Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Help - Black Screen after random sleep and won't wake

D

DeeEss

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 17, 2011
644
182
Arggghh.

All of a sudden my 2 month old Mac Pro is putting itself to sleep randomly and constantly.

Well I say sleep but the screen is black and the power light is not flashing like it normally.

It's not software or system or the hard drive as I have tried swapping the drive and with an emergency clone I have.

It seems to be hardware. I've tried restarting and sometimes it won't restart.

I've tried resetting the PMU and the VRAM, zapping the PRAM. Nothing.

If I hit the volume up button there is no volume up or down noise so it's like its dead.

Bu if I hold the power button down and shut it down it will restart only to last 5 minutes to 20 minutes before it does it again.

It really is if it's just sleeping but it won't wake.

Any ideas? I've tried everything. Have a big job on at the moment, it's really BAD.
 
No won't let me screen share.

But I have it T-Moded and I can access and copy files no problem while it has the black screen of death so it is obviously not sleeping.

My last Mac was plagued with Logic Board issues. This is only two months old and it's already ****ed.
 
Last edited:
DeeEss said:
Arggghh.

All of a sudden my 2 month old Mac Pro is putting itself to sleep randomly and constantly.

Well I say sleep but the screen is black and the power light is not flashing like it normally.

It's not software or system or the hard drive as I have tried swapping the drive and with an emergency clone I have.

It seems to be hardware. I've tried restarting and sometimes it won't restart.

I've tried resetting the PMU and the VRAM, zapping the PRAM. Nothing.

If I hit the volume up button there is no volume up or down noise so it's like its dead.

Bu if I hold the power button down and shut it down it will restart only to last 5 minutes to 20 minutes before it does it again.

It really is if it's just sleeping but it won't wake.

Any ideas? I've tried everything. Have a big job on at the moment, it's really BAD.
Click to expand...

Are the fans running? Overheating would cause a shutdown like you describe. Leave it off for an hour and see how long it lasts. Run Disk Utility for good measure to rule out the HD.
 
Fans are all running.

I'm beginning to wonder if it is the graphics card

EDIT - No it can't be. There is no sound when the black screen is up. EVen though it seems everything else is working.
 
OK. I think there may be something in your theory about overheating. I've left it off for an hour and have it back on now. And it seems to be doing ok.

The thing is though the fans are all seemingly spinning.

Is there anyway I can test this that you know of?

Thanks
 
No, spoke to soon.

Back to the back screen of death.

It's not looking good at all.

**** you Apple.
 
If you can copy files grab /var/log/system.log and see if there are any useful entries.
 
Result!!!

I left it over night on and switched sleep off. It stayed on all night no problem.

10 minutes into working it did it again. But this time I noticed that it happened when I bumped the desk. I then knew it was something hardware and thought I'd just send it off to Apple. I went to put the original drive back in and hello....

You're not going to believe this...it was as simple as the Graphics Card lead wasn't plugged in to the card properly! It was loose rattling around inside the port. I'm guessing because it was a refurb someone swapped the graphics card back and didn't bother to plug it in and it worked it's way loose.

I'm back in business and sooooooooo damn happy right now.

So anyone having the same issue - Check your Graphics Card!!!!!
 
Last edited:
DeeEss said:
Result!!!

I left it over night on and switched sleep off. It stayed on all night no problem.

10 minutes into working it did it again. But this time I noticed that it happened when I bumped the desk. I then knew it was something hardware and thought I'd just send it off to Apple. I went to put the original drive back in and hello....

You're not going to believe this...it was as simple as the Graphics Card lead wasn't plugged in to the card properly! It was loose rattling around inside the port. I'm guessing because it was a refurb someone swapped the graphics card back and didn't bother to plug it in and it worked it's way loose.

I'm back in business and sooooooooo damn happy right now.

So anyone having the same issue - Check your Graphics Card!!!!!
Click to expand...

Glad you got it running :)
 
Thanks man! Yeah very happy it wasn't a trip to the Apple Store and a few days without it.
 
DeeEss said:
Result!!!

I left it over night on and switched sleep off. It stayed on all night no problem.

10 minutes into working it did it again. But this time I noticed that it happened when I bumped the desk. I then knew it was something hardware and thought I'd just send it off to Apple. I went to put the original drive back in and hello....

You're not going to believe this...it was as simple as the Graphics Card lead wasn't plugged in to the card properly! It was loose rattling around inside the port. I'm guessing because it was a refurb someone swapped the graphics card back and didn't bother to plug it in and it worked it's way loose.

I'm back in business and sooooooooo damn happy right now.

So anyone having the same issue - Check your Graphics Card!!!!!
Click to expand...

I told the gpu card! A nice fast and low cost fix!
 
philipma1957 said:
I told the gpu card! A nice fast and low cost fix!
Click to expand...

You did!! Good job man! Here I was thinking it had just died and I was thankfully very lucky that it was a simple connector that hadn't ben plugged in properly!

Trudging down the Apple Store carrying that thing, waiting an hour and hen a week bah blah blah all avoided. SO lucky!

THanks for your help and thanks to everyone else too!
 
there was a long post a few months ago the poor guy dragged it into the store.

the apple repair tech said he needed a logic board. 1000 dollar repair so he dragged it back home some poster said he had the same problem try the gpu card. turned out the card was bad he had to buy a card for 150 bucks but it was better then a new logic board.
 
Nasty. Lucky for him it worked out. Shocking that Apple told him it was the Logic board. tut tut. Nothing worse than your main computer out of action. My last computer was a Macbook Pro that was a factory Lemon. 3 Logic Boards, some dodgy RAM and a hard drive that packed it early and all in 4 years. I hated schlepping my ass down there, waiting, going through the rigmarole and then having no computer for a week or more. So after 3 years of that kinda action I was ready to explode as this is one 2 months old.

So so glad.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back