Mac Pro 2008 having boot issues...

Question

Mac Pro 2008 having boot issues...

Hi,

My Mac Pro is having boot issues,It occasionally gets stuck when I turn it on and the fans go up a bit then I just get a grey screen, sometimes just shutting down and restarting works and sometimes not. I repaired the disc though it says has no issues and repaired permissions. It still does it. if I hold down the option key and boot and select my system drive then it boots fine. Once up and running everything seems fine it wakes from sleep no problem but after a shutdown it sometimes will not boot, it's almost 50 50 chance at this point that it does not boot. I can try booting off and older back up and see if it happens. I do have two video cards and 12 gigs of ram but not sure when this started to happen but it seems to be happening more often lately.

The Mac Pro warranty is over, taking it in for service is not an option at this point. I will install Snow Leopard on a new drive and see if it still happens as a test.

MP 2008 8 core 2.8,mac mini hdmi, iPhone4,ipad,ATV2, Mac OS X (10.6.5), 8 gigs ram, running three montitors

Posted on Jul 14, 2011 10:29 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 14, 2011 10:30 AM in response to Lance Mcvickar

I saw someone said it could be the battery on the logic board running out of juice, any thoughts on that and where would I get the replacement, Radio Shack? Amazon?

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Answer 2

jamesr57

Level 1

15 points

Jul 14, 2011 10:39 AM in response to Lance Mcvickar

At any point are you having issues with NO VIDEO? Do you have the ATI Radeon 2600 HD XT video card? If yes to both, check out http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3630

Had issues with booting 5 of 9 Mac Pro systems. Turned out to be the ATI Radeon card. It's quietly being recalled until July 31.

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Answer 3

Jul 14, 2011 12:06 PM in response to jamesr57

Hi Jamesr57, I do not have the 2600 xt installed but I do have one and would much appreciate the link to the

recall so I can get whatever they are exchanging it with.

Second I have the Radeon 5770 and the Geforce 8800 installed, perhaps its the 5770. But they both seem to be fine. Not sure if the booting issues started when I added the 5770 so I guess I will pull it and see if it makes a diff. I used to have the 880o and the 2600xt without issue, but the two ATI cards did not play nice together.

Thanks for the reply.

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Answer 4

TStam

Level 1

76 points

Jul 14, 2011 1:49 PM in response to Lance Mcvickar

Look at your power light. Is it flashing? If endlessly flashing, this happened to me - bad memory stick. Find it by process of elimination or led's on memory board.

Might also be a bad video card.

Good luck

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Answer 5

Jul 14, 2011 3:25 PM in response to TStam

No not flashing, just on like normal, I did have that issue once and it was a bad ram chip.

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Answer 6

Ame RiCK

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2011 4:45 PM in response to Lance Mcvickar

Hi Lance,

I'm having the same problem as you. This happens to me when I changed my ATI RADEON HD 2600 xt CARD (The first card was also an ATI RADEON 2600 card with no video,I've cheked the article and found thats a manufacturer's problem...).

I did SMC reset, hardware test, then to the Apple center, after 1 week of test the guy told me that they didn't found anything and by "elimination" it "could" be the motherboard.

Its realy random when it chuts down, I can work for 4 hours whitout any problem but sometimes it happens avery 20 min and sometimes it won't start at all after it turns off (I have to wait for 10 min or so).

Did you solve the problem? How?

Thanks

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Answer 7

Oct 27, 2011 6:16 PM in response to Ame RiCK

Well my Geforce died but I don't think that was the issue. At almost the same time four of my one gig OWC ram chips that were three years old died, the original chips shipped with my mac pro still work. I also have 4 two gig OWC chips that are working fine. It seems my one gig chips were all dying, first the video card then the one gig chips, one after the other.

Perhaps you should pull out some ram and see what happens as it's an easy test, if you just pull one pair of chips at a time and see if the issue goes away. The little power light should blink on the mac pro when the ram is bad, but it seemed mine were still sort of working and causing the boot problems without showing the blinking light although it did do it once and then I looked at "about this mac" and saw i only had eight gigs of ram showing up instead of the12 gigs that were installed. I have a ATI 5770 installed now and the 2600xt and have no boot issues any more so it was not the 2600xt.

So it seems it was bad ram in the end and now my mac boots everytime no issues.

Good luck.

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Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Oct 28, 2011 7:40 AM in response to Lance Mcvickar

I wonder if heat contributed. If you weren't using SmcFanControl wisely.

Ventilattion and placement, location, as these things are designed more to run quiet, they put out enough heat to warm up my office.

Heat kills.

FBDIMMs are a common issue over time, and with OWC either because they are sold and used by people here on forum, or by design....

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Answer 9

Oct 28, 2011 8:29 AM in response to The hatter

Well heat most likely has something to do with it and time, two video cards and four drives makes for a hot mac,

CPU temp is 88 expansion slots 90 but those temps should be ok. Dust is also a killer....

Hatter do you recomend SmcFanControl, I do not have it installed.

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Answer 10

Ame RiCK

Level 1

0 points

Oct 28, 2011 10:37 AM in response to Lance Mcvickar

I have just installed iStat pro and here are the specs:

Fan section:

Exhaust Fan : 600 rpm

CPU Fan : 500 rpm

Power Fan : 600 rpm

HD Fan : 800 rpm

Heat section :

HD1: 82.4°

HD2: 77°

CPU A:84.2°

CPU A:75°

CPU B:80°

CPU B:77°

Ambient :69°

Slots : 84°

I don't know about the average Heat and Fan speed on the Mac Pro (early 2008).

I've noticed that when it shuts down the front led of the MacPro is still powred on but there is no activity on the HD and thus no boot.

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Answer 11

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Oct 28, 2011 10:42 AM in response to Lance Mcvickar

88 * C is HOT

Hard drives are not much of an issue, even 4, though I don't like now that WD Black tend to run 40-42C.

I recommend everyone run SFC regardless. It should be a REQ'D background app!!!

That and Temperature Monitor or iStatPro.... but on the whole only use the minimum and no duplication, not even for checking SMART health status. "less is more" or the olde "too many cooks" approach - your system runs better, even faster, and less trouble.

Kicking the fans up 400 rpm makes a significant change in temps. But of course if it is

Hutch

Pushed in corer

Up against wall

No air flow

Direct sunlight

.... can't help much or enough

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Answer 12

TStam

Level 1

76 points

Oct 28, 2011 11:05 AM in response to The hatter

The failure rate is increasing. Heat is a good suspect and as well as cleanliness should be managed, but no one has suggested power supply. Have you had it checked? Is your power supplied through a UPS and clean? Are you overloading your outlet causing a brownout condition? Low voltage, dirty power, or spikes can wreak havoc and toast video cards, memory and other components. Coincidentally, has your home been hit by lightning recently or experienced power outages?

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Answer 13

Ame RiCK

Level 1

0 points

Oct 30, 2011 3:58 AM in response to The hatter

Thanks The Hatter,

I've cleaned the fans & Installed this awesome little app "SMCFANCONTROL" , I pushed all the fans' rpm to 1100rpm and this solved the problem 'For the moment', I didn't experience any shutdowns after that, Hope this will last ........

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Answer 14

bigstick

Level 1

4 points

Sep 14, 2016 12:57 AM in response to Lance Mcvickar

I have a different variation on this problem. Same model Mac Pro (late 2008 - 3,1) with 20Gb RAM, a 500Gb SSD and a Geforce 680 video card.

My system had been shutting down with the main fans running at full speed, and a blank display. It started to do this after boot, I created a new user account and it ran okay for a while.

I've checked the RAM, repaired disk permissions, reset SMC and PRAM, but now when I boot I get the progress bar which doest fully complete, and then I get the 'Prohibited' screen.

I can't boot into safe mode. The process starts, but hangs. In verbose mode, it hangs. When I try to boot from a USB drive, I get the same progress bar and Prohibited screen.

Nothing has changed. Is this likely to be a logic board failure, or are there other things I need to do before I go and buy a replacement logic board?

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Answer 15

Stuart423

Level 6

9,258 points

Sep 16, 2016 9:36 AM in response to bigstick

bigstick - the prohibited screen means that the computer cannot find a startup folder. Time to reinstall OS X.

Power on and hold down the option + command + R keys. You'll get a screen asking what language, and then the OS X Utilities screen. Reinstall OS X from this screen. Take a look: How to reinstall OS X - Apple Support

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