What causes a red light to come on inside a Mac Pro tower and no boot?

Question

What causes a red light to come on inside a Mac Pro tower and no boot?

I live where there are countless power outages. I use a surge protector/battery supply but still the system is crashed regularly. Recently I have had a problem getting my Mac Pro Tower (metal case) to reboot. Today it tries to start and then stops. Now it does nothing but a red light comes on inside the case behind the start button. What causes this and how can I get it to boot?

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), A1289 2.8QCX/3X2TB/5770/SQ 2010

Posted on Nov 10, 2015 9:16 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 10, 2015 10:27 AM in response to PJCfrustrated

RAM failure is high on the list. The memories in the Mac Pro towers run HOT, and they die at a higher rate than the RAM in older systems.

Is the power light blinking? That indicates, "not enough working RAM to start up".

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Answer 2

Nov 10, 2015 10:45 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

No, the power button is not blinking. I have a lot of RAM in the tower. Would a failure of any of the 4 boards cause this problem? I could take them all out and try booting with each separately...is this a good idea?

BTW no chimes happen which I know points to RAM, correct?

I just tried a different power chord after clean the inside of the entire unit, it blinked on for about 4 seconds and went back to dead.

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Answer 3

Nov 10, 2015 10:35 AM in response to lllaass

The white power button lights for a few seconds and goes out. I saw one of the fans spin up but not sure about the other 2. Hopefully it will try again and I can check. Nobody is commenting about the red light coming on. I saw a post elsewhere that said that was an overheating indicator. Anyone know about that?

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Nov 10, 2015 9:34 AM in response to PJCfrustrated

What model Mac Pro? The 5770 suggests a 2010.

Is the white Power button lit?

Do the fans spin?

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Answer 5

Nov 10, 2015 10:44 AM in response to lllaass

I am pretty sure it is a late 2010 model.

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