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Xs 1,1-3,1 time for a sticky: Xserve upgrade guide
- Thread starter Flint Ironstag
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You can use the current processors in your Xserve with the 5,1 bootrom with no issues.
dont forget to save your original ROM!!!!!!!!
there is no other way to revert the flash afterwards...
flashing the xs to cmp5.1 rom doesn’t give any advantage and disable some preatty neat special features of the xs.
my experience is with a 8x3,33 and 96 gb of ram with a sm951 ahci ssd , it is just as fast as a 12 core x5690 on most task... I mean you will go from 10 minute on a export to 8 minutes...
not worth the hassle to upgrade...
the achile heel of the xserve is its lack of pcie slot... mine is setup with one Pcie expender on slot 2 with pcie expender in supermicro sc846 chassis in which I have a rx580 in slot 2.1, an areca 1880 x24 raid card in slot 2.2, an pcie to m2 adapter with a 1 Tb sm951 ahci ssd in slot 2.3, a sonnet USBC card in slot 2.4, and 10gbe atto pcie card in slot 3 .... Slot 1 is populated with a old anfeltec 4m2 ssd
with 4 sm951 in raid 0 to be used as a cache . still running el capitan on it, works plenty fast for backup and occasional media ingest station.
I do understand people wanting to squize the absolute last drop of juice of that era machine, but I draw a line with opencore and all non vanilla stuff because then any 400$ used pc with a 8 core I7 and a rx580 running hackintosh software hack will be more efficient.
there is no other way to revert the flash afterwards...
flashing the xs to cmp5.1 rom doesn’t give any advantage and disable some preatty neat special features of the xs.
my experience is with a 8x3,33 and 96 gb of ram with a sm951 ahci ssd , it is just as fast as a 12 core x5690 on most task... I mean you will go from 10 minute on a export to 8 minutes...
not worth the hassle to upgrade...
the achile heel of the xserve is its lack of pcie slot... mine is setup with one Pcie expender on slot 2 with pcie expender in supermicro sc846 chassis in which I have a rx580 in slot 2.1, an areca 1880 x24 raid card in slot 2.2, an pcie to m2 adapter with a 1 Tb sm951 ahci ssd in slot 2.3, a sonnet USBC card in slot 2.4, and 10gbe atto pcie card in slot 3 .... Slot 1 is populated with a old anfeltec 4m2 ssd
with 4 sm951 in raid 0 to be used as a cache . still running el capitan on it, works plenty fast for backup and occasional media ingest station.
I do understand people wanting to squize the absolute last drop of juice of that era machine, but I draw a line with opencore and all non vanilla stuff because then any 400$ used pc with a 8 core I7 and a rx580 running hackintosh software hack will be more efficient.
So I hav a rx 560 in slot 1 I believe with a riser card and am running high Sierra like a champ using dosdude1 install, I would like to upgrade to Catalina and basically skip over Mojave completely, this is the main reason I am thinking about flashing it. Is it worth it for what I want to do? I mean I had Catalina on there with the gt 120 and the video was kind of choppy to say the least. my understanding is with it flashed I can install it natively, is that correct?
Again thanks guys I’m new to this board but have had my Xserve for a couple of years now and have learned so much here.
hmm...
About xserve-frontpanel.
hwmond can't run under Ventura 13.2 + OCLP 0.6.2...
This may have something to do with the usb 1.1 issue (or libusb??)
anyway it can't work installing from macports, binary file in here and via GitHub source too.
I'm disappointed little cuz Ventura works fine on Xserve 3,1 with no other serious bugs.😭😭
About xserve-frontpanel.
hwmond can't run under Ventura 13.2 + OCLP 0.6.2...
This may have something to do with the usb 1.1 issue (or libusb??)
anyway it can't work installing from macports, binary file in here and via GitHub source too.
I'm disappointed little cuz Ventura works fine on Xserve 3,1 with no other serious bugs.😭😭
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Finally I was able to load hwmond at boot time on OS13.2.
IDK the correct problems, but it may be due to the permissions of "org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist" builtin with ports.
(But it mayn't work on cold-boot and wakeup from sleep. Not tested enough.)
% brew install libusb
% sudo su
# port install xserve-frontpanel
# cd /Library/LaunchDaemons/
# less ./org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd" >
<plist version='1.0'>
<dict>
<key>Label</key><string>org.macports.xserve-frontpanel</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/opt/local/bin/daemondo</string>
<string>--label=xserve-frontpanel</string>
<string>--start-cmd</string>
<string>/opt/local/bin/hwmond</string>
<string>;</string>
<string>--pid=exec</string>
</array>
<key>Disabled</key><true/>
<key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
</dict>
</plist>
./org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist (END)
# chmod 644 ./org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist
# chgrp -R wheel ./org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist
# chown root ./org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist
# launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.xserve-frontpanel.plist
then
# reboot
This time I used brew and macports.
But even when you compiled from source, it mightn't be work fine if permissions of plist was missed.
(At least I faced the same trouble in my Catalina days....)
I noticed that, no one has pointed out the problem Surprisingly.
XServe3,1 is El Capitan or higher OS and doesn't support sleep/awake when using storage in the front bay.
It means Stuck or forced reboot since awaking from sleep.
(It has nothing to do with LSI? Apple? SAS? SATA? Raid? JBod? ayway, when you wanna use the modern macOS, sleep won't succeed. so you need to unplug the orange data cable or unplug the black power cable.)
Can Opencore solve it, or do we need a special driver?
No one is arguing. It's a little strange.
XServe3,1 is El Capitan or higher OS and doesn't support sleep/awake when using storage in the front bay.
It means Stuck or forced reboot since awaking from sleep.
(It has nothing to do with LSI? Apple? SAS? SATA? Raid? JBod? ayway, when you wanna use the modern macOS, sleep won't succeed. so you need to unplug the orange data cable or unplug the black power cable.)
Can Opencore solve it, or do we need a special driver?
No one is arguing. It's a little strange.
If you want to upgrade a thread for Xserve-related support in particular, consider upgrading your post to a WkiPost so that the Xserve community can begin to assemble a comprehensive Wiki for the maintenance and upkeep of the Xeon-era Xserves.
I’ve already nominated this thread to be moved to the Early Intel Macs forum and title-labelled as an Xserve-specific thread.
As creator of this thread, you will need to head to the upper-right corner of your opening post and use the WikiTools pull-down to activate that feature, similar to what I’ve pasted below:
Also, take note that there are three, Xserve-related wikiposts tailored to specific needs already in use (and may have some overlap with the classic Mac Pros):
A1196/A1246/A1279 [Xserve 1,1–3,1] CPU compatibility list (2006–2009)
A1196/A1246/A1279 [Xserve1,1–3,1] PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD upgrade: Highpoint 7101A (2006–2009)
A1279 [Xserve3,1] CPU upgrade guide (2009)
If you decide to upgrade this thread to a WikiPost, you might want to consider other upgrade-related details which these three wikiposts do not cover adequately.
Cheers!
Hi!
Which vBIOS version are you using with your WX4150/WX4170 MXM3 card?
Does it provide an EFI boot picker?
Thanks in advance
Native boot picker with standard GOP-ROM and ALT-key at boot.
Without OC GPU is detected with 7 Mb of VRAM.
With OC installed GPU is reported properly.
Standard heatsink with 0,8 mm copper-shim.
xServe 3.1 -> FW 144.0.0.0.0+GOPenabled, 2 x x5675, 64Gb RAM, WX 4150 GOP-ROM (from OC 0.92) blue HP pcb, Chelsio T580, PLX8747.
