2009 Mac Pro starting to not boot or display degrades after time. Any common reasons others have experienced?

Currently on Lion, and is up to date on Lion.
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2009 Mac Pro Quad Will Not Boot

Hi.
I have a 2009 Quad 3.0Ghz Mac Pro that will not boot up.
I went to it this morning and the beach ball was spinning. I could not get it to stop and as a last resort, turned it off. It has been working fine, although
I have noticed a little slow (Could be me, though).
When I tried to reboot it, it tried to start, chime went off, but it stayed on the light grey screen and eventually, it had a folder with a question mark in it
that blinked.
I disconnected all peripherals, no change.
Tried to boot from the optical drive with Disk Warrior, no change.
Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Brian

The Chime is generated in Software when the first part of the Power-On Self Test has passed. If an appropriate source of software can be found, booting is likely.
it had a folder with a question mark in it that blinked.
That says it could not find the last-specified source of software. the drive may be damaged, or it may have forgotten where it should be looking.
Tried to boot from the optical drive with Disk Warrior, no change.
Next try a 10.6 DVD. "A Mac that cannot boot from an appropriate Installer/Utilities DVD has a Hardware problem".
One of the simplest things it should be able to do is Startup Manager. Hold down the Alt/Option key at startup and it should draw a gray or blue screen and slowly draw an Icon for each potentially-bootbale device (including a bootable DVD, if inserted).

Need to erase hard drive and reinstall system on iMac but have misplaced original install disks. Tried to use a my copy of Snow lepord 10.6 from my Mac pro but will not boot. Can original install disks be replaced. Thanks

Need to erase hard drive and reinstall system on iMac but have misplaced original install disks. Tried to use a my copy of Snow lepord 10.6 from my Mac Pro but will not boot. Can original install disks be replaced. Thanks

Yes the original Install Discs can be replaced for a nominal fee. Call AppleCare, you will need a credit card and the serial number of the machine. You can use the AppleCare Contact Info for the phone number on your part of the planet.

Mac Pro 2013 will not boot up

After Power on, the Mac Pro (the newest) does not boot up. I have 2 Monitors connected to the Mac Pro. The first via HDMI, the 2.nd via Thunderbold. Also there a 2 HD Devices connected via USB. So when the Mac Starts up on the left (the main screen) a spinning wheel behind a grey Screen appears. The 2.nd Screen show graphical errors. And nothing happen. Onlny when i turn power off an i try it a 2nd. time the Pro starts up correctly. This appears nearly every day since two weeks. I have to start the Pro always two times before i can work with it. I have run the hard disk utility an i have repaired the permissions. the were no errors. I think the build in SSD may have a problem. So is there anyone outside who knows the problems i described ?

Product recall?
I doubt it. Considering demand for this product was so high it was on allocation for six months, the number of reported problems falls far short of a recall-level problem.
It just sounds like this unit and a few others need service.
Regardless, do not wait for Apple to take action. Focus on getting YOUR specific problem solved. Contact Apple as soon as possible.

Mac Pro 3.1 not booting anymore

Circa 12 hours ago, I've made it to first install Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro 3.1, and, using BootCamp, I put Windows 7 64-bit on it and made it my default boot partition. After installing a few simple programs on it (VLC, Firefox) plus a few automatic Windows updates (whereupon it crashed one time which made the update process a bit more difficult), I decided to migrate data from another computer on an external disk to use on my Mac Pro.
Considering it wouldn't take long, I just plugged in the monitor and keyboard + mouse into the other computer without shutting my Mac Pro off. Turned out that it did take a bit longer than I'd expected for the files to get transferred from my other comp to the external disk...8 hours, to be exact.
When I then switched everything (Monitor and keyboard) back and tried to wake Windows 7 on my Mac Pro up from "sleep" aka "standby", I found out that it had obviously crashed and didn't respond. Screen stayed black. So I used the front button on the tower to boot it. Ever since then, the machine just plain refuses to boot up.
When I'm trying to use the Windows partition, the Windows DVD, or the "EPI" option when using the option key, what I'm getting is a screen (white text on black screen, with very nasty green stripes all over the screen) similar to the one giving me the option of "save mode", only that it's telling me that Windows fails to start entirely, and I can choose either "try start Windows again", or run some diagnoses for hardware failures. Trying again will give me the very same screen again. The diagnosis tool looks like the Windows install screen again, with very low resolution and wrong aspect ratio. Diagnosis tool is telling me that it can't solve the problem, which is that it's suddenly missing "hardware support" or "drivers" in order to boot.
Next, it offers me to go back to a previous state of my Windows installation (similar to Time Machine in MacOS), but no matter which one I click, I'm getting the error that it can't reset the system to any of those earlier times as it's getting no access rights. At least I can see there that the last updates made to Windows, next to a few last automatic Windows updates, consist of DirectX9 and Nero 9 (the latter reading on the box "now with Windows 7 support!", but it doesn't say anything about support for 64-bit). If it's not the long sleep state, I wonder if any out of those two could be the culprit.
On the other hand, if I'm using the option key on boot in order to boot into my Snow Leopard partition or boot from my Snow Leopard DVD, all that happens is that the entire machine freezes on that grey BG with the Apple logo and the spinning clock symbol that just freezes right in the middle of its rotations.
So that's what I got now. Windows partition won't boot. Windows DVD won't boot. Snow Leopard partition won't boot. Snow Leopard DVD won't boot. I've tried resetting my SMC, but still the same.
What do I do now? Am I now in possession of a large chunk of newly bought scrap metal?

Great. No change on trying to use Windows partition, Windows install DVD, "EPI" mode (all three resulting in that very primitive Windows diagnosis tool that can't diagnose or fix anything!), *OR* Snow Leopard partition (freezing on white booting background). And when I now try booting from my Snow Leopard install DVD, the error I'm getting now is "Missing operating system"!
*HELP!* How do I reset my Mac Pro to factory settings now, like it was two days ago? All I had to do back then was wait until the white boot-up background came up, then insert my Snow Leopard install DVD, and all was fine!

Mac Pro Early 2008 not booting

Hey guys!
I walked into a problem with a Mac Pro early 2008 model.
I got this Mac Pro from somebody since it wasn't working anymore. I was told there could be a graphic card (Nvidia) issue which I think should at least be correct but I am also having trouble with loading EFI. The following things happen:
When I turn on the mac using a DVI to VGA adapter i have no screen at all. (I don't have any other options atm)
There is no HD inserted.
PRAM and SMC reset won't do anything, i'm not even sure it reads keyboard commands.
The fans all work even the one on the GPU.
Front LED just burns steady.
No lights on my USB (non Apple) Keyboard turn on.
The lights of the mouse just flashes on start up.
RAM LEDS light up on startup.
Motherboard reset button doesn't make anything change.
When I Press the button for the diag LED's, the Trickle Power and the Good Power led come on, the GPU LED stays off. The EFI LED is off aswel.
No RAM errors show up. Tried switching RAM and disconnecting RAM and GPU.
No startup chime what so ever.
I figured there could be something wrong with the EFI firmware (or logic board is just broken). I am trying to restore the firmware with a firmware restoration cd, but I can't get the cd tray to open. I pressed the on button and kept pressing it for a long time. All it does is makes my status LED flash a couple of times real fast, but then it goes back to normal state. No cd tray is opening and its not flashing 3 times fast, 3 time slow, 3 times fast as it probely should be doing.
You guys have any idea what to try next or how to restore the firmware?
Thanks in advance.

there's a boot code to run with the older machines
Pike wrote this code
Using this code will get you around the efi/boot issue and move on to OS 10.10.02
Installing Yosemite just prior to entering the efi/boot, then restart twice.
You'll need to research Pike's code, but your 2006 to 2008 machines are long ways from trash.
I'm upgrading my 2006 to 8 cores, Yosemite and 32 gig of ram.
Long live these early Mac Pros
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&v ed=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fforums.mac…
maybe your issue is not related

5 year old mac pro. Does not boot up.

I've tried the usual online trouble shoot topics but none fit exactly. I push power button on case, fan whirs into life (occasionally a bit noisier than usual), the power light comes on as does the monitor power light, but thats it. No boot up and no image or colour on screen. I've unplugged everything and started again but to no avail. Any ideas anyone please?

pull out all yur drives and try again and you should get "?"
then put an OS X DVD, or find a known good OS X drive
The SMC button for yours is near drive bay #4 and pcie slot #4 which takes just short 6 second depress

2009 Mac Pro will not boot up under Windows

I have an Early 2009 Mac Pro system (Mac Pro 4,1) and I've had this system for 3 years already and have been working under OS X with this system ever since I purchased it.
However, when I tried to boot off my Windows disk, something very interesting happens. The Mac Pro WILL NOT boot up off the Windows disk or a known working Windows partition if two monitors are connected. Upon holding down the option key and selecting the Windows partition, I will get a black screen on one monitor (the one connected via Mini Displayport) and the other screen receives no signal and will enter standby and the system is halted. It does not respond to keystrokes, there is no hard drive activity, no measured power increase on the UPS, no apparent network activity, nothing. The only way to exit this scenario (from what I can tell) is to power off the machine, disconnect the display on DVI, power on the machine again, select the Windows partition wait for the system to reach the login window and reconnect the DVI monitor (at which time Windows recognizes it immediately and the system works fine again).
My question to the community is, does anybody know why this is happening and is there a known fix for this? Quite frankly, having to disconnect a monitor just to restart is very tedious and frustrating.
I have two Samsung P2350 monitors attached to an ATI Radeon HD 4870 (512MB, from Apple). One is monitor is connected via directly DVI and the other is using a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter. Both monitors work fine under OS X with no issue. At first, I thought that this may be a driver issue on the Windows side and after installing all the latest updates and drivers the issue is still apparent. From what I can tell, this doesn't seem like a software issue but rather a firmware or EFI issue as this happens before Windows even loads.
If anyone knows of a fix or what to do in this situation, or if you are also having this issue, I would love to hear your input!
Thank you!
For the record, I am running all the latest software builds on the OS X side (10.7.4, not that it would really matter at this point). I have also disconnected all unnecessary equipment in a trial and error scenario but the results are still the same.
The system passes all ASD testing.
The full specification of the computer and all connected equipment are as follows:
2009 Mac Pro (4,1) 8-Core
2x Intel Xeon Nehalem 2.66GHz Quad-Core CPUs
16GB DDR3 ECC 1066MHz RAM (Apple Branded)
Two OWC 120GB SSDs (One for OS X, the other for Windows 7 x64) - These are in place of my optical drives.
4x 2TB WD Black Hard drives for storage.
Two Samsung P2350 Monitors connected via DVI. (One using a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter).

In Windows I am using the latest (12.4) Catalyst Software Suite, 64 bit of course, downloaded directly from AMD's site after installing the drivers from Boot Camp.
As for installing Windows I used an original (not burned) installation media (Disk is in a pristine condition). And yes, Windows is fine, the problem just seems to be getting the system to boot up Windows with that second monitor. However if the "problem monitor" is disconnected the system boots fine 100% of the time and connecting it later after booting the system will still operate properly.
For the sake of arguement I swapped monitor cables and connected the "second" monitor to the mini displayport adapter to verify that it wasn't a cabling issue and I'm still yielding the same issues.
As for GPU testing, I've played games (Crysis, Grand Theft Auto IV, Battlefield 3, etc.) and I've had no issues with the card or stability.
You would think that Apple would try to find a fix for this, especially considering the caliber of this machine.

I am having a problem with very slow start up after expanding RAM on my 2009 Mac Pro.

I am having a problem with very slow start up after expanding RAM on my 2009 Mac Pro (8 Core 2.93GHz). When I run the Mac Pro with 2 x 2Gb RAM it takes 4 seconds before the gray screen, chime and spinning wheel appear.However when I expand the RAM to 20GB the grey screen and chimes appear after a long 20+ second black screen.
The RAM modules are paored 2 x 4GB Crucial CT51272BA1339.M18FMR and 6 x 2GB SAMSUNG M391B5673FH0-CH9, all DDR3 ECC.
Reading articles on the internet, I thought it may be damaged RAM modules, but I have completed memtest and all are okay. I have tried changing the pairs around and if I use any paired 2 modules the Mac Pro starts normally, only when I try running more than 2 modules the delayed start up happens. (black screen 20 Seconds)
I also have tried PRAM and SMU resets after changing the RAM setups, and the issues always occurs when I have more than 2 modules. As you can see I have 6 SAMSUNG modules and even with identical modules the issue happens, when increasing the RAM to more than 2 modules.
The Mac Pro runs fine after the start up screen and can see all the modules, but has anyone else come across this issue, or have any ideas as to why my Mac Pro is taking 20 seconds to start up with 20 GB RAM?

Hi there. Thanks for your comments.
I have tried all the different combinations of RAM setup, and as stated in my initial topic, the Mac Pro boot up time only slows when I have more that 2 modules. Where I place these does not seem to make a difference.
I have taken the Mac Pro to an Apple Reseller technician yesterday and they where not able to find any RAM errors. Apparently the boot up time is within Apple's acceptable parameters for this set up.
Could anyone that is running a Mac Pro 2009 with more that 4 modules of RAM, please let me know if the boot up time is normal. ( the time it takes from pressing the power button to seeing the gray screen around 16 - 20 seconds)
Or is anyone else having the same issues?
thanks for your responce

2009 Mac Pro not letting me upgrade to Mavericks nor 10.8

I have a 2009 Mac Pro with OS 10.7.5 installed, it running perfectly fine but for some reason it's not letting me update to 10.8 nor 10.9. Mavericks works totally fine from ssd card mounted on a usb dock but when I try to use the SSD inside or the hard drive the Mac Pro came with it does not boot up. I was getting a problem when trying to upgrade Mavericks from the store where Mac Pro wouldn't boot, it will just show a question mark so I reinstalled OS 10.7.5. When trying to install Mavericks from a usb drive, Mac Pro does not see none of the internal hard drives and for some reason does not even let me eject the optical bay, has this happen to anyone if yes, what you do to fix the problem.

"Image" was not a reference to the physical drive, but rather the actual bytes representing the version of Mac OS X on the drive.
• If you built Mac OS X on that drive from the Mac OS X that shipped with another Mac, it will be trouble.
• If you built the Mac OS X on that drive from a "Full Retail", "Purchased" (for $0, but it still counts as a purchase) version from the Mac App store, it has all Drivers and should work fine.

2009 Mac Pro will not sleep from set prefs

Hi all:
I've got a 1 YO Quad, 2.93 Nehelam that wont sleep on set schedule. It has been doing this sense last week. I get the P-RAM, unplugged everything (even power), re-plugged everything, repaired my drive with disc utility, erased start up items, everything.
It WILL sleep on Q but not on a schedule in energy saver prefs. The only thing thats different lately is that Installed CS5 Master suite and Apple's latest audio update (which fixed my audio by the way...)
Any idea's.
Thanks---Seattle

Is this question in the correct discussion? I thought this was the discussion for Mac Pro (previous to 2009). This could be a problem that appeared in the 2009 Mac Pro line ... or it could be related to the OS you are running.

Boot Camp, Vista Ultimate x64 SP1, 2009 Mac Pro Quad 2.93, ATI 4870 HD

Hello All,
I’ve run into a problem installing Boot Camp with Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 on my early 2009 Mac Pro Quad 2.93 with Apple’s ATI Radeon 4870 HD (the one with one DVI and one mini-display). I followed the instructions from the Boot Camp Installation and Setup Guide, and everything was going great until I hit page 12 of the Guide (Step 3). The Boot Camp drivers installed without error, and prompted me to reboot. Upon rebooting onto the newly installed Vista x64 partition, the screen went black after the chkdsk screen appeared. I can boot into Vista safe mode, but booting into Vista normally results in the black screen. On a hunch, while in safe mode, I uninstalled the ATI video drivers installed by Boot Camp. I was then able to boot Vista normally, but only with the standard VGA adapter. Then I tried installing the latest 9.4 ATI drivers from the chipset vendor, AMD, http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx. Booting normally after the ATI chipset drivers were installed left me with a mostly black screen, and a few swizzles of horizontal color, but not enough to make out any sort of image. Once again, I was able to boot normally by first booting into safe mode and then uninstalling the ATI driver, leaving me with the standard VGA driver.
The displays I have tried so far are 1) Apple Cinema HD 23”, and 2) Apple Cinema 20”. Also, I have tried all 6 permutations with the ports on the Apple version of the ATI Radeon 4870 HD with both displays (using the mini-display to DVI adapter), 2 permutations with both displays, and 4 permutations with single displays. All permutations result in the same black screen after installing Boot Camp drivers.
Am I missing something? It seems to me that there is a display driver that needs to come from Apple that will work with the Apple version of the ATI Radeon 4870 HD in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 attached to an Apple display. I’ve installed Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 and many other operating systems in the past 27 years of working with computers, and typically with video cards I’ve had to get the drivers from the vendor that shipped the card, not the chipset vendor. Sure, occasionally the opposite is true, and I don’t mind spending a few days to figure out what works best for me as long as I believe I am making progress.
Has anyone else run into this problem with his or her early 2009 Mac Pro Quad 2.93 with Apple’s ATI Radeon 4870 HD? I’m posting this in the Boot Camp forum as I think this problem is rooted in the Boot Camp drivers, specifically for the Apple ATI Radeon 4870 HD. Please let me know if I should post elsewhere.

You are the second person I think I've seen with trouble using Mac Pro and ATI drivers (other was on Mac Pro forum).
When updating graphics, there are extra steps that insure you get the best working drivers.
I've always found Apple to be behind the curve on Windows support. Drivers that come with a card from the vendor ususally means ATI or Nvidia, and even then, you go to the web and download and install the latest tested / beta / qualified drivers. Some people try a variety of driver versions to find the one that works best.
Apple has not been updating Boot Camp drivers for Late 2008 and on Macs. Boot Camp 2.1 is now over a year old. What is on your OEM Leopard DVD is the only drivers I would use - if at all! try without is what some do, and then see if you can selectively install. Under Windows 7, I don't need or install, and now with the RC/7077 version of 7, Microsoft 'blocks' installing Apple Boot Camp drivers as known to cause problems.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unistall the various Apple services, drivers, startup items that you can live without or until you narrow it down. iTunes 8.1+ in Windows can break and prevent ability to even use optical drives and devices for instance.
Some tips for upgrading drivers, one from eVGA forum but should translate.
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=396474
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655

TS3048 My early 2009 Mac Pro does not connect via bluetooth to my sound bar or bluetooth mini speakers. Both my wireless keyboard and mouse have no problems connecting. What do I need to do to connect to external bluetooth devices?

My early 2009 Mac Pro does not connect via bluetooth to my sound bar or bluetooth mini speakers. Both my wireless keyboard and mouse have no problems connecting. What do I need to do to connect to external bluetooth devices?

I would always have a wired keyboard and mouse on hand (need not be expensive ... any cheap wired devices will work). "Emergency recovery" procedures can activate features in random order, so the opportunity to select a recovery partition may pass before the wireless devices are recognized.
That will let you select the "turn on Bluetooth" icon.

My mac pro keeps trying to boot up but will not.

My mac pro keeps trying to boot up but will not. How do I fix his?

What happens when it tries to boot up?

How to install Snow Leopard on a 2009 Mac Pro which has Mountain Lion?

The 2009 Mac Pro that I just bought has Mountain Lion. For many reasons, I do not want to have Mountain Lion on my machine. I have been using Snow Leopard for years and I like it fine. I have my Snow Leopard install DVDs. I cannot get this machine to accept Snow Leopard, which must be just another undesirable aspect of Mountain Lion, bacause this machine must have shipped with some variant of Leopard/ Snow Leopard to begin with. Here's what happens when I put the Snow Leopard Install DVD in the Superdrive:
1) First, I held down the "C" key at startup to start from a disc. It showed me a window which said "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer".
2) Then I started it with Mountain Lion and then put in the Snow Leopard DVD. Got a window which said "The disc you inserted was not readable by this computer". It also had 3 buttons to choose from: "Initialize", "Ignore" and "Eject". So I clicked on "Initialize" and Disc Utility opened on the First Aid page. I assume I'm supposed to erase the startup disc, but I thought maybe I should ask the experts here before I do that.
This machine has two 2TB HDDs that the previous owner has configured as a level 1 RAID. If I am to erase the startup disc do I erase both drives of the RAID set? If I'm not supposed to erase the startup drive, what do I need to do to get back to Snow Leopard? Thanks and thanks again!

The built-in checks will keep you from clobbering 10.8 Mountain Lion by Installing Snow Leopard over it (literally, 10.6 Snow Leopard Installer will see a later version in place, and knows it cannot install over a later version). So it says "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer..." and leaves off "... "in its current state."
You will need to Install on a 10.6 Snow Leopard-erased drive. Mac OS X Erase function proceeds to install a Partition scheme and a default Volume after erasing, because a truly blank drive is useless for most Users.
When you boot to the Installer DVD, you are running off the DVD, so all Hard Drives are available to be erased if that is your choice. All data on them will be discarded. If you erase one drive in a mirrored RAID set, normally the other drive would survive and the set would be degraded. But a new version of RAID was introduced right AFTER 10.6, and it is likely that 10.6 cannot read that RAID at all under any circumstances.

2009 Mac Pro starting to not boot or display degrades after time. Any common reasons others have experienced?

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