I am getting a power on Self-Test failure on my Early 2008 Mac Pro -- what is likely to be the problem?
Mac Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12)
How do you know this is a failure? what are the exact symptoms? do you have a blinking power-On light? how many blinks?
Grant,
I have Tech Tool 9 protection installed and it is showing a power on self-test failure. The computer is taking a long time to boot up and I difficulty opening and starting up applications. I do not have a blinking power-on light.
Hal
Read TechTool 9's manual or ask them what it means. Diagnostic tools are useless unless they actually give you insight into the error. TT may cause more problems than it solves by giving you answers to problems that don't exist (at least in my experience with it).
System Information on OS X will also list the results of the last POST under the diagnostics header. Once again it is too brief to be any use.
Serious POST failures would result in a non booting Mac so you may just want to start with some basic resets then move on to tests…
How to reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support
General slowness is a little vague. Are you sure the disk is in good order?
Disk Utility for Mac: Repair a disk using Disk Utility
Have you just upgraded to 10.12? Upgrades are often slow for hours and possibly days as items are reindexed & searched etc.
Post an etrecheck report if you suspect third party software or want to give us a look at what is installed setup to run…
Thanks for the advice Drew.
I am getting a power on Self-Test failure on my Early 2008 Mac Pro -- what is likely to be the problem?
