Mid 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 chimes repeatedly, no video

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Mid 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 chimes repeatedly, no video

Was sitting in front of it last night when the screen went dark and it began chiming repeatedly. No video signal. No response to any of the startup key combinations. No boot menu. Behavior is identical with all disks removed, so pretty certain it’s not even looking for an OS. Removed CPU tray, RAM, Radeon card, drives (including optical drive cage), spray-dusted the heck out of everything, reassembled everything, no change. I don’t see any angry red LEDs illuminated, although the red LED on the CPU tray does blink once shortly after the computer is switched on. All fans appear to be working, including on the Radeon......

Darn. :(

Thoughts on what died?

Posted on Oct 16, 2019 7:28 PM

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Answer 1

jaholmes01 Author

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Oct 17, 2019 9:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Well, it seems I have a bad Radeon 5770 card. Mac boots without it, chimes endlessly when it’s reinstalled. Not expecting anything good, I even tried the card in one of the 4x slots, with the same result. Identical used card sourced from Amazon for $50. Should have it on Monday. Fingers crossed!

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Answer 2

Oct 17, 2019 8:18 AM in response to jaholmes01

The "approved method for debugging is to remove all drives and all slot cards (including graphics card) and try for the chime. If no joy, remove the RAM as well and look for a blinking "help me" message in the power indicator light.

Once you get the chime, you have assurance that the main CPU(s) are executing instructions and some RAM is working, and it passes the Power-On Self Test. Build back up ONE item at a time.

Fans at 'ordinary' speeds says the SMC is working, otherwise they would fail-safe to maximum speed.

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Answer 3

jaholmes01 Author

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20 points

Oct 17, 2019 1:09 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks a bunch, Grant, I'll give this a shot tonight and return with any observations/pronouncements. Thankfully, it would appear as though any single dead part (CPU tray, motherboard, power supply, …) can be eBay-sourced for $150-ish. I'd promised myself when I bought this beast in 2010 that I'd make it last 10 years, and I'm close! :)

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Mid 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 chimes repeatedly, no video

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