MP 1,1-5,1 My muted loved Mac Pro 5,1 will not boot

[jayhawk1947]

Help! My refurbished Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 has stopped booting. Nothing was done to it, but it stops once the boot screen progress bar comes up. Will not boot in recovery. I've put an installer USB in it and tried to boot but nothing happened.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[tsialex]

Help! My refurbished Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 has stopped booting. Nothing was done to it, but it stops once the boot screen progress bar comes up. Will not boot in recovery. I've put an installer USB in it and tried to boot but nothing happened.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Remove all disks and then see if you can boot from a createinstallmedia macOS USB installer. A USB v2.0 key of 8Gb/16GB size are the most compatible, a lot of USB v3.0 USB keys are not compatible with MacPro5,1 firmware.

Do you have an AppleOEM GPU to see if you still can get to the native BootPicker pressing ALT at boot time?

 

[jayhawk1947]

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping to hear from you.

I've tried what you suggest.

I was running Monterey with the Github patch. My first thought was the patch had been corrupted. It has two SSD's. One is an Samsung Eco 860, the other a NVME. Both were working fine until a couple of days ago. Since then I've tried to boot in recovery with every combination of SSD's and with none but the original Mojave installer I created some years ago.

I get the boot picker, then the progress bar and it stops with about one inch of white line showing.

I don't want to scrap it, but I have a very acceptable backup Mac. I've made sure all my data is on the disc, so I'm not going to lose anything important if I take this as a sign that it's dying.

Can you suggest anything else?

Thanks.

 

[tsialex]

Your first step in the elimination process is to be sure that is not a disk issue, try my suggestion first. Install your AppleOEM GPU, pre-boot configuration support is required with the diagnostic process.

 

[jayhawk1947]

Thanks for the reply. I tried what you suggest, and I got the boot tone but nothing else. No progress bar. I've also tried putting the USB drive in different ports, just to insure that it wasn't a I/O problem.

Got any other ideas?

Thanks.

 

[tsialex]

Did you measure the RTC battery voltage? The Panasonic BR2032 should be over 3.00V, under that requires replacement. Anything below 2.90V makes the Mac Pro go crazy.

Did you deep reseted the NVRAM?

Did you reset the SMC?

Did you tried another GPU?

Did you removed all other disks from the Mac Pro? Failed SATA drives, can lock the boot process. Always start with the assumption that all your disks are suspected of failure and need to be disconnected, DVD included.

When no disk or USB key is connected to the Mac Pro, the blinking folder screen appears?

Have you used this createinstallmedia USB key before to successfully boot your Mac Pro? Not all USB keys are bootable with a Mac Pro - I've warned about this from the start.

Are you trying to boot a supported macOS installer? You can't use Catalina forwards to diagnose your Mac Pro, Mojave will also have problems with an AppleOEM GPU. Stick to Sierra/High Sierra.

 

[jayhawk1947]

Thanks for the help.

I'll start at the top and work my way down. It will take me a while.

Regards,

 

[tsialex]

Also, don't forget that your early-2009 could have BootROM corruption, extremely common with cross-flashed Mac Pros.

 

[jayhawk1947]

OK. I decided to replace the battery first. While looking for the battery I removed the CPU chassis and found the right heatsink much hotter than the left. It was also a little bit loose. I removed it, repasted the chip and when replacing it I found the studs on the receiver for the fan motor were no longer in existence. It was old and used when purchased. I know the fan was working so I assume that when I installed it I must have spent some time getting it to plug in. I don't remember.

I have a second set of heatsinks so I used one of those. Now when attempting to boot nothing happens, but a red light comes on the right side of the CPU chassis (the one with the replaced heatsink). When turned off the over heat light on LH of back logic board comes on until the power cord is removed. I think I have a bad CPU on the right side. Do you agree?

 

[tsialex]

OK. I decided to replace the battery first. While looking for the battery I removed the CPU chassis and found the right heatsink much hotter than the left. It was also a little bit loose. I removed it, repasted the chip and when replacing it I found the studs on the receiver for the fan motor were no longer in existence. It was old and used when purchased. I know the fan was working so I assume that when I installed it I must have spent some time getting it to plug in. I don't remember.

I have a second set of heatsinks so I used one of those. Now when attempting to boot nothing happens, but a red light comes on the right side of the CPU chassis (the one with the replaced heatsink). When turned off the over heat light on LH of back logic board comes on until the power cord is removed. I think I have a bad CPU on the right side. Do you agree?

Possible and you can invert the Xeons to confirm, but do you have another CPU tray to test your Mac Pro before getting too much time into this problematic CPU tray?

 

[jayhawk1947]

No. The spare one I have has bent pins. I do have several lessor capable chips if one of them in the machine I use is dead. I'll swap the ones in the chassis around and see what happens.

Thanks for all your help. It is really appreciated!

Regards

 

[jayhawk1947]

Inverted te CPU's and light moved to other side. I think the next step is to install different chips and see what happens. Do you concur?

Regards

 

[tsialex]

Inverted te CPU's and light moved to other side. I think the next step is to install different chips and see what happens. Do you concur?

Regards

Yes, I'd test a new pair now.

 

[jayhawk1947]

New pair installed. All red lights off. But, original problem still exists. I'll go back to your original list and work my way through it. More later, and thanks for your help.

Regards

 

[jayhawk1947]

Originally, the machine booted to the progress bar. I then reset the NVRAM and now it chimes but nothing else and after a few minutes it shut off. I think this might be a problem with the old x5550 chips.

I also think this Mac is telling me it wants to retire and I'm starting to agree with it! It's a combination of 2009 original parts with upgraded chips(?), upgraded RAM, and an improved GPU and something in the mix has had enough. So have I.

I do have two other Mac minis and one of them is a few years old and would make a good toy to see what I might be able to improve in it.

Advice please. And, thank you.

Regards,

 

[tsialex]

I have a hunch that you have at least two problems, probably a CPU tray that is misbehaving and a corrupt BootROM.

If this was happening to me with a Mac Pro, I'd test each component top to bottom with a known working Mac Pro, but seems you don't have one right now to eliminate each defective component.

Maybe you can borrow a working Mac Pro from a friend or buy one on the cheap from a recycler. I'd do that, buying a working Mac Pro is a lot cheaper than the parts to repair one, obviously you need to keep your eyes open, takes sometime to find the really good offers.

I'd stop for now, without having a Mac Pro to test each component you will gonna have a tough time to find what is/are the real problem (probably more than one, my bet). Get your Mac minis working, while doing it you can try to find a cheap Mac Pro to diagnose yours.

 

[jayhawk1947]

I appreciate you diagnosis that I might have more than one problem and that it is going to take some time to find it.

I'm going to take you advice and think about how to move forward. It is a 14 year old computer that comes with its own limitations.

Once again, thank you for your kind assistance and advice. Your help has been invaluable.

Regards,

 

[tsialex]

Btw, you are still trying to boot your macOS install or your createinstallmedia USB installer?

 

[jayhawk1947]

No. I've quit trying to get it to boot. My intention was to try and roll back the OS to before I needed the patches. Initially, I thought that might be the problem. I had a Mojave installer on a USB drive that had been created on that machine. But, when I tried to get it to boot off the USB it would not. Also, during the time I was able to boot in recovery the USB drive would not be listed as an option. Eventually, it stopped booting in recovery. That's when I went here for advice.