Shannon Mcglathery

Q: Mac Pro Only Boots in Safe Mode - GeForce 7300 issue?

I'm having major issues with my MacPro. Last week I was working when the screen froze. I had to force restart with the power button. Since then it has only booted in Safe Mode.

I've tried booting from MacOS 10.6.3 CD and latest Diskwarrior CD and it get part way through startup then hangs on blank screens. Oddly the cursor works okay at that point.

I suspect the problem might be a bad NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT card. I've seen that issue in a couple other posts

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1541589
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13011155&#13011155
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13031408&#13031408

Any help greatly appreciated!

MacPro1,1 Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 3 GB 667MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, Cinema HD

Posted on Mar 30, 2011 10:19 PM

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Q: Mac Pro Only Boots in Safe Mode - GeForce 7300 issue?

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  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Oct 25, 2011 9:23 AM in response to vmalmgren
    Level 9 (60,926 points)
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    Oct 25, 2011 9:23 AM in response to vmalmgren

    Capacitors are polarized. They work better and last longer when you observe the plus and minus markings on the old ones, and install the new ones with the same polarity. The physical size is of no importance, but new ones may be larger and may not fit in the same space.

     

    You can increase the capacitance in almost every case with no impact, and you can use a hotter heat range and a higher Voltage rating, but not a lower capacitance or a lower heat range or a lower Voltage rating.

  • by taberrr,

    taberrr taberrr Nov 12, 2011 3:01 AM in response to Shannon Mcglathery
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 12, 2011 3:01 AM in response to Shannon Mcglathery

    WOW - I am so glad I just found this thread. I have the EXACT same weird issue with my 3.0ghz dual quad core MacPro2,1. It boots into safe mode only... in "non-safe" mode I get a duplicate cursor when I move it, then it turns into an endless beach ball at the grey screen after the Apple logo and just hangs. I was convinced it was the logic board, so rather than attempt at replacing it, I bought a new Mac Pro last weekend! I just swapped out the video card from the new Mac Pro (ATI Radeon HD 5770) and it booted up fine. Amazing! The price of a new video card is much less than $3,500. Whew.

     

    Thanks so much!

  • by FatMac>MacPro,

    FatMac>MacPro FatMac>MacPro Nov 12, 2011 7:28 AM in response to vmalmgren
    Level 5 (4,815 points)
    Nov 12, 2011 7:28 AM in response to vmalmgren

    vmalmgren wrote:

     

    For what it's worth, after doing some research I was actually able to repair my 7300GT. Turns out it's well documented that two of the capacitors on the board fail. If you have a soldering iron it's pretty easy to replace them. I'd never done any thing like it before and it worked out fine. I replaced the two capacitors and my computer booted up with no issues. Problem solved.

    I'm curious. I made sure to get my 1,1 Mac Pro with the 7300GT specifically because it was the only video card that didn't rely on its own fan for cooling (I'd had fan failures on previous video cards). I've noticed that default fan speed vs temperature settings in the Mac Pro tend to emphasize quiet over cooling and so have consistently used smcFanControl to monitor and control fan speed to keep operating temperatures down. I only recently upgraded to a 5,1 6 core Mac Pro and never had the 7300GT troubles discussed in this thread. Is it possible that the capacitor failures were in any way related to temperature levels maintained by the default fan speeds?

  • by cienne,

    cienne cienne Nov 12, 2011 12:24 PM in response to Shannon Mcglathery
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 12, 2011 12:24 PM in response to Shannon Mcglathery
  • by The hatter,

    The hatter The hatter Nov 12, 2011 12:29 PM in response to FatMac>MacPro
    Level 9 (60,935 points)
    Nov 12, 2011 12:29 PM in response to FatMac>MacPro

    you are now using an ATI 5770 and the problems with lead contacts and solder and Nvidia that they had then and with the 8800GT.

     

    Fans are great. So are double width cards. Built properly though, not like the ATI X1900 and others.

  • by FatMac>MacPro,

    FatMac>MacPro FatMac>MacPro Nov 12, 2011 12:44 PM in response to The hatter
    Level 5 (4,815 points)
    Nov 12, 2011 12:44 PM in response to The hatter

    The hatter wrote:

     

    you are now using an ATI 5770 and the problems with lead contacts and solder and Nvidia that they had then and with the 8800GT.

     

    Fans are great. So are double width cards. Built properly though, not like the ATI X1900 and others.

    I special ordered the 5870 and have been concerned about both fan reliability (having had one fail on an SGI graphics card years ago) and the possibility of it clogging with dust, given that it's largely enclosed, but there's no longer any no-fan option.

     

    In any case, could the higher temperatures resulting from quiet fan settings aggravate the deficiencies of those ATI cards?

  • by Robert Pena,

    Robert Pena Robert Pena Feb 16, 2012 3:34 PM in response to Shannon Mcglathery
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 16, 2012 3:34 PM in response to Shannon Mcglathery

    These are the exact same issues I'm going through and it seems the original Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT card is the culprit. I don't have money for a new video card. It's the first thing I'm going to try to get my Mac Pro back.

     

    Quick question to the original Poster of this thread. I did see the "mouse can move, but leavess a copy of itself" in the top left hand corner. Did you see a stripped dotted lines just hanging to the bottom right hand side of the curos itself? I posted a pic on my own thread.

  • by Robert Pena,

    Robert Pena Robert Pena Feb 16, 2012 3:46 PM in response to Shannon Mcglathery
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 16, 2012 3:46 PM in response to Shannon Mcglathery

    It starting to look more and more like the Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT is the culprit in my situation. There's too many common factors among other Mac Pro 1.1 owners who seem to have solved their boot up problems after switching video cards.

  • by agyu,

    agyu agyu Apr 6, 2012 8:07 AM in response to Shannon Mcglathery
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 6, 2012 8:07 AM in response to Shannon Mcglathery

    Hi,

    I had the exact same problem that you had and fixed by deleting all the extention files from System/Library/Extentions. The system started up normally again.

    I moved NV* and GeF* from /System/Library/Extensions

     

    These were Extensions I removed

    NVDANV40Hal.kext

    NVDANV50Hal.kext

    NVDAResman.kext

    NVSMU.kext

    GeForce.kext

    GeForce7xxxGLDriver.bundle

    GeForceGA.plugin

    GeForceGLDriver.bundle

    GeForceVADriver.bundle

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Apr 6, 2012 1:35 PM in response to agyu
    Level 9 (60,926 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 6, 2012 1:35 PM in response to agyu

    Eliminating those extensions means you get no graphics acceleration. That correlates with Safe Mode (which does not load those extensions) operation. It works, but is not hardware accelerated.

  • by Robert Pena,

    Robert Pena Robert Pena Apr 7, 2012 9:21 AM in response to agyu
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 7, 2012 9:21 AM in response to agyu

    Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck as I have formatted the OS hard drive and can't even get it to install again from my Snow Leopard disk let alone boot into Safe Mode to do anything. You still have your NVidia graphics card in your Mac Pro?

  • by Robert Pena,

    Robert Pena Robert Pena Apr 7, 2012 9:22 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 7, 2012 9:22 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    So what exactly happens if I were to remove those extension and my "hardware is not accelerated"?

  • by agyu,

    agyu agyu Apr 10, 2012 4:22 PM in response to Robert Pena
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 10, 2012 4:22 PM in response to Robert Pena

    I finally narrowed down to the particular extension, GeForce 7xxx.kext.

    My mac pro only freezes when this extension is loaded.

    Does this mean that my NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT is corrupted or NVIDIA needs to issue an update for this extension?

    Any suggestions?

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Apr 10, 2012 5:51 PM in response to agyu
    Level 9 (60,926 points)
    Desktops
    Apr 10, 2012 5:51 PM in response to agyu

    So the display RAM is working, and the primitive way of talking to the card (used by the diagnostic, by Safe Mode and when you delete extensions) is working.

     

    When you put the card on "full speed, automatic" (which occurs on the Apple screen when the "loading" gear stops turning) the display stops working.

     

    I'd say your card has probably had it, and you should look at getting a new card.

     

    This card is no longer for sale as new. Don't hold your breath waiting for NVIDIA to issue any new extensions. And even if they did, it would not fix your problem.

  • by The hatter,

    The hatter The hatter Apr 11, 2012 7:51 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 9 (60,935 points)
    Apr 11, 2012 7:51 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    I'm just reposting links - for information purpose only -  what dust looks like.

    I remember the first time I saw a G5 impacted with dust everywhere.

     

    What six years can mean to a cpu heatsink:

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14701569#post14701569

     

    PSU for some serious build up also

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14701467#post14701467

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