MP 1,1-5,1 WTF? Happened here? 4,1>> 5,1 144.0.0.0.0 Rx580 install

[mertisrules]

I turn to you because I am forever grateful to you all who have shown me the way to hot rod my Mac Pro.
Right now, I’m losing this battle and I hope you guys will see the course of action I cannot.

So I’ll be as clear as possible:

• last year- level up to 10.13.6 and 144.0.0.0.0
• install NVME 870 PROs on High Point 7101a— 1Tb and a 512Gb all good with GTX 980 flashed by MVC but understanding that there would be no more support from NVIDIA — start looking at Mojave and a Metal Card
• This year installed Sapphire Pulse RX580 with appropriate dual mini 6 to 8 pin PCIe for aux A & aux B power
• Smooth! and apps I run work great in Mojave. Pro Tools, Adobe, lots of others.
• Less than 2 months of working during a Zoom session with Pro Tools etc. system shuts down.
• 12 hours later I figured overheating triggered a Thermal shutdown but now won’t boot, no Chime- can’t get a screen from Rx580 — in any slot-- tear down to minimum config--whew! just prolly fried the card.
• not only am I past my return window BUT Sapphire ATI whoever won’t do RMAs cuz, well, Mac OS- Nvr even heard BACK!
• roll back to Hi Sierra and GTX 980 start looking into NB Heatsink repasting my X5690’s
• pulled proc board. Looked totally baked.
• New proc board (661-4998) clean & new paste --new retainer pins NB Heatsink
• STILL no Mojave/Rx580 Boot
• AHT finds nothing.
• PSU? Back Plane?
• Nothing obvious with PSU clean, but cleaned it and fans again (I keep all the air filtered so it there is any dust- it’s tiny)
• Replace Back Plane. (SMC Version Match- 1.39f5) Find a little something in the bottom of case— Yes, must be problem! I’ll show you a pic.
• Maybe I got a bad card, maybe I fried it
• so New RX580
• All the while, of course doing SMC resets and Triple Chime NVRAM clears
• And NOW:
• Boots in Mojave BUT no Visual. Black Screen. Looking through the eyes of ScreenShare I see:
• RX 580 card number 1 (new)- no fans; Menu Bar — Screen Mirror options- Connected projector: Unknown Display
• SYS INFO-Graphics/Display- unknown display
• Run Mojave installer? Negative. Error must have metal gfx card
• Second (my OG) RX580 – fans at power on, then they slow, then MP shuts itself off into a continual boot loop

So what happened? I guess it doesn't find drivers? but they are installed with OS X and yeah, I’ve made new installers, I’ve tried wiping/reinstalling. I believe I’ve done everything (except code hacks and just buying another flipping machine to swap parts back and forth) I can find. But obviously I've left something undone.
Can you see it?
I don’t want to give up though, so please let me know your thoughts and ideas. I'd do pretty much anything-- well, except for installing windows...

Thanks for listening!

 

[Macschrauber]

For the back plane capacitor it is obvious: Solder it back to C 9810, U symbol (cathode) is the bar

If I got you wrong and you have no other back plane I can check one of mine.

btw: Why is your CPU board fried ? Fan malfunction ? You had air filters in front of the fans ?

 

[Chips Stephens]

Cathode or striped end of cap, goes away from the "C" marking.

I also highly recommend not running patch cables to the back plane, dragging current across the backplane on the old 5,1 is just not a good idea with modern video cards, yet it may work for you, for awhile anyway.
pixlas mod it, or the like and pull power from the power supply.

 

[mertisrules]

For the back plane capacitor it is obvious: Solder it back to C 9810, U symbol (cathode) is the bar

If I got you wrong and you have no other back plane I can check one of mine.

btw: Why is your CPU board fried ? Fan malfunction ? You had air filters in front of the fans ?

Thanks for the reply. I never would have noticed that just looking at the circuit board but I saw it at the bottom after I pulled the BackPlane. And yes, I had already gotten another to install.

As far as heat goes- I’ve had to have it in an IsoBox — like a mini machine room. I knew heat would be an issue eventually so I’ve monitored temps for years and change the air filter more often and open the door when I could. But yeah, some plastic is brittle and some rubber is well, not elastic anymore.
So I was hoping new boards = new computer. Works really well with 10.13.6 and GTX980 though. That’s why I’m a little frustrated.

 

[mertisrules]

Cathode or striped end of cap, goes away from the "C" marking.

I also highly recommend not running patch cables to the back plane, dragging current across the backplane on the old 5,1 is just not a good idea with modern video cards, yet it may work for you, for awhile anyway.
pixlas mod it, or the like and pull power from the power supply.

That’s cool, man thanks for that. I might have to start practicing solder skills with this one.
Good point about power. Is that because of heat or just the age of the circuitry? Imma thinking gonna get hold of a different psu and do that.

 

[Chips Stephens]

Well it is just an somewhat educated guess, as I have not troubleshot the backplane to the component level, and may not, as I have no schematic, or layout, but do know caps fail, resistance rises, so a voltage drop starts accruing, that in turn makes heat to only make things worse.
I could write a book on caps...
As they fail they take other things out as well, be it transistors, tubes, whatever. But 99% of the time failures start with a bad cap, May be best to try and find a known good backplane on eBay as new as you can afford, 2012 is best. And an updated boot rom helps and saves hassle.
I just did this, and a new power supply to boot, nice to have boot and sleep working again as it should.
I see you are a music guy, me too.
This is two channels of neve 1073, mic preamps in a one u rack I am working on , “with eq...
But I digress...

 

[tsialex]

SMC version 1.39f5 says that your Mac Pro is an early-2009.

When you replaced the backplane, did you got the replacement already cross-flashed with a MP5,1 firmware? MP4,1 firmwares won't work with Westmere Xeons (E56xx, L56xx, X56xx, W36xx), only Nehalem (E55xx, L55xx, X55xx, W35xx). You have to install a Nehalem Xeon and cross-flash to MP5,1 if the backplane still have a MP4,1 BootROM, your original post don't make it clear.

 

[mertisrules]

Well it is just an somewhat educated guess, as I have not troubleshot the backplane to the component level, and may not, as I have no schematic, or layout, but do know caps fail, resistance rises, so a voltage drop starts accruing, that in turn makes heat to only make things worse.
I could write a book on caps...
As they fail they take other things out as well, be it transistors, tubes, whatever. But 99% of the time failures start with a bad cap, May be best to try and find a known good backplane on eBay as new as you can afford, 2012 is best. And an updated boot rom helps and saves hassle.
I just did this, and a new power supply to boot, nice to have boot and sleep working again as it should.
I see you are a music guy, me too.
This is two channels of neve 1073, mic preamps in a one u rack I am working on , “with eq...
But I digress...

Ahhh. True. That’s what’s a little intimidating to me about circuit boards in general- not having the gear or knowledge to get down to the components. Bad ass Neve dude!

 

[mertisrules]

SMC version 1.39f5 says that your Mac Pro is an early-2009.

When you replaced the backplane, did you got the replacement already cross-flashed with a MP5,1 firmware? MP4,1 firmwares won't work with Westmere Xeons (E56xx, L56xx, X56xx, W36xx), only Nehalem (E55xx, L55xx, X55xx, W35xx). You have to install a Nehalem Xeon and cross-flash to MP5,1 if the backplane still have a MP4,1 BootROM, your original post don't make it clear.

Thank you for your response. I apologize for not including that - just got paranoid it was already too long. I made sure to pick up a board that was flashed to 5,1 as well as had BootROM already 144. So I wouldn’t have to do that (again) not that it’s difficult but I wanted to just drop it in and get back to work. Can/should it be redone? I understand there’s a limit but what would be in there that would be ok to boot with GTX 980 and prevent RX 580 from being recognized? And that multiple NVRAM resets won’t clear.

 

[tsialex]

Thank you for your response. I apologize for not including that - just got paranoid it was already too long. I made sure to pick up a board that was flashed to 5,1 as well as had BootROM already 144. So I wouldn’t have to do that (again) not that it’s difficult but I wanted to just drop it in and get back to work. Can/should it be redone? I understand there’s a limit but what would be in there that would be ok to boot with GTX 980 and prevent RX 580 from being recognized? And that multiple NVRAM resets won’t clear.

BootROM corruption can make GPUs to not work correctly, but it's a lot more common NVIDIA GPUs to stop working when a BootROM has problems and AMD GPUs to keep working.

Test your RX 580/cables/display combo with a PC before doing anything, this could be GPU problems.

 

[mertisrules]

BootROM corruption can make GPUs to not work correctly, but it's a lot more common NVIDIA GPUs to stop working when a BootROM has problems and AMD GPUs to keep working.

Test your RX 580/cables/display combo with a PC before doing anything, this could be GPU problems.

Roger that, Gold Leader. I was kinda thinking/hoping that although possible the probability would slant the odds in my favor \./ I’ve gotta find some one who knows their windows well and can run a few tests.

 

[mertisrules]

Just on the off chance it could use a lil mo juice- some cables that just arrived allowed me to swap out and add in from an empty SATA to feed EVGA PowerLink purchased with new Rx580. Same. Good thing tomorrow’s another day.
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one more thing before I go-- screenshot of Display prefs booted to Mojave black screen. photo courtesy of network screen share.

 

[tsialex]

Do you have a dump of the BootROM?

 

[tsialex]

BTW, you can dump your BootROM with ROMTool, zip password is "rom", save the dump somewhere safe, then flash the generic MP51.fd image from 10.14.5/10.14.6 Mojave installer.

Install\ macOS\ Mojave/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/Firmware/MP51.fd

This generic image don't have any hardwareIDs, but has a totally clean NVRAM volume. This procedure will prove if it's your BootROM is the problem. If your GPU then work, it's a BootROM corruption problem, if not you have a hardware problem somewhere else.

After testing with MP51.fd SPI flash image, flash back the saved dump to your Mac Pro.

 

[mertisrules]

Copy that. I will collect all that and report back. Thanks

 

[mertisrules]

Thanks for that. I’ve dumped it somewhere safe and will attempt the flash in a few. Question- when I did a quick test to see if I could- the ROMtool looked like it was only willing to open .bin not a .fd
I’ll put some effort into it once I return.
Thanks very much

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for that. I’ve dumped it somewhere safe and will attempt the flash in a few. Question- when I did a quick test to see if I could- the ROMtool looked like it was only willing to open .bin not a .fd
I’ll put some effort into it once I return.
Thanks very much

Just rename the extension, from .fd to .rom or .bin.

 

[mertisrules]

I figured, cuz I'll do that with other files-- just didn't know I could do that with more 'official' files too.
But that's exactly what I was looking to do!

So, yeah, results are in and
it must be a friggin card DOA
same symptoms (and I tried both cards too) same effect. At one point I had gotten distracted and forgot where I was and I went to sys info and saw Serial Number System-- Info not available-- and because there's not any hardware ID in that NVRAM I quickly remembered where I was.

I am I correct in guessing that I fried the first card and second card was defective?

I'm sending the defective hardware back (I'm currently pissed off at Amazon and got this one from Newegg)
Another rule of troubleshooting is Just b/c it's new don't mean it works.

Oh and I finally got a clean and complete ASD so I'll play around with that (in HS 10.13.6) until the replacement arrives. I'll update when that happens.

Thank you very much for your experience, assistance and guidance. Very much appreciated!

 

[tsialex]

I figured, cuz I'll do that with other files-- just didn't know I could do that with more 'official' files too.
But that's exactly what I was looking to do!

So, yeah, results are in and
it must be a friggin card DOA
same symptoms (and I tried both cards too) same effect. At one point I had gotten distracted and forgot where I was and I went to sys info and saw Serial Number System-- Info not available-- and because there's not any hardware ID in that NVRAM I quickly remembered where I was.

I am I correct in guessing that I fried the first card and second card was defective?

I'm sending the defective hardware back (I'm currently pissed off at Amazon and got this one from Newegg)
Another rule of troubleshooting is Just b/c it's new don't mean it works.

Oh and I finally got a clean and complete ASD so I'll play around with that (in HS 10.13.6) until the replacement arrives. I'll update when that happens.

Thank you very much for your experience, assistance and guidance. Very much appreciated!

You will only be sure if the GPU is DOA if you test with a PC or another Mac Pro. It’s certainly possible.

 

[mertisrules]

very true- only if

 

[mertisrules]

I remain forever grateful to you all who have shown many of us around the fabulous world of ours the way to hot rod the great Mac Pro keeping in service for... we shall see.

Been away for a while and wanted to drop in and mark resolved cuz it was the video card (both) but I don't see that I have that option so I'll say thanks again and
Thanks for listening!