MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 5,1 chimes but no display

[Jimmy Arnott]

Hi guys,

I've just bought a Mac Pro 5,1 from Cex here in the UK (as they give a 2 year warranty with everything they sell), delivered yesterday afternoon and was working great. I then decided to install a later version of Mac OS onto a spare SSD I had instead of the aging 1TB spinning drive.

I shut the machine down, installed the SSD and my USB boot drive. Got into the setup, all the usual steps went fine and began the installation, came back after 10-15 minutes to a black screen but the mac was still powered on. Left it for a while and then tried switching it off and back on, this time I got nothing on the screen but still got the usual chime so I assumed everything was going to be okay. I've now been playing with this machine on an off this morning trying different RAM configurations, reseating GPU and CPU tray, removing drives, reset PRAM and CMOS, tried different monitors + cables, tried holding the power button to get into developer more (think that's what it's called), installed OS 10.11 from another mac to see if it would eventually boot into Mac OS but nothing.

The only thing I haven't tried is reseating the CPUs themselves but don't have a screwdriver long enough to get the heat sinks off annoyingly and trying a different GPU (but don't have a Mac flashed card lying around). Also checked the diagnostic LED's, none are showing up for RAM so I assume that's all fine, but the ones on the logic board I'm getting an orange 5V, PSU is green, SYS is green and after about 20 seconds the GPU lights up green too. As I mentioned, it chimes and I can hear the hard drive reading data so I'm assuming it's just a graphics card issue?

I'm waiting to hear back from Cex support about either replacement parts of a refund but in the meantime I was wondering if anyone had any ideas I could try?

Kind regards,
Jimmy

 

[tsialex]

Hi guys,

I've just bought a Mac Pro 5,1 from Cex here in the UK (as they give a 2 year warranty with everything they sell), delivered yesterday afternoon and was working great. I then decided to install a later version of Mac OS onto a spare SSD I had instead of the aging 1TB spinning drive.

I shut the machine down, installed the SSD and my USB boot drive. Got into the setup, all the usual steps went fine and began the installation, came back after 10-15 minutes to a black screen but the mac was still powered on. Left it for a while and then tried switching it off and back on, this time I got nothing on the screen but still got the usual chime so I assumed everything was going to be okay. I've now been playing with this machine on an off this morning trying different RAM configurations, reseating GPU and CPU tray, removing drives, reset PRAM and CMOS, tried different monitors + cables, tried holding the power button to get into developer more (think that's what it's called), installed OS 10.11 from another mac to see if it would eventually boot into Mac OS but nothing.

The only thing I haven't tried is reseating the CPUs themselves but don't have a screwdriver long enough to get the heat sinks off annoyingly and trying a different GPU (but don't have a Mac flashed card lying around). Also checked the diagnostic LED's, none are showing up for RAM so I assume that's all fine, but the ones on the logic board I'm getting an orange 5V, PSU is green, SYS is green and after about 20 seconds the GPU lights up green too. As I mentioned, it chimes and I can hear the hard drive reading data so I'm assuming it's just a graphics card issue?

I'm waiting to hear back from Cex support about either replacement parts of a refund but in the meantime I was wondering if anyone had any ideas I could try?

Kind regards,
Jimmy

Do you have another GPU to try? Supported PC GPUs work fine after macOS loads the drivers. Mac EFI and flashed GPUs are needed only for pre-boot configuration support.

 

[Jimmy Arnott]

Do you have another GPU to try? Supported PC GPUs work fine after macOS loads the drivers. Mac EFI and flashed GPUs are needed only for pre-boot configuration support.

Thanks for the reply, I've got a Radeon 7970 at work so I'll see if I can get down there this afternoon to pick it up.

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for the reply, I've got a Radeon 7970 at work so I'll see if I can get down there this afternoon to pick it up.

Don't forget the cables, HD 7970 needs 2 miniPCIe 6-pin to 8-pin, at least.

 

[Jimmy Arnott]

Don't forget the cables, HD 7970 needs 2 miniPCIe 6-pin to 8-pin, at least.

I am now very confused and slightly more concerned, I went to work and brought back my spare graphics card (turns out it's a 7950 but anyway) and still nothing from the Mac. Weirdly, even without a GPU installed the GPU status light still shows green on the logic board leaving only the 'EFI done' LED to come on and no matter how long I leave it, it never comes on.

Is there anyway to reset the EFI to defaults like you can on a normal PC? Or maybe update the firmware with a USB drive?

 

[tsialex]

Is there anyway to reset the EFI to defaults like you can on a normal PC?

Do a clear NVRAM with an USB keyboard.

Or maybe update the firmware with a USB drive?

No. EFI DONE signals that the EFI is working fine.

Did you used the correct power cables?

 

[Jimmy Arnott]

Do a clear NVRAM with an USB keyboard.

No. EFI DONE signals that the EFI is working fine.

Did you used the correct power cables?

Already tried clearing the NVRAM a few times, it reboots and chimes again but still nothing on screen.

I only have the two 6 pin pci-e cables that came in the Mac unfortunately, my 7950 has one 6 pin and one 8 pin but I believe the last 2 pins of an 8 are just ground pins?

 

[tsialex]

Already tried clearing the NVRAM a few times, it reboots and chimes again but still nothing on screen.

I only have the two 6 pin pci-e cables that came in the Mac unfortunately, my 7950 has one 6 pin and one 8 pin but I believe the last 2 pins of an 8 are just ground pins?

Test all outputs, not all outputs work when PC Cards are used with Mac Pros. Access your Mac Pro via screen sharing and see if the GPU is being detected.

 

[Jimmy Arnott]

Test all outputs, not all outputs work when PC Cards are used with Mac Pros. Access your Mac Pro via screen sharing and see if the GPU is being detected.

New update: Mac is now booting into Mac OS and I've been able to remote in with work's remote access software but no graphics card seems to work (have now tried the original 5870, my 7950 and an r7 240), also it doesn't recognise any of the GPUs, nor the serial number of the machine in 'About This Mac'. That could just be because I pulled the hard drive out of an old iMac to save re-installing the OS + it already has the remote access software setup on it.

I'm still leaning towards a bad GPU but can't understand why neither of the other two work? Does anyone have a 5870, 5770, GT120 etc or something flashed I could buy as the ones on eBay are ridiculously expensive?

 

[tsialex]

New update: Mac is now booting into Mac OS and I've been able to remote in with work's remote access software but no graphics card seems to work (have now tried the original 5870, my 7950 and an r7 240), also it doesn't recognise any of the GPUs, nor the serial number of the machine in 'About This Mac'. That could just be because I pulled the hard drive out of an old iMac to save re-installing the OS + it already has the remote access software setup on it.

I'm still leaning towards a bad GPU but can't understand why neither of the other two work? Does anyone have a 5870, 5770, GT120 etc or something flashed I could buy as the ones on eBay are ridiculously expensive?

Save a SystemReport, compress it and upload it here - something is very weird.

 

[Snow Tiger]

An Apple sold GT120 has the EFI . It looks like this :

They are cheap and will boot any macOS on a cMP , although with Mojave it will have very low performance .

This card does not allow you to install macOS Mojave , though .

An EFI GT 120 will install Mac OS X / macOS 10.6.4 to 10.13.6 on a Mac Pro 5,1 . It will also allow you to install the Dosdude patched version of Catalina onto a cMP .

 

[MIKX]

Jimmy Arnott

What is the brand name of your hd 7970 Sapphire ? Gigabyte ? MSI ? HIS ? ? Is your GPU EFI flashed ? etc. This info PLUS a photo of the ports on the card always helps us work out your problem. Also saves us asking you unending questions re your Mac Pro setup, We are not mindreaders 😇

You could also go to your Macrumors Member profile. . look for "SIGNATURE" and type in everything important about your Mac Pro eg :
Which mac OS is installed
What is your current Bootrom version ?
Which GPU is installed; Brand & maker & RAM
etc.

My SIGNATURE is displayed at the bottom of this post

 

[Jimmy Arnott]

Save a SystemReport, compress it and upload it here - something is very weird.

I agree, thank you for having a look at this for me.
[automerge]1588875497[/automerge]

An Apple sold GT120 has the EFI . It looks like this :

View attachment 913012

They are cheap and will boot any macOS on a cMP , although with Mojave it will have very low performance .

This card does not allow you to install macOS Mojave , though .

An EFI GT 120 will install Mac OS X / macOS 10.6.4 to 10.13.6 on a Mac Pro 5,1 . It will also allow you to install the Dosdude patched version of Catalina onto a cMP .

Hi, I've had a look for one of those thinking it would be the cheapest option but could only find one on eBay for £45 which is a bit much just to test this machine with and probably will never be used again.
[automerge]1588875921[/automerge]

Jimmy Arnott

What is the brand name of your hd 7970 Sapphire ? Gigabyte ? MSI ? HIS ? ? Is your GPU EFI flashed ? etc. This info PLUS a photo of the ports on the card always helps us work out your problem. Also saves us asking you unending questions re your Mac Pro setup, We are not mindreaders 😇

You could also go to your Macrumors Member profile. . look for "SIGNATURE" and type in everything important about your Mac Pro eg :
Which mac OS is installed
What is your current Bootrom version ?
Which GPU is installed; Brand & maker & RAM
etc.
View attachment 913017


My SIGNATURE is displayed at the bottom of thi post

Thanks for the suggestion, I was going to do that in future if I had an issue but for the moment haven't decided if I will keep the CPUs, RAM, GPU, storage etc the same so for the moment the specs are:

CPU - 2x Xeon E5620 @ 2.4GHz
RAM - 32GB 1066MHz DDR3
500GB Hitachi HDD - OS 10.11
GPU - Radeon HD 5870 (This is the original card I presume came with the machine)

The 7950 I'm testing with is an XFX model and hasn't been flashed: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb...3_1588875785_ef212a469aa04c4ddc951a03a217e806

As for bootrom version: MP51.007F.B03

 

[tsialex]

I agree, thank you for having a look at this for me.

Besides having a lot of old cruft on your disk, I didn't found any immediate motive for this weird AboutMyMac screen.

Why it's not detecting any PCIe cards? Did you tried installing on the other slots?

Your Mac Pro BootROM is from 2010, btw.

 

[Snow Tiger]

An Apple manufactured ATI 5870 looks like this . It has a distinctive port configuration ( One DVI and two mini-Display Port ) . This card will have EFI :

If your card looks different , it did not come with EFI from the factory . But it might have been EFI flashed afterwards .

 

[Jimmy Arnott]

An Apple manufactured ATI 5870 looks like this . It has a distinctive port configuration ( One DVI and two mini-Display Port ) . This card will have EFI :

View attachment 913049

If your card looks different , it did not come with EFI from the factory . But it might have been EFI flashed afterwards .

Thanks for that, it's the same as the one you mentioned so it must be the the original or at least a compatible replacement.

 

[MIKX]

The 7950 I'm testing with is an XFX model and hasn't been flashed:

XFX GPUs are famous for being problematic due to their PCB design varying from the AMD standard.

Having said that I EFI flashed an XFX HD 5770 that works perfectly and is useful as it only requires a single Mini 6 pin to 6 pin power cable . . .

A 2nd. hand Sapphire or Gigabyte HD 7970 can be easily EFI flashedand will allow Mojave to be installed.
( Mojave 10.14.6 works very well now !).

The HD 7950 has a "BIOS SWITCH" which has two positions .. #1 & #2

What position is your 7950 set to ? It should be set to Position #2 - to change it .. shut down first then start up using the NVRAM 3 chime re-set . .

like this .. ( read the text under the keyboard illustration ! )

 

[Kaffe]

Hello!

I realize I'm a little late to the party, but thanks to Snow Tiger I got this machine up and running again. I had the same problem as all the other guys in all other threads, until i was reminded how the O.G. display adapter looked (gt120) which I had packed away long ago.
Plopped the card back in and booted right up.

Running 10.13.6 for nVidia support and while setting this PC up as a gaming machine for my sis it suddenly blacked out. I tried all the tips and tricks but nothing but replacing the GPU with original mac graphics would help..
This will mainly be a windows machine so I'm not too worried it'll happen again, but now you guys know.

It works.

 

[Ivandragul]

I have had a very similar issue as well. I bought a SAPPHIRE Radeon 11265-05-20G Pulse RX 580 8GB GDDR5 for the transition to a metal capable operating system which I didn't do yet. I'm using this on a Mac Pro 5.1 High Sierra 10.13 -I only had this installed for about a year and mid use my monitor went black. Tried all sorts of fixes, reseting tricks unplugging, holding down power button for programmer tone, switching locations for the SSD and GPU ect.

I've kept my old ATI and put it into the machine and it booted up properly and everything works. Not sure what the problem is but this is very disappointing for such an expensive piece of hardware to conk out after 1.5 years of use and have my old one still working.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I have had a very similar issue as well. I bought a SAPPHIRE Radeon 11265-05-20G Pulse RX 580 8GB GDDR5 for the transition to a metal capable operating system which I didn't do yet. I'm using this on a Mac Pro 5.1 High Sierra 10.13 -I only had this installed for about a year and mid use my monitor went black. Tried all sorts of fixes, reseting tricks unplugging, holding down power button for programmer tone, switching locations for the SSD and GPU ect.

I've kept my old ATI and put it into the machine and it booted up properly and everything works. Not sure what the problem is but this is very disappointing for such an expensive piece of hardware to conk out after 1.5 years of use and have my old one still working.

A graphic card usually has 3-year warranty coverage.
Couldn't you send it to the warranty service center?

 

[Ivandragul]

A graphic card usually has 3-year warranty coverage.
Couldn't you send it to the warranty service center?

unfortunately it's 2 years and just I didn't install it for about a couple months. Sapphire responded that it was over the 2 year warranty.

 

[Bill_kawa]

Hi guys,

I've just bought a Mac Pro 5,1 from Cex here in the UK (as they give a 2 year warranty with everything they sell), delivered yesterday afternoon and was working great. I then decided to install a later version of Mac OS onto a spare SSD I had instead of the aging 1TB spinning drive.

I shut the machine down, installed the SSD and my USB boot drive. Got into the setup, all the usual steps went fine and began the installation, came back after 10-15 minutes to a black screen but the mac was still powered on. Left it for a while and then tried switching it off and back on, this time I got nothing on the screen but still got the usual chime so I assumed everything was going to be okay. I've now been playing with this machine on an off this morning trying different RAM configurations, reseating GPU and CPU tray, removing drives, reset PRAM and CMOS, tried different monitors + cables, tried holding the power button to get into developer more (think that's what it's called), installed OS 10.11 from another mac to see if it would eventually boot into Mac OS but nothing.

The only thing I haven't tried is reseating the CPUs themselves but don't have a screwdriver long enough to get the heat sinks off annoyingly and trying a different GPU (but don't have a Mac flashed card lying around). Also checked the diagnostic LED's, none are showing up for RAM so I assume that's all fine, but the ones on the logic board I'm getting an orange 5V, PSU is green, SYS is green and after about 20 seconds the GPU lights up green too. As I mentioned, it chimes and I can hear the hard drive reading data so I'm assuming it's just a graphics card issue?

I'm waiting to hear back from Cex support about either replacement parts of a refund but in the meantime I was wondering if anyone had any ideas I could try?

Kind regards,
Jimmy

jimmy. I have the same problem. Did you find solution?