No Power-up on Mac Pro 2009

Question

No Power-up on Mac Pro 2009

Second time my 2009 model 4,1 Mac Pro 8-core 2.26 has gone down with power-up issue.

Startup issue-- press button, brief fan, then complete shutdown.

Red LED shows behind cheese grating.

Repaired under AppleCare at authorized center in Boston over a month ago.

Only visit inside the tower was two weeks ago, upgraded to proper ECC RAM with thermal sensor to 24GB-- identified corrcetly under both boot partitions, working flawlessly.

Saturday evening I press the button, and---

It's baaaacck...

Unit has always been plugged into clean power -- 1500 watt APC UPS. Never plugged into wall.

Also, before touching the button I discharge possible static discharge, standard practice.

Very annoying, holds up client work. Not happy.

I have two eSATA host adapters and a Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro PCI card in slots, along with stock Nvidia G120.

I've been hearing power supplies may not be up to snuff.

Anyone else experience this?

Best, as always,

Loren S. Miller

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), and 10.7

Posted on Jul 29, 2012 10:50 PM

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Answer 1

fearless

Level 6

9,538 points

Jul 30, 2012 1:56 AM in response to Loren Miller1

Hi Loren, long time no hear... the FCP key guide was classic. Anyhow - had it happen the other day to an Early 2008 - the only solution was to unplug, then remove the PRAM battery. Rebooted fine after that. Sometimes, when they die, they die dirty, and no amount of PRAM resetting will fix it... but it initially felt like a dead power supply. Thankfully, it wasn't.

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Answer 2

Jul 31, 2012 1:21 AM in response to fearless

Hey, fearless-

Good to hear from you!

Well, I carted the tower back into my local AACC-- they can try that strategy, among others, on my very last day of AppleCare!

What upset me was, a seasoned tech there telling me he strongly suspects third party PCIe cards. And the spooky thing is, the first go round of no-startup occurred not long after installing the Intensity Pro card!

So now I'm worried... I know BMG works fairly closely with Apple and I need that card when clients are in the room- works great via HDMI. Maybe the tech was just cranky, or maybe he's really correlated something troubling over many many repairs, dunno.

Thanks for your comments on the KeyGuide™. BTW, the FCPX KeyGuide is just as awesome... btu I have to update the website in so many ways. :-(

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