Tip - Mac Pro fails to boot up, no chime.

OK so this is now happening to me and I did some reaserch and concluded that my Video Card was the issue. Just ordered a new card and now i see this post... Story of my life... lol. Anyway. I have not yet tried these procedures but i will. So what is the reason that this happens? I guess I will now have to Video cards if this works. Second question is. Can I now run both these cards at the same time. Im sure the answer is yes but I;m not 100%

By all means try this.. It does work and was provided to me by an Apple engineer agesago. .. however.. as time marchaes on .....

My current take on these issues. These are simply exacerbated by the age of the components in the machine. Mine (this) 2009 MP is an example. Long after my previous post in this forum I needed to REPLACE most of the major components.. sadly, things such as the PSU, the main board, the risers etc do start to fail. It may be equally one of the PCI cards. (3rd set of boads incl original). THe last lost cost me a small mint!.. no more warranty

I've had 4 PSU in thos sine 2009... several under warranty.

Theres an Apple Hardware manual for each of these machines with a rigid procedure to diagnose a range of these issues. You could try and get one and do this.

Equally sadly, unless you have a basic skill, Id advice you to take it to APPLE themselves, and ask them to diagnose these issues.

In Hong Kong, Apple Store will do this diagnosis for free, then provide you a quotation to fix it.

Worth a call. Be prepared for a hit to you wallet....

Sorry no good news... age is age

W

Hi Greg! Yeah good tips. I'd like to add a few other tips that worked for a few of us. I have a 2009 nehalem MPro, 16 cores, 4 used internal bays, 5870 (added in 2011), replaced main boards, power supply, memory and CPU modules under extended warranty. Several ATTO pcie sas cards (r380,h380) bla blah.

History:

Ok, we we moved the whole suite to new premises some months back and the transportation was safe and well and due to premises issue, the setup above Nd the disk arrays etc sat I. The packing for two weeks...

Issue:

Mac Pro would not power on some times.. Else it would power on and then after or during startup would shutdown.

Cure:

Did most of the steps you described and

1) pulled all the disks from bays 1-4, pulled all the pci hba card including the ati 5870, pulled the two DVD player units and lastly, the CPUs and memory module unit.

2) cleaned all contacts with cans of clean compressed air of all the above

3) then proceeded to replace each component then powering up the Mac Pro and make sure the startup chime occurrs, then power the Mac Pro off.

4) I started with the memory module with a single DIMM in the memory, finally replacing them finally with all of them repeating step 3. I did find a bnd memory dimm doing this. Don't worry if the Simms are not inthe most efficient slots.. Fix this later.

5) replace the GPU card (in my case ati 5870) strap Nd shutdown

6) this time hold the power button in for at least 20 seconds and reset the SMC.. Wait for the squeal!,

7) then do one of the disks or the disk set that you start from..

8) restart. .. Wait for it to settle. Power off

9) plug in the mainscreen display and restart .. By now it all should be ok.

10) power off again. Power up again with key board and restart and then shutdown

11) add/insert each pcie Hba power up and. Reset the SMC AS IN STEP 6 and shutdown. Repeat for any other MAKE SURE THAT THE SPEED OF THE PCIE card matches the rating of the slot. so remaining hbas.

12) should be looking good by now.... So login and then shutdown

13) and remainder of the internal disks , power up and access file systems.

14) should u get the memory manager appear at startup and recommend to re-organise the memory Simms, then print the report or use your iPhone to record the display, shutdown and move the dimms s it requests.

15) lastly serially plug in other peripherals and see hat they can be accesses.

Summary: worth the effort NDS time. Macpro has been solid ever since.

Hth

Warwick

Hi Greg, yes indeed. These cheese grater mac get a lot of dust and fluff. I perform a cleanout every few months... care is needed as always. Hopefully the 2013 MAC PRO announcment this month will have less of an issue with this as the fan is very very quie as there is not a great need fpr the cooling system liek on our current mac pros.

Yes your advice worked great.. however as I posted earlier today, these are symptoms of age. I WAS turning over these MAC PROS every other generation (2-3 years). This is the olde (2009 March nehalem) ive ever had and it has cost me more than I thought ti keep it alive and function:

• 2010 warranty replacement ATI 4780
• 2010 warranty replacement PSU#1 and then PSU#2 .... (a flaky batch from Apple in Singapore maybe)
• 2011 warranty replacement PSU, Main logic board, risers
• 2011 more memory
• 2012 upgrade ATI 5870 GPU (fcpx etc)
• 2012 PSU - cost me money 3 month warranty)
• 2013 Apple Store Hong Kong did a great job: Another PSU, repalacement main board, Risers and CPU towers .. lots of $$'s though
• 2013 OWC Acelsior_E2 PCI ssd - as startup and applicatioins volume / striped 4 bay1-4 ($$s)

As this is our main money making machine.. we must spend money on it.

so.... I'm expecting this machine to packup in 2014 and she'll be another OSX server here ..... hopefully the americans have "re-learned how to assemble" the MACPRO 2013 by then and I'll be upgrading.. 🙂

W

Hong Kong

I know this is an old thread but I have the same problem. Last night I was doing some retouching with the TV news streaming in the background when the screen suddenly went black without warning and the computer made a crazy sound, basically repeating the last word that was heard on the news before it went wrong.

After a forced restart there was no chime and just a black screen. There is definitely power and I can hear the drive starting to work. Trying to reset the PRAM doesn't work because it won't chime. It has occurred to me that the PRAM battery may have gone suddenly but I am not sure where that is located on a Mac Pro. This is a mid-2010 8 Core 2.4Ghz.

I've tried resetting the SMC several times. The fans are running and there are no strange noises. It just won't chime and the screen remains black.

Following the advice on this thread I pulled out all the peripherals and spare internal drives. I also pulled out the OWC ram and put in the original Apple ram along with a clean install drive of El Capitan. I gave it a good clean inside and let it rest overnight with everything unplugged but nothing as changed.

Any suggestions that I can try? If this is the logic board it probably isn't worth the cost of repair.

Thanks

Ashley

I found the PRAM battery behind the video card and replaced that but the old one checked out as still working. Still no luck getting this to chime and start normally.

if the power-on light is blinking a pattern, that often says, "not enough WORKING RAM to start up".

I've done a lot of troubleshooting including the removal of all Ram and this is looking like a failed video card. After removing the card I was finally able to reset the PRAM and it chimed normally before appearing to start normally, though obviously I couldn't check the display. I put the card back in there and it just chimes repeatedly without ever starting.

I'm going to order a replacement card this morning and hopefully be back in business by tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately there is no local dealer who would have any Mac edition cards in stock.

Just a quick update to confirm this was the video card that packed up without warning and everything is fine after installing the replacement that arrived this morning.

For others who might experience similar problems, it's worth removing the video card and trying to reset the PRAM afterwards to see if the chime returns. If you are then able to restart the computer that's a very good indication the video card was the cause of the problem. I had a bit of a clue it my be related to the video card because the display was showing there was no DV signal when attempting to run the machine.

The video card was the one part of this machine that I never cleaned, because I was wary of doing any damage and a huge amount of just had built up over 5 years. After removing the card, I was able to blow away the dust with a simple blower brush and it was really no big deal but in my case the damage was already done. I suspect that dust probably led to heat build up and shortened the life of the card, though it may have gone anyway.

This turned out to be a relatively cheap fix for a hardware issue, so I am glad I was able to diagnose and fix it myself rather than sending it to Apple. The biggest cost was really 4 days of lost productivity.

I have tried all of the above on my Mac Pro late 2009.

There is power but no chime. Power light is on, no flashing. Fans are turning. Disconnected everything, removed RAM and tried command, option p r. Still no chime.

I Have a bad feeling something has popped, but can't work out what.

I have all ready wasted money on a replacement power supply because things didn't smell too healthy.

Have you tried removing the video card as I did and then resetting the PRAM? For me it was impossible to reset the PRAM until the card was removed.

I could tell after this that the machine was now booting, but of course I couldn't see anything on the screen. A small hint was a message when switching on the display that no video signal was being received when the original card was installed. After plugging in the new card it just worked instantly and it's been fine ever since.

IS there a procedure that can be followed to isolate a fault?

Not necessarily. My rear fan at the back of the computer is not turning at present and I think they are only used when required according to the internal temperature.

You want to strip everything down to bare minimum. Factory ram only. Remove all peripherals and slowly work your way through. Also have you simply pulled out the CPU and tried putting it back? I once ended up paying a repairer about £100 on an old G5 tower that wouldn't work and all he did was to pull that tray out and put it back in.

Everything is currently disconnected, including GPU and even DVD tray. I tried removing CPU tray and re-seating.

I Am currently looking at LED diagnosis, however there are no LED's light up anywhere internally.

still no chime...