windows self reboot on mac pro late 2013

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windows self reboot on mac pro late 2013

I installed windows 10 on a mac pro late 2013. I found the ISO image on a windows site. The installation procedure did not ask me for a usb key (though i had it available). I did not activate windows, as it is not required according e.g. to this site http://www.windowscentral.com/you-do-not-need-activate-windows-10.

Apparently everything went well, devices are working. At the beginning i did not install external software and for the first two days everything seemed to work. Then i installed dropbox and firefox and when reproducing some video in streaming i had errors like 'the amd driver crashed, it has been restarted'. I then removed firefox and installed chrome, yestarday evening everything seemed to work correctly. Anyway, when i tried to shut down the computer the screen was deactivated but the mac did not shut off, i had to shut off by the physical button. This morning the computer rebooted itself (not on my request) many times, one time the reboot was preceded by a loud noise produced by the mac. Still i have the problem with shutdown that deactivates the dispaly but doesn't complete the operation.

My mac pro has already had problems with mac os, which i described in this thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7045057, i sent it two times to apple service with no result. I installed windows in the hope this would have a better behavior, but actually it's worse.

Mac Pro (Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11), bootcamp windows 10

Posted on Oct 21, 2015 2:19 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

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59,477 points

Oct 21, 2015 5:07 AM in response to mauro16

Can you install W8.1 and test?

On your other thread, you reference freezing on OS X, but has any version of Windows been installed when such problems have occurred? I have seen similar issues which are generated to heat build-up over time, so testing at the Genius Bar usually does not produce similar issues. Has the MP been kept/tested at the Apple store for a longer period of time - for example 2-3 days?

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Answer 2

mauro16 Author

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Oct 21, 2015 5:39 AM in response to Loner T

the documentation i found and the bootcamp version on my mac (which has el capitan) took me to install windows 10. Can you point me to documentation to help me to install w8.1? Do i need a windows product key?

As regards the other questions, windows was only installed recently, it was not installed when such problems occured (they occurred untli last week when i decide to try to switch to windows). I don't know how many days they have tested at Apple service, they say they have performed intensive tests but i don't know exactly.

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Answer 3

Loner T

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Oct 21, 2015 5:45 AM in response to mauro16

Please see Use Windows 8.1 on your Mac with Boot Camp - Apple Support . You will need a W8+ Product key.

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Answer 4

mauro16 Author

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Oct 21, 2015 6:51 AM in response to Loner T

I am currently not sure to spend other money for a product key. Also, windows 8.1 product keys are no more easy to find, actually i cannot find where to get one online ..

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Answer 5

mauro16 Author

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Oct 22, 2015 3:10 AM in response to mauro16

after having those type of problems with windows (self reboots, restarts of graphic driver and similar), does it make sense to do a reset of SMC and/or reset of NVRAM? Do these operations apply also to windows or only to mac os?

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Answer 6

Loner T

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Oct 22, 2015 12:55 PM in response to mauro16

SMC Reset and NVRAM Reset affect the underlying layers and are coming for any OS on a Mac.

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Answer 7

mauro16 Author

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Oct 22, 2015 1:00 PM in response to Loner T

NVRAM reset causes boot in osx, anyway (together with SMC reset) it seems it has been useful because when i returned to Windows i was able to increase the audio, and before i wasn't able to do that (the maximum audio was rather low).

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Answer 8

Loner T

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Oct 22, 2015 1:08 PM in response to mauro16

There is a common Audio DB kept in NVRAM, which shared by both OSes. The AMD driver crashes may be addressable using non-BC drivers from AMD, but I suggest creating a System Restore point, before you update any Windows drivers.

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Answer 9

mauro16 Author

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Oct 26, 2015 6:18 AM in response to Loner T

i have no more events of self reboot (this might have been resolved by reinstalling windows and resetting SMC/NVRAM). Anyway i have still some AMD driver crash. What is the correct procedure to install the non-BC drivers? Thanks.

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Answer 10

Loner T

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Nov 12, 2015 5:21 AM in response to mauro16

mauro16 wrote:

What is the correct procedure to install the non-BC drivers?

Please see http://support.amd.com/en-us/download .

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Answer 11

mauro16 Author

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Oct 26, 2015 2:52 PM in response to Loner T

I used 'manually select your driver' and selected the parameters

1. MAC Graphics

2. Apple BootCamp

3. Mac Pro

4. Windows 10 - 64 Bit

I downloaded, then i unzipped, then i run the setup application.

When finished i was asked to reboot, and i did. I also made a reset SMC and reset NVRAM, so i made some reboot.

As a result, later when trying to browse the internet or watch a video in streaming, i soon got two events of auto-reboot.

Furthermore if i select 'AMD FirePro control center' i get a message 'AMD Fire Pro Control Center cannot be started. There are currently no settings that can be configured using AMD FirePro control center'

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Answer 12

mauro16 Author

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Oct 26, 2015 2:49 PM in response to mauro16

Did i select the correct driver? Did i miss some step?

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Answer 13

Oct 27, 2015 6:16 AM in response to mauro16

...this is unfortunately the usual behaviour of the "AMD Fire Pro Control Center" if you use the drivers, that come directly from AMD. Uninstall them, reinstall the ones from BC and the control center returns.

If you have reinstalled the BC drivers, disable "Crossfire X" in the section "performance" of the control center and the reboots of Windows are gone.

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Answer 14

mauro16 Author

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Oct 29, 2015 1:39 PM in response to Markus Gantner

With the BC drivers i had AMD driver crashes. With the AMD drivers (non BC) currently it typically behaves like that: i boot the mac and some minute later i have an auto-reboot. This happened this morning too, and in the log, three minutes before the reboot, i found this type of message:

Failed with 0x490 modifying AppModel Runtime status for package Microsoft.WindowsMaps_4.1510.3000.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe ... .

I don't know if this can be related to the reboot.

After this reboot it works correctly, or so it seems, at the moment.

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Answer 15

mauro16 Author

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Nov 12, 2015 5:31 AM in response to Loner T

An update on my tests. Some good news but still some strange behavior. At the beginning i had some problems (typically auto-reboots) with the non BC drivers.

Then, on october 30, evening, i made a reset SMC and reset PRAM and shut down the mac. I booted it on october 31 morning and it has worked until yesterday evening (12 days) without a single driver crash. Since often the problem appeared soon after the boot time, i shut down the system just two times in the period. I installed google chrome on november 8 and it didn't create problems. I then installed dropbox on november 10. I shut down the system on november 11, morning. I booted it november 11, evening and after 10 minutes i had a sequence of driver crashes. I decided to stop the dropbox synchronization and since then i had no problems.

Another problem is that the system is very slow when i wake it from sleep mode. It typically takes one minute or more, the mac seems to wake immediately but the monitor (a dell U2713HM) needs all this time to wake. I tried to solve this by working on the energy saving settings but could not make things better.

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