trouble disabling EFI password, accessing prompt

K

kapok

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Hi, I’ve been experiencing some fan spin-up issues on my Mac Pro 1,1 (late 2006 1st gen. Intel model). After posting at discussions.apple.com, I was encouraged to run Apple Hardware Test to test for any hardware faults. Unfortunately, ever since I set up a firmware password -- to prevent tinkerers/younger brothers/etc. from messing around with my computer -- I’ve had troubles disabling that firmware password temporarily, so as to run the Apple Hardware Test.

As you will know, setting up a firmware password prevents booting the computer from external media (for example, from the OS X system CD/DVD), or flashing the PRAM, amongst other things. I spent a couple hours last night trying to disable my EFI password temporarily, and couldn’t! According to Apple's documentation, the user must reboot their computer while depressing the Option key to pull up the EFI password prompt. When I do that, my Mac Pro appears to start the boot process normally (all the ordinary spin-up sounds of hard drives/fans/etc.), but the monitor never illuminates, and the boot process seems to stall. If I press the power button to re-boot, the machine shuts down immediately, without requiring a "hard" reboot.

Has anyone else witnessed this scenario? I HAVE tried removing the firmware password by navigating to “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/Applications/Utilities/” on my OS X Snow Leopard retail DVD, and running Firmware Password Utility. The same thing still happens when I Option-boot, though.

Is it possible that my EFI password prompt DOES come up, but ISN'T being displayed on screen? I have noticed that since I purchased a new graphics card (the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card, a replacement for an nVidia GeForce GT 8800 for Mac, that "burnt out" a couple months ago from excessive use, I guess), my screen remains blank right up until the end of the boot process. Maybe the updated OS X boot ROM doesn't initialize the new graphics card early enough in the boot process to view the EFI password entry prompt, or some-such thing?

Does anyone know of ANY OTHER WAY besides depressing the Option key during boot to access the EFI password prompt, so as to temporarily disable it? I will call Apple Corp. and ask them if I have to, but I can’t stomach their Apple Care tech. fees for out-of-warranty Apple products.

Thanks for any help you can offer!
-jabroni5 (that guy who insists on coddling his 5-year old Mac Pro instead of upgrading)
 
Disable your firmware password by removing some of your RAM temporarily, one stick would be enough.
Then start with a PRAM reset: hold command-Option-P and R during start up. You'll hear the boot chime sound. Keep holding those same 4 keys until you hear the chime 2 more times. Release the keys, and let your Mac boot normally. And - Voila! - your firmware password is now reset.
Anyone with physical access to your Mac can bypass your firmware password, so it's basically worthless to secure your system, eh?
It's also possible that the PRAM reset will help out with your vid issues (no bets on that one, though!)
Reinstall the removed RAM when you are done.
 
Thank you for your advice, DeltaMac. I duplicated my post on couple of other forums as well (hintsforums.macworld.com & mac-forums.com), and both came back with responses similar to your own.

I went ahead and reset my firmware as you suggested. Thanks! Had forgotten about that trick. I "flashed" the PRAM, and reset the System Management Controller (SMC) and my fan issues appear to be resolved. However, the video problem that got this all started hasn't gone away. I guess it makes sense to mark this post as resolved, and create a new post with a new subject, but I'm going to post here as well.

I am now all the more convinced that my new graphics card (The ATI Radeon HD 5770 that was recommended by Apple Corp. as the best/only replacement option available for the Mac Pro 1,1) is at fault.

As I wrote in my first post, not being able to pull up the EFI password prompt in the first place (using Option-boot), was only a suspicion, not a certainty. When I booted, while holding Option, it was clear that my system was doing one of two things; 1. Stalling/Crashing somehow 2. Booting to the EFI password entry prompt as it was supposed to, but failing to route that low-level process to the video card -- all I would see is a black screen.

Since resetting my firmware password, I have experimented with various start-up key combinations (such as d, or c, etc.), and have confirmed (just by listening to the sounds that the Mac Pro makes while it's booting, for lack of any visual confirmation) that those "low-level" boot processes are in fact working properly, just that I can't see what's going on until JUST before OS X has fully booted (sometime AFTER the grey Apple logo would ordinarily appear on-screen, but before Finder opens up).

My suspicion is that the new 5770 graphics card isn't being initialized early enough in the boot process, maybe as a result of the boot ROM upgrade that took place when I installed it.

I'm now stuck without the ability to run ANY kind of pre-boot diagnostics, etc. at ALL anymore.

Any thoughts? I'm going to make this a fresh post later today.
 
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