macOS Sierra Does NOT Boot with MacPro3,1 MacPro4,1 System Definitions

[Going Bald]

Theoretically X58, X79 and X99 should work better with MacPro6,1 sys def.

X79, X99, yes - X79 is closest to 6,1 but X99 is unsupported but FakeCPUID can be used to fool the system into thinking X99 is X79.
X58 could be either Mac Pro4,1 or 5,1, depending on CPU and year of build, the breakpoint being 2009/MacPro4,1 and 2010/MacPro5,1 - otherwise they are same hardware. IIRC, 4,1 had nVidia GT120 and 5,1 came out with HD5770.

 

[dokwine]

Missing something obvious...
I'm runing a Haswell i7 Gigabyte rig. Multibeast change to 14,2 worked for downloading Sierra, but rebooting (after install) just load El Cap again. Oddly, verbose mode doesn't seem to work either. Am I missing something?

 

[Going Bald]

Missing something obvious...
I'm runing a Haswell i7 Gigabyte rig. Multibeast change to 14,2 worked for downloading Sierra, but rebooting (after install) just load El Cap again. Oddly, verbose mode doesn't seem to work either. Am I missing something?

At reboot there were 2 icons - boot ElCap and boot Install from ElCap - you chose the wrong one or allowed autoboot to boot the wrong one.

 

[dokwine]

At reboot there were 2 icons - boot ElCap and boot Install from ElCap - you chose the wrong one or allowed autoboot to boot the wrong one.

Thanks, but clover is only showing HFS (current ElCap) and recovery as boot options.

 

[iCan-Mac]

Hi all, massive headache, I changed the system defo to 14.2 iMac and tried to upgrade to MacOS. Had an error message system not verified, put it back to the original setting, crashed on boot, recovery not working and now trying a clean install but that's having same issues as the recovery...grrrrr! If I manage to get my system back I'm not bothering with the upgrade sticking with Mac OSX....wish I never bothered in the first place.

 

[Musicalchairs]

Had always used the standard MacPro3,1 with my i7-860 on a GA-P55A-UD6 Rig with a GTX 960 running 2x DVI connected Monitors.
The MB and CPU are almost 7 years old but they have been with me since Snow Leopard and are all I need for a Desktop to this day.

Followed advice here and changed to 14,2 and successfully completed a Direct Update via Clover and its kexts\other folder.

Only problem was CPU wouldn't speed step. Stuck at step 9 leaving me with a max 1.2GHZ processor.

4 hours later and I decide to try out MacPro 5,1 as the system definition of choice. Success!

Back at 22 Max leaving me with a 2.93MHZ when needed.

For the record, Mac 11,2 and Mac 13,2 also worked but only when I disabled the NVIDIA Web Driver and booted with one monitor connected via DVI only.

Thank God for MacPro 5,1.
Love this forum and the hours of my life that are lost when a new OS is released

 

[Going Bald]

Had always used the standard MacPro3,1 with my i7-860 on a GA-P55A-UD6 Rig with a GTX 960 running 2x DVI connected Monitors.
The MB and CPU are almost 7 years old but they have been with me since Snow Leopard and are all I need for a Desktop to this day.

Followed advice here and changed to 14,2 and successfully completed a Direct Update via Clover and its kexts\other folder.

Only problem was CPU wouldn't speed step. Stuck at step 9 leaving me with a max 1.2GHZ processor.

4 hours later and I decide to try out MacPro 5,1 as the system definition of choice. Success!

Back at 22 Max leaving me with a 2.93MHZ when needed.

For the record, Mac 11,2 and Mac 13,2 also worked but only when I disabled the NVIDIA Web Driver and booted with one monitor connected via DVI only.

Thank God for MacPro 5,1.
Love this forum and the hours of my life that are lost when a new OS is released

Did you try going back to Mac Pro3,1 once installation/upgrade was completed? I am curious because I accidently used a config.plist with 4,1 and it is working just fine. Speedstep/sleep/wake all working same as before.
It seems, like the 5,1 definition looking for ECC RAM at the installation, Sierra installer app looks at the SysDef for install, but once installed the check is no longer done so the old SysDef can be used.

 

[dokwine]

Thanks, but clover is only showing HFS (current ElCap) and recovery as boot options.

... I decided to try an external boot disk with Sierra installer on it since Sierra wasn't showing up as a boot option after running the installer natively. Unfortunately, after starting to boot Sierra from the external drive the screen goes to a B&W "International NO symbol". Any ideas welcome.

 

[Going Bald]

... I decided to try an external boot disk with Sierra installer on it since Sierra wasn't showing up as a boot option after running the installer natively. Unfortunately, after starting to boot Sierra from the external drive the screen goes to a B&W "International NO symbol". Any ideas welcome.

Follow the installation guide. Follow the Rules pertaining to hardware and your profile.
Inadequate info is as bad or worse than no info. From you profile could be Sandy, Ivy, Haswell, Broadwell or Skylake board and CPU and there are 100's of nVidia GPUs out there.

 

[Musicalchairs]

Did you try going back to Mac Pro3,1 once installation/upgrade was completed? I am curious because I accidently used a config.plist with 4,1 and it is working just fine. Speedstep/sleep/wake all working same as before.
It seems, like the 5,1 definition looking for ECC RAM at the installation, Sierra installer app looks at the SysDef for install, but once installed the check is no longer done so the old SysDef can be used.

I can confirm that Clover stands in your way of booting into the OS as it checks your Board-ID.

FYI
Supported Macs, sorted by Model ID and Board ID for macOS Sierra
https://gist.github.com/rtrouton/e6cf0f4064aea52fac2e5116c4b05f2e

Unsupported Macs, sorted by Model ID and Board ID for macOS Sierra
https://gist.github.com/rtrouton/04b6c31762b84b85eb44d0c59d8e1cd2

So I changed the Board-ID listed in my config.plist to that of the MacPro5,1 which is
Mac-27ADBB7B4CEE8E61 and left all other SMBIOS details as they were under MacPro3,1.

Saved my changes and rebooted my system. It worked!

My CPU is now working as it should with nothing other than the correct DSDT being placed into /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched which includes the correct SpeedStep edits for my ol'skool i7-860.

NB: No other CPU related settings exist within my config.plist/Clover Configurator ACPI/CPU tabs.
Not even OEM SSDT or a patched SSDT.aml. The ACPI tab simply references DSDT.aml in the 'DSDT name' field.

See screen grabs: