Jninja119
Level 1 (8 points)
Desktops

Q: Mac Pro Trouble Booting

I have a Mac Pro Tower that refuses to start up the first time I press the power button, the machine "turns on" in a sense that the light on the front illuminates and I hear a click, however the fans and the drives don't engage and the screen is blank. I am then forced to hold down the power button until it shuts off and the hit the power button again, and every time on the second time, it boots up. Now I use this Mac equal parts on the Mac partition and equal parts as a PC, this problem emerges when I'm booting into both, but I put in this detail to explain one other thing, I have a PC graphics card in the computer. I have all the proper CUDA Driver Version which allows me to do this on the mac, but it might have something to do with it. Although the problem persists when I have my Mac AFI graphics card in the computer as well. I also want to add some other details, Neither the mac of the PC partition can go into sleep mode or the computer goes back to being a brick with just the front light on. (Sometimes the LED keyboard works, and sometimes it doesn't after sleep mode.) Additionally, if I restart the computer it boots up fine first time, as well as when I switch from mac to PC partition. I've tried doing SMC and PRAM resets and that hasn't worked, does anyone have any thoughts?

Thank you guys for any input you might have.

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Sep 7, 2016 1:22 PM

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Jninja119

Q: Mac Pro Trouble Booting

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Helpful

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Sep 7, 2016 5:12 PM in response to Jninja119
    Level 9 (60,774 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 5:12 PM in response to Jninja119

    Next time you are fiddling inside, try carefully removing the 3 Volt coin cell battery half-hidden behind the graphics card, and check for the required 3 Volts. If substantially less, a new one is needed. Original is BR2032, you can also use CR2032, which is used for garage-door remotes and car-key fobs.

  • by Jninja119,

    Jninja119 Jninja119 Sep 7, 2016 5:18 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 5:18 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    So I opened her up and replaced that battery, but I'm still experiencing the same issue. I don't know if it's helpful, but I can add more details about my rig. The motherboard is from a 2009 mac pro 4.1 but someone updated the firmware to 5.1 and put in a hexacore 3.33ghz processor. I have had this issue basically since I got it, would that have anything to do with it?

    Full computer specs:

     

    Mac Pro 4.1 motherboard with 5.1 firmware.

    Intel Xeon X5679 3.33Ghz 6-core 12 Mb L3 Server Processor

    32GB 1066Mhz Ram

    GTX 670 Superclocked 4GB Graphics Card

    2TB 7200RPM Hybrid Drive

    2TB 7200RPM Hard Drive

    4TB 7200RPM Hard Drive

    500GB Hard Drive

    256GB Kingston Solid State Drive

    OSX El Capitan 10.11.6

    Windows 10 64-bit.

     

    Again, thank you for your input, as well as anyone else who has any thoughts

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Sep 7, 2016 5:56 PM in response to Jninja119
    Level 9 (60,774 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 5:56 PM in response to Jninja119

    Once it has a new Battery, It can remember. Try the PRAM Reset again ( command Option P R for two or more chimes).

  • by Jninja119,

    Jninja119 Jninja119 Sep 7, 2016 10:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 10:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    I tried that, unfortunately it didn't work, essentially it just kept making the chime until I powered it down and held down 'option' (it reset to EFI boot for some reason.) Still not able to start with one click, but at least I did a more recent PRAM zap. Thank you for the thought though.