Resolved Mac Pro 1,1 Issues

[NOTNlCE]

Hello fellow Xeon lovers,
This morning I got a great deal on a Mac Pro 1,1 Quad Core 2.66GHz - Ended up paying $70 for the tower with 3GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA 7300 GT, AirPort, and one optical drive. The case is pretty damaged, but that's not my issue. The system won't boot anything. The tower came with two internal hard drives, one of which has 10.7 installed on it as determined by a verbose boot, as well as a recovery disk partition. Initially, booting ANYTHING, including my Snow Leopard DVD would result with the screen being "stuck" at the Apple Logo with a frozen progress circle. I've since blown the tower out with compressed air and reseated the graphics card and all the RAM.

Now here's my issue. Any one of the devices will "boot," but it seems to get stuck after a successful boot. If I boot Verbose, everything seems to be alright, and I arrive at a black screen with a cursor that I have full control over, but nothing else. If I go for a standard boot, I get the same results, though with a white background instead of black. After a while, the machine restarts itself, probably a bit longer than 5 minutes.

My initial thought was the RAM, but I have booted with both 512 DIMMs and both 1GB DIMMs as well, with the same results. I believe the video card has issues, the displayed pictures are distorted, etc, but I don't think this would cause boot issues. Has anyone ever experienced this? Any idea on how to fix such an issue? I have done several PRAM resets to no avail. If the machine is dead, it's not a huge deal. I am more than happy to sell it for parts, but a functioning computer is always preferable.

Thanks in advance for all of your continued assistance.
-N

UPDATE: The system does in fact have a relatively clean install of 10.7 on it, however, it will not boot normally. I have managed to access the system, and create myself a user account while booting in safe mode. I repaired disk permissions, but a normal boot still yields the white screen with the ambiguous mouse.

 

[Neodym]

Things you could try:

- SMC reset
- Check that CPU heat sinks are properly seated
- Clean CPU and heat sink and apply fresh thermal paste

 

[NOTNlCE]

I have been browsing, and I suspect the issue is the failing 7300 GT. I will put my unused Radeon 2600 XT in the machine when I get home this evening. Thanks for the help.
-N

 

[Edge]

I have been browsing, and I suspect the issue is the failing 7300 GT.

As I read your summary, that was my thought. Have you checked for red lights on the RAM daughterboards?

And have you tried booting from a different (new) recovery partition or Lion DVD?

 

[NOTNlCE]

As I read your summary, that was my thought. Have you checked for red lights on the RAM daughterboards?

And have you tried booting from a different (new) recovery partition or Lion DVD?

RAM risers are fine, surprisingly. I had a chance to test the computer out before I purchased, and just the fact that the RAM risers were functional meant that I could (at worst) recoup my losses by selling parts. This guy HERE seemed to be having the exact same issue as me. I have attempted booting from a SL DVD, a Lion USB (freshly created), the Recovery HD, and the initial Lion install that came with the computer, only having success once with a boot into the Lion install in Safe Mode. My bets are on the video card.

EDIT:

It was ABSOLUTELY the video card. Swapped that Geforce 7300 GT for my Radeon 2600 XT and the machine purrs like a kitten. 3GB of RAM recognized, full graphics acceleration. This thing is officially a designated Pro Tools workhorse. Thanks for all your help guys.