Mac Pro no chime at startup

[ITguy2016]

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough with what I wrote and omitted the word Hackintosh in reference to earlier comments. On paper they deliver much better performance for the same money, however there are clearly some caveats both legal and practical to purchasing one.

Given you use this system to earn a living I would steer clear of building a hackintosh. Simply put installing OS X on a non Apple computer is prohibited.

I have never actually sold a Mac, since they are invariably passed on to family members and used until the die, but if I was selling one I would never dream of including any software beyond the basic OS. Nowadays, I even wonder about that, since it's tied to your Apple ID.

I hope you didn't read my comment as to suggest you would do so. I was referring to some sellers I saw. For example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EIGHT-CORE-...629487?hash=item33abdba06f:g:lCAAAOSwMmBVkCzd

Clearly the seller is attempting to use the installed software as a selling point for the system.

As for OS X that's not a problem for the majority of situations. The licensing terms allow anyone to install the latest versions of OS X on any Macintosh system for which the OS is supported at no cost. It's not tied to your Apple ID (though that's how most people obtain the new OS). If you were to hand your current Mac down to someone else feel free to install the latest supported OS on it...it's perfectly legal to do so.

Looking at backup options it's now clear that I would have to spend a great deal of money to buy something new that beats this Mac Pro on heavy multi-core tasks. From passed experience, backup machines tend to remain unused unless the main one dies.

IMO a small price to pay in order to ensure I can continue business should my primary system fail. Given you don't appear to have a reliable / convenient means to service your existing systems the low cost of a backup system, even if sitting on the shelf, is well worth it. How much would it cost you to repair your existing system (depends on the issue but could easily be more than the cost of a backup system)? How much time would it take to get it repaired? What business impact would it have while you are working to have it repaired? What would be the impact to your businesses reputation as a result? IMO $800 is well worth the peace of mind having a backup on the shelf would bring. But this is only something you can decide...it's all about risk management.

If I were to buy a new machine, the 15" MacBook Pro, though massively expensive, would offer decent performance and I would be likely to use it, so it wouldn't just sit there gathering dust and a lot of the data could be synched. The other option is to by a cheap secondhand Mac Mini that can be used as a temporary measure when the Mac Pro is no longer viable.

My suggestion would be to buy a used, backup Mac Pro to have as a stand by. Given how inexpensive they are you can buy an equivalent system for a very reasonable cost. If that's still too high then perhaps you don't need as capable of a system (it's not uncommon to have a lesser configured system for use as a backup) which could drive the cost even lower. Plus you can use the backup system to troubleshoot the primary system. For example if you had a lower end backup Mac Pro you could grab the video card out of it and use it to test your primary system. Right now you're speculating the video card is the problem but cannot be certain. If you had a backup video card you'd know whether or not that is the problem. Plus you could continue to use the primary system until the replacement card arrives.

Finally there's the peace of mind of not having to deal with a failed piece of equipment at an inconvenient time. You could perform the troubleshooting / repair at your convenience and not a mad rush as you have to keep your business going.

Good luck!

 

[ashleykaryl]

If the replacement video card works as hoped I can spend some time looking for the right solution, but if not it becomes trickier, so hopefully I am not looking at weeks of expense and frustration.

It may be coincidental, but I never cleaned that video card unlike other visible parts because I was wary of damaging it, however there was a huge amount of dust in there after 5 years and I suspect that contributed to the sudden demise. In future I'll pull the card out every now and then for a quick clean with the blower brush.

 

[ITguy2016]

If the replacement video card works as hoped I can spend some time looking for the right solution, but if not it becomes trickier, so hopefully I am not looking at weeks of expense and frustration.

It may be coincidental, but I never cleaned that video card unlike other visible parts because I was wary of damaging it, however there was a huge amount of dust in there after 5 years and I suspect that contributed to the sudden demise. In future I'll pull the card out every now and then for a quick clean with the blower brush.

I suspect you're correct. I clean my systems out every six months or so. I use one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Metro-Vacuum..._SR160,160_&psc=1&refRID=6XR9M6N9RVZW08V4X6N2

 

[buster84]

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough with what I wrote and omitted the word Hackintosh in reference to earlier comments. On paper they deliver much better performance for the same money, however there are clearly some caveats both legal and practical to purchasing one.

I have never actually sold a Mac, since they are invariably passed on to family members and used until the die, but if I was selling one I would never dream of including any software beyond the basic OS. Nowadays, I even wonder about that, since it's tied to your Apple ID.

Looking at backup options it's now clear that I would have to spend a great deal of money to buy something new that beats this Mac Pro on heavy multi-core tasks. From passed experience, backup machines tend to remain unused unless the main one dies.

If I were to buy a new machine, the 15" MacBook Pro, though massively expensive, would offer decent performance and I would be likely to use it, so it wouldn't just sit there gathering dust and a lot of the data could be synched. The other option is to by a cheap secondhand Mac Mini that can be used as a temporary measure when the Mac Pro is no longer viable.

You can get an workstation that is far more capable than a mac as a replacement. You can also get them on ebay for alot cheaper if you dont mind older tech (yet newer than our mac pros) Workstation Hp

Considering you never upgraded your mac pro and your still on the quad core processors this would be a big upgrade for you.

This is the HP Workstation
This is your Mac Pro
This is a 12 core 3.46 (highest processor) Mac Pro

So depending on how much processor power you need or depending on if you need osx it you have options. Those 12 core chips will cost you about $450 plus labor which is as much as that HP workstation if you cant do the labor yourself. Doing it this way will net you a much faster mac pro with osx, but its a lot less for your money, but if you need osx then you dont really have many choices other than to stay at your current cpu power level or invest more into it. Or buy an alternative mac computer but the upgrade would net you a lot more cpu power for less.

People have turned that exact workstation into a hackintosh, not sure if it was easy or hard but i have read online that someone did it because even i considered it when the price is really good.

 

[ITguy2016]

You can get an workstation that is far more capable than a mac as a replacement. You can also get them on ebay for alot cheaper if you dont mind older tech (yet newer than our mac pros) Workstation Hp

Considering you never upgraded your mac pro and your still on the quad core processors this would be a big upgrade for you.

This is the HP Workstation
This is your Mac Pro
This is a 12 core 3.46 (highest processor) Mac Pro

So depending on how much processor power you need or depending on if you need osx it you have options. Those 12 core chips will cost you about $450 plus labor which is as much as that HP workstation if you cant do the labor yourself. Doing it this way will net you a much faster mac pro with osx, but its a lot less for your money, but if you need osx then you dont really have many choices other than to stay at your current cpu power level or invest more into it. Or buy an alternative mac computer but the upgrade would net you a lot more cpu power for less.

People have turned that exact workstation into a hackintosh, not sure if it was easy or hard but i have read online that someone did it because even i considered it when the price is really good.

OP said she is using a 2010 8 core, 2.4GHz Mac Pro.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Technically speaking I believe it's two separate 2.4Ghz quad core processors. There are 8 cores in total but I believe it also supports multi-threading so it's like 16 virtual and if I use something like Maya it shows CPU usage as 1600% in the activity monitor when rendering.

One app I use for web design is frustratingly slow on page previews and I think a large part of that is not being multi-core enabled. CPU quickly hits 100% and then I see spinning ball for several seconds while waiting for pages to preview. That is a case where a newer machine would probably perform better but it's ridiculous having a machine like this taking 30 seconds to preview a small page with some html.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Just a quick update to let you know the video card arrived this morning following a delay with the delivery and after fitting it all seems to be up and running again. For some reason the extensions have disappeared from Safari and not re-installing but I'll work that out. Apart from that it all looks good at the moment.

A big thank you for all the help and advice troubleshooting this issue that initially looked like it might be the end.