MP 7,1 Help, 7,1 won't start up

[smckenzie]

So left my 7,1 in Windows 10 running Windows updates. Came back and it was asleep but couldn't wake it. A hard restart didn't work, so removed components one one by (drives, etc gpu's etc) which made no difference. Tried a NVRAM reset, no change.

Status lights are white on top and the rear but there is no chime and Mac won't start up. The front fans turn a little buts that's it. No display, nada.

Any ideas?

 

[prefuse07]

so, with just the stock configuration, when you power on, you don't even get an apple logo?

Did you try an SMC reset?

Unplug everything and wait about ~1 min > reconnect everything including power cable, wait ~1 min > fire it up

 

[smckenzie]

Nada. No chime, no logo, nothing.

But looks like I got it going. Found apples document on DDU firmware recovery. Essentially if you have two Macs you can use the good one to revive the bad one.

Now, I had just updated the 7,1 to Sonoma, which turned out to be a bad move as it dorked the Mac for 3d rendering. Like there’s something properly wrong on Sonoma as far as Intel Mac’s and Metal go. Performance was awful.

My laptop was still on Ventura, so you have to use Apple Configurator to revive/restore the firmware. At the end of the process it failed.

My wife’s laptop was on Sonoma so the dead Mac will appear in the finder sidebar instead. You have two options, revive or factory restore. The revive option failed but the factory reset option worked.

Right now the 7,1 in on and doing the internet recovery thing.

 

[prefuse07]

Glad you got it sorted, and thanks for the heads up on Sonoma!

 

[smckenzie]

Just back into Ventura.

No idea what happened. Never had that before.

So typically the Redshift benchmark would take 2mins, but under Sonoma that dropped to 2:43s. Also when Redshift runs it will compile shaders which it almost not noticeable, under Sonoma though it was taking nearly an hour! So for sure something not right there. The Mac was also laggy too. Someone else on the Redshift forum mentioned the same thing and apparently 14.1 beta isn't any better.

 

[Mac3Duser]

interesting thread, no sonoma for my intel mac pro, thank you ^^

 

[macguru9999]

I'm running sonoma in my 7,1 no problems. I do not game , or edit video for that matter. web browsing and photo editing. also some virtual machines but i realise they wont cut it for gaming. all the best.

 

[smckenzie]

So prior to the Sonoma debacle I was having 3D performance issues under Ventura i.e. basic usage, lag when moving around a 3D scene and a memory leak on one of the cards. It was annoying enough that I was trying different renderers that weren't GPU based. Also why I decided to take a punt on Sonoma.

Anyway, now back on a fresh install of Ventura and those gremlins have gone and the gpu's now chew through scenes that it struggled with before.

So maybe this all did me a favor.

 

[TrevorR90]

I had this exact thing happen to me. I had to recover via another Mac. It has to do with the T2 chip in the Mac Pro

 

[smckenzie]

I had this exact thing happen to me. I had to recover via another Mac. It has to do with the T2 chip in the Mac Pro

Good to know. The only thing that didn’t work was Spotlight. Had to mess about disabling it, deleting the index and restarting. All good now though.

 

[prefuse07]

Now that we know it's the T2 chip -- I know you're not gonna try it, but i'm curious now, if you did update to Sonoma, if things would actually run even better than they are in Ventura 😝

 

[avro707]

interesting thread, no sonoma for my intel mac pro, thank you ^^

I have Sonoma 14.1 on mine, running fine.

 

[smckenzie]

I have Sonoma 14.1 on mine, running fine.

For everything else it was fine, but there's something super wrong with Metal and 3D rendering on it right now.