Mac Pro 1,1 Needs New Video Card. . .Help

[TechnoGuy]

I'm new here, so go easy on me I wasn't sure if I should post this on the video card forum or the Mac forum, so if I put this in the wrong place, just let me know.

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 with 16 GB RAM. I was so frustrated because it couldn't run any of the Mac OS's past Lion and software was becoming uncompatible (e.g. No new browsers since Lion isn't a supported OS any more.

I came across the trick to put El Capitan on it and it worked. The guy in the video said that it would need a new video card to just use a PC card as a new Mac card would be really expensive and that the only drawback would be a blank screen until it booted.

Actually, the only video problem with the video card that came with it that I've seen is only in browsers, where the cursor or the hand that clicks links has a white trail around it. It will open links but it is really annoying.

I have several PC cards but the computer just doesn't recognize them. I tried several using the native card and a new card and it shows a screen that says you need to pick which speed for different slots, but none of them actually produces any video either by itself or on a second monitor with the native one still installed.

I do not want to spend a lot of money on a new card. Is there a trick to making a PC card work or are the ones I've tried just incompatible?

Thanks.

 

[JL87]

I'm guessing that you have one of the three mac pros (1,1) listed here http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=MacPro1,1*

Need to know exactly what video card you are using in your mac, even if it's the base one installed originally. If it's an nvidia based gpu then you could be in luck as nvidia does post drivers for "pc" based nvidia cards to be used in macs.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/forums/graphics.13/ is a great site dedicated to those who build "hacintosh" computers out of pc parts and they have a lot of in depth information on getting mac os to work on intel based builds including the latest release of mac os sierra. The reason why I'm suggesting this is that your mac pro 1,1 (if it's one of the models in the first link) is based off the intel xeon processors, so some of the information on tonymac86 could be used to get your hardware up and running with el capitan or maybe even sierra.

It could just be a matter of finding the correct nvidia drivers off their site for your current gpu that could get your machine running smoothly as you already seem to have el capitan installed and functioning.

Good luck!

 

[Brusfantomet]

Mac cards has a different bios than normal PC cards, i remember that there was some cads for sale a long time a go, its possible you could flash a PC card with a MAC bios to make it work in your mac.

Depend on what you cal a "lot of money" 150 USD?
this site has some input there Macvidcards
They also appears to sell some cards here

 

[TechnoGuy]

Thanks to both of you for the good information. JL87, I'm using the one preinstalled when I got the computer but I was not the first owner, so I'm not sure whether that is the way that it came from the factory. The one it came to me with is NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Processor): 4 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.7f10
Serial Number (system): G86480SAUPZ
Hardware UUID: 60F9219F-4DE4-5A29-883F-7107EB6D8B85

 

[silentbogo]

Last year I had an old 2007 Macbook Pro with similar issue: it even refused to install Snow Leopard.
I've used Clover bootloader and everything worked like a charm. Ended up installing Yosemite and selling it for cheap.
There's also a complete guide:
http://lowendmac.com/2014/modernizing-the-mac-pro-11-and-21/