MP 1,1-5,1 MP 5.1 Black screen after NVRAM reset

[EETagent]

Hello, recently I've got a new fully working Mac Pro 5.1. I've upgraded it with RX 580 and PCI-E m2 ( MP 5.1 is on latest bootrom ) card and everything worked fine for multiple days until I have recently reseted NVRAM. No start chime, black screen, Mac and GPU fans are spinning after that.
I have tried to get to the Recovery mode but without any success.

What i have tried so far
Another NVRAM reset
Multiple SMC resets
Unpluging M2 PCI-E card

What i have not tried so far
Changing RX 580 for GT 120
Changing CMOS battery


Did anyone already encountered this problem? What to do now? Thanks for help
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[crjackson2134]

What i have not tried so far
Changing RX 580 for GT 120
Changing CMOS battery

the 5,1 doesn't have a CMOS. The battery powers the internal clock.

What macOS version is installed?

 

[EETagent]

the 5,1 doesn't have a CMOS. The battery powers the internal clock.

What macOS version is installed?

macOS Mojave 10.14.6

 

[Macsonic]

macOS Mojave 10.14.6

Not sure if this fixes your problem. Maybe try to remove and reseat your RX 580 GPU and check the power cable is tightly connected. Another option is boot into a different Hard Drive with High Sierra or Sierra, this is to check your GPU and Mac Pro are both working fine; to isolate the problem. High Sierra and Sierra have native drivers for RX-580. I have a Sapphire RX-570 GPU and works fine in Sierra 10.12.6

 

[EETagent]

May I ask, what purpose are those 2 white buttons? One next to the battery? Manual PRAM Reset? The one under the first SATA slot is for diagnostic LEDs? Thanks

 

[MarkC426]

When you do a nvram reset, it resets to original configuration, because I had my original snow leopard drive installed it defaults to that, which my RX580 does not support (so black screen in my case).
Had to pull that drive and restart into recovery to select latest os.

 

[EETagent]

I checked diagnostic LEDs and from what i read it should be like in the first picture, but those two last LEDs blinks only for short amount of time. What does those 2 LEDs means?

 

[tommy chen]

 

[EETagent]

View attachment 879029

So, when GPU Ok doesn't show, that means that GPU is K.O? I seriously doubt that something harmful could happen to GPU during NVRAM reset

And Efi done means specifically what with Efi? Isn't that connected with the GPU too?

Thanks for help

 

[stockholm80]

I had the same issue and I just needed to unplug all my different monitors that were connected to my rx580 and only leave one screen connected to the DVI input. That allowed me to access the recovery partition and get things up and running again. Not sure it applies to your situation but maybe worth a try.

 

[tsialex]

So, when GPU Ok doesn't show, that means that GPU is K.O? I seriously doubt that something harmful could happen to GPU during NVRAM reset

And Efi done means specifically what with Efi? Isn't that connected with the GPU too?

Thanks for help

EFI DONE means that the BootROM was loaded and executed correctly.

GPU OK will only lit if you are using an Apple OEM GPU (Apple GPUs are GT120, HD 4870, HD 5770, HD 5780). Won't work for 3rd party GPUs, even if flashed.

 

[EETagent]

EFI DONE means that the BootROM was loaded and executed correctly.

GPU OK will only lit if you are using an Apple OEM GPU (Apple GPUs are GT120, HD 4870, HD 5770, HD 5780). Won't work for 3rd party GPUs, even if flashed.

So, when Efi done shows only once upon a time ( LED does not lit constantly ), that means that some serious damage happened to the bootrom?

 

[tsialex]

So, when Efi done shows only once upon a time ( LED does not lit constantly ), that means that some serious damage happened to the bootrom?

EFI DONE has to be lit every time you press the DIAG button, if it's not you probably have a corrupted SPI flash/BootROM.

 

[EETagent]

EFI DONE has to be lit every time you press the DIAG button, if it's not you probably have a corrupted SPI flash/BootROM.

Thanks for reply.

In other thread I read that you wrote about bad RAM when writing to the NVRAM. That's sadly look like problem I currently have, because all of that happened after NVRAM reset.

If I undrstand that correctly my only chances are

1) Buy a MATT card
2) Bring Mac to the Service
3) Desolder and reflash SPI flash myself

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for reply.

In other thread I read that you wrote about bad RAM when writing to the NVRAM. That's sadly look like problem I currently have, because all of that happened after NVRAM reset.

If I undrstand that correctly my only chances are

1) Buy a MATT card
2) Bring Mac to the Service
3) Desolder and reflash SPI flash myself

4) Buy a replacement backplane (sometimes you can find it for ~$50 on eBay) and replace it yourself, cheapest option of all if you can't desolder and reprogram the SPI flash.

 

[EETagent]

4) Buy a replacement backplane (sometimes you can find it for ~$50 on eBay) and replace it yourself, cheapest option of all if you can't desolder and reprogram the SPI flash.

Couldn't I use firmware restoration CD to restore Bootrom?
https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1320?locale=cs_CZ

 

[tsialex]

Couldn't I use firmware restoration CD to restore Bootrom?
https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1320?locale=cs_CZ

For sure you should try, but I never knew one case that it was successful to restore a corrupted SPI.