Currently running both a plex server and a family Minecraft server. I already upgraded to dual delided 5980’s but I have a 1050 ti and it running high seirra since no more nvidia drivers.
I bought one of these in 2020, I loved re aquainting myself with the process of investigating a Mac and upgrading to become my daily driver... it taught me a lot and gave me a lot of confidence and satisfaction to know that I could do this!!
I still have my original 2012 3.46ghz 12 Core Mac Pro I bought new in 2012 that runs flawlessly, it's not my daily driver anymore but it is still a great machine that I could easily edit FCPx on. These were, and still are awesome machines.
I have a 2010 one I upgraded from 2.4Ghz quad x 2 to 3.46Ghz hex x 2 and an RX-570 for Mojave support and used Catalina Helper to run it as dual boot High Sierra/Catalina and it works fine for running very plug-in intensive Pro Tools sessions with Reason via Rewire (still on 10 to open older sessions started on a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini with Reason 6 and Pro Tools LE 8). I wouldn't replace it with Apple Silicon till I can afford to and then keep it for running Virtual Machines and some older software. I'm sure the savings in electric usage would actually make any Apple Silicon system pay for itself inside of a couple of years too.
I still have a 2008 3,1 mac pro 8 core and it still runs buttery smooth as a computer , running Mojave , its too good to throw out and looks great so it will always have a home.
I watched your video from about a year ago where you installed a Radeon-7, and I decided to try to do one myself, following your instructions. It was with a 2010 MacPro 5,1. Back then I encountered many of the problems you mention in this video. I kept reviewing your video and eventually I was successful. It was a very interesting project! I now use that 2010 Mac Pro almost every day for editing videos, and it works very well. Tons of storage Lots of ram. I love it. Thanks!
Still using a "cheesegrater" to this day. Over the years, I've owned every iteration from 1,1 up to 5,1. Sure, they're no longer the snappiest machines, but nothing else from Apple is comparable and for my workload, nothing else compares. I'll 'upgrade' to an M-series Mac Mini or Pro when the time is right, but for now, my system is rock solid and am not willing to tear it down for something less functional.
Same here, we use 2, a PPC G5 and an Intel, the PPC for general stuff Word Doc, Web etc....And the Intel for use with ProTools, (Music Production through a Digidesign 003 Rack) Just great workhorses. :)
I'm using a 3,1 i got cheap and upgraded as a home machine. Worked on it for a year during the worst of the pandemic. It kept up with the machine I use at work which is 10 years newer. Whilst its not the best machine by modern standards, if you can get a cheap cheesegrater mac and you know what you're doing, they're a bargain.
The sad part is with the new school cheese grater, after 10 years it will still cost you 5-8k used!!! They really out priced themselves out of the market.
I just finishing fixing my MBP 2012 myself (swapped the SSD, then realized the problem was the SATA cable), and while it felt super rewarding being able to research and solve the problem with my own hands and resources, it also felt a bit infuriating that we can't do that at all with more modern Macs. Totally support Right To Repair (and it'll be a sad day when I finally replace my "cheesegrater").
I run a MacBook Pro and 5,1 on a daily basis but love the 5,1 for the sheer fact that I can pop it open and do what the hell I like with the ram, storage and graphics cards.
At work we have four of these that are still really solid work stations, so it’s nice to see that they can be kept in service… The graphic card struggle is troubling, all of our cheese grater Macs has intermittent graphics card issues, so hopefully the supply chain nightmare will subside but what a great video!
Great vid Luke, I love playing around with the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros. Also, each mini 6 pin supplies 75w, so it's 225W total when you include the PCIE slot.
Got a 2010 dual cpu. It’s now 2021. I love my Mac Pro! Did all the upgrades to it, including running Big Sur using Open Core, and it’s been my with work horse for two years now for 4K video editing and music. I also have a 2012 that I paid $100 for knowing it didn’t power on. I replaced the backplane and now it’s my back-up Mac Pro.
If You dont mind, what is backplane? I have same isue where the previously running 5.1 run fine but now it wont power on. I moved from one province to another interim. Still it was powering just fine mothsn ago. No green light when button is pressed!
I like this project. My mum and I were walking by a bunch of shoppes yesterday when she saw a computer repair shop. She said they would be able to fix her macbook. I told her, not any better or easier than it would be for me. They would have to either buy a working logic board from ebay or somewhere just like me if they don't have one laying around.
This guy is very good. It is not only that he understands what he is talking about but also how to present it so as to be relevant and interesting to the less knowledgable whilst avoiding spending too much time with trivial details. A matter of perceptive intelligence. He has it. Much better than most of experts on You Tube, experts that is of anything.
I understand Right To Repair. Is there any validity to having less repairability bc Apple is always wanting a smaller form factor and everything is smushed, glued and stacked together to get that thinner, smaller footprint? Does smaller/thinner form effect repairability? It seems like the bigger the machine the more Apple allows tinkering.
right to repair doesn’t mean easily repairable. It just means the manufacturer shouldn’t deliberately make it hard to obtain the parts and tools to service the machines.
There is no validity to that statement. They could very well have it both ways. They pay their engineers enough to be able to make it both ways. Apple just puts money above repairability and longevity.
As always, Luke brings a unique combination of clarity, modesty, open-mindedness, realism, and intelligence to the subject of Mac technology. He does his homework and offers valuable insights based on careful research and past experience, but isn't afraid to admit when something stumps him. He presents a balanced viewpoint by always frankly addressing the pros and cons of every option. In addition, his video is always artfully shot and he comes across as knowledgable without being condescending or dismissive of budget tech. Like the rest of us, he knows that the journey is in many ways the reward, and that "beating the system" can be fun. His style is casual but professional, humorous but not gimmicky. Keep up the good work!
These macs are fun to work with and use. I actually bought a similar machine inspires by one of your videos from years past. I have an RX580 Pulse card, dual CPU tray with 32GB of RAM. I've since upgraded the bluetooth/WIFI card that originally came with the computer. You can update this system to OCLP (Open Core Legacy Pacher) to Montery.
Love the old cheasegraters! Have one running myself (2009 upgraded to 5.1) It is indeed painfull with the GPU prices, the original GT120 cards are utter crap! One very usefull and rather simple upgrade to do (and seldom mentioned) is a nvme SSD on a PCIe adapter. Outperforms the sata SSD's by a factor 6 since the 4.1/5.1 sata ports are only sata 2.
I really enjoyed this one! I still use my 5,1 on a regular basis, and I ran into a lot of the same issues you talked about. Once it is up and running it’s great.
My work gave me a Mac Pro 4,1 with the dual-socket chips for free, they were going to throw it away! I love how it's performing well for being 12 years old!
Luke - always good to see these types of videos. I bought a 5,1 2012 in Summer 2019, and maxed it out; 12-core 3.46Ghz, 128GB RAM, 2TB NVME boot drive, 4x12tb WD HDD’s (in 2x RAID1 sets), 1x 4tb time machine drive in 2nd optical bay, an OWC 4m2 RAID card with 8tb of NVME, 580x w/8GB, and USB-C card. The only thing missing is a 10Gbt Ethernet card. Runs Mojave. It had a lot of teething pains the first month, and 1-week after it finally stabilized, Apple announced the 2019 MacPro. Prior the Apple silicon announcements, I had thought of repurposing most of it to a 2019 MacPro. While frustrating, it does everything I need. However, a pending “MacMini Pro M1x…” if it shows up this year, will be an immediate replacement for this 5,1 cMP. Yes I sunk a lot of money in this, but I will reconfigure it to be a home server with 10Gbt Ethernet card.
A great example of free isn’t free. Thank you for posting.. I love my M1 Mini. I have a 2008 Mac Pro and several after market GPU’s for it.. now might be the time to part it out. Put that towards paying off my apple credit card for my M1 Mini 16. :)
My mid 2010 flies along, single quad core and 16Gb ram, Radeon 5770 - boots up before my 2017 iMac, I love it. When I get around to it I will update the card and install Mojave, but as it is it's just fine. And I just love the way I pull levers and stuff just slides out, no sharp edges - quality stuff.
Luke have you considered live Q and A sessions! I sure it would go over big! I’ve seen other RUclipsrs do it with success! Keep up the great work on Mac update repairs, Thanks!
Great machines. My setup is a dual processor tray X5690 3.46 Ghz over 12 cores, 128 gb of ram, OWC Accelsior NVME Adapter with a 1 TB m2 SSD, and an AMD Radeon RX580. Its an excellent video editing rig with more graphical firepower than the M1 Mac Mini. I tried the mini and compared an identical Adobe Premiere multitrack video session, and the m1 dropped frames like crazy while the cheesegrater handled it much more smoothly. Export times scream too with 12 cores.
Got an older one myself. I picked it up for $50.00 several years back. I want to make it a Linux machine. I got a new hard-drive in it but couldn't get a screen to show up. I have to get back around to working on it. I've seen some amazing things done with these machines. I actually have a Teac fire-wire control surface I want to pair with it as an experimental recording PC. I have much newer hardware but I do admire the beauty of how this thing was built.
I am still using a 2010 identical to yours at work - only upgrade is RAM. It runs High Sierra, and Parallels-Windows 10, yes it's showing it's age, I have to close the odd program to run another (Adobe - loves RAM)... But it has out lived every PC in my office. I'd jump for an M1, but I need Windows for some jobs, and will wait till a proper AMD version runs on Parallels. I also have a 2009 iMac - running Catalina (New SSD and RAM), and an old 2009 MacBook 15" (El Capitan) New Battery and SSD... not workhorses but work just fine for home stuff... You can't keep an old Mac down...
Great video. I’ve been working on Macs for 30+ years. To me the golden era was the 90s. Everything was very modular and easy to remove and replace. Upgrading cpus was possible, thanks to companies like Sonnet, MicroMac and Daystar.
I'm still using my 2009 4,1 dual cpu. I both love it and hate it, but more hate to see that the end of the road is in sight for these machines. They still pack plenty of power for those who want a classic Mac.
I have replaced chips on 2 of these macs and had the red light come on after replacement. Turns out, I had not tightened the screws down enough, as I knew you had to be careful not to. Just hand tight is enough and then a little touch extra and that resolved it.
I have a Mac Pro 5,1 upgraded to two X5690 3.46GHz, equipped with 24GB of Ram and 10TB harddrives. It‘s a little bit below the benchmark of my MBP 16“, but video editing software runs much faster due to the size of ram and the harddisks. I will keep my MP until it dies…
What I thought of this project; I always enjoy watching these, but I do think you replace big chunks of computer too quickly. I would've at least tried to fix that original tray. Maybe it just had a broken pcb trace, or dirty contacts. Still though, good to see the ol' gal up and running. And nice that that CPU still worked. As for right to repair and the actual physical repairability of the machinery; I'm afraid one of the reasons the M1 macs run so well IS that it's all implemented in one chip. I'd say the best they can do is maybe make that one chip user replacable. It'd cost hundreds. What I have been thinking though is, repairing aside, how nice it would be if we could add extra storage to say a mac mini. Sure, a usb c drive works just fine but there's plenty of space in that case.
It's a shame they haven't designed it with user accessible NVMe slots for secondary storage. Given the USB 3 limitation of 10Gbit/s bandwidth, a lower end NVMe drive with 2000MB/s instead of the 6-7000MB/s higher end SSDs in any number of USB 3.2/USB-C enclosures can easily be assembled as cheap and fast external storage but it's less ideal than having internal expansion options without the bandwidth limits.
I’ve upgraded my 3,1 with a NVME SSD and a RX580 that I’ve got for free almost two years ago. I can run Adobe premiere with 4K real-time footage editing flawlessly. I love my Mac Pro 3,1 8core 32GB of ram 😍
Love all the ones that I have. Flashed my 4,1 to a 5,1 single 4 core cpu and replaced it with a 6 core. Another easy and cheap way to make it work better.
SMC versions between CPU trays / boards are different: 1.39F5 for 2009, 1.39F11 for 2010 / 12. Check the serial number of the case to determine which year you are dealing with, that way you don’t have to run around purchasing trays for different versions.
I thoroughly agree, not just repairing but upgrading too. A machine like this is great for people who are on a limited budget, who can compromise on some things and then upgrade them later when funds allow. Of course it does not suit most companies who prefer the scenario where you can't do that and have to go into their shop for them to diagnose and repair and give you a nice bill when they've finished. It's a cut off your nose situation though because those lower budget potential customers are forced to go elsewhere
my worst investment ever - a dual cpu 5.1… it was fun expanding it - but ended up costing 2000 USD with all of the upgrades - RAM, SSD, RX580, USB 3.1 etc. fortunately it was fun :)
Still my main machine. 6 cores, 12 threads, RX 5700XT, 24GB of RAM, full speed NVMe drives. I use it for video editing, gaming on my 3440x1440 100Hz ultra wide, and my Pimax 5K Super. Running Windows 10 and MacOS 11.5.1, and Monterey Beta 3 on a spare drive. I love the machine to death
The Xeon X5670 CPU is the exact same model I threw into an old Dell Precision workstation, and yes, I bought that machine precisely because of how cheap the CPU and ECC RAM were to upgrade!
I have a 2009 iMac that been through the ringer. Was fixed on applecare after being hit by lightening, onit's third hard drive, a dying graphics card, a dead Ethernet... If you want a challenge its yours. Still works good if you have second monitor as the graphics card I think it's why the screen goes black randomly.
I did dm you Luke about the same issue i had with my 5,1 Mac Pro 12core. I tried everything. Swapped CPUs, RAM, Graphics card until i removed one processor and it booted right up. It was the CPU tray.
i would start with running the serial number and confirming what it is before doing anything else. Part of the problem you had was not knowing what it was, or is. Sure, there is no way of knowing if it was flashed to 5,1. But the tray issue would have been eliminated.
I'm curious and could be wrong, but I have a 2009 4,1 (single core) MacPro and I swapped the CPU tray with an upgraded 5.1 dual CPU tray and it worked fine! Never heard this shouldn't be able to work.. (Also rockin a RX580 which thankfully wasn't so expensive 2 years ago on the second hand market) Nice video again!
Recently picked up a 3.1 for 100 quid. Some extra ram and about to install a new ssd about 200 quid all in. I'm using it for Audio production so it doesn't have to be the flashiest. These machines were in many music studios in the past, recording albums for stars, so other than the latest software and plugins, why can't it still do the same job? I have an M1 Pro for work and 2015 imac in the house. This is a fun studio project. Be realistic about your use case and it can serve you well.
Shoot man, I just upgraded my 2009 4,1 to a dual CPU tray, coulda sent you my old single tray. Also, maybe why the first tray didn’t work, I noticed the CPU in it and the ones you use have the integrated heat spreader on them, that big metal plate on top. From what I’ve read you need to take that off or you risk cracking and damaging the cpu or tray. I’ve seen many techniques to remove them, my favorite is to squeeze it off using a bench vice. Getting a pair of X5690s for mine soon.
Well, seeing you have issues with this makes me feel better. Got a free 3,1 Mac Pro and I am still not able to get it booting after months of trial and error. Might just have to stick at it a bit longer!
I have a 2012 5,1 Mac Pro with a single Xeon W3565, that I picked up on Ebay late last year for $599. It came with High Sierra, and I wanted to upgrade to Mojave, so had to upgrade the graphics card to a Radeon HD 7970 and also stuffed 32 gb. of RAM and a 2TB. SSD in it as a boot drive. This is currently my everyday driver, and probably will be for a long time. Of course, I'm limited to Mojave as far as the OS is concerned, but I'd just as soon stick with that, as there are a couple apps I run that aren't supported under Catalina. It's fast and quiet, and I have had literally 0 problems with it since I upgraded.😉
Dude I really love this project because I did the same thing on two of them Mac Pro one for my brother a Mac Pro 4.1 flashed to 5.1 and mine a beautiful 5.1 2012 , I put a RX 580 for a good price and very happy with those machines , yeah this video talk me a lot , thanks Luke ;-)
I find these work really well as small home servers. I run Truenas on old Mac Pro towers because you can put 6 HDDs/SSDs in them ( If you remove the CD/DVD drive ) , 128GB of RAM ( if you have a duel CPU model ), 10 Gigabit network cards ( or better ) and they are pretty quiet. You can easily spend a lot of money on the HDDs, but the RAM is relatively cheap, as are the CPUs and even retired, enterprise SFP+ network cards are cheap on ebay. I have a 4,1 Mac Pro tower running well so far and for how cheap and streamlined of a package it can be without needing a loud blade style chassis, I have been pretty happy with this setup so far. I am still pretty new to this system, but I am really happy with it so far, and when the prices of GPUs come down I want to see if it can also double as an external rendering machine for Blender by running Blender in a jail or VM. Some annoying aspects of working with these is that you need to get adaptors for some parts. The CD drive sled does not have spots to install HDDs, so I had to design and 3D print a little adaptor for this. I also had to print an adaptor to mount an HDD to the four little sleds that mount the HDDs to the top of the case. A lot of high capacity HDDs only have 2 sets of screws on the bottom of the HDD, they are missing the middle set of bottom screws that were common on older HDDs. You can buy an adaptor from OWC, but for 30 bucks each I just decided to design my own bracket that uses a combination of the bottom screws and side screws on the HDD. Keep this up, I love seeing people using older hardware and giving them new homes. Sure, you need to replace stuff some times, but there are tons of computers with a lot of life in them and work to give is assigned tasks like being a NAS for a small home or business!
Luke, I own one I could have sworn each of the PCI aux power was 75watts a piece plus the 75 from the PCI slot for a total of 225w. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I got a free 5,1single CPU 2 years ago and ordered x5680's and got a dual CPU tray for ca. $100 in an eBay liquidation. I did the Boot rom update, added a PCIe NVMe card with a 1TB NVMe on it, Mojave & RX580 8GB. I edited several hour long videos, 6-8 camera Multicam 4k streams (sunning proxies stored on the NVMe. DaVinci Resolve runs great with the RX580 too. These machines are far from dead, until there is a M2 MacPro with expandability.
I love these Cheesegraters! After I watched your Video about the best Mac Pro for a buck I bought a 4,1 ( 400 € in Germany ) Upgraded the CPU and Ram to max with a RX 590! this Mac is still perfect for Musicproduction! Thank you so much for your Videos!!!
For the bad CPU tray, I can see the problem. The Northbridge rivets have failed, causing the heatsink to be loose. You can see it clearly on 7:23, look at the left rivet compared to the right. The heatsink is also noticeably crooked and not seated because of this
I thought this project was great. I have the same Mac Pro, but its working. I love my Mac Pro. I really don’t won’t to buy the latest computer. But I do have a iMac late 2013 that was giving to me. So I am good for right now. Keep up the good work of letting us know to improve the upgrade on computers
Money spent on upgrading my 2009 Mac Pro is worth it, as I can continue to use Adobe CS5 programs and Lightroom 6, and not have to pay monthly fees. Thanks for the video.
You can take power from, one of the drive slots to power a Radeon VI without making the mod to the power supply. I am rocking 2010 with a Radeon VI with that configuration.
In the 2023 Mac Pro, can you swap out and replace the PC module ? So you can replace for the Price of a Mac mini the Processor module and continue on working with your expensive (custom) pci-e cards for whatever profession you use it?
I had exactly the same problem with my first entry in to Apple hardware. Got myself a mac pro 3,1 for cheap, thinking "it's like a PC! I'll have the most luck reviving this cheap one since it's all modular!" Yeah, all the same problems and confusing scenarios with boot screens, GPU power, fans running 100% with no chime, not knowing Mac OS at all, not knowing all the typical things people know about Apple.. i revived it and used it for a tiny bit and it was good but didn't feel snappy as you say. Then the m1 mini came out and it smokes it while being silent and small.
I love this generation. I have a late 2008 that I am still using with Bootcamp into Windows 10. When Windows 10 is obsoleted it may yet still live on with Linux :-)
I'm sure the motherboard power connectors supply 75w per connector, not in total so you're actually getting 75W x 2 from the 2 x 6pin to 8 pin cable + 75W from the PCIe connector. I run a 4GB Sapphire RX570 on my 5,1 Mac Pro fine and they're rated at
I love these kinds of videos. The more problems the more entertainment.
Why his videos are still important while Apple rumors are in a drought😒
entertainment ????
You meant Disney +, NetFlix?
He is just poor, needing the RUclips job! he needs money badly!
@@lucasrem are you being serious
Not for luke...
“I had an allergic reaction to the dust “… thats when I cracked up 😂
It’s fun to see what you can do with these.
you need content for your channel?
RUclips jobs!
Can we fix this dead Mac pro?
Luke Miani be like: lets take the old Mac pro to the apple store and get a brand new one for free.
best mac pc!
What it mean 🤔?
What you said at the end was great, Luke! I hope more people can learn more about Right to Repair.
Part of what attracts me to his channel
I put in the serial number for my 2012 15”retina and I still have a 220 dollar trade in, put in my cheese grater and it asked me to recycle it.
That’s good advice. These recycle well as a gaming computer.
Currently running both a plex server and a family Minecraft server. I already upgraded to dual delided 5980’s but I have a 1050 ti and it running high seirra since no more nvidia drivers.
You can easily get $500 for your 15” retina.
My 2012 unibody i7 top spec they don’t even take trade in wtf
@@iamblanktape I guess only on retinas?
I bought one of these in 2020, I loved re aquainting myself with the process of investigating a Mac and upgrading to become my daily driver... it taught me a lot and gave me a lot of confidence and satisfaction to know that I could do this!!
I still have my original 2012 3.46ghz 12 Core Mac Pro I bought new in 2012 that runs flawlessly, it's not my daily driver anymore but it is still a great machine that I could easily edit FCPx on. These were, and still are awesome machines.
I have a 2010 one I upgraded from 2.4Ghz quad x 2 to 3.46Ghz hex x 2 and an RX-570 for Mojave support and used Catalina Helper to run it as dual boot High Sierra/Catalina and it works fine for running very plug-in intensive Pro Tools sessions with Reason via Rewire (still on 10 to open older sessions started on a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini with Reason 6 and Pro Tools LE 8). I wouldn't replace it with Apple Silicon till I can afford to and then keep it for running Virtual Machines and some older software. I'm sure the savings in electric usage would actually make any Apple Silicon system pay for itself inside of a couple of years too.
I still have a 2008 3,1 mac pro 8 core and it still runs buttery smooth as a computer , running Mojave , its too good to throw out and looks great so it will always have a home.
The cpu tray probably had bent pins, that's why it wasn't working. Or the Northbridge heatsink rivets were faulty.
I watched your video from about a year ago where you installed a Radeon-7, and I decided to try to do one myself, following your instructions. It was with a 2010 MacPro 5,1. Back then I encountered many of the problems you mention in this video. I kept reviewing your video and eventually I was successful. It was a very interesting project! I now use that 2010 Mac Pro almost every day for editing videos, and it works very well. Tons of storage Lots of ram. I love it. Thanks!
Still using a "cheesegrater" to this day. Over the years, I've owned every iteration from 1,1 up to 5,1. Sure, they're no longer the snappiest machines, but nothing else from Apple is comparable and for my workload, nothing else compares.
I'll 'upgrade' to an M-series Mac Mini or Pro when the time is right, but for now, my system is rock solid and am not willing to tear it down for something less functional.
Just curious, what are you doing with it?
Same here, we use 2, a PPC G5 and an Intel, the PPC for general stuff Word Doc, Web etc....And the Intel for use with ProTools, (Music Production through a Digidesign 003 Rack) Just great workhorses. :)
I'm using a 3,1 i got cheap and upgraded as a home machine. Worked on it for a year during the worst of the pandemic. It kept up with the machine I use at work which is 10 years newer. Whilst its not the best machine by modern standards, if you can get a cheap cheesegrater mac and you know what you're doing, they're a bargain.
The sad part is with the new school cheese grater, after 10 years it will still cost you 5-8k used!!! They really out priced themselves out of the market.
@@Tvj_films8452 Oh completely.
I originally found your channel in 2019 when I first got my 2010 Mac Pro to see what all you could do with it. Glad these are still sought after.
I just finishing fixing my MBP 2012 myself (swapped the SSD, then realized the problem was the SATA cable), and while it felt super rewarding being able to research and solve the problem with my own hands and resources, it also felt a bit infuriating that we can't do that at all with more modern Macs. Totally support Right To Repair (and it'll be a sad day when I finally replace my "cheesegrater").
My chromebook is really repairable
From 2013!
best mac pro pc!!!
I run a MacBook Pro and 5,1 on a daily basis but love the 5,1 for the sheer fact that I can pop it open and do what the hell I like with the ram, storage and graphics cards.
you run a weirdo channel too, showing how other people need to do that, poor people love it????????
The dedication that you went through just for this one video is truly amazing. Always wish my family could have afforded this one years ago.
I love the term "cheese-grater". Especially when it describes a piece of technology.
The new Mac Pro has embraced that nickname. Look it up and tell me what the new case design looks like. :)
@@JerridFoiles Cheese grater
What about the trashcan
@@samismydog we don’t talk about the trash can…
Describe a piece of technology?
At work we have four of these that are still really solid work stations, so it’s nice to see that they can be kept in service… The graphic card struggle is troubling, all of our cheese grater Macs has intermittent graphics card issues, so hopefully the supply chain nightmare will subside but what a great video!
Great vid Luke, I love playing around with the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros. Also, each mini 6 pin supplies 75w, so it's 225W total when you include the PCIE slot.
Doesn't matter what you spend there is nothing cooler looking than a Mac Pro! Got three so far.
Got a 2010 dual cpu. It’s now 2021. I love my Mac Pro! Did all the upgrades to it, including running Big Sur using Open Core, and it’s been my with work horse for two years now for 4K video editing and music.
I also have a 2012 that I paid $100 for knowing it didn’t power on. I replaced the backplane and now it’s my back-up Mac Pro.
If You dont mind, what is backplane? I have same isue where the previously running 5.1 run fine but now it wont power on. I moved from one province to another interim. Still it was powering just fine mothsn ago. No green light when button is pressed!
Hey luke you haven't put the link to your portable monitor in the description!
Your passion for all this is infectious.
My question is, what do you do with all the machines you fix and/or update?
The common ones he donates to a local school. This one? I don't think he'll donate it, he's developed Stockholm Syndrome to it.
I like this project. My mum and I were walking by a bunch of shoppes yesterday when she saw a computer repair shop. She said they would be able to fix her macbook. I told her, not any better or easier than it would be for me. They would have to either buy a working logic board from ebay or somewhere just like me if they don't have one laying around.
I haven't watched you for a while but THIS is the kind of video of yours I'll actually watch!
This is a great video for Desktop Support professionals that deal with Hardware issues all the time, but need to find solutions at a much faster rate.
This guy is very good. It is not only that he understands what he is talking about but also how to present it so as to be relevant and interesting to the less knowledgable whilst avoiding spending too much time with trivial details. A matter of perceptive intelligence. He has it. Much better than most of experts on You Tube, experts that is of anything.
Luke because of you I bought a 2009 Mac Pro and beefed it up Thanks for all your help . . .
Luke, you are relentless! Thanks for the fun video.
I understand Right To Repair. Is there any validity to having less repairability bc Apple is always wanting a smaller form factor and everything is smushed, glued and stacked together to get that thinner, smaller footprint? Does smaller/thinner form effect repairability? It seems like the bigger the machine the more Apple allows tinkering.
It affects it an amount but it should not completely lock it out.
right to repair doesn’t mean easily repairable. It just means the manufacturer shouldn’t deliberately make it hard to obtain the parts and tools to service the machines.
@@xsu-is7vq ThAt makes more sence because you can’t have a super fast CPU when the bits are separated
There is no validity to that statement. They could very well have it both ways. They pay their engineers enough to be able to make it both ways. Apple just puts money above repairability and longevity.
@@alecwhatshisname5170 Yeah the new mac pro even is difficult
I love the Mac Pro. I wouldn’t recommend one to anyone at this time.
Good work Luke and thank you.
I have been trying to find one of these for cheap for days! Love to see you finding the goods and making excellent vids! Keep up the good work, man!
Really just gotta keep on looking around locally on facebook marketplace, craigslist, ebay, etc. It takes some time but eventually you'll find it. :)
As always, Luke brings a unique combination of clarity, modesty, open-mindedness, realism, and intelligence to the subject of Mac technology. He does his homework and offers valuable insights based on careful research and past experience, but isn't afraid to admit when something stumps him. He presents a balanced viewpoint by always frankly addressing the pros and cons of every option. In addition, his video is always artfully shot and he comes across as knowledgable without being condescending or dismissive of budget tech. Like the rest of us, he knows that the journey is in many ways the reward, and that "beating the system" can be fun. His style is casual but professional, humorous but not gimmicky. Keep up the good work!
SPOT on description of Luke, my man. :D
lol he cant even fix it, he just swapped pieces, amateur "fix"
I had 1 of those and one morning the fans just started going at full speed and the screen came up with a blinking frowning face. Good computer.
These macs are fun to work with and use. I actually bought a similar machine inspires by one of your videos from years past. I have an RX580 Pulse card, dual CPU tray with 32GB of RAM. I've since upgraded the bluetooth/WIFI card that originally came with the computer. You can update this system to OCLP (Open Core Legacy Pacher) to Montery.
Love the old cheasegraters! Have one running myself (2009 upgraded to 5.1)
It is indeed painfull with the GPU prices, the original GT120 cards are utter crap!
One very usefull and rather simple upgrade to do (and seldom mentioned) is a nvme SSD on a PCIe adapter. Outperforms the sata SSD's by a factor 6 since the 4.1/5.1 sata ports are only sata 2.
This generation mac pro is definitely the star of RUclips this week
GT 120 card says hold my beer... lol coming in clutch!
I really enjoyed this one! I still use my 5,1 on a regular basis, and I ran into a lot of the same issues you talked about. Once it is up and running it’s great.
you know it’s a great day when luke posts a new video
My work gave me a Mac Pro 4,1 with the dual-socket chips for free, they were going to throw it away! I love how it's performing well for being 12 years old!
Luke - always good to see these types of videos. I bought a 5,1 2012 in Summer 2019, and maxed it out; 12-core 3.46Ghz, 128GB RAM, 2TB NVME boot drive, 4x12tb WD HDD’s (in 2x RAID1 sets), 1x 4tb time machine drive in 2nd optical bay, an OWC 4m2 RAID card with 8tb of NVME, 580x w/8GB, and USB-C card. The only thing missing is a 10Gbt Ethernet card. Runs Mojave.
It had a lot of teething pains the first month, and 1-week after it finally stabilized, Apple announced the 2019 MacPro. Prior the Apple silicon announcements, I had thought of repurposing most of it to a 2019 MacPro. While frustrating, it does everything I need. However, a pending “MacMini Pro M1x…” if it shows up this year, will be an immediate replacement for this 5,1 cMP.
Yes I sunk a lot of money in this, but I will reconfigure it to be a home server with 10Gbt Ethernet card.
A great example of free isn’t free. Thank you for posting.. I love my M1 Mini. I have a 2008 Mac Pro and several after market GPU’s for it.. now might be the time to part it out. Put that towards paying off my apple credit card for my M1 Mini 16. :)
I love your Mac Pro 5, 1 videos, as you inspired me to upgrade mine a few years ago. I felt your pain on this one, but my friend you never give up!
My mid 2010 flies along, single quad core and 16Gb ram, Radeon 5770 - boots up before my 2017 iMac, I love it. When I get around to it I will update the card and install Mojave, but as it is it's just fine. And I just love the way I pull levers and stuff just slides out, no sharp edges - quality stuff.
Luke have you considered live Q and A sessions! I sure it would go over big! I’ve seen other RUclipsrs do it with success! Keep up the great work on Mac update repairs, Thanks!
Great machines. My setup is a dual processor tray X5690 3.46 Ghz over 12 cores, 128 gb of ram, OWC Accelsior NVME Adapter with a 1 TB m2 SSD, and an AMD Radeon RX580. Its an excellent video editing rig with more graphical firepower than the M1 Mac Mini. I tried the mini and compared an identical Adobe Premiere multitrack video session, and the m1 dropped frames like crazy while the cheesegrater handled it much more smoothly. Export times scream too with 12 cores.
Got an older one myself. I picked it up for $50.00 several years back. I want to make it a Linux machine. I got a new hard-drive in it but couldn't get a screen to show up. I have to get back around to working on it. I've seen some amazing things done with these machines. I actually have a Teac fire-wire control surface I want to pair with it as an experimental recording PC. I have much newer hardware but I do admire the beauty of how this thing was built.
I am still using a 2010 identical to yours at work - only upgrade is RAM. It runs High Sierra, and Parallels-Windows 10, yes it's showing it's age, I have to close the odd program to run another (Adobe - loves RAM)... But it has out lived every PC in my office. I'd jump for an M1, but I need Windows for some jobs, and will wait till a proper AMD version runs on Parallels. I also have a 2009 iMac - running Catalina (New SSD and RAM), and an old 2009 MacBook 15" (El Capitan) New Battery and SSD... not workhorses but work just fine for home stuff... You can't keep an old Mac down...
Something that I never knew about was starting my mac while holding down the "D" key, which fixed my problems.
Great video. I’ve been working on Macs for 30+ years. To me the golden era was the 90s. Everything was very modular and easy to remove and replace. Upgrading cpus was possible, thanks to companies like Sonnet, MicroMac and Daystar.
I'm still using my 2009 4,1 dual cpu.
I both love it and hate it, but more hate to see that the end of the road is in sight for these machines. They still pack plenty of power for those who want a classic Mac.
I have replaced chips on 2 of these macs and had the red light come on after replacement. Turns out, I had not tightened the screws down enough, as I knew you had to be careful not to. Just hand tight is enough and then a little touch extra and that resolved it.
Luke is the king of Mac repairs. Super entertaining.
I have a Mac Pro 5,1 upgraded to two X5690 3.46GHz, equipped with 24GB of Ram and 10TB harddrives. It‘s a little bit below the benchmark of my MBP 16“, but video editing software runs much faster due to the size of ram and the harddisks. I will keep my MP until it dies…
What I thought of this project; I always enjoy watching these, but I do think you replace big chunks of computer too quickly. I would've at least tried to fix that original tray. Maybe it just had a broken pcb trace, or dirty contacts. Still though, good to see the ol' gal up and running. And nice that that CPU still worked.
As for right to repair and the actual physical repairability of the machinery; I'm afraid one of the reasons the M1 macs run so well IS that it's all implemented in one chip. I'd say the best they can do is maybe make that one chip user replacable. It'd cost hundreds. What I have been thinking though is, repairing aside, how nice it would be if we could add extra storage to say a mac mini. Sure, a usb c drive works just fine but there's plenty of space in that case.
It's a shame they haven't designed it with user accessible NVMe slots for secondary storage. Given the USB 3 limitation of 10Gbit/s bandwidth, a lower end NVMe drive with 2000MB/s instead of the 6-7000MB/s higher end SSDs in any number of USB 3.2/USB-C enclosures can easily be assembled as cheap and fast external storage but it's less ideal than having internal expansion options without the bandwidth limits.
That fan was awesome!
Luke doing Luke things, Again :)
This is exactly what I go through trying to keep more than 4 of these machines up to date day in and day out
Boosting engagement for the almighty algorithm. Great video!
Don't put a Vega 64 in your cMP without modding the power supply, it can peak at 385W.
I’ve upgraded my 3,1 with a NVME SSD and a RX580 that I’ve got for free almost two years ago. I can run Adobe premiere with 4K real-time footage editing flawlessly. I love my Mac Pro 3,1 8core 32GB of ram 😍
Love all the ones that I have. Flashed my 4,1 to a 5,1 single 4 core cpu and replaced it with a 6 core. Another easy and cheap way to make it work better.
SMC versions between CPU trays / boards are different:
1.39F5 for 2009, 1.39F11 for 2010 / 12.
Check the serial number of the case to determine which year you are dealing with, that way you don’t have to run around purchasing trays for different versions.
You'll have 500k soon! It seems like yesterday that you had only 100K
He has 321k. It what world is 200k more subscribers “soon”?
@@meyerfauth935 He's growing at an incredible rate lately.
@@sh1121 damn I taught like had 1 million subscribers 💀💀
I thoroughly agree, not just repairing but upgrading too. A machine like this is great for people who are on a limited budget, who can compromise on some things and then upgrade them later when funds allow. Of course it does not suit most companies who prefer the scenario where you can't do that and have to go into their shop for them to diagnose and repair and give you a nice bill when they've finished. It's a cut off your nose situation though because those lower budget potential customers are forced to go elsewhere
my worst investment ever - a dual cpu 5.1… it was fun expanding it - but ended up costing 2000 USD with all of the upgrades - RAM, SSD, RX580, USB 3.1 etc. fortunately it was fun :)
Still my main machine. 6 cores, 12 threads, RX 5700XT, 24GB of RAM, full speed NVMe drives. I use it for video editing, gaming on my 3440x1440 100Hz ultra wide, and my Pimax 5K Super. Running Windows 10 and MacOS 11.5.1, and Monterey Beta 3 on a spare drive. I love the machine to death
2:36 full 8-pin "Normal person connection"
Yeah just what I need
👁️👄👁️
The Xeon X5670 CPU is the exact same model I threw into an old Dell Precision workstation, and yes, I bought that machine precisely because of how cheap the CPU and ECC RAM were to upgrade!
Always have a lot of fun watching your project videos
I have a 2009 iMac that been through the ringer. Was fixed on applecare after being hit by lightening, onit's third hard drive, a dying graphics card, a dead Ethernet... If you want a challenge its yours. Still works good if you have second monitor as the graphics card I think it's why the screen goes black randomly.
I did dm you Luke about the same issue i had with my 5,1 Mac Pro 12core. I tried everything. Swapped CPUs, RAM, Graphics card until i removed one processor and it booted right up. It was the CPU tray.
i would start with running the serial number and confirming what it is before doing anything else. Part of the problem you had was not knowing what it was, or is. Sure, there is no way of knowing if it was flashed to 5,1. But the tray issue would have been eliminated.
Thats a computer pretty much for people who just want that computer. I love it to be honest
I'm curious and could be wrong, but I have a 2009 4,1 (single core) MacPro and I swapped the CPU tray with an upgraded 5.1 dual CPU tray and it worked fine! Never heard this shouldn't be able to work.. (Also rockin a RX580 which thankfully wasn't so expensive 2 years ago on the second hand market) Nice video again!
Recently picked up a 3.1 for 100 quid. Some extra ram and about to install a new ssd about 200 quid all in. I'm using it for Audio production so it doesn't have to be the flashiest. These machines were in many music studios in the past, recording albums for stars, so other than the latest software and plugins, why can't it still do the same job?
I have an M1 Pro for work and 2015 imac in the house. This is a fun studio project. Be realistic about your use case and it can serve you well.
Shoot man, I just upgraded my 2009 4,1 to a dual CPU tray, coulda sent you my old single tray. Also, maybe why the first tray didn’t work, I noticed the CPU in it and the ones you use have the integrated heat spreader on them, that big metal plate on top. From what I’ve read you need to take that off or you risk cracking and damaging the cpu or tray. I’ve seen many techniques to remove them, my favorite is to squeeze it off using a bench vice. Getting a pair of X5690s for mine soon.
That only applies to the dual tray. No delid needed for single.
I found so funny that you can get them for free, in my country people charges insane amounts of money even for just the shells
Well, seeing you have issues with this makes me feel better. Got a free 3,1 Mac Pro and I am still not able to get it booting after months of trial and error. Might just have to stick at it a bit longer!
paid 120 for my RX 570 8g model about at the beginning of the lockdown in 2020! still have it!
This would make a good series. Thanks!
I have a 2012 5,1 Mac Pro with a single Xeon W3565, that I picked up on Ebay late last year for $599. It came with High Sierra, and I wanted to upgrade to Mojave, so had to upgrade the graphics card to a Radeon HD 7970 and also stuffed 32 gb. of RAM and a 2TB. SSD in it as a boot drive. This is currently my everyday driver, and probably will be for a long time. Of course, I'm limited to Mojave as far as the OS is concerned, but I'd just as soon stick with that, as there are a couple apps I run that aren't supported under Catalina. It's fast and quiet, and I have had literally 0 problems with it since I upgraded.😉
Dude I really love this project because I did the same thing on two of them Mac Pro one for my brother a Mac Pro 4.1 flashed to 5.1 and mine a beautiful 5.1 2012 , I put a RX 580 for a good price and very happy with those machines , yeah this video talk me a lot , thanks Luke ;-)
As a mac pro 2010 user myself I really appr. This content. My mac pro is rigged with 12 cores 64gb ram and a decent vid card. Running Mojave tho
I find these work really well as small home servers. I run Truenas on old Mac Pro towers because you can put 6 HDDs/SSDs in them ( If you remove the CD/DVD drive ) , 128GB of RAM ( if you have a duel CPU model ), 10 Gigabit network cards ( or better ) and they are pretty quiet. You can easily spend a lot of money on the HDDs, but the RAM is relatively cheap, as are the CPUs and even retired, enterprise SFP+ network cards are cheap on ebay. I have a 4,1 Mac Pro tower running well so far and for how cheap and streamlined of a package it can be without needing a loud blade style chassis, I have been pretty happy with this setup so far.
I am still pretty new to this system, but I am really happy with it so far, and when the prices of GPUs come down I want to see if it can also double as an external rendering machine for Blender by running Blender in a jail or VM.
Some annoying aspects of working with these is that you need to get adaptors for some parts. The CD drive sled does not have spots to install HDDs, so I had to design and 3D print a little adaptor for this. I also had to print an adaptor to mount an HDD to the four little sleds that mount the HDDs to the top of the case. A lot of high capacity HDDs only have 2 sets of screws on the bottom of the HDD, they are missing the middle set of bottom screws that were common on older HDDs. You can buy an adaptor from OWC, but for 30 bucks each I just decided to design my own bracket that uses a combination of the bottom screws and side screws on the HDD.
Keep this up, I love seeing people using older hardware and giving them new homes. Sure, you need to replace stuff some times, but there are tons of computers with a lot of life in them and work to give is assigned tasks like being a NAS for a small home or business!
Luke, I own one I could have sworn each of the PCI aux power was 75watts a piece plus the 75 from the PCI slot for a total of 225w. Correct me if I'm wrong.
There was DISEASE IN THE COMPUTER! Hahaaaa! Typing from a beloved 5,1! Great video. Cheers!
I got a free 5,1single CPU 2 years ago and ordered x5680's and got a dual CPU tray for ca. $100 in an eBay liquidation. I did the Boot rom update, added a PCIe NVMe card with a 1TB NVMe on it, Mojave & RX580 8GB. I edited several hour long videos, 6-8 camera Multicam 4k streams (sunning proxies stored on the NVMe. DaVinci Resolve runs great with the RX580 too. These machines are far from dead, until there is a M2 MacPro with expandability.
I love these Cheesegraters! After I watched your Video about the best Mac Pro for a buck I bought a 4,1 ( 400 € in Germany ) Upgraded the CPU and Ram to max with a RX 590! this Mac is still perfect for Musicproduction! Thank you so much for your Videos!!!
For the bad CPU tray, I can see the problem. The Northbridge rivets have failed, causing the heatsink to be loose. You can see it clearly on 7:23, look at the left rivet compared to the right. The heatsink is also noticeably crooked and not seated because of this
I thought this project was great. I have the same Mac Pro, but its working. I love my Mac Pro. I really don’t won’t to buy the latest computer. But I do have a iMac late 2013 that was giving to me. So I am good for right now. Keep up the good work of letting us know to improve the upgrade on computers
Money spent on upgrading my 2009 Mac Pro is worth it, as I can continue to use Adobe CS5 programs and Lightroom 6, and not have to pay monthly fees. Thanks for the video.
I got a dead tower a while ago. De-gutted it and now it's used as a fancy storage cabinet
You can take power from, one of the drive slots to power a Radeon VI without making the mod to the power supply. I am rocking 2010 with a Radeon VI with that configuration.
In the 2023 Mac Pro, can you swap out and replace the PC module ? So you can replace for the Price of a Mac mini the Processor module and continue on working with your expensive (custom) pci-e cards for whatever profession you use it?
I had exactly the same problem with my first entry in to Apple hardware. Got myself a mac pro 3,1 for cheap, thinking "it's like a PC! I'll have the most luck reviving this cheap one since it's all modular!"
Yeah, all the same problems and confusing scenarios with boot screens, GPU power, fans running 100% with no chime, not knowing Mac OS at all, not knowing all the typical things people know about Apple.. i revived it and used it for a tiny bit and it was good but didn't feel snappy as you say. Then the m1 mini came out and it smokes it while being silent and small.
9:13 Phil Swift: Now that’s alot of damage
Luke Miani: *Now that’s alot of fan noise*
I just gotta say this machine looks beautiful
I love this generation. I have a late 2008 that I am still using with Bootcamp into Windows 10. When Windows 10 is obsoleted it may yet still live on with Linux :-)
Him trying to fix the computer is like me trying to get in a relationship ✨chaotic✨
I'm sure the motherboard power connectors supply 75w per connector, not in total so you're actually getting 75W x 2 from the 2 x 6pin to 8 pin cable + 75W from the PCIe connector. I run a 4GB Sapphire RX570 on my 5,1 Mac Pro fine and they're rated at