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Classic Mac Pro - 5 minute boot issue

E

Ethosik

Contributor
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
8,189
7,176
Hello,

Every time there is a power outage, or I need to hold down the power button, my Mac Pro takes about 6 minutes to start up. Usually it is when I have it set to boot into Windows. Is there a way I can stop this? I have OS X on a Crucial M4 SSD, and Windows 8 on a DIFFERENT Crucial M4 SSD. I have two 1TB Spinning HDD for storage.

Also, when this happens and I am in OS X, it will sometimes take over 10 minutes before all my drives are ready to use. One of my storage drive takes about 12 minutes to show up in the Finder window (and on my desktop).

Once this happens, everything is back to normal - 15 seconds boot time. But why does this happen EVERY TIME the power goes out, or when I hold down the power button?
 
jenzjen said:
have you reset both the PRAM and SMC? strange issue
Click to expand...

I just did that. Hopefully it will help. Is this due to it being Crucial SSDs?

Just for future reference: I have an Intel Mac Pro, Mid 2010 running Mavericks.
 
xWhiplash said:
I just did that. Hopefully it will help. Is this due to it being Crucial SSDs?
Click to expand...

I'd say its due to your power going out!

If your power goes out often enough for you to be remarking on it, get a decent UPS.

There may also be other factors at play if you're having to restart often on the big magic button.

That said, Crucial SSDs used to have a terrible rep on the Crucial support forums for incompatibilities with Mac OS X a year or two back, might still do, but I haven't been back in a while.
 
The last time I had a power failure my MP took a long time to boot. Apparently my SSD wasn't selected as my boot drive (no drive was). After selecting it, 15 second boots again.
 
xWhiplash said:
I just did that. Hopefully it will help. Is this due to it being Crucial SSDs?

Just for future reference: I have an Intel Mac Pro, Mid 2010 running Mavericks.
Click to expand...

I am running Crucial M4 SSDs in a 2012 Mac Pro 5,1 without any problems (along with 4 hard disks). I have a 256GB M4 in the optical bay for Windows 8.1, and OS X is on a pair of 512GB M4 SSDs in RAID-0 on a Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe card.

I haven't seen a need to actually measure the boot time of this system as it seems pretty quick to me. You might try letting the PRAM reset cycle through 3 full chimes before releasing the keys.


-howard
 
I have only had my power go out a couple of times. It just happened again today and thought I would post to see if anybody knew anything.

What about the fact that when it finally boots up, and it is using OS X, that it takes about 12 minutes or so to show all my internal drives? The SSDs show up fine, but my standard HDD take forever to show up and actually be used.

@MacPoulet: So is this a common Mac Pro issue? Maybe after a power loss it forgets what drive is selected?

It is not like it happens every reboot or anything. The first boot after a power loss (either the power goes out, unplug the power cord, or hold down the power button) takes forever. But after that first boot, it is back to normal 15 second boot times.
 
Perhaps the little "coin" battery on the motherboard is dead or defective. It maintains some of the settings when there is no external power supplied.
 
hfg said:
Perhaps the little "coin" battery on the motherboard is dead or defective. It maintains some of the settings when there is no external power supplied.
Click to expand...

No that is not it. If I cleanly shut down, and disconnect the power cord afterwards, there is no issue. But if there is no clean shutdown, it will cause a very very long boot for the first time.
 
Aside from getting a UPS to avoid drops and spikes I would be tempted to run a full manufacturers disk diagnostic on the spinning disk that takes an age to show up in finder. Also selecting Disk repair and then repair disk permissions on all the HFS+ formatted drives booted off the recovery partition. Can do the windows equivalent by opening an admin command prompt and typing chkdsk /r on your windows volumes then rebooting, that can take hours but with disk corruption checking the entire data physically rather than relatively can fix persistent errors.

Have you got a non EFI video card? Sudden shutdowns in windows can make the OS perform a chkdsk /f on restart on drives marked 'dirty' and because its in VGA mode the preboot chkdsk screen with the text does not show up sometimes. Event Viewer should have an entry if it has performed disk checks in Windows, and Console will also say on the Mac side. OSX could be running a non verbose fsck command checking the discs so look for that kind of entry. Think if you hold cmd+v down it powering it up after the sudden shutdown it will show what it's doing in verbose mode...

Going back to the very first point if you have a poor mains power situation I would urge you to get a UPS. With power drops you can get a spike immediately before and it's not good for computers with spinning disks.
 
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I'm thinking power as well....not sure what the total load on the PSU is, but the symptoms you describe could indicate that it's over worked or on it's way out.

I think from memory that PSU is rated at 480W? Someone will know, but if you can borrow one it might be worth a try. The way you have the SSD' s cabled in could also be a factor here, and worth a selective disconnect of each, booting each time to see if the problem is still present. If disconnecting either gives you faster boot times, then consider a PCIE card to sit in between them. Conducting the tests won't take long, and could point you in the right direction.
 
You guys are missing the point.

I do not have random power losses due to my power supply. When my power goes out, it is because of a storm and the ENTIRE HOUSE loses power.

This only happens a couple times a year or so..a UPS would be a waste of money. it is not like I lose power every week, then it would be beneficial to get one.

There are absolutely NO issues AT ALL when there is a successful clean shut down. I can disconnect my power and leave it unplugged for days after that and it will still be fine.

I run my system under heavy load, and I never had the PSU give me problems. I use the ATI Radeon card that came with the system.
 
xWhiplash said:
You guys are missing the point.

I do not have random power losses due to my power supply. When my power goes out, it is because of a storm and the ENTIRE HOUSE loses power.

This only happens a couple times a year or so..a UPS would be a waste of money. it is not like I lose power every week, then it would be beneficial to get one.

There are absolutely NO issues AT ALL when there is a successful clean shut down. I can disconnect my power and leave it unplugged for days after that and it will still be fine.

I run my system under heavy load, and I never had the PSU give me problems. I use the ATI Radeon card that came with the system.
Click to expand...

I've get a couple of drops normally a year too, double recently because of the flooding here in the UK which are sudden. Because of this my server, port multiplier disk box and the Mac Pro are plugged into two used APC 1500Va UPS units which I paid just £60 each. If your power is cut via a lightning strike rather than in my case the local substation box tripping out for a few minutes at a time I would be thinking about a cheap UPS option, there's an awful lot of volts and amps with a thunderstorm and I would want my gear protected from it.

Think your delays on restarts are down to OSX fsck and Windows Chkdsk issues. When OSX and Windows shuts down normally it marks the hard drive as being 'clean' so the restart is normal. A sudden power cut leaves no mark hence the disk checking and slow boot.. The logs in Windows Event Viewer and OSX Console should confirm it.
 
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xWhiplash said:
Once this happens, everything is back to normal - 15 seconds boot time. But why does this happen EVERY TIME the power goes out, or when I hold down the power button?
Click to expand...

xWhiplash said:
I have only had my power go out a couple of times. It just happened again today and thought I would post to see if anybody knew anything.
Click to expand...

xWhiplash said:
No that is not it. If I cleanly shut down, and disconnect the power cord afterwards, there is no issue.
Click to expand...

xWhiplash said:
This only happens a couple times a year or so..a UPS would be a waste of money. it is not like I lose power every week, then it would be beneficial to get one.

There are absolutely NO issues AT ALL when there is a successful clean shut down. I can disconnect my power and leave it unplugged for days after that and it will still be fine.
Click to expand...

OK, lets keep things in perspective here. This happens EVERY TIME the power goes out, which is a couple of times a year. I say don't worry about it. My Mac does random funky things a couple of times a year and works perfectly the rest of the time. (It runs 24/7.) I don't fret over it. Computers do that.

Like the others said, a UPS may be worth looking into. You say it would be a waste of money, but if this issue bothers you this much, it may be worth it for peace of mind.

As far as the problem is concerned, because it happens so infrequently, it's hard to diagnose. How full is your startup disk? Do you have any network volume automounts? Disable them. Have you verified and/or repaired permissions? How about the disk? Is the MP in the middle of doing something when this happens? What? Are there any loose network or device connections? Unfortunately, there really no way to test the above until another power outage.

Also, do you unplug the Mac Pro all the time after shutting down? Why's that? I believe you're resetting the SMC every time you do that.
 
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Power outages are often preceded by power spikes, and it only takes one to possibly destroy your computer or damage your data. Backups will preserve your data (unless that too is damaged by the power line), but you will simply have to replace a blown out computer.

Don't forget that there are also voltage "droops" which can damage your power supply. The UPS will protect against these as well.

UPS units are a cheap investment to protect your expensive equipment, even if only used once or twice a year.

Many people purchase car insurance or life insurance each year without ever having actually had to use it. :D
 
I have a very good surge protector, and I have never had any issues. I wouldn't know where to look for decent UPS.

And I created this thread in case it was something serious. If it was just the disk checker, than I have nothing to worry about and don't have to keep worrying when it happens.

I come from Windows. If Windows shuts down suddenly, it does not issue a disk check every time. I would just see "Start Windows Normally" screen with several options. You are saying OS X will always do this?

Oh and if I move my computer, I need to have it unplugged. When there is a heavy storm, I unplug everything in the house. I do NOT unplug my computer every time I shut down.
 
You can see an UPS as a kind of insurance policy. You normally do not need insurance but for those few few cases when you really need it.
It only takes a few unexpected power losses for a filesystem to get corrupted, you may just be gambling...
 
After every power cut here i run disk utility->repair permissions. It always finds something to fix too.

I also have a APC Backup-UPS ES 700 which (if I am around) gives me enough time to power down the machine and NAS safely.
 
Anim said:
After every power cut here i run disk utility->repair permissions. It always finds something to fix too.

I also have a APC Backup-UPS ES 700 which (if I am around) gives me enough time to power down the machine and NAS safely.
Click to expand...

If you have a USB port on the APC UPS, you can connect it to your Mac and then program when and how you want the computer to cleanly shut down even if you aren't around to do it yourself. This functionality is now built into OS X, you don't need to use the (previously buggy) APC software supplied with the UPS.

Your NAS may have a similar function if it is on a separate UPS.
 
xWhiplash said:
I just did that. Hopefully it will help. Is this due to it being Crucial SSDs?

Just for future reference: I have an Intel Mac Pro, Mid 2010 running Mavericks.
Click to expand...

People suggest it because it can solve issues where the system is attempting to load things in the incorrect device order and only accessing the correct boot drive after several minutes.
 
Would a UPS still be beneficial if I already have a decent surge protector?

A question regarding a UPS if I do get one. Do I need to match my power supply watts? So I would need to get one that is above 1000 watts?
 
xWhiplash said:
Would a UPS still be beneficial if I already have a decent surge protector?

A question regarding a UPS if I do get one. Do I need to match my power supply watts? So I would need to get one that is above 1000 watts?
Click to expand...

Absolutely, you will get a nice clean sine wave of power free of drops or spikes with automatic shut down protection if you connect it to the tower via the USB port. In my case one APC 1500va works perfectly with solely the Mac Pro connected and the other powers the server and drive enclosure with auto shut down also.
 
xWhiplash said:
Would a UPS still be beneficial if I already have a decent surge protector?

A question regarding a UPS if I do get one. Do I need to match my power supply watts? So I would need to get one that is above 1000 watts?
Click to expand...

I use the APC "Smart-UPS 1500" to power my Mac Pro system (less the laser printer). I also use an identical one to power my home theater system which includes a Mac Mini Server plus storage, in addition to satellite DVR receivers, audio receiver, and flat screen TV.

I have seen some posters complain that UPS with <1000 will sometimes trip off due to the power surge at initial turn on, or even coming out of sleep mode with a Mac Pro system (unknown vintage).

These have a USB communication channel which you can attach to your computer and OS X will allow you to determine how long (time or battery-%) to run before initiating a clean power-down of your system for no data loss or component damage.
 
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