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Ghost in my Mac Pro?

N

nerdynerdynerdy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 22, 2007
126
128
I have a Mac Pro 1,1. It's been a reliable old work horse for the last nine years or so, but in the last fortnight it's exhibited some worrying behaviour.

First one of my internal drives started playing up, which I isolated by realising that when editing with media on that drive, Avid would freeze up. Moving media off that drive and not using it has resolved that problem.

However, on a couple of occasions the computer has restarted without warning. Straight to black monitors and the startup chime plays. Once or twice it has happened while the computer was starting up, and another time just as I was about to start working.

It hasn't happened after the computer has been on for a while.

But once I left the machine alone for an hour or two, came back to find an unusual error message on the screen, which was a semi-transparant grey box (not a normal dialog box window with OK button) telling me I needed to restart the machine by holding down the power button for five seconds (or something to that effect). The message was in about five different languages.


So what do you all think? Is this Mac Pro telling me it's time to buy a new one? Or is it maybe related to the dicky drive?

Advise away!
 
Well, after 9 long years......don't you think it's about time for a new one....
 
nerdynerdynerdy said:
I have a Mac Pro 1,1. It's been a reliable old work horse for the last nine years or so, but in the last fortnight it's exhibited some worrying behaviour.

First one of my internal drives started playing up, which I isolated by realising that when editing with media on that drive, Avid would freeze up. Moving media off that drive and not using it has resolved that problem.

However, on a couple of occasions the computer has restarted without warning. Straight to black monitors and the startup chime plays. Once or twice it has happened while the computer was starting up, and another time just as I was about to start working.

It hasn't happened after the computer has been on for a while.

But once I left the machine alone for an hour or two, came back to find an unusual error message on the screen, which was a semi-transparant grey box (not a normal dialog box window with OK button) telling me I needed to restart the machine by holding down the power button for five seconds (or something to that effect). The message was in about five different languages.


So what do you all think? Is this Mac Pro telling me it's time to buy a new one? Or is it maybe related to the dicky drive?

Advise away!
Click to expand...

Mine will be nine next month. All the RAM has been replaced in 2013 with new cooler FBDIMMs. Around that time put in 5770, my 4th GPU upgrade (7300, 8800, some PC cards - GTX 9800, 260, 8600 that I'll lump as one for running Vista and 7).

Drives have gone from WD Raptor to VelociRaptor and thru various SSDs (SATA II then 840s) until I arrived at XP941. Those for system. Data has generally been WD Black 1TB.

The unit has been on 1500VA all this time, cleaned with DATA-Vac from time to time.

And with each new OS, a clean install.

So no I don't see it as ready for retirement or crippled other than if you need Yosemite and don't want to use one of the fixes, or you do something today that it cannot handle and 5355 won't either. I think GPU choice can be a factor.

Behind the "it isn't working" and get to the nuts and bolts and figure out "Why."
 
nerdynerdynerdy said:
I have a Mac Pro 1,1. It's been a reliable old work horse for the last nine years or so, but in the last fortnight it's exhibited some worrying behaviour.
Click to expand...

That's one of the liquid-cooled Mac Pros, right? If so, open it up and look for signs of leaking. If the coolant is dripping on the circuit boards, you'll see all kinds of odd behavior.
 
bbrks said:
Well, after 9 long years......don't you think it's about time for a new one....
Click to expand...

Yes, I've been looking into it. Either a low to mid level Mac Pro or a fully specced out iMac 5k. But not sure which way to go with this.

IowaLynn said:
Behind the "it isn't working" and get to the nuts and bolts and figure out "Why."
Click to expand...

I'm not quite technically minded enough to know where to start with this. I do have time machine backing up every day so not too concerned about losing data. However my Avid v5 setup is a little sensitive to updating, as Avid v6 onwards is 64 bit and my Mac Pro is 32 bit. When I last upgraded everything I ended up getting cornered into the version of OS and Avid and Matrox drivers.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm wary of uninstalling everything and starting again as I don't want to find I can't get OSx back to the same point.

(I have a laptop running Yosemite and Avid v8, but it's not a qualified combination and I couldn't find a download for Mavericks which is what that setup is meant to be using. Apple seem to make it hard for an average user like me to pick the exact OS version I want.)
 
nerdynerdynerdy said:
I have a Mac Pro 1,1. It's been a reliable old work horse for the last nine years or so, but in the last fortnight it's exhibited some worrying behaviour.

First one of my internal drives started playing up, which I isolated by realising that when editing with media on that drive, Avid would freeze up. Moving media off that drive and not using it has resolved that problem.

However, on a couple of occasions the computer has restarted without warning. Straight to black monitors and the startup chime plays. Once or twice it has happened while the computer was starting up, and another time just as I was about to start working.

It hasn't happened after the computer has been on for a while.

But once I left the machine alone for an hour or two, came back to find an unusual error message on the screen, which was a semi-transparant grey box (not a normal dialog box window with OK button) telling me I needed to restart the machine by holding down the power button for five seconds (or something to that effect). The message was in about five different languages.


So what do you all think? Is this Mac Pro telling me it's time to buy a new one? Or is it maybe related to the dicky drive?

Advise away!
Click to expand...
I have a slightly younger 1,1, upgraded to 2,1 FW and CPU's. Still going strong as my backup system. I suspect the most likely scenario given your situation is a bad drive corrupting system data.

I would get a new drive (SSD) and install fresh. Reinstall applications, do not migrate - at least the key ones. Then run it and look for instability.
 
IowaLynn said:
Invest in CCC and you'll have a solid reliable system backup clone.
http://www.bombich.com
Click to expand...

I like the look of that. I could boot off a USB and keep working if my internal fails?

Is the only difference between this and time machine the fact it makes a bootable backup?


haralds said:
I have a slightly younger 1,1, upgraded to 2,1 FW and CPU's. Still going strong as my backup system. I suspect the most likely scenario given your situation is a bad drive corrupting system data.

I would get a new drive (SSD) and install fresh. Reinstall applications, do not migrate - at least the key ones. Then run it and look for instability.
Click to expand...

So my symptoms sound like my boot drive failing? That would be preferable to a hardware fault.

Since the 1,1 is worth so little on the used market, I'd like to keep it as a spare edit machine once I move to a new Mac Pro or iMac.

Is it easy to install an SSD? I've installed conventional hard drives due to the easy to use internals of the Mac Pro; great design for an amateur like me.
 
nerdynerdynerdy said:
I like the look of that. I could boot off a USB and keep working if my internal fails?

Is the only difference between this and time machine the fact it makes a bootable backup?




So my symptoms sound like my boot drive failing? That would be preferable to a hardware fault.

Since the 1,1 is worth so little on the used market, I'd like to keep it as a spare edit machine once I move to a new Mac Pro or iMac.

Is it easy to install an SSD? I've installed conventional hard drives due to the easy to use internals of the Mac Pro; great design for an amateur like me.
Click to expand...
You have three avenues, and yes it is easy.

Native drive bay or ODD ports. Even at 250MB/sec feels like butter and performs like 60 mph in 4 seconds. EVO 250GB 850 $98 + IcyDock $14 (Amazon)

SATA III PCIe 500MB/sec Apricorn Velocity - be sure it is for 1,1

XP941 + Lycom adapter - fastest game in town 700-1100MB/sec depending on size/capacity is the most expensive.
 
IowaLynn said:
You have three avenues, and yes it is easy.

Native drive bay or ODD ports. Even at 250MB/sec feels like butter and performs like 60 mph in 4 seconds. EVO 250GB 850 $98 + IcyDock $14 (Amazon)

SATA III PCIe 500MB/sec Apricorn Velocity - be sure it is for 1,1

XP941 + Lycom adapter - fastest game in town 700-1100MB/sec depending on size/capacity is the most expensive.
Click to expand...


Thanks for this.

Would you mind pointing me at some listings of these so I know I'm buying the correct bits?
 
nerdynerdynerdy said:
I have a Mac Pro 1,1. It's been a reliable old work horse for the last nine years or so, but in the last fortnight it's exhibited some worrying behaviour.

First one of my internal drives started playing up, which I isolated by realising that when editing with media on that drive, Avid would freeze up. Moving media off that drive and not using it has resolved that problem.

However, on a couple of occasions the computer has restarted without warning. Straight to black monitors and the startup chime plays. Once or twice it has happened while the computer was starting up, and another time just as I was about to start working.

It hasn't happened after the computer has been on for a while.

But once I left the machine alone for an hour or two, came back to find an unusual error message on the screen, which was a semi-transparant grey box (not a normal dialog box window with OK button) telling me I needed to restart the machine by holding down the power button for five seconds (or something to that effect). The message was in about five different languages.


So what do you all think? Is this Mac Pro telling me it's time to buy a new one? Or is it maybe related to the dicky drive?

Advise away!
Click to expand...
Drives are the most likely to fail. Have you checked the entries in the console logs? I also use Smart Reporter on all my systems with spinning platters.
 
nerdynerdynerdy said:
But once I left the machine alone for an hour or two, came back to find an unusual error message on the screen, which was a semi-transparant grey box (not a normal dialog box window with OK button) telling me I needed to restart the machine by holding down the power button for five seconds (or something to that effect). The message was in about five different languages.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a kernel panic.
 
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