I have a 2008 8 core Mac Pro that isn't finishing the boot up.

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Level 1

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I have a 2008 8 core Mac Pro that isn't finishing the boot up.

I have run the internal diagnostics and it tells me the hardware is fine. However when I try to boot from the OSX disk or Disk Warrior it wont finish booting either. Very Frustrating. Any ideas?

The only thing I see is a loose wire that is clear and has a tag on it with the number 3. This is an early 2008, 8 core Macpro, with 6 Gigs of RAM runing Snow Lepord.

I did remove all internal cards and USB periprials and I did remove all but the original RAM. Still getting nowhare. Help!!

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 6 Gigs of RAM

Posted on Jun 13, 2013 2:02 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 13, 2013 2:12 PM in response to N-G-NEER

I always always used system clones.

If you have upgraded and added ATI 5770 it requires 10.6.5+ and there are no such CDs (OS X DVD included).

Disk Warrior? used it a lot, never once from CD, always from clone or a drive kept for maintenance (just small partition on another drive really as OS and my utilities fit inside 20GB). Some even use flash drives.

6GB is on the light side, and there are 2x2GB kits $32, and 8 DIMMs provides 17% memory bandwidth improvement.

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Answer 2

N-G-NEER Author

Level 1

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Jun 16, 2013 4:12 PM in response to The hatter

Hi Hatter:

I wish you comments had at least something to do with what I asked. Untill this past year applications did not address anything above 4Gb's. That is the nature or limitation of a 32 bit application. Since I have to look at new machines soon, to make such upgrades would be irresponsable. Diskwarrior and the OSX discs are on DVD's, not CD's We used CD,s on OS9 but not OSX. The GPU is the GTX8800 that came with the machine. If I were to upgrade it, it would be with an Nvidia based GPU that would accelerate my apps through the use of more memory along with CL and GL graphic based cards. Cloning has absolutely nothing to do with anything either. The machine will not complete the boot either from the HDD, or from either the Disc Warrior disc, or the OSX disc, both of which are bootable. Despite checking the console and doing the hardware tests, all of which show no problems The machine won't complete it's boot cycle. This is what I asked about.

I am a professional user. I edit movies, do Color grading, motion graphics and also edit, mix and sweeten in Protools which uses PCIe cards. I took all the cards out in order to find the solution to no avail.

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Answer 3

Jun 16, 2013 6:26 PM in response to N-G-NEER

If the symptoms did not change with the original RAM only, leave the original RAM out and put in your add-on RAM only.

That wire is a WiFi or Bluetooth antenna wire, probably not used. No worries.

Most upgrade graphics cards require 10.8, except for the Apple-firmware 5770. Unless you want to spring for a 4000 card at US$1000.

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Answer 4

Jun 16, 2013 7:01 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

If the Mac detects insufficient good RAM to boot up, it will blink the power light. MacBooks and iMacs may tend to make sounds as well.

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