Help! Black screen or shut down during render. Mac Pro 5,1 . GPU Radeon 7970

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Level 1

4 points

Help! Black screen or shut down during render. Mac Pro 5,1 . GPU Radeon 7970

During this last week my Mac Pro 5,1 goes to a black screen and then shuts down during render on both FCPX and Davinci - even for incredibly simple projects. It also does this while playing through the timeline on Davinci.

Please find more information below and an EtreCheck attached:

The Mac worked flawlessly with FCPX for 2 years and I have never encountered problems. This problem first happened when I recently rendered a GPU intensive project on Davinci, it went to a black screen and then shut down after approx 30 seconds. Now this problem happens whenever I render a project in EITHER program - even for rendering short and basic projects in FCPX (e.g. a Prores file with no colour correction or plugins).

My Mac Pro:

2009 upgraded to 5,1

Mojave 10.14.6

2 x 3.46 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon

128 GB Ram

AMD Radeon Sapphire HD 7970 3GB (running flashed firmware to allow apple boot screen - it is listed as Radeon 7950 in the system profile - I bought it from a specialist seller who flashes them - so I figured this system description difference is normal - and it was working fine for 2 years like this).

I have tried:

New projects, new sequences, new video files, different export locations.
Removing plugins.
Clearing prefs and caches.
A clean install of Mojave and FCPX - I didn’t install Davinci this time in order to see if that was causing the problem - but no, the problem persists even in basic rendering in FCPX.
Monitoring temperature via TG pro. Nothing looks abnormal, all the temp levels display as green status during render.
I then switched to an external PSU for the GPU (using a Corsair CX650). The GPU was previously powered via the motherboard.

The problem manifests itself as the screen going black and then either the Mac will shut itself down after approx 30 seconds or sometimes I have to force shut it down myself.

Thank you for any help!

Etrecheck

Mac Pro, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jan 20, 2024 1:56 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

144,929 points

Jan 20, 2024 5:33 PM in response to chrissy_dn

I don't see no Bad Actors. I don't see no suspicious software.

But based on the Etrecheck digest, today at 17:29 your time, you have a kernel panic, Machine Check, which could be a serious Hardware issue.

you should either examine or post the full report to see if it contains more clues.

Kernel Panic Reports are stored in the Folder at:

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

If you copy and paste that string into:

Finder > Go menu > Go to Folder

it will take you to the Folder where those reports are stored.

Kernel panic reports are named with Date&Time and start or end in ‘panic’

If you find one, please post the entire report here, by using the “additional text” Icon in the reply footer (looks like a paper with writing).

Please don’t post more about 20 lines of any other types of reports — they are interminable, and any information useful for this purpose is on the first screenful.

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Answer 2

Jan 21, 2024 6:10 AM in response to chrissy_dn

THIS part of the report

9 error-reporting banks

is more reminiscent of an uncorrectible RAM memory error.

see this article:

Mac Pro and Error Correcting Code RAM Memory

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Answer 3

chrissy_dn Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 21, 2024 6:04 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks Grant. Please see a report attached for the kernel panic during Etrecheck.

In the same location I can also see reports for the previous shutdowns if you need them? (e.g: shutdown_stall_2024-01-20-170805.shutdownStall )

Thank you

Kernel panic - system report

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Answer 4

Jan 21, 2024 6:39 AM in response to chrissy_dn

as the article describes, after a restart, the modules are tested again, and may be used again. You will have to keep that window open, and refresh it from time-to-time.

if your Mac does not power down after such an incident, the red LED next to each slot MAY be left in the ON state. The side door is not interlocked on that model, and those LEDs could be inspected.

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