Mac Pro no more showing video image

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Level 1

23 points

Mac Pro no more showing video image

Hallo

I have a Mac Pro 4.1 flashed to 5.1 and with a Westmere 3.2Ghz chip that suddenly stopped outputting video. At startup it chimes correctly but the display stays with the yellow LED as if it gets no signal.

When it’s off I see one orange led on in the top left corner of the motherboard with 5V stby written on the right and a green led a bit lower with S3 on the right. Pushing the DIAG button the orange led becomes stronger and the other sims, non other less lights up. Both go off when I hit the power button.

I connected Mac to another display on another port, no joy, says explicitly no signal.

I tried the video card (just bought to install Mojave’s, an RX550) on another PC computer, it works. And all worked well until a few days ago.

Then I tried the old graphic card and, surprise, the screen lit up just after the chime, the boot started but hanged at the end of the progress bar (it should be starting from another HD where I have an older OS version, since the card is not compatible with Mojave).

Since the self test is ok, I would exclude the motherboard, the CPU and the RAM.

if it were the Mojave SSD I would expect to have the screen on but no boot, or am I wrong?

I changed the 3V battery and reset SMC, reseated ram and processor card, disconnected all PCI cards and HDs except boot ones.

What else can I try????

thanks in advance for any hints.

Mac Pro, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jun 8, 2019 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 8, 2019 5:08 PM in response to maurizm

The gateway that restricts Mojave is at Install-Time.

If you manage to get Mojave installed, it may run and show a picture with an older card, but will likely not perform well if you push it in the slightest.

This sounds like you do not want to hear that your new expensive card that you bought just to run Mojave has just died. Your descriptions certainly seems to point that way.

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Answer 2

maurizm Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 9, 2019 1:48 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

As I wrote, the card works on another machine.

May the moment I would rather believe that the SSD on which Mojave resides is gone, but shouldn’t that lead to a screen with a question mark because it does not find a bot disk?

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Answer 3

maurizm Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 9, 2019 12:55 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Yes, I wrote so, it works with no hassles on a PC.

I checked the SSD as an external to a MacBook and it’s working, so it might be a corrupt system file, although I would expect the screen to receive a signal also in that case. I’ll try to reinstall and see what happens

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Answer 4

maurizm Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 9, 2019 4:51 PM in response to maurizm

I now backed up the boot SSD and tried if the recovery partition worked, nope, nor did it work with an internet boot. Running out of ideas, possibly try to reinstall the old video card and repair the Sierra boot disk that hangs, and the reinstall Mojave?

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Answer 5

maurizm Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 11, 2019 9:09 AM in response to maurizm

Finally managed to reinstall El Capitan from a restore partition with the old graphic card. Now will try to create USB startup disk with Mojave on it and resuscitate the SSd with the new card... looks like a corrupted system file might have created this mess.

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 6

maurizm Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 11, 2019 11:32 AM in response to mdp1101

Thanks

I changed the PRAM battery and pushed the button close to it, isn’t that the same?

in any case, the computer now works with the old graphic card, but I cannot download Mojave because I already did, but it’s in the failed SSD (one that shows in Disk Utility as a drive but with no volume that I can activate, what does it mean?)

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Answer 7

maurizm Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 24, 2019 11:03 PM in response to maurizm

In the end it boiled down to the Mac having “forgotten” the flashing I had done to install Mojave (I don’t know how it can happen) and therefore it did not recognize the video card anymore.

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Answer 8

Jun 9, 2019 6:47 AM in response to maurizm

Your symptoms point to a recent failure in the card.

Have you tried it in another Machine since your troubles?

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Answer 9

mdp1101

Level 3

921 points

Jun 11, 2019 10:44 AM in response to maurizm

Have you zapped the PRAM? - Upon startup, hold down COMMAND OPTION P AND R

Zapping the PRAM does a few changes to the computer.

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Mac Pro no more showing video image

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