Mac Pro 2006 and freezing on restart (but fine on shutdown)

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Level 1

8 points

Mac Pro 2006 and freezing on restart (but fine on shutdown)

Hello everyone

I have a minor problem thats been driving me crazy for a month or so now. I just received an older 2006 Mac Pro 2x2.66Ghz Xeon system. Being the PC geek i am, i've upgraded it quite a bit per Apple specs with the following:

1. Upgraded main harddrive to my Samsung 128GB SSD (ran SATA cable from logic board, mounted in bottom DVD drive bay

2. Removed the IDE Superdrive (after i installed Lion os to SSD) from Mac

3. Installed my 4 Western Digital SATAIII 1TB hdds, all formatted to GPT; 1 drive is used solely for Boot Camp and Windows 7.

4. Upgraded all RAM to server grade DDR2 FB-DIMM, ECC to 16GB total

5. Attached Bluray drive via a Firewire800 external enclosure; works great for bluray ripping in OS X

I run the latest Mac OS X Lion (mountain lion does not install on mac pro 1,1 models, sad face).

My problem is this:

1. i go to do a Restart on my mac pro

2. it goes through the typical shutdown process, goes to blue screen and then white screen

3. display powers off and gives no signal message (should be normal)

4. mac pro sits w/power led on and a repetitive clicking sound every 10 secs (like a hdd access).

5. it will sit like this until i hold power button to power off

If i go choose to shutdown from within Mac OS X, it powers down perfectly fine with led power going off and no internal noise or fans running.

i've tried several things to troubleshoot and finally have given up:

-fix disk permissions/disk errors

-clear pram

-unplug all usb devices

my system log indicates that my mac has fully shutdown but for some reason hasn't powered off itself fully.

9/5/12 6:13:05.058 PM mds: (Error) Server: ==== XPC handleXPCMessage XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INVALID

9/5/12 6:13:05.061 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (com.apple.talagent[164]) Exited: Killed: 9

9/5/12 6:13:05.075 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (com.SquidMelon.Live-Wallpaper-Helper[176]) Exited: Killed: 9

9/5/12 6:13:05.077 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: ([0x0-0x19019].com.google.android.mtpagent[199]) Exited: Terminated: 15

9/5/12 6:13:05.079 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: ([0x0-0x1f01f].com.apple.AppleSpell[245]) Exited: Killed: 9

9/5/12 6:13:05.079 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: ([0x0-0x15015].com.apple.iTunesHelper[195]) Exited: Killed: 9

9/5/12 6:13:05.081 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (com.apple.quicklook[686]) Exited: Killed: 9

9/5/12 6:13:05.081 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (com.apple.mdworker.pool.1[655]) Exited: Terminated: 15

9/5/12 6:13:05.106 PM loginwindow: DEAD_PROCESS: 84 console

9/5/12 6:13:05.167 PM shutdown: reboot by jimmy:

9/5/12 6:13:05.167 PM shutdown: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1346886785 167080

----had to power off mac here-----

9/5/12 6:15:54.000 PM bootlog: BOOT_TIME 1346886954 0

9/5/12 6:15:55.000 PM kernel: npvhash=4095

9/5/12 6:15:55.000 PM kernel: PAE enabled

9/5/12 6:15:55.000 PM kernel: 64 bit mode enabled

any ideas? is it my SSD? or perhaps the cmos battery in the mac?

MBP13 (early 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.4), 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM; iPad / iPhone 3GS / Magic Trackpad / AEB NAS

Posted on Sep 5, 2012 4:37 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 5, 2012 4:55 PM in response to seamonkey420

I don't think you will get a definitive answer, but I have some thoughts.

Mac OS X treats an SSD like a Hard drive -- in that it does not zero the freed blocks in a file when deleted, it just adds them to the free list for re-use. That means the SSD still has to cope with all that stuff you don't really care about any more.

We know that SSDs write really big blocks internally, and having to read-modify-write takes much longer. SSDs also seem to get into trouble when they run really low on blocks that are free. So I do what I call "poor man's TRIM".

From time-to-time I use a third-party utility to defragment and consolidate free space (which by itself has NO value on an SSD) and then immediately Zero the free space. In my opinion, this gives the drive some empty blocks to fool around with and keeps it from choking on the debris from deleted files that have not been zeroed.

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Answer 2

seamonkey420 Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 6, 2012 10:58 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for the reply Grant.

As for my SSD, its a Samsung and is TRIM enabled and also I have TRIM enabeld in Lion too. I've done all of the tweaks to the OS to optimize my SSD use. my power off to desktop times are about 35 secs (typing/clicking on user at login screen takes longest). 🙂

I personally think the problem w/my reboot not power cycling is related to the CMOS battery on the board. If I clear PRAM by unplugging for a few minutes, reboot works fine the first time and then after it hangs any other reboots with the original symptoms.

For the time being, I guess I just deal with it. I could always pull out my SSD and hook up just a spare 500gb hdd i have laying around but at this point i'll just shutdown my mac and then power it back on if i need to reboot. perhaps i'll try installing lion to that extra hdd just to see..

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Answer 3

Sep 6, 2012 11:15 AM in response to seamonkey420

The CMOS battery is a common BR2032 long life Lithium battery, nominally 3 Volts. They are used in garage door opener controls and auto key fob transmitters, and should be widely available for under US$5. Take care not to break off the retainer when removing the old battery. It must be tested in hand, not in system.

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Answer 4

seamonkey420 Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 26, 2012 5:14 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

i'm thinking that the cmos is the problem. thanks for the hint! now to see how hard it is to pull that baby out, **** i got a sata cable ran to the logic board so this can't be too hard right? 🙂

thanks all again!

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Answer 5

milo jah

Level 1

10 points

Jan 29, 2014 9:18 PM in response to seamonkey420

I have the same problem... Did you ever find a solution?

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Answer 6

kmkoni

Level 1

14 points

Mar 31, 2014 11:30 AM in response to milo jah

I had this issue with my Mac Pro 1,1. Replacing the CMOS battery did not solve the issue.

The only solution was discovering which sticks of RAM caused the issue and replacing them. I now have no issues with the Mac Pro restarting. In my case, I had to replace all of my Hynix brand RAM.

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Answer 7

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Jun 2, 2014 1:42 PM in response to seamonkey420

this should solve any memory related, using 8 x 2GB in my 1,1 for over a year

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006E3L542/

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