MacPro Monitors Go Black

Question

MacPro Monitors Go Black

Hi:

I've got six identical MacPros (late 2010 MacPro5,1) all 2x2.66 GHz 6-core Intels we use for retouching. All have Apple-installed ATI Radeon HD 5870s. All have the Eizo CG241W plugged into the DVI port on the graphics card and old 20-inch Cine monitors plugged in to one of the two empty mini-Display ports using an adapter.

Four are running Snow Leopard and are operating fine. We've started migrating up to Lion and I had 10.7.4 on two machines. Both were exhibiting the same problem — after working a while, both monitors would go black. The towers still are powered up, but the only way to get back to operation is holding down the power button to crash out and then restarting.

I upgraded one of the problem machines to Mountain Lion (10.8.2) figuring that maybe there was a Lion bug that got fixed, but the problem continues and seems to be coming more frequent.

I'm kind of stuck in a holding pattern. I don't want to risk upgrading any more of my machines, but I can't leave my main production boxes two or three versions behind the OS.

Anyone have any ideas? I've sent away to Apple for new Hardware Test discs (the latest I have is 3A183 and it seems to die doing the initial system check and never lets me hit the test button, so I'm assuming I've got the wrong disc for the wrong Mac).

Thanks.

Posted on Jan 30, 2013 9:57 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 30, 2013 2:14 PM in response to Jonathan Hodges

Have these Macs actually crashed or have the screens just blacked out?

The caps lock key (and its indicator) are under software control.

Control+Eject should get you a shutdown dialog with the four buttons. Default is shutdown. Return key will shut it down, Escape will back out.

The Alt/Option key at startup invokes the Startup Manager. Its code is all in ROM. It draws a gray screen, then in slow motion shows an icon for each potentially-bootable Volume. The Eject key goes "live" at the end, and will open the drawer.

!0.7 and later installs the Recovery_HD, which can be used to invoke Disk Utility and ( Repair Disk ).

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