iMac Pro Two Serious Problems With New 10-core iMac Pro

[Bengaldad]

On December 26, 2017 I took delivery of a 10-core iMac Pro. From the time of its arrival I have had two serious problems that may or may not be related. (1) External USB3 hard drives (I have tried a variety from different manufacturers) attached to the ports on the back of the iMac Pro are ejected 95% of the time when I wake the iMac Pro from sleep. If I restart, the external USB3 hard drives reappear and function perfectly until the next time I put the iMac Pro to sleep . They do not dismount during use. The only setting I have checked in System Preferences>Energy Saver is “prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off”. (2) If I have any USB3 hard drives attached to the ports on the rear of the iMac Pro, I am unable to boot into Windows 10 (freshly installed using Bootcamp Assistant icensed version ). If all the USB3 external hard drives are unplugged from the iMac Pro, I am able to boot perfectly into Windows 10 provided I use the procedure of System Preferences>Startup Disk, click on Bootcamp, and select restart. If I try to use the method of holding the Option key and restarting to bring up the Startup Manager and then select Windows, I am unable to boot into Windows either with or without USB3 hard drives attached. Windows simply hangs at the Windows logo with endlessly spinning circle of white dots.

To solve these problems I have tried: (1) resetting the SMC Controller; (2) Resetting the NVRAM; (3) completely reinstalling the Mac OS High Sierra software using Command>Recovery; (3) Using a variety of USB3 HD’s from different manufactures. None of this has resolved the two issues. I am now able to use my new iMac Pro with only the supplied keyboard attached to a USB port on the back of the iMac Pro and two external Thunderbolt HD’s (which do not produce any problems).

Any solution that you can supply to these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Tom Wheeler

 

[Redneck1089]

I do not have this issue with my 10-core machine.

At this point, after everything that you have already tried, I would contact Apple and see if you can arrange a replacement.

 

[Bengaldad]

I have been in contact with four different Apple Support people for almost two weeks. I have not been able to get Apple to offer to replace the machine until "my case is resolved". My two week window to return the machine to Apple expired yesterday. I have Apple Care, but it is not doing me much good.

 

[Trebuin]

I have been in contact with four different Apple Support people for almost two weeks. I have not been able to get Apple to offer to replace the machine until "my case is resolved". My two week window to return the machine to Apple expired yesterday. I have Apple Care, but it is not doing me much good.

are the three usb 3.0 drives different brand/models? It's odd that bootcamp isn't starting. I've seen something similar in the past with a corrupt external drive that the mac try to identify during the option boot menu...it basically would hang until I pulled the drive out. See if you can get to the boot menu while it fails to load, and unplug the drive while it is in a stuck state. If it recovers, see if you can do a file system check on one or more of those drives. If they are NTFS, see if you can use paragon NTFS to do the disk check on them.

 

[QuickstartBridg]

I am now able to use my new iMac Pro with only the supplied keyboard attached to a USB port on the back of the iMac Pro

I don't have an iMac Pro, but isn't the keyboard wireless? You state it is attached to a USB port. What is the effect on your problems by using the keyboard in the wireless state?

 

[Beachguy]

I would suggest (if possible) to bring it to an Apple Store or authorized service center. That, or magic incantations and rubbing eye of newt on the screen, followed by no less than one hour of chanting. But I think the service center is a better idea. Eye of newt is so hard to clean up.

 

[Trebuin]

I don't have an iMac Pro, but isn't the keyboard wireless? You state it is attached to a USB port. What is the effect on your problems by using the keyboard in the wireless state?

I have a pro and had the 2017 and the wireless keyboard frequently does not connect during the boot phase. If you have a logitech USB wifi keyboard, then that tends to stay connected on power-up because the bluetooth or 2.4 transmission is managed by the usb part and translated directly to keyboard inputs.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

I have been in contact with four different Apple Support people for almost two weeks. I have not been able to get Apple to offer to replace the machine until "my case is resolved". My two week window to return the machine to Apple expired yesterday. I have Apple Care, but it is not doing me much good.

Try and do the return anyway. A lot of time they will give you some grace on that, especially with the problems you have been having.

For future reference though, if the thing is this messed up in the first week of use....don't try and run it through Apple Care. Just return it.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

When the iMac Pro goes to sleep, same as ordinary iMac, power is denied to the external and the eject. Have seen this with many model iMacs. Same with recharging trackpad power is not available when the iMac goes to sleep.

Best conclusion is cloning and connect externals when you want to backup, say weekly.

 

[Bengaldad]

I have been in contact with four different Apple Support people for almost two weeks. I have not been able to get Apple to offer to replace the machine until "my case is resolved". My two week window to return the machine to Apple expired yesterday. I have Apple Care, but it is not doing me much good.

are the three usb 3.0 drives different brand/models? It's odd that bootcamp isn't starting. I've seen something similar in the past with a corrupt external drive that the mac try to identify during the option boot menu...it basically would hang until I pulled the drive out. See if you can get to the boot menu while it fails to load, and unplug the drive while it is in a stuck state. If it recovers, see if you can do a file system check on one or more of those drives. If they are NTFS, see if you can use paragon NTFS to do the disk check on them.

Two of The three external USB3 HD's that I used are new Western Digital HD's. I also plugged a SanDisk Extreme 64 Gb flash drive into the USB3 port on the iMac Pro, and it to was ejected when the iMac Pro was awakened from sleep. I then tried a USB3 HD in an Orico multi interface external enclosure using the USB3 interface on the Orico. It too was ejected upon waking the iMac pro from sleep.

I did try unplugging the USB3 HD's from the iMac Pro when Windows was stuck at the Windows logo screen with the spinning white dots. That had no effect and Windows would not complete the boot process. If I shut down the computer and tried again with all USB3 devices disconnected form the iMac pro, it booted fine into Windows 10. I don't see the file system on all four of these HD's that I tried as being corrupted since all of them have been working fine on my Macs other than the iMac Pro.

 

[Trebuin]

Two of The three external USB3 HD's that I used are new Western Digital HD's. I also plugged a SanDisk Extreme 64 Gb flash drive into the USB3 port on the iMac Pro, and it to was ejected when the iMac Pro was awakened from sleep. I then tried a USB3 HD in an Orico multi interface external enclosure using the USB3 interface on the Orico. It too was ejected upon waking the iMac pro from sleep.

I did try unplugging the USB3 HD's from the iMac Pro when Windows was stuck at the Windows logo screen with the spinning white dots. That had no effect and Windows would not complete the boot process. If I shut down the computer and tried again with all USB3 devices disconnected form the iMac pro, it booted fine into Windows 10. I don't see the file system on all four of these HD's that I tried as being corrupted since all of them have been working fine on my Macs other than the iMac Pro.

Keep in mind that Apple hates it if you pull a drive without manually ejecting them. I would back up your smallest drive, reformat it, then test it out again. Test it against that windows boot as that may be the big key indicating there's an issue.

 

[Bengaldad]

Keep in mind that Apple hates it if you pull a drive without manually ejecting them. I would back up your smallest drive, reformat it, then test it out again. Test it against that windows boot as that may be the big key indicating there's an issue.

I have NEVER removed the external USB3 hard drives without first ejecting them. This "drives were improperly ejected" message appear when I wake the iMac Pro from sleep. I have reformatted the HD's more than once, and tested in both Windows 10 and Mac OS High Sierra. The problems remain.

 

[Trebuin]

I have NEVER removed the external USB3 hard drives without first ejecting them. This "drives were improperly ejected" message appear when I wake the iMac Pro from sleep. I have reformatted the HD's more than once, and tested in both Windows 10 and Mac OS High Sierra. The problems remain.

The only thing that comes to mind is a possible IO bus issue. I'll check my system when I get home to see if I have the same issues.

 

[bxs]

I have NEVER removed the external USB3 hard drives without first ejecting them. This "drives were improperly ejected" message appear when I wake the iMac Pro from sleep. I have reformatted the HD's more than once, and tested in both Windows 10 and Mac OS High Sierra. The problems remain.

The "Disk Not Ejected Properly" issue is an ongoing problem that Apple seems to have difficulty nailing down and fixing. I get it all the time when sleeping and waking my 15" MBP13,3 and MP6,1, as do many other Mac users.

 

[mcaswell]

I saw the same issue (USB drives being improperly ejected on sleep) with my 8-core, though it was inadvertent in my case. I don't want my computer to sleep at all, as I have it run backups in the wee hours of the morning, so I have it set to never go to sleep. I do, however, want the monitor to shut off, and usually when I'm done working for a while, I'll hit the key combination that shuts off the monitor (shift-control-eject) rather than leaving to to shut off on its own after an hour or so, but I was accidentally hitting the keyboard shortcut for sleeping the computer.

 

[anticipate]

This may be tangentially related, but when I installed the latest 10.13.3 (17D2034a) beta, only USB-C attached storage devices work. This didn't happen on my MacBook (initially I thought it did, but I hadn't powered the hub I was trying). There's something weird going on with the USB-A ports in this thing.

FWIW it worked fine on 10.12.

 

[lali]

I have been in contact with four different Apple Support people for almost two weeks. I have not been able to get Apple to offer to replace the machine until "my case is resolved". My two week window to return the machine to Apple expired yesterday. I have Apple Care, but it is not doing me much good.

Hi Bengaldad,
The key here is your interactions with apple support, if they were during your return window or not and if they were logged (case id number). If it was done within your return window and you have a case id, they should honor a replacement even if you are outside the window. Saw it firsthand at my local apple store tonight. Keep at it and ask for a replacement

 

[Trebuin]

I'm not able to reproduce the issue. I'm sorry I can't really help beyond this.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

A suggestion.
Just something to try for a few days.
Won't hurt anything.

Why don't you try setting up the IMPro so that it NEVER GOES TO SLEEP?
At least everything other than the display.
You should be able to set this up in the energy saver pref pane.

DO let the display sleep at the time interval you specify.
But let the rest of it stay "up and running".

Try it this way for 3 days.
Do the problems persist?

Personal observation:
In the days of platter-based drives, perhaps it made sense to "put them to sleep" and spin them down.
But now -- with the drives flash-based -- how much power do they actually save when "sleeping"?
How much more energy does the RAM use when sleeping vis-a-vis when awake?

The display is really the component that uses energy and experiences "wear".
So... put it to sleep and let the "rest of the machine" stay alive...

 

[driftless]

On December 26, 2017 I took delivery of a 10-core iMac Pro. From the time of its arrival I have had two serious problems that may or may not be related. (1) External USB3 hard drives (I have tried a variety from different manufacturers) attached to the ports on the back of the iMac Pro are ejected 95% of the time when I wake the iMac Pro from sleep. If I restart, the external USB3 hard drives reappear and function perfectly until the next time I put the iMac Pro to sleep . They do not dismount during use. The only setting I have checked in System Preferences>Energy Saver is “prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off”. (2) If I have any USB3 hard drives attached to the ports on the rear of the iMac Pro, I am unable to boot into Windows 10 (freshly installed using Bootcamp Assistant icensed version ). If all the USB3 external hard drives are unplugged from the iMac Pro, I am able to boot perfectly into Windows 10 provided I use the procedure of System Preferences>Startup Disk, click on Bootcamp, and select restart. If I try to use the method of holding the Option key and restarting to bring up the Startup Manager and then select Windows, I am unable to boot into Windows either with or without USB3 hard drives attached. Windows simply hangs at the Windows logo with endlessly spinning circle of white dots.

To solve these problems I have tried: (1) resetting the SMC Controller; (2) Resetting the NVRAM; (3) completely reinstalling the Mac OS High Sierra software using Command>Recovery; (3) Using a variety of USB3 HD’s from different manufactures. None of this has resolved the two issues. I am now able to use my new iMac Pro with only the supplied keyboard attached to a USB port on the back of the iMac Pro and two external Thunderbolt HD’s (which do not produce any problems).

Any solution that you can supply to these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Tom Wheeler

I assume you "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" unchecked in Energy Saver as well?

 

[hfg]

Have you tried the "Jettison" app ?

http://www.stclairsoft.com/Jettison/

https://www.macworld.com/article/11...ly-unmounts-volumes-when-your-mac-sleeps.html

 

[Lightsaber]

Have similiar issues with a 2013 New Mac Pro where the xeon usb3 chipset has issues with usb3 drives. You may want to try a thunderbolt dock with usb3 ports to get around the issue.

 

[OBirder]

We experience the same as the OP. I have 10+ external drives connected. One SSD drive via USC C and the rest on two USB 3 hubs. The HD's on the hub showed ejected messages when the iMac went to sleep.

So as recommended I dim the display, but prevent the computer from sleeping. In addition I unchecked put hard drives to sleep. This has worked for me so far. Most drives stop spinning anyway after a while.
[doublepost=1515742625][/doublepost]

Have similiar issues with a 2013 New Mac Pro where the xeon usb3 chipset has issues with usb3 drives. You may want to try a thunderbolt dock with usb3 ports to get around the issue.

Would be interesting to hear if anyone tried a thunderbolt / USB C to USB 3 hub and it prevented the disconnect when going to sleep. If yes, what hub was used.

 

[Bengaldad]

I appreciate all the folks who have posted to this thread.

Here is an update to the status of my problems with the USB drives attached to my iMac Pro ejecting anytime the iMac Pro is taken out of sleep. I have determined that the issue occurs with multiple brands of eternal USB hard drives and occurs with both a Sandisk Extreme 64GB USB3 flash drive and a Kingston 16 GB USB2 flash drive as well. Please note that I do not have "Put Drives to sleep when possible" checked in System Preferences>Energy Savor and I do have "Never Put computer to sleep" checked.

I did file a case with Apple on this issue during my two week return period fully defining the problem. I have contacted Apple Support a total of four times regarding the issue and followed all of their suggestions. For more than a week I have been working with an Apple Senior Advisor who, in turn, is working with an Apple Engineering Team to address both the issue with the USB drives ejecting when I wake up the iMac Pro and the issue with Startup>Option Key>Startup Manager>Bootcamp disk not booting into Windows (hanging at the Windows logo/startup screen). I believe these two problems are related because I can boot into Windows 10 if no USB drives are attached to the iMac Pro and if I use the procedure System Preferences>Startup Disk>Bootcamp>Restart without any problems, but not with the procedure employing the Option Key. .

To date these issues have not been resolved, but the Apple Engineering Team and my Senior Advisor are still working on the problem and I expect a phone call today from my Senior Advisor. I would prefer to resolve the issues with this machine rather than having to return it to Apple for either repair or replacement. However, if no resolution to these two issues occurs in a reasonable period of time, then I will request a replacement of the iMac Pro. I have a full folder of e-mails documenting my contacts with Apple Support all the way back to the day after I received the iMac Pro.

Tom

 

[Mago]

Try different Cable, some poor shielded USB3 cables creates noise captured by the Mac controllers and the symptoms are the ones you describe (even random disconnects, also sometimes your WiFi fails too, blame this those poor USB3 cables), It happened to me with enclosures from startech.com (the ones with integrated cable) and almost exclusively with Spinners HDD, much less often on SSD, swith to enclosures with USB-C cable and get a descent USB-A<==>USB-C cable from Amazon Basics or the ones that comes with new high end Android Phones, use to have good shielding plus the USB-C connector its less prone to noise.