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Washac

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 2, 2006
2,531
134
Hi All

My Mac Pro has started to play up on booting recently.

When I first turn it on it starts the boot process :

Turn on.
Startup note.
Plain white screen for over 5 minutes.
Then the Apple logo appears and it all boots OK from there.

I have done a disc verify and it says all OK.

My boot disc has 95GB free space.

Machine details below.
 
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Have you checked "startup disk" system preference ?
 
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Have you checked "startup disk" system preference ?

Hi

What would need checking in there, it is set to boot from correct disc ?
 
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Washac said:
initialsBB said:
Have you checked "startup disk" system preference ?

Hi

What would need checking in there, it is set to boot from correct disc ?

Exactly, double check that the OS X boot volume is selected.

If that doesn't work, try booting with the ALT key pressed then manually select the OS X volume and see how that goes.

Long boot time may also be linked to faulty RAM modules. Check this after the boot volume.
 
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Exactly, double check that the OS X boot volume is selected.

If that doesn't work, try booting with the ALT key pressed then manually select the OS X volume and see how that goes.

Long boot time may also be linked to faulty RAM modules. Check this after the boot volume.


Hi

OK, holding down the Alt key at boot does nothing in fact the machine just hangs at the white screen.

Memory diagnostics according to Sysytem Profiler is all OK.
 
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Installed any new software recently ? Trie booting with all external devices unplugged ?
 
I had this problem it turns out it was an issue with an external drive. Unplug everything, try again. Also try reset PMU, PRAM and VRAM i that doesn't work.
 
Hi

Ever felt really really stupid ?

The last few days I had been using a couple of SD card readers in two of the machines
USB ports, even though they had no cards in I had left them plugged in. Removed them, problem solved.

Thanks for the pointer, still find that strange though.
 
Hi

Ever felt really really stupid ?

The last few days I had been using a couple of SD card readers in two of the machines
USB ports, even though they had no cards in I had left them plugged in. Removed them, problem solved.

Thanks for the pointer, still find that strange though.

Yup, computers ARE strange. It's ok we've all been there. I just solved my problem, my computer was just randomly having black screen of death.

It turns out the Graphics card was just simply unplugged and rattling around in it's port. Took alot of very frustrating hours and pain to figure that out. GO figure.

As long as you figure it out it's ok!
 
I've noticed that the more drives you have or the more things you have plugged in that the MP can potentially boot from causes the MP to do allot of "looking around" during start up.
 
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Washac said:
Hi

Ever felt really really stupid ?

The last few days I had been using a couple of SD card readers in two of the machines
USB ports, even though they had no cards in I had left them plugged in. Removed them, problem solved.

Thanks for the pointer, still find that strange though.

^^
 
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