much for that information, it's highly appreciated! On your MacBookPro5,2, did you use only Low Sierra's AppleGVA.framework? Or AppleGVA.core.framework, too?

P.S.: Service info to all users with a MacBookPro5,2: You can extract the latest Low Sierra version of AppleGVA.framework from the latest Low Sierra Security Update 2019-005 which is available for download here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2013.

 

[avz]

@avz : Thank you very much for that information, it's highly appreciated! On your MacBookPro5,2, did you use only Low Sierra's AppleGVA.framework? Or AppleGVA.core.framework, too?

P.S.: Service info to all users with a MacBookPro5,2: You can extract the latest Low Sierra version of AppleGVA.framework from the latest Low Sierra Security Update 2019-005 which is available for download here: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2013.

I've used only the Low Sierra's AppleGVA.framework on my MacBook5,1. I like to keep the installation as original as possible in order to avoid any issues in the future. The good news is that this fix only required for High Sierra and Mojave, Catalina does not have this issue.

 

[Hackintosh HD]

Thanks a lot, @avz , I've just switched AppleGVA.framework to the version from Sierra Security Update 2019-005 and it's working fine. And great to hear the problem will be gone on Catalina!

(Although, to be honest, after 21 years on the Mac I somehow intend to ignore Catalina and let Mojave be the last macOS I'll use. Dropping 32-bit backwards compatibility, dropping open standards like CalDAV support for iCloud reminders in favor of proprietary stuff, the complete lack of long-term-support OS releases and a starting price of 5.999 $ (entry price of the 2019 Mac Pro) for just the ability to add PCIe cards to a machine have alienated me from the platform lately).

 

[avz]

Thanks a lot, @avz , I've just switched AppleGVA.framework to the version from Sierra Security Update 2019-005 and it's working fine. And great to hear the problem will be gone on Catalina!

(Although, to be honest, after 21 years on the Mac I somehow intend to ignore Catalina and let Mojave be the last macOS I'll use. Dropping 32-bit backwards compatibility, dropping open standards like CalDAV support for iCloud reminders in favor of proprietary stuff, the complete lack of long-term-support OS releases and a starting price of 5.999 $ (entry price of the 2019 Mac Pro) for just the ability to add PCIe cards to a machine have alienated me from the platform lately).

Yes, make no mistake about it, Mojave is here to stay for good and Catalina will be just an affair "on a side".

 

[EugW]

Interesting. I just did a regular software update via the App Store for Security Update 2019-005 and it appears to have installed just fine. No errors.

So I currently only have 2018-003 and 2019-005 installed. So, does that mean I have tons of missing security updates, or is 2019-005 cumulative?