My Mac Pro 3.1 won't shut down properly now after installing El Captian. It continues to restart many times before finally making it to the desktop again. It is also displaying Kernel Panic Reports. Please see the following. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Hello aroseproductions,
It sounds like your computer is restarting over and over due to some kernel panics. The causes for this can be many, and I would recommend you use the troubleshooting in the following article to help you figure out what might be happening here:
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
I too had the kernel panic with two attempts at installing El Capitan on my MacPro3,1. Fortunately I did the installation on a blank volume so I was able to erase it after each failed attempt. Before trying again I decided to do an SMC reset and then zapped the PRAM on the restart. I also pulled out a third-party USB3 PCI card and disconnected my USB speakers. After all this… success! The installation went smoothly and relatively quickly. (I saved the installer file in order to avoid having to download again.) A couple of hours of testing and everything seems to be working as before except for a couple of items (Default Folder X and Cloudmark DesktopOne) which I already knew would not work from having tested them in El Capitan public beta on my MacBook Pro.
If the above steps had not worked, I was planning on pulling out the memory upgrades and reinstalling the original modules that came with the Mac. Fortunately it was not necessary.
Hope this helps.
I did both the SMC reset and zapped the PRAM as you suggested and also took out my USB3 card. It worked like a charm!
HOWEVER...
When I try to put my USB 3 PCI card back in and restart again.... back to the same 'ol thing with the kernel panic.
So what do I do for USB3 now? Any other tips for that?
Thanks!
I did both the SMC reset and zapped the PRAM as you suggested and also took out my USB3 card. It worked like a charm!
HOWEVER...
When I try to put my USB 3 PCI card back in and restart again.... back to the same 'ol thing with the kernel panic.
So what do I do for USB3 now? Any other tips for that?
Thanks!
I expected as much. I didn’t think that my USB3 card would work at all with El Capitan and am resigned to having to buy a new one—one that is proven to work with El Capitan. I didn’t even attempt to install it back for fear that more kernel panics would harm the new system. The price of progress, I suppose. I’m only glad that I paid very little $$$ for my old USB3 card.
Good luck.
Check with the manufacturer of your USB 3 card for possible firmware updates.
I have the Orico card and it came with a mini DVD of drivers and software, but none for Mac. The enclosed literature is in Chinese. I sent them an e-mail regarding this issue. Good luck with that. It’s a write-off, as far as I’m concerned.
I contacted Other World Computing regarding the Allegro card—a very appealing alternative—but they have not yet tested the card in El Capitan nor have they received information from Sonnet in this regard. They promise to keep me informed of any development. At least they responded rapidly.
Thanks for the update! It seems like you've isolated the issue to the PCI USB card you're using. My thoughts are that if you have another PCI slot, test the card in there so see if perhaps that one slot has an issue. If you have another one of these cards you can try that as well to help definitively isolate the issue to that specific card.
If this card doesn't work in any one of the slots, and other PCI cards work as expected when plugged into the same slots, then that would normally indicate to me that there may be an issue with that USB card you are using.
El Capitan won't shut down, constant restarting and Kernel Panic Reports
