MP 1,1-5,1 MPro 5.1 GFX trash and constantly crashing

[Bug-Creator]

The whole issue started some time ago with VLC just bombing out whenever I tried watch any movie. At the time I didn't think much of it as I was running Mojave-betas with flashed/modded Geforce and other movie players would still work.

At one point these also started to crash from time to time or would mess up the GFX of other apps, still thought the Geforce was to blame and when things got worse I went and put the original Radeon back. To my surprise that booted despite not being supported by Mojave but issues stayed. An attempt to go back to an older OS failed for it loosing contact to mouse and kbd (the versions that charge over Lightening) mid install....

At one point it would just crash on 60% of the boot up attempts and that when I took it apart. Things I have done sofar:

- Cleaned out dust-bunnies
- 2 different GFX cards
- New PRAM battery
- PRAM reset
- Various HD
- Got a 6core CPU-tray as a loaner

Result:

If I try to boot the bar below the Apple logo go to 50% and just stays there with the fans kicking in.

Edit:
- Got 4 new RAM sticks (also didn't help)

 

[Snow Tiger]

The whole issue started some time ago with VLC just bombing out whenever I tried watch any movie. At the time I didn't think much of it as I was running Mojave-betas with flashed/modded Geforce and other movie players would still work.

At one point these also started to crash from time to time or would mess up the GFX of other apps, still thought the Geforce was to blame and when things got worse I went and put the original Radeon back. To my surprise that booted despite not being supported by Mojave but issues stayed. An attempt to go back to an older OS failed for it loosing contact to mouse and kbd (the versions that charge over Lightening) mid install....

At one point it would just crash on 60% of the boot up attempts and that when I took it apart. Things I have done sofar:

- Cleaned out dust-bunnies
- 2 different GFX cards
- New PRAM battery
- PRAM reset
- Various HD
- Got a 6core CPU-tray as a loaner

Result:

View attachment 887986

If I try to boot the bar below the Apple logo go to 50% and just stays there with the fans kicking in.

Edit:
- Got 4 new RAM sticks (also didn't help)

Funny thing about Beta Mojave is that nVidia graphics cards were compatible in non-hardware acceleration mode . I got all excited about that at first , until support was dropped with the golden master .

Have you tried reinstalling your factory ATI 5770 EFI card to see if you can get your Mac stable ? It will run with Mojave but also without hardware acceleration ( no metal ) . You just can't use it to install that OS . It also probably won't run VLC , but we're just trying to figure out what's wrong . Probably should not have your nVidia card installed with the current configuration .

 

[Bug-Creator]

Went back to the Radeon a few times, I just can't get it to boot anymore (either from SSD or install media).

 

[Snow Tiger]

Went back to the Radeon a few times, I just can't get it to boot anymore (either from SSD or install media).

OK , let's start from the top . Please tell me your complete current configuration of your Mac . I'll try to determine if there is anything installed that is causing a problem .

Some common things that are not upgrade component related that would cause a start up failure would be :

Dust in the PSU .
Dust in some interface connection .
A failing memory module(s) .
A dying PSU .
Dried thermal paste on the Northbridge Controller Heatsink of your CPU Tray .
Broken push pins on the Northbridge Controller Heatsink of your CPU Tray .
A corrupted OS on your boot device .

 

[Bug-Creator]

>Dust in the PSU .
All removed
>Dust in some interface connection .
Removed (but will check again)
>A failing memory module(s) .
Got 6 8GB sticks no combination (of 2 or 4) seems to work, but at one point it 1 stick didn't show up (that when I was still running the original 4core tray)
>A dying PSU .
Thats my working theory atm (but no spare at hand)
>Dried thermal paste on the Northbridge Controller Heatsink of your CPU Tray .
Redone that on my tray, obviously I won't do it on the loaner (which is known good)
>Broken push pins on the Northbridge Controller Heatsink of your CPU Tray .
Checked on mine -> o.k.
>A corrupted OS on your boot device .
I did remove my SSD, push in an empty HD and tried to boot from USB (OSX install), some issue.

 

[Snow Tiger]

what make and models of memory are you using ? Its a good idea to use matching modules . Are you getting any red lights on the CPU Tray ? That would be a memory module failure . Remove any failed modules .

Also , what are your onboard diagnostics lights like when your Mac is on ( or if not on , then plugged into mains power ) . There is a small button on the upper left hand side of your logic board . Use a black stick or wooden dowel to continuously press it while there is mains power connected to Mac and tell me what the color of the lights are for each reported item .

 

[Bug-Creator]

On startup I get short red flash on the tray (2" left of the RAM banks) no light near the RAM

Mobo LEDs:
As far as I can tell there are 2 sets, 4 LEDs up and front and 3 more (with a gap) a little lower and back.


PowerOFF:Upper set dark-dark-dark-orange lower set dark-dark-dark
PowerON: Upper set dark-dark-green-orange lower set green-green-green

RAM:

 

[Snow Tiger]

On startup I get short red flash on the tray (2" left of the RAM banks) no light near the RAM

Mobo LEDs:
As far as I can tell there are 2 sets, 4 LEDs up and front and 3 more (with a gap) a little lower and back.


PowerOFF:Upper set dark-dark-dark-orange lower set dark-dark-dark
PowerON: Upper set dark-dark-green-orange lower set green-green-green

RAM:
View attachment 887993

OK , I found my list of LED Diagnostic indicator lights for this model ( Mac Pro 5,1 2010 ) .

Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1 ( Nehalem ) BackPlane Onboard LED Diagnostic Indicators :

Upper bank :

OVTMP CPUA
OVTMP CPUB
PSU PWROK
5V STBY
3.3V ( No light installed )
1.5V ( No light installed )
1.05V ( No light installed )


Lower bank :
SYS PG
PLT RS ( No light installed )
X1 PG ( No light installed )
EFI DONE
GPU OK
5V ( No light installed )
RSM RST ( No light installed )

During normal operation , the PSU PWROK is green , the 5V STBY is amber , the SYS PG is green and the EFI DONE is green .

The two CPU LED will normally blink red upon connection and disconnection of the power cord . If they stay on , then a CPU overtemp is occurring . The thermal paste would then need to be replaced or maybe there is a processor failure .

GPU OK should light up during start up , but I think you are required to have an EFI card . I think it also stays lit if there is an EFI graphics card installed . But its been so long since I last checked .
[automerge]1578755579[/automerge]
Based on your LED diagnostic light report , it seems your logic board is working properly .

Do you have access to a watt meter ? Like a Kill-A-Watt device ?

 

[Snow Tiger]

Your memory module model looks like it should be compatible , but I'm not 100 percent certain .

Known compatible 16GB modules for Mac Pro 4,1 > 5,1 and factory 5,1 are :

16GB = Samsung M393B2G70AH0-YH9 .

16GB = Samsung M393B2G70BH0-YH9 (low voltage) .

16GB = Micron MT36KSF2G72PZ-1G4 ( low voltage ) .

16GB = Samsung M393B2G70BH0-YK0 (1600 MHz) .

16GB = Nanya NT16GC72C4NB0NL-CG ( low voltage ) .

 

[Bug-Creator]

Small victory:

Found out that in addition to kbd-combo there is also button on the mobo for SMC-reset.

Stripped the Mac down (Radeon and some old 1TB HDD) and started installing HighSierra (the only install media I had at hand). This worked sofar with the minor hickup of my trackpad getting disconnected at one point (some firmware update that HS can't handle or what????).

Will see how far I get from here.

 

[tsialex]

Small victory:

Found out that in addition to kbd-combo there is also button on the mobo for SMC-reset.

Stripped the Mac down (Radeon and some old 1TB HDD) and started installing HighSierra (the only install media I had at hand). This worked sofar with the minor hickup of my trackpad getting disconnected at one point (some firmware update that HS can't handle or what????).

Will see how far I get from here.

Did you changed the clock to before October-24? If you are using a installer downloaded before that, the Apple signing certificates used expired October 24 and you have to back date the system clock or the installer will fail because of the expired certificates. Since than, Apple re-issued all recent macOS installers (10.11>) with new certificates.

macOS installs with BT keyboards/mice/trackpads are complicated, if you clear the NVRAM most times you lose pairing.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Not 100% sure bout the date of that installer,but it did eventually fail at one point, BT stuff was working till the installer asked for a reboot so pairing was still intact.

Anyways next think I tried was just booting into Mojave on the SSD with the Radeon installed (which had failed before), this is working atm, no GFX glitches, VLC still not working (this might be due to the not really Mojave supported GFX).

No idea what I did wrong/right

 

[tsialex]

Not 100% sure bout the date of that installer,but it did eventually fail at one point, BT stuff was working till the installer asked for a reboot so pairing was still intact.

Anyways next think I tried was just booting into Mojave on the SSD with the Radeon installed (which had failed before), this is working atm, no GFX glitches, VLC still not working (this might be due to the not really Mojave supported GFX).

No idea what I did wrong/right

Always start your debugging from a clean install, use High Sierra since ATI 5770 is not supported by Mojave AMD drivers. Even if show a screen and is somewhat useful, it won't have any hardware acceleration and won't play videos, for example.

You can backtrack the clock even from the createinstallmedia installer. Boot from it, open Terminal (it's on the Tools menu), then type:

date 102300002019

After that the certificates will be valid.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Just to give the a close....


Date doesn't seem to be an issue, but trying to install HS from an image seems to be broken. Downloaded the image twice and used 2 devices (a thumbdrive and a 1TB HDD with USB-2-SATA) they all failed.

In the end I hooked up the HDD to my Mini (running HS) and simply ran the install from there.

This still produces GFX probs with the Geforce but worked with the Radeon.

So it seems I had 2 issues, a defective GFX card and HS image being broken on Apple's side.....

 

[geo88]

Just wanted to share that I recently used createinstallmedia to create a High Sierra installer on a flash drive to install on a 2010 iMac. I also recently used this same method to install El Capitan on a 2014 Mac Mini.

This is what I had to do:

- Delete all prevously existing copies of the High Sierra installer from the Mac and reboot.
- Download the full installer from Apple.
- Follow the normal createinstallmedia procedure.
- Boot into the flash drive install media
- Before proceeding with the install, switch to Terminal, and use the date command to change the date.
- Switch back to the installer, and then continue with the install.