Q: My Mac Pro spontaneously restarts

second day running with no problems!

I have been unplugging my Mac Pro overnight and plugging it back in in the morning, waiting 5-6 seconds then turning it on. Problem has not happened whilst I have done that.

Bit of a pain though.

I have a MacPro1,1 and it has also been restarting by it self the last week. It has done it 4 times now. I can hear a "click" sound so I know it is the power that is the problem. Nothing else restarts, so it is not the mains power. I.e. the router would restart if it lost power, and it is ok. I also se nothing on the lights here, it's just the MacPro that does this.

I have been running 10.6 so I formated the harddrive, reinstalled a clean 10.6 and upgraded it to 10.7 and did not install any app's at all. While surfing in Safari it restarted again, so I know it is not the OS or App's, it is hardware.

I think it is a heat problem during summer, so I have moved it to a more cold inviroment to see if it helps. I will write again to tell if it did or not in a couble of weeks.

Miguel, read this answer on this topic. Re: Need help with Red Led (not the ram ones).

I have a Mac Pro 3.1 (2008). Add me to the list of people who this is happening to. It started happening the Same month my Apple care ran out. Incredibly frustrating and I was shocked to find this thread and seeing how prevalent this issue is!

I guess, let trouble shooting begin :(. I thought I had left this behind by going away from PCs...

/Christian

I just walked away from a screen freeze as well, so I am getting a mix of freeze ups and sudden reboots.

/Christian

I am under the impression that crashes occur more often (though not exclusively) when the machine has to 'work hard', do you have the same?

BTW did anyone found a problem/solution, like replacing a motherboard? Please post it!

Not really (at least not for me). When the last couple of ones happened (freeze and reboots), I was sorting through photo's in the finder window. This weekend I will jump over and spend a significant ammount of time in Win 7 to see if the same thing happens there. If it doesn't, that would point to software issue.

I did get the machine to run until I shut it down last night by unplugging and plugging power back in, boot up and let it sit for 15 minutes before logging in (that was mentioned by someone). When I logged in I ran through Onyx as well as updated to the last version of Snow Leopard and updated a bunch of other stuff (everything new since beginning of June - iWeb, remoteClient, Snow Leopard, iTunes, Canon Print Driver, and some pages patch).

We'll see if I still have same issues when I get home (I would suspect that is the case)....

/Christian

My Mac Pro only occasionally really crashes, but sometimes USB doesn't work well, Mac can 'see' the printer but printing will fail. FireWire also works on and off. Tried everything from changing USB peripherals to changing RAM.

So I called a repair company and although it's impossible to be conclusive for 100%, he said it sounded like a motherboard problem because there are so many different symptoms. He estimated the cost for replacement of the motherboard for an early 2008 Mac Pro at ± €500 ($714).

For now I'll leave it like this.

Check DVWarehouse if you do go down that path. $800 looks like their norm.

Reset the SMC and/or zap pram/nvram from cold boot also.

Mac Pro Logic Boards DV Warehouse

If it doesn't happen in Windows, it is likely not the logicboard. Yes?

I agree but I didn't try booting from Windows. I would have to dive into it, how to set it up, get a Windows install DVD, etc.. Windows ain't my hobby. Also, I should have to use it for quite some time. I don't feel much for that.

I hope this Mac Pro holds out until a new update, with FireBold and then I'll buy a new one. And some SSD. And maybe think about an affordable insurance that covers this kind of **** because 3,5 years is not a very long life for a € 2500 computer IMHO.

add me to the list too

I started getting the spontaneous reboots a couple of weeks ago

Mac Pro early 2008 running 10.5.8

it's only happened a couple of times, this time it happened just after adding a jpeg as album artwork to some tracks in itunes

the first time I was just browsing with firefox (5.0.1)

For what it is worth, I just got the reboot from Windows 7 today as well, so it's definitely hardware related...

/Christian

Add me, too. I've been running my MacBook Pro for years, and on 10.6 since release, with all updates. No warning, not doing anything odd on the computer, no new software. Just the knee-jerk reboot.

There clearly seems to be a thread of concern, but I have seen NO APPLE ANSWERS. What's going on???

Hello Apple?

Odd that the typical "Report Error" screen didn't pop up on re-start, either, so clearly, the error details are not being sent to Apple support.

Since I last wrote, it still restarted. Then I mounted a UPS to the MacPro and that worked! So I guess, that the MacPro has too old capacitors and there fore is to fragile to a bad power line. With the UPS mounted, it has a more stable power and now it works.

It's a drag, but I can live with it until it is time for a new MacPro.