cMacPro3,1 Upgrade, fried Logic Board, CPU

[Babyboi]

Greetings from Texas,

My friend's Mac Pro 3,1 (2008) A1186 suffered a power loss at his recording studio. He brought it in for service and they determined it was the Logic board that has failed. I will be the new owner of this MacPro3,1.

I want to salvage and rebuild it. Can I:

A: buy a Logic board from somewhere such as eBay from the 2009-2012 cMP models to replace the fried Logic board?

A.5 Will the replacement Logic Board even fit physically?

B: Can I buy a CPU Upgrade Tray with Dual Core to use with 2009-2012 Logic Board?

C: If I decide not doing the CPU Upgrade Tray route, can I upgrade the single processor to Intel Xeon x2620 2.0ghz?

The end result I want to achieve is how I want for another machine I have successfully upgraded, which is:

2009 Mac Pro 4,1 >firmware upgraded to> MacPro5,1 (flashed)
2x 3.33ghz 6-Core Intel Xeon (dual cpu tray)
8 RAM Slots

Thanks for reading, I'm not sure if I left out any details.

 

[rawweb]

Well...the 3,1 and 4,1/5,1 are very different internally. 1,1-3,1 is basically the first revision of the tower design (with some minor differences between). The leap from 2008 to 2009 was somewhat significant inside. The logic board is entirely different (screw locations, etc). 4,1 introduced a removable CPU tray that was not present in the first revision. I really doubt that you could modify the tower to fit 4,1/5,1 parts. But hey, if you got a lot of time, money and...never mind, it's just not possible.

My advice; stick to 3,1 parts and bring that machine back to life. You would find modifying the tower into a hackintosh 'easier' than trying to attempt what you're thinking. There are plenty of guides over at tonymac if that perked your brow. Frankly, you can pick up a used 4,1 for the cost of all the parts you proposed in your original post. I would personally have a hard time buying a pulled logic board from someone on eBay. If yah know what I mean...

BTW...who checked that computer out? If it isn't powering up, it might be the power supply if 'she's dead jim'...is she still chiming?

 

[Babyboi]

Well...the 3,1 and 4,1/5,1 are very different internally. 1,1-3,1 is basically the first revision of the tower design (with some minor differences between). The leap from 2008 to 2009 was somewhat significant inside. The logic board is entirely different (screw locations, etc). 4,1 introduced a removable CPU tray that was not present in the first revision. I really doubt that you could modify the tower to fit 4,1/5,1 parts. But hey, if you got a lot of time, money and...never mind, it's just not possible.

My advice; stick to 3,1 parts and bring that machine back to life. You would find modifying the tower into a hackintosh 'easier' than trying to attempt what you're thinking. There are plenty of guides over at tonymac if that perked your brow. Frankly, you can pick up a used 4,1 for the cost of all the parts you proposed in your original post. I would personally have a hard time buying a pulled logic board from someone on eBay. If yah know what I mean...

BTW...who checked that computer out? If it isn't powering up, it might be the power supply if 'she's dead jim'...is she still chiming?

ahh OK, so the 3,1 is different from 4,1. The folks that checked out the unit was the Geek Squad from Best Buy here in Houston. I'm not sure if it chimes yet, but I can check tonight. But yeah you're right about spending all that money on the CPU tray. Now that I know it is not really a good idea to make this into a 2009 upgrade with 5,1, to salvage the machine, Is the most affordable way is to replace the Logic Board (assuming this is the problem)?

 

[rawweb]

ahh OK, so the 3,1 is different from 4,1. The folks that checked out the unit was the Geek Squad from Best Buy here in Houston. I'm not sure if it chimes yet, but I can check tonight. But yeah you're right about spending all that money on the CPU tray. Now that I know it is not really a good idea to make this into a 2009 upgrade with 5,1, to salvage the machine, Is the most affordable way is to replace the Logic Board (assuming this is the problem)?

Yes most definitely, if you buy a board on eBay make sure the listing has eBay buyer protection (I think they all do). Protects you. Could return it for any reason.

I don't have a lot of faith in geek squad. If it doesn't turn on at all, it's deff power supply issue.

 

[nigelbb]

It doesn't make sense to buy a used logic board & try & repair this MP 3,1. It would be more sensible to just buy a working system as a lot of work is involved in replacing a logic board with no guarantee that replacing the logic board will fix the problem. If you could confirm that it was a failed power supply then it is straightforward to install a new one but the problem is figuring out that it really is just the power supply that has failed. When the power supply on my 3,1 died I was able to swap over the power supply from my wife's 3,1 & confirm that was the problem & there is no other solution unless you bought a power supply from somewhere that would accept a return if it turned out not to be the problem.

 

[Babyboi]

Good morning, I was able to turn on the computer and hear the Apple Chime. I couldn't boot into the operating system because I had already formatted the internal drive. So the next thing I thought to do was to boot into my other machines via FireWire Target Disk Mode. Both attempts didn't work. 1 machine was cMP 2009 running 10.9 and the 2nd machine was 2011 MBP running 10.9. It took a while for the drive icons to display while booting & holding option key. The screen would just stay white.

That was my experience. But the original owner's experience was a little different. He said he would be able to use the machine for about 30 minutes and it would just shut off.

So these are two different experiences to the machine after going through the power loss. So is replacing the logic board a good or bad idea?

 

[rawweb]

You might try sticking a hard drive in and running an OS X installer. See how far you get.

Another good idea since it turns over, run an extended apple hardware test: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257.

When performing the test, run the machine with minimal devices (bare minimum ram, no pcie cards, etc). This will rule out some possible hardware conflicts. Don't be surprised if nothing is wrong with the machine. Your friend might have had a bad stick of ram or a corrupt OS. A geek squad worker may have said the logic board was fried simply to try and sell a new mac. The machine is out of support and is considered 'Legacy' these days. They've got no skin in the game and maybe don't even have the equipment or expertise to diagnose an older mac like that. I've seen news reports on YouTube showing proof that some geek squad locations (and other technical support companies) are really either inept to help, or simply don't know any better.

 

[Babyboi]

You might try sticking a hard drive in and running an OS X installer. See how far you get.

Another good idea since it turns over, run an extended apple hardware test: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257.

When performing the test, run the machine with minimal devices (bare minimum ram, no pcie cards, etc). This will rule out some possible hardware conflicts. Don't be surprised if nothing is wrong with the machine. Your friend might have had a bad stick of ram or a corrupt OS. A geek squad worker may have said the logic board was fried simply to try and sell a new mac. The machine is out of support and is considered 'Legacy' these days. They've got no skin in the game and maybe don't even have the equipment or expertise to diagnose an older mac like that. I've seen news reports on YouTube showing proof that some geek squad locations (and other technical support companies) are really either inept to help, or simply don't know any better.

Good idea on doing my own hardware diagnostics. The RAM would be a good start. Thanks for the tip! Will check back with an update after testing.

 

[rawweb]

Good idea on doing my own hardware diagnostics. The RAM would be a good start. Thanks for the tip! Will check back with an update after testing.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to keep the ram in, that way it can check it out during the extended check. But memory could easily be the issue here based on what you reported from the original owner.

 

[Babyboi]

Hello,

I got this machine running again without replacing any hardware. I called Apple for some support and they had me troubleshoot a few things.

1. Unplug the power for 15 seconds.
2. Reset PRAM.

What I believe to have made it running again was when the lady from Apple told me to hold CMD+OPTION+P+R during bootup until I heard my 3rd chime. Before I did this, the machine would power on as soon as I plugged in the power cable. Once I reset the PRAM, the machine would then turn on only when I press the power button.

(In my mind I asked, "did the Geeksquad not do this at all?)

Now that I am able to boot, I was able to find out more about this system. Model Identifier is actually MacPro1,1 not MacPro3,1.

Now my questions:
1. How come I am still not able to run Apple Hardware Test? (Boot up and hold D, it just goes straight into OS)
2. I put in all 8 of the RAM sticks, but 4 of the slots say Empty?
3. This machine is running Two Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5160 processors @ 3.0 GHz.
A. Is it worth it to upgrade to any other pair of processors for performance gain? (prefer higher GHz than cores)
B. Is it worth it to upgrade the processors at all? (in ref. to ease of install & labor) (I can upgrade 2009 cMP CPUs n/p)
C. Can I, (or should I) replace the CPUs from the 2009 OEM dual CPUs @ 2.26GHz?
4. Will my Geekbench score improve if I run in 64-bit mode as opposed to the free version of 32-bit?
Score: (32-bit) Single Core 1541, Multi Core 5183

and Thanks for your input so far, guys!

 

[Babyboi]

today I learned that the reason this machine (MacPro1,1) did not boot when I went into Target Disk Mode to boot from my other machines is because the highest version of OS X this machine can install is 10.7 Lion. 10.9 just didn't boot. (I am glad I still had my 10.6.8 drive for testing)

 

[rawweb]

today I learned that the reason this machine (MacPro1,1) did not boot when I went into Target Disk Mode to boot from my other machines is because the highest version of OS X this machine can install is 10.7 Lion. 10.9 just didn't boot. (I am glad I still had my 10.6.8 drive for testing)

So it's not a 3,1? Shoot!

You can 'hack' the latest os on a 1,1, there are some guides posted around here. It's only limitation is the 32bit boot efi. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-el-capitan.1890435/

Did it pass all the hardware tests?

 

[Babyboi]

So it's not a 3,1? Shoot!

You can 'hack' the latest os on a 1,1, there are some guides posted around here. It's only limitation is the 32bit boot efi. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-el-capitan.1890435/

Did it pass all the hardware tests?

Yeah i know right? I thought it was a 3,1 for some reason. In my previous post #10, I mentioned that I was not able to run the AHT. Do you know how I could do this? (boot, hold D key did not work for me)

 

[rawweb]

Yeah i know right? I thought it was a 3,1 for some reason. In my previous post #10, I mentioned that I was not able to run the AHT. Do you know how I could do this? (boot, hold D key did not work for me)

Gotcha, sorry I didn't read that post for some reason. Unfortunately I believe the 1,1 hardware test was included on the original restore CD. Regarding the ram, I've got a couple of thoughts. Make sure the ram is installed per Apple spec: Mac Pro (Original). Try putting the ram that isn't registering into the slots that are working to verify that the ram is OK. I'm assuming all sticks are the same. If it still behaves strange, one of those daughter cards might be bad. Not the first time I've heard of that.

I don't think the geek bench scores will improve terribly if you buy it for a 64bit test. There are some processor upgrades you can do, but I'm not sure it's really worth the time. Quad core 3.0GHz isn't too bad. Others might have a different opinion though. Graphics card, ram and SSD's are where it's at.

 

[Babyboi]

Gotcha, sorry I didn't read that post for some reason. Unfortunately I believe the 1,1 hardware test was included on the original restore CD. Regarding the ram, I've got a couple of thoughts. Make sure the ram is installed per Apple spec: Mac Pro (Original). Try putting the ram that isn't registering into the slots that are working to verify that the ram is OK. I'm assuming all sticks are the same. If it still behaves strange, one of those daughter cards might be bad. Not the first time I've heard of that.

I don't think the geek bench scores will improve terribly if you buy it for a 64bit test. There are some processor upgrades you can do, but I'm not sure it's really worth the time. Quad core 3.0GHz isn't too bad. Others might have a different opinion though. Graphics card, ram and SSD's are where it's at.

I just rearranged the RAM per the sheet you provided and now I am seeing the full 16GB of RAM. Thanks for that! (2x4GB, 2x2GB, 4x1GB)

The more I consider swapping out CPUs, the more I am inclined to just keep the stock 2x Dual-Core CPU @ 3.0 GHz because of the clock speed.

Time to put SSD in this baby.

 

[rawweb]

I just rearranged the RAM per the sheet you provided and now I am seeing the full 16GB of RAM. Thanks for that! (2x4GB, 2x2GB, 4x1GB)

The more I consider swapping out CPUs, the more I am inclined to just keep the stock 2x Dual-Core CPU @ 3.0 GHz because of the clock speed.

Time to put SSD in this baby.

The clock speed is good, and frankly, the original tower can be a bit of a bear to get at those processors. Certainly not as easy as 4,1+. PCIe SSD, graphics card, and that 1,1 will sing. So glad you brought this back instead of letting it go to a landfill. Kudos.

 

[Babyboi]

The clock speed is good, and frankly, the original tower can be a bit of a bear to get at those processors. Certainly not as easy as 4,1+. PCIe SSD, graphics card, and that 1,1 will sing. So glad you brought this back instead of letting it go to a landfill. Kudos.

Man, I'm glad too! Because hope seemed to be lost when original owner took it to Geek Squad and they sent him home with the news of the death of the Logic board. No wonder people don't trust and give Geek Squad credit.