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scotjen1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2022
9
3
Hi All,

I hope some can help.

I have a mac pro 4,1 upgraded to 5,1 firmware. Upgraded CPU's and RAM.

Ive been using my MP in this configuration for a couple of years now and love this machine, its a beast even compared to some of todays hardware :)

Just recently my child was using it to watch some youtube videos and was using cheap headphones on it and unfortunately the jack of the headphones snapped in the front port. I tried various methods to remove it but was unsuccessful.

With that in mind i purchased a new front I/O board and swapped them over.

Ever since i have done the swap i have no functioning USB ports front or back. So at 1st i thought maybe the replacement I/O board was faulty and was knocking out the rears as i'm guessing they are all on the same controller so i swapped the board back over to the original one ( with the blocked headphone port ) and unfortunately i still have no working USB ports.

I've tried various things to get them to work I.E. reseating the ram, booting up with out any drives in etc etc and i just can't get the USB ports to work.

Can anyone offer some advice on this or is it a case that i have blown something on the logic board and will need a replacement.

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Thank you in advance
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,584
Hong Kong
Did you check if the BT still works?

Also, can you disconnect the front panel to make the back ports work again?
 

scotjen1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2022
9
3
Did you check if the BT still works?

Also, can you disconnect the front panel to make the back ports work again?
Do you mean Bluetooth ? I can’t check anything unfortunately as both my keyboard and mouse are USB so I can’t even log in to it.

If I disconnect the front panel how do I switch the machine on to test the back ports ?

Thanks
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,584
Hong Kong
If I disconnect the front panel how do I switch the machine on to test the back ports ?
Screenshot 2023-10-09 at 21.18.26.png
 

scotjen1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2022
9
3
Did you check if the BT still works?

Also, can you disconnect the front panel to make the back ports work again?
Ok just disconnected the front panel and powered on but still no working USB ports at the back.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,584
Hong Kong
Ok just disconnected the front panel and powered on but still no working USB ports at the back.
Then it seems the controller is really dead. A damaged USB device may create short circuit inside the USB port. A poorly designed motherboard can be killed just like that. But by considering the cMP's build quality is so good. May be only the USB controller is damaged this time.

Unless you can (de)solder the chip by yourself. I afraid that you will need a new logic board.

Of course, you can simply install a PCIe USB 2.0 card. That should be very cheap alternative. And should be good enough to replace the native USB 2.0 ports.

Then you can put a USB hub on top of the case, which connect to the PCIe card to give you some easy access to the USB ports.

However, I don't know what will happen in the long run since the damaged controller still attached. If it's completely dead, and won't do anything, then there is nothing to worry about. But we don't know if it will do anything weird to further damage the logic board.
 

scotjen1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2022
9
3
Then it seems the controller is really dead. A damaged USB device may create short circuit inside the USB port. A poorly designed motherboard can be killed just like that. But by considering the cMP's build quality is so good. May be only the USB controller is damaged this time.

Unless you can (de)solder the chip by yourself. I afraid that you will need a new logic board.

Of course, you can simply install a PCIe USB 2.0 card. That should be very cheap alternative. And should be good enough to replace the native USB 2.0 ports.

Then you can put a USB hub on top of the case, which connect to the PCIe card to give you some easy access to the USB ports.

However, I don't know what will happen in the long run since the damaged controller still attached. If it's completely dead, and won't do anything, then there is nothing to worry about. But we don't know if it will do anything weird to further damage the logic board.
Ok so it looks as though I’m going to have to replace the logic board.

Is there a certain logic board for the dual cpu tray or are they all generic ?

Thanks
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,437
13,581
Ok so it looks as though I’m going to have to replace the logic board.

Is there a certain logic board for the dual cpu tray or are they all generic ?

Thanks

Same backplane for single or dual CPU Mac Pros.


Do not forget that if you have an early-2009 CPU tray (SMC firmware version 1.39f5), you will need an early-2009 backplane. mid-2010/mid-2012 can be used interchangeably (both have the same SMC firmware version 1.39f11), but an early-2009 CPU tray is not compatible with a mid-2010/mid-2012 backplane, SMC firmware mismatch.


SMC is not upgrade-able.
 
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