Apple Mac Pro 2008 dual 2.8ghz quad core

Question

Apple Mac Pro 2008 dual 2.8ghz quad core

Hey guys,

Ive got a real brain teaser. I have a apple mac pro 2008 dual 2.8ghz quad core that wont boot.

The leds on the memory test good its all tested in another mac and working well.

The 9 leds are reading as follows 2nd led lit yellow. Led 9,8,7 Green- which from my research is good.

Ive also reset the cmos battery and vram, nothing.

Pulled the memory and video card and re-seated them also nothing.

The last thing i tryed was shut the computer down sit for 30 seconds then held alt and got the install mac os screen not a hard drive option.

Which leads me to think its not seeing the hard drive?

Any suggestions?

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Feb 11, 2015 10:14 AM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,417 points

Feb 11, 2015 1:51 PM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

http://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/LIS/Apple_Diagnostic_Lights

See page 154 of:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17539946/Mac-Pro-Early-2008

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Answer 2

Feb 11, 2015 4:51 PM in response to lllaass

So you think it could be a power supply?

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Answer 3

lllaass

Level 10

210,417 points

Feb 12, 2015 2:02 AM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

What exactly happens when you boot? Do the fans go on?

Does the Power light stay lit?

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Answer 4

Feb 12, 2015 8:55 AM in response to lllaass

Starts up with fans

Makes the apple chime

Screen goes white after 30 seconds apple logo comes up with spinning gear and just sits there for hours

Ive tryed to reset the vram, goes back to the same thing as above

Also trying to re-install snow loin, as thats the only disk i have and i just get spinning gear again

ive tried a few different hard drives. Also tried a few different slots too

pulled the cmos battery too

Im not sure whats going on with this unit

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Feb 12, 2015 9:04 AM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

You have not mentioned what GPU, the OEM one was ATI 2600XT and should seriously be upgraded/replaced.

If you do upgrade GPU then you will need a later OS, 10.6.5 with ATI 5770.

Redownload Mavericks or whatever you use and then save it and keep a local copy for the future.

Redownloads do not always work and of course take time, so make your own installer disk for clean install.

Hitting power while unplugged and then do 4-finger NVRAM reset is always good to try.

Do not just let it sit for 30 seconds, and hit power button for just 10 seconds, not doing so really does nothing.

pick up a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB $99 for your system, and a Icy Dock $15 adapter.

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Answer 6

Feb 12, 2015 9:09 AM in response to The hatter

The gpu is the 2600xt and it is working according to the lEDs on the mobo.I do know it is old and plan on upgrading it. I do also have a ssd for it aswell but id like to see it run first before i start to upgrade it

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Answer 7

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Feb 12, 2015 9:14 AM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

Yosemite really needs a more modern GPU and there is no harm using the SSD. Leave it as the only drive in there.

If there is video with a Safe Boot, that is somewhat in the clear, but when drivers are loaded and the GPU is asked to actually DO anything, sounds like it fails.

2008's are finicky and have a lot of personality (disorder) to them, mainly power management but not the PSU.

FBDIMMs fail after 3 years commonly, Amazon has quality inexpensive NEMIX that do work. I assume not only did you reseat but tried with just one pair.

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Answer 8

kaz-k

Level 8

49,140 points

Feb 12, 2015 9:17 AM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup - Apple Support

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Answer 9

Feb 12, 2015 9:43 AM in response to The hatter

i have re-seated all the memory, swapped memory out for new sticks and getting a folder with a question mark in it

Also wont boot into safe mode

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Answer 10

Feb 12, 2015 3:24 PM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

Starts up with fans

Makes the apple chime

The chime is generated in software when the first portion of the power-on self test has passed.Your Mac is working and has enough working RAM memory to start up.

You still may have problems with drives, the software on those drives, or your graphics card.

apple logo comes up

The dark gray Apple is loaded by the ROM boot loader in the first blob of software (before the file system is initialized). Its presence indicates your Mac can get some stuff off a Hard Drive, and seeing it indicates your graphic card can display something in a primitive way.

with spinning gear and just sits there for hours

It is stuck booting up something. Verbose Mode (hold Command-V at startup) will show you the parade of messages. The last five will tell you what happened.

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Answer 11

Feb 12, 2015 4:40 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I will try that here soon...thanks for that advice

Is it safe to say that its not a hardware issue?.....what leads me this way

1.I have another mac pro 2007 3.0ghz quad core and tried the graphics card from that and same results (same card in the 2008)

2. I also have tried to boot the hard drive from the 3.0 mac in the 2.8....same results

Also what ive done is take the hard drive and use diskpart in cmd on a windows machine to start new with a hard drive and do a new install....same results

I think its some sort of software issue but im not sure how to resolve it?

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Answer 12

Feb 12, 2015 5:15 PM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

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Answer 13

Feb 13, 2015 9:25 AM in response to tonyfromiron mountain

It looks like that drive is doing badly. It has produced I/O Errors (failure to read after thousands of re-trys.) It cannot get big parts of Mac OS X into memory, and cannot proceed.

You may need to use a different drive to make progress.

Or you could try writing Zeroes to that drive with ERASE > Security Erase > Zero all data. It takes all afternoon. You would need to boot from a System/Installer DVD to Zero the whole drive.

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Answer 14

Feb 13, 2015 11:17 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

So late in the night last night i was going to make this thing run.

First i thought since it wasnt booting up a empty drive and installing i would take the 1 drive i have and clone it with aronis...

it wasnt booting that either or even seeing the drive. So letting the computer boot and run with the apple logo and spinning gears

i put my hand on the drive and tried to feel for a spinning....Drive wasnt even running.

the cable between the motherboard and the hard drives had a chunk worn out.

So i had a 3rd machine thats now a parts machine(didnt run anyway) swapped out all the hard drive rails.

I do wanna say Thank You to all the posts on here for ideas and leading me in the correct direction.

Anyone needs anything from me id be more than willing to throw my 2 cents in.

Tony

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Answer 15

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Feb 13, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant Bennet-Alder, The hatter, lllaassPlease assist on Update Boot Camp 3.3 to 5.1 on Mac Pro 3,1 (2008).

Apologies for barging in tonyfromiron mountain.

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