Mac Pro randomly shutting down

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Mac Pro randomly shutting down

I have member of my household whose Mac Pro 5,1 that recently has been repeatedly shutting down, seemingly at random. It just completely powers off, with no shut down dialog or any other warning. When powered back on, it boots without any apparent issue, and displays no error message or crash log of any kind. The Mac Pro is currently running Mojave 10.14.6, with an MSI Radeon RX 560 instead of the GPU that the machine came with.

We've already tried a couple things to try and isolate the issue:

Removed/disconnected non-essential components/devices from the computer, like a USB 3.0 PCI-E card and any external backup drives or USB hubs
Reinstalled Mojave. While it so far has been helping it run faster, it hasn't stopped the shutdown issue. Though we've recently noticed it restarting itself after shutting itself down.

I can't help but wonder if this is a hardware issue, since the computer was hit by a lightning-induced power surge some time ago. While we got it up and running again, I've been told that it hasn't been quite the same since before that happened. It wasn't having this issue before the lighting strike. Unfortunately, I haven't had any success running Apple Hardware Test to check for any anomalies, presumably because the current GPU doesn't have the Mac BIOS and thus doesn't allow for any startup options.

Any tips or troubleshooting guidance would be appreciated. I have access to the computer, so I can get more info from it as needed.

Mac Pro

Posted on Jan 5, 2020 12:43 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Jan 15, 2020 3:23 PM in response to Community User

Naw, temps look good, unless they reall go wild when pressing things.

Have you done a PRAM reset, CMD+Option+p+r...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

In fact, do 3 in a row, takes a bit of time.

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

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Answer 2

Jan 19, 2020 6:54 PM in response to Community User

A user was frustrated by this situation, so they collected all the readily-available AHT versions for different Hardware and placed them on a GitHub site. They also added instructions for making a USB-stick Diagnostic runner (not Installer).

https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

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Answer 3

Jan 19, 2020 2:27 PM in response to Community User

Safe Mode does the disk check FIRST, before demanding your userid and password. So you could start it in safe mode, wait a while (typically done in 5 minutes or less, so you could wait 20 minutes) then just restart into regular mode.

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Answer 4

Jan 22, 2020 3:23 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

There is one more check you can make for a wonky problem that occasionally plagues these Macs. It requires powering off, releasing the tabs on the processor shelf, and wiggling the Northbridge chip. if wiggly, you have found the problem.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/jul14/071114.html

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Jan 5, 2020 2:32 PM in response to Community User

The never released to the public ASD 3s149 should run GUI HW test but not the EFI test.

EtreCheck is a simple little app to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report...

https://pastebin.com/

Or use the paperclip at the bottom of a Reply to attach the full report here. :)

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Jan 10, 2020 1:30 PM in response to Community User

Nothingstands out inthat report.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4724652

But I'm thinking maybe heat buildup when asleep?

What temperatures does this App report?

This App can be used to speed up the fans, all my iMacs would be dead without it.

Never ever ever drop fan speeds below the speed that the Mac itself is calling for.

MacFansControl…

https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control

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Answer 7

Jan 17, 2020 7:30 PM in response to Community User

You do not have TRIM enabled on your SSD drives. After checking your drives with Disk Utility First Aid, you should use this terminal command:

sudo trimforce enable

this makes the setting in this version of MacOS, but you will need to run Disk Utility First Aid again on each SSD drive to clear the backlog of blocks that should have been deleted. This is awkward to do for the boot drive, so if you restart in safe mode, the setting of trim force in MacOS is honored while it does the initial disk check, which takes care of the backlog on the boot drive.

https://www.lifewire.com/enable-trim-for-ssd-in-os-x-yosemite-2260789

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Answer 8

Jan 26, 2020 6:02 PM in response to Community User

The typical place to check Voltages would be on a drive power adapter. That is hard on the Drive bays, but may be possible on the DVD reader cable.

You are looking for the Voltages like 12 Volts and 5 Volts to be showing a bit ABOVE their nominal Values -- never below.

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Answer 9

Jan 19, 2020 6:02 PM in response to Community User

Apple hardware test was installed at the factory and shipped on the original-issue DVD disc 2. No software was ever responsible for placing it back onto the boot drive after the boot drive was erased or replaced. It is common at this late date for AHT to be lost.

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Answer 10

Jan 15, 2020 6:13 PM in response to BDAqua

I think 144... is the latest one.

Your report says you have turned off Apple updates (for casual software updates such as anti-Virus strings). Etrecheck therefore reports your Apple anti-Virus as OFF.

Etrecheck reports you have a runaway processor hog, using 173 percent of a [single] CPU.

Your crashes appear to be for all different reasons. On a regular MacBook that would make RAM errors a suspect, but your Mac Pro with Xeon processor has Error Correcting Code RAM. RAM is perfect at all times, else the manchine halts with a distinctive machine check (not seen here).

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Answer 11

Jan 22, 2020 11:07 AM in response to Community User

The extended test mostly extends the time spent testing RAM memory. The test throws all possible power into hammering the memory, so much so that it does not have any extra cycles to update the display. It will appear to hang and be unresponsive. That is not a failure.

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Answer 12

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Jan 27, 2020 6:58 AM in response to Community User

https://pinoutguide.com/Power/apple_mac_pro_psuJ1_pinout.shtml

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/need-mac-pro-2009-2012-psu-pin-out.2122393/

http://aquamac.proboards.com/thread/1032/mac-pro-psu-atx-adapter

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Answer 13

Jan 10, 2020 10:09 AM in response to BDAqua

Sorry for the slow response. Reinstalling macOS seems to have done something, so I waited to get a sense of what exactly has changed.

The situation seems to have shifted from "shutting down at random" to "shutting down upon going to sleep." The machine only now seems to shut itself off after being put to sleep or left to fall asleep on its own. If set to never sleep, it seems to keep running just fine. If the "restart automatically after power failure" option is enabled in Energy Saver preferences, it'll automatically reboot itself. If not, it just stays shut off. Upon restart/turn on, it still doesn't display any crash log or error messages. And when it shuts off this way, I noticed that a red light flashes once within the computer. I don't know if that means anything.

Running an EtreCheck report doesn't show anything particularly alarming in terms of hardware or software issues. I've included the 7-page text report here.

EtreCheck report

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Answer 14

BDAqua

Level 10

250,253 points

Jan 15, 2020 5:42 PM in response to Community User

I haven't heard of a Firmware update past 44.0.0.0.0 for the cMPs, mine is still on MP51.007F.B03 & running 10.13.6 just fine.

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Answer 15

Jan 16, 2020 11:52 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Just did an SMC reset and three NVRAM resets. The computer still shuts down upon going to sleep, and we'll have to wait and see if it still shuts itself off at random.

I just did a fresh EtreCheck report after addressing the major issues shown in the last report.

EtreCheck report 1-16-20

We also noticed that the computer tends to shut itself off while trying to do a Time Machine backup. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, or if the issue has something to do with this. It doesn't seem to make a difference what connection type the backup drive uses (USB 2.0, 3.0, or FireWire)

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Mac Pro randomly shutting down

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