so i have been using a cMP 1,1 (dual 3GHz Xeon 5160) as a Plex Server. it has been upgraded with a SSD boot drive (OWC), 16GB RAM (OWC), an ATI Radeon 5770 (from a Mac Pro 5,1), a wireless ac/bluetooth 4.0 card (MacVidCards), a USB 3.0 input card (Inatek), and a firmware update to 2,1. it has been running macOS 10.11.6.
a few days ago i found i could no longer access Plex. the cMP was still powered on, so i shut it down by holding the power button. i then tried powering it back up, only to run into a repeating cycle of boot chimes (with roughly 15sec between) and no video output. my first thought was to replace the RAM (although there were no lit error lights on the RAM risers), but that did not fix the problem. while the case was open, i noticed a slight smell of smoke, but couldn't localize it. i also used compressed air to clear any dust from the interior (including the RAM riser slots and logicboard PCIe slots). i then replaced the video card with a Radeon 7xxx series... still no change. i then removed all HDDs and PCIe cards except the boot drive and the video card... still no change. i reset NVRAM/PRAM... still no change. i reset SMC... still no change. i tried entering safe mode by holding the Shift key during boot, which resulted in stopping the boot chime... still no video output. i held down the option key during boot, which also stopped the boot chime loop... still no video output. i then removed the boot drive, which also stopped the boot chime loop... still no video output. i placed he boot drive in another Mac Pro (5,1) and ran First Aid in Disk Utility... everything was OK.
at this point, i am confused about what the culprit could be. thus far, it doesn't appear to be the boot drive, the RAM, the video card, or the power supply (the power light on the front of the case holds steady and all fans spin as expected)... if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, i would greatly appreciate them. i would rather get this beast back up and running than purchase a replacement. however, if i do need to purchase a replacement, i would like to determine that sooner rather than later, as Plex gets a lot of use in my household.
thanks in advance for your time and consideration...
a few days ago i found i could no longer access Plex. the cMP was still powered on, so i shut it down by holding the power button. i then tried powering it back up, only to run into a repeating cycle of boot chimes (with roughly 15sec between) and no video output. my first thought was to replace the RAM (although there were no lit error lights on the RAM risers), but that did not fix the problem. while the case was open, i noticed a slight smell of smoke, but couldn't localize it. i also used compressed air to clear any dust from the interior (including the RAM riser slots and logicboard PCIe slots). i then replaced the video card with a Radeon 7xxx series... still no change. i then removed all HDDs and PCIe cards except the boot drive and the video card... still no change. i reset NVRAM/PRAM... still no change. i reset SMC... still no change. i tried entering safe mode by holding the Shift key during boot, which resulted in stopping the boot chime... still no video output. i held down the option key during boot, which also stopped the boot chime loop... still no video output. i then removed the boot drive, which also stopped the boot chime loop... still no video output. i placed he boot drive in another Mac Pro (5,1) and ran First Aid in Disk Utility... everything was OK.
at this point, i am confused about what the culprit could be. thus far, it doesn't appear to be the boot drive, the RAM, the video card, or the power supply (the power light on the front of the case holds steady and all fans spin as expected)... if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, i would greatly appreciate them. i would rather get this beast back up and running than purchase a replacement. however, if i do need to purchase a replacement, i would like to determine that sooner rather than later, as Plex gets a lot of use in my household.
thanks in advance for your time and consideration...