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Nemi1596

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2020
22
1
So I recently bought a early 08 Mac Pro 3,1 and I’ve been trying to narrow down my issue of why it’s not booting. I get the third led which is error b or processor b. I swapped cpu between the sockets didn’t fix it and the error didn’t follow the cpu which I hope means I can rule out my cpu or cpus being bad.

I also played with all my ram sticks and riser in ever configuration I could come up with and little bit of luck I got it to work for about a whole day. Then it stopped working so just to be in the safe side I bought a refurbished mother board and ram risers. I got my mother board today but I’m just wondering if I put in the motherboard and it is the ram riser being bad will the bad riser damage my new mother board ?
 
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defjam

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2019
795
735
There's always the possibility a bad component could cause other components to fail. In this case I would say the risk is low that bad riser boards would cause the replacement motherboard to fail (or vice versa). In fact swapping components is a common troubleshooting technique.
 
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Nemi1596

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2020
22
1
Welll
There's always the possibility a bad component could cause other components to fail. In this case I would say the risk is low that bad riser boards would cause the replacement motherboard to fail (or vice versa). In fact swapping components is a common troubleshooting technique.
well now I’m lost because new motherboard and new riser and ram and once again it worked for a little and then stopped could it be the power supply
 

defjam

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2019
795
735
That's a possibility. Have you attempted to remove all non-essential components to eliminate possible problematic parts? I would start off removing all PCIe cards, all hard disks, disconnect the optical drive, and use only the minimum number of DIMMs to test the system.
 

Nemi1596

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2020
22
1
That's a possibility. Have you attempted to remove all non-essential components to eliminate possible problematic parts? I would start off removing all PCIe cards, all hard disks, disconnect the optical drive, and use only the minimum number of DIMMs to test the system.
I’ll try again my mother board came yesterday and my ram and risers came this morning put it all together this morning and turned it on a bam it worked but then I shut it down and buttoned it all back together threw on the side panel and plugged it all in and hit the power button and nothing, fans spin up no boot tone and I get error b the third led and I’ve tried exchanging the cpus with no luck and it’s a new mother board
 

Nemi1596

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2020
22
1
it was my power supply in the end now it is all good and working i now have an extra motherboard and ram risers if someone is interested
 
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