Mac Pro 5,1 crashing with GPU intensive work

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Level 1

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Mac Pro 5,1 crashing with GPU intensive work

Does anyone know the cause of this issue?

Over the last couple of weeks I have had problems with the computer shutting down, literally, when I try to do GPU intensive tasks especially in Da Vinci Resolve.

I thought it was a power draw issue from the GPU (which I read about on another discussion) so I plugged in an external power supply to the GPU but that didn't fix it. although it did mean the that computer now restarts instead or just shutting down completely.

I thought it may be the hard drive speed not being able to keep up with the work so I experimented with working off a project, colour grading, off the SSD I felt I got further and the playback was great but I had the same problem, a complete restart.

I can only think that it might be a bug in the GPU?? or a faulty one it didn't do this from the start so it makes me think it isn't that.

I have the latest drivers installed also.

This is driving me crazy, any advice or help would be great!

I have a Mac Pro 5,1 running High Sierra 10.13.6
- 2x 3,46 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon's

- 128GB 1333 MHz DDR3

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X 12GB

Mac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Aug 21, 2018 12:03 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

John Lockwood

Level 6

13,697 points

Aug 28, 2018 5:09 AM in response to Stevewalshe

As far as I can see the Titan X has a max power draw of 250W. A classic Mac Pro can provide a maximum of 75W from the PCI slot plus 75W from each of the two 6-pin PCI power leads making a maximum total of 225W therefore it is not unexpected that under heavy load this video card caused the Mac Pro to shut down.

In order to provide this card the 250W it potentially might require you would need the 75W from the PCI slot plus a 6-pin giving 75W plus an 8-pin giving another 150W totalling 300W.

You don't detail what capacity your external PSU provides nor do you detail what power connections you are using. (8 or 6-pin, or both.)

Your external PSU needs to provide a minimum of 225W and I would strongly recommend having one that provides over 300W. The Mac Pro built-in PSU provides 980W but that has to supply the video card and everything else inside the Mac Pro.

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Answer 2

Aug 21, 2018 5:32 AM in response to Stevewalshe

Uncontrolled power down is a symptom of Power supply over-draw.

How is your power supply hooked up to this graphics card? Do you have large enough wiring to support the amount of power required, and not using too many splitters and such? is as much of the graphics card power as possible run by the external supply?

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Mac Pro 5,1 crashing with GPU intensive work

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