2008 Mac Pro 8-core Red Lights-Won't Start

I couldn't get my Mac to wake up and noticed that the monitor wasn't seeing a signal. I shut it down and powered back up. Nothing. Barely any activity inside and no signal to the monitor. I took a photo of the red lights that are on above the RAM risers. I can't see all the writing, but from another image I saw online, those lights are grouped with lines leading back to the word "FAIL." I'm no engineer, but that doesn't sound good. I assume some of those lights are normal since I always see some kind of light in there. I didn't have time yet to pull the RAM chips and start that process. Just wanted to see other opinions
I add a Readeon HD 5870 several months ago, but no issues and the temp has been OK. I'll let you know when I swap RAM out just in case it's not the logic board.

Well, This Mac was bought through Mac Mall since Apple's ship dates kept slipping into forever. Not sure if they did the BTO for 3 Ghz or they just had one in stock. I don't even know what RAM chips are the original ones anymore. They don't always have stickers. I know that 2 of them are original, 2 from work and the other 2 from Crucial.
I went down the list of things to try posted above, but exact same result--only the fans are gently spinning. I tried each matching pair of RAM chips in the first slots. I even tried the system reset button. Tried two different video cards in two slots. I moved my boot drive to a different slot. Squat. Zilch. Nada.
If this Mac worked, it may still be worth up to $1,800 from what I can see online, but I'm guessing a new logic board might be upwards of $700 or so. I will say this Mac has huge number of work hours on it, not like I didn't get my money's worth. Can I tell you how much I wish there was a major Mac Pro update shipping this week!
I can't wait too long to make decision though. Any last thoughts?
Thanks again for all the help by the way.

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HT201343 I have a late 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core 2x2.8 Intel Xeon with Lion 10.7.5- do I need Maverick and will this hardware support the Airplay Mirroring?

I have a late 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core 2x2.8 Intel Xeon with Lion 10.7.5… do I need Maverick and will this hardware support the Airplay Mirroring?

It doesn't mention anything about a Mac Pro. So no.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5404
If your computer did support it, you would still need 10.8 or 10.9 for Airplay to work.

Limited In Establishing an A/V Connection Using New 2008 Mac Pro 8-Core

I will apologize in advance for the long and complicated story that follows.
I purchased this 8-core Mac Pro two weeks ago. I installed all software fresh on the Mac Pro and transferred no data from an iMac I had previously been using. The Mac Pro was running fine and I was able to have a video iChat with one of my friends across town who has a mid-2007 iMac with no difficulty. I had initially set up my Mac Pro with file sharing turned on so that I could exchange files with my wife who took possession of my mid-2007 iMac. A few days went by and my wife decided to turn off file sharing on my Mac Pro. Suddenly my Mac Pro would not boot at all, showing the spinning black pinwheel and the silver screen with the Apple logo for more than 30 minutes. I tried to repair permissions on the Mac HD, but I got a red error message that the permissions could not be repaired. Interestingly enough Verify Disk ran and report no problems with the Mac HD.
At this point I did a full erase of the Mac HD, and did a complete restore from Time Machine. After a few minor changes like having to reimport my e-mail, my Mac Pro seemed to be working fine again. However, today I received a iChat video invitation from my friend across town, and when I responded, I soon got a "failure to establish communication" message. I then tried to establish a video chat with my friend. After watching the spinning black wheel in the iChat dialog (which had good video), I soon got the same message. He also got this message on his end. We were able to establish Text Message communication through iChat, but we could not establish either video or audio. My friend's Mac was working fine in iChat because he had just been iChatting using video with one of his friends. The problem thus was firmly on my end.
At this point, I tried to video iChat from my Mac Pro with my wife in the next room on her iMac. It worked perfectly and we had both good audio and video. However, every time I attempted to iChat with my friend across town with, I always soon received the message that the connection could not be made bacause my friend had not responded, which of course, he had.
I deleted all of my user preferences related to iChat (four if I recall correctly) but this did not help.
In summary, I have limited use of video iChatting from my Mac Pro only with my wife next door on her iMac. Incidentally, I went over to her iMac, logged on, and instantly had a video iChat going with my friend across town.
I have just spent 3 hours on the phone with Apple Suport and went through several layers of tech support. In the end, their only recommendation was to do a complete erase and reinstallation of the OS. I am not willing, at least at this time, to do this since I have every one of Apple's Pro software applications (FCS2, Aperture, Logic PRo 8 Studio, etc.) installed on this machine and it takes a long time to reinstall all that software.
I would be extremely grateful for any suggestions that anyone may have.
Tom

I finally solved this problem by doing three things. I do not know which of the three really solved the problem, but one of them did. Since this is a new Mac Pro the weekly and monthly maintenance routines had not been run. I ran them using a widget called Maintidigit. Second, I reinstalled iChat directly from the Leopard install disk. Third, I rebooted my cable modem (Road Runner) and then I rebooted my Buffalo Router and while power was off to the Buffalo Router, I unplugged and then plugged in all cables to it. I then plugged in the power cable. Video iChatting with my friend across town worked perfectly with no error messages after these three changes.
Tom

Early 2008 Mac Pro (8 core) Cabinet Noise

I noted that this discussion was archived, without a solution being posted. Many people seem to be experiencing this odd Mac Pro noise that comes and goes. Some users say it is a fan, some the PSU, others say its the disk drives.
I have experienced this noise for years. While some of us will of course have different causes, I found my problem, but as yet do not have a fix that I like. Given the cost of a Mac Pro, for their overkill cabinet to have a noise problem that impacts mutiple (many?) users is ridiculous. My son's $750 HP desktop makes no noise. Apple, are you listening?
My noise, a loud buzzing that stops and starts at random (and will go away on its own for weeks) stops when the side cover is removed. I added black electrical tape at all spots where the cover touches the case, but no change. Then I put tape vertically down the rear latch for the cover and the noise was gone. It returned months later (tape came slightly loose?) and I then fixed the noise by not closing the latch all the way. So far so good, but this a lousy way to "fix" something.
My system has all four drive bays full. Three of the drives are third party hardware.
I blame the case/latch engineering and Apple is the responsible party. I wonder if they re-engineered the latch in later models, as the complaints seem centered around the early 2008 eight-core.
I hope this helps others.

I had the same sound, i also had drive in all 4 bays, i think once i fixed it by making sure the drive were all the way in, i have noticed it hasnt come back in the last month or so since i got my SSD. Its a shame this thing has an issue like this, since otherwise i love the case ( it looks like it could take a bullit for me )

Early 2008 mac pro 8 core quicktime videos opening in java script code

When I try to view a quicktime video it opens in Java Script Code instead of playing the video on my early 2008 Dual Quad Core 2.8 Ghz. Mac Pro running OSX 10.5.8

That's not much to go on, but I doubt it has anything to do with it being a Mac Pro. Select the clip and Get Info (Cmd I) to see what application is named in the "Open with" drop down menu. If it is anything other than QuickTime player, change it and try again. Also, repair your permissions...

Mac Pro Displays No Entry Sign: Won't Start

I came down this morning to find my MacPro with status lamp flashing and display power light on, but screen black and computer totally unresponsive.
Nothing else would work so I shut down the mains supply, disconnected everything except the display and switched it on again.
Got the grey screen with the Apple logo, then the turbine. Then the Apple logo turned to a kind of "No Entry" sign, a circle with a back-slash across it.
Tried switching off power and restarting holding down the Alt key, and it let me select my backup boot, but again I got the "No Entry" sign.
I haven't had any trouble like this before, and haven't done any software updates of late, so it's a complete puzzle - malware attack??
I'm 100 miles from nearest Apple Store: any suggestions what's wrong and/or how to get it going?
TIA
Jim

It might pay to run your Apple Hardware Test also. See if it flags the drive.
DALE

How do I fix my early 2008 mac pro boot hard disk. Lost everything when it crashed hard, can not reinstal via cd/dvd drive... are there any fix get it boot from dvd drive?

I have an early 2008 MAC PRO Quad Core 3.0ghz processor. 8 Gig of rams, with a 1 Gig memory Radeon 5770 HD Graphic Card running the latest Version of Snow Leopard OS. Last week lighting struck the house take out all of my hard drives (4) thank god the surge protector mitigated the mother board from damaged, use the Parted Magic to check out the motherboard and it intact with no damage. I can boot with the Parted-magic and be able surf and post this question to this forums. I replaced a newly formatted hard drive and trying to installed OS X Mountain Lions to the new drive, but unable to have it boot in my MAC PRO DVD, I get the usual chimes during the booting processed but the screen remain blackout, but able to boot with Parted-Magic to surf the web and access Apple sites/forums.
I am not well verse in using the Parted_Magic to repair or get my-mac to boot normally so I can reinstall OS X. Any help would appreciated.
Thank you
Disabled Veteran.

Go to System Profile and look, does it say "MacPro3,1"?
That is 2008.
FBDIMM would be 800MHz. Did you use older slower 667MHz in yours?
You can but take a hit in performance.
Sounds like MacPro1,1.
Mac Pro (3.0GHz quad core (dual CPUs) 8GB 667 RAM)
In 2007 March an 8-core 3GHz did come out 2,1.
So just to be clear.
===========
It was all working fine a couple of days ago. At the time it randomly shut down I was trying to use Boot Camp to create a Windows 7 area,
Whenever you want to install Windows, remove all the drives other than the one Windows goes to. And if you use a dedicated drive YOU DO NOT NEED Boot Camp Assist, unless you use XP, which really is limited and crippled (one processor, 1.9GB RAM support).
And when it freezes, your only choice is to nuke (reformat) and restore or get out that backup CLONE you made before (ie, Step #1 in the Boot Camp Guide).
Sure that whole NTFS / MBR / GUID could be an issue, but you should just have a blank drive or clone.
No don't bother Apple, they seem to not have a good sense about Windows on Mac Pro anyway.
Other than zap pram from cold boot / tried booting with NO drives inside and just 10.6. DVD - should be fine.
You should be fine iwth Windows 7 DVD and one drive, or even XP.
Make sure you take your time and reconnect cards etc properly and any cables.
Booting from OS X DVDs may not work if there is a drive with a totally shot directory or partition table. Put them in FW case and turn on AFTER OS X is booted.
Why aren't people Cloning as a Backup Strategy
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.2
How To clone

Video cards for 2008 Mac Pro with 4 20 inch Cinema Displays

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core with 16GB RAM. I run a 4 (20 inch Mac Cinema Display) monitor configuration off of it. one of my video cards just failed. They were never very good at handling FX in FCP anyway. I want to upgrade and get good cards for 2 displays each and if possible, video cards that will facilitate FCP X as well. What should I get?

OS X has drivers in 10.6.5
It is the ROM firmware that makes it work though there is help there too now for PC cards and flashing.
OWC is over pricing.
100s of threads asking the same question for the last yr.
5870 also, but costs $200 more.
More about using 6870 and others:
netkas.org
PS: the 'short' url for the Apple ATI 5770 w/o any user/cid - Product /MC742ZM/A
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC742ZM/A
Radeon 5870 vs 5770 GTX 285 4870
ATI Radeon HD 5770 - specs etc

Early-2008 Mac Pro startup - sometimes it does, sometimes it don't.

I have an early-2008 Mac Pro running Mavericks. Having issues with start up - powering up is intermittent - sometimes it does, sometimes it don't. I have had some success by unplugging it overnight, and it boots up once plugged back in the AM. I have been able to restart and zap the PRAM; I have also changed the battery. Thoughts?

You could have a problem with file corruption or your hard drive is going south. I would try moving your system to another hard drive then set that drive as the startup. See if the problem is resolved.
You can also try reinstalling Mavericks:
Reinstall Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

2008 Mac Pro-Red LED on motherboard = ?? (not diagnostic LEDs)

My 2008 Mac Pro looks like it's on it's way out to pasture. (Again.)
So, last year I put a new PSU into my 2008 Mac Pro. Worked great and kicked it right back into gear. Temporarily. Now it's behaving almost the same—erratically. It won't boot. It may chime, may not, but either way it's going to "click" and turn off within 4-5 seconds of pushing the power button. THEN, re-pushing the power button makes it behave like it's fully dead—like it's not even plugged in. This is exactly how it behaved when the PSU died before.
But, HERE's the question... that no one seems to be able to answer: There is a red LED on the motherboard. It is NOT the set of diagnostic LEDs behind the RAM cage. This little light is almost under HD Bay #1, to the left of the BT card spot and the airport card. This LED stays lit red at all times now.
What does this red light mean?
Here's a thread that proposes that it is related to electric malfunctions. But there was never a confirmation of exactly what this specific light signifies.
If you can't picture where this light is, there are pictures in the above, linked, MacRumors forum thread.
Any input would be appreciated. These lights are mentioned nowhere in the service manuals that I've seen. Last time I was able to run the Apple Hardware Test, it said, "no problems found". Memtest says all is well. Reseating the cards does not remedy the issue. What is this mystery light telling me?

Here's a picture of the led in question.

Mac Pro 8 Core (2008) Hard Drive & Ram questions

Hi there,
I recently purchased a Mac Pro 8 Core 2008 Model with 2Gb ram and 320Gb Hard Drive (Got a great deal on it... paid $1,500.00 for it!!). I bought this computer exclusively for audio production work. I know I can upgrade up to 32GB of ram if I wanted to however, I have heard that the system won't recognize 32GB ram when running 32bit OS & Applications. I use Ableton Live 8.2 (32bit capable) and Logic Studio 9 (32bit & 64bit capable).. what is the highest amount of ram I should upgrade to without overkilling it? In other words... what is the highest amount of ram I can upgrade to that I will actually notice the difference and that the system will actually use @ 32bit?
Second question is regarding hard drives... I need at least 320GB for OS and core applications and at least 1 TB for storage... what is the most efficient, fastest and least expensive to upgrade the storage on this machine?
I really appreciate your comments on this one.

Someone with Mac Pro, but on OS X 10.6 Install forum, like some, has full suites of CS5, FCP and others, and had run out of space literally on 150GB boot drive.
Apps like iDVD tech note recommended the boot drive have 24GB of free space (unfragmented for best burn performance) to burn dual layer.
X-Plane can go anywhere but uses almost 60GB for full world support.
My rule of thumb is 50% free on boot drive to avoid fragmenting free space such that it causes problems and there is always good performance overall as well as for read/writes.
To say someone doesn't need xyz when maybe they rre right, and to argue with their own math?
OS X does not support TRIM or I'd see if you can go with 120GB SSD. One way to slim down boot drive of course, maybe you have, maybe not,
Move all the data and media files possible off the boot drive can save 100GB and improve I/O at the same time.
Move the entire home account folder (the above leaves a smaller 1GB home library only on boot drive) which really isn't totally necessary but nice for some.
WD Black Caviar 2TB $170 is fast and nice or $89 for 1TB (if you think you need A, then get 2 x as much storage).
2008s don't use 8GB DIMMs and 32GB is as far as they go.
ATI 5770/5870 or even Quadro 4000 graphics
did it come with a 4870? or 8800GT?

I recently bought a 2008 mac pro which came with leopard 10.5. I can't load any new programs because it calls for a password, but it won't accept it. I bought new snow leopard 10.6.3 but I can't load it for the same reason. How can I completely reboot.

Help. I recently bought a 2008 Mac Pro from Mac of all Trades. It came with Leopard 10.5 installed. When I set initially started the computer, I followed the instructions on the screen. I was asked to set up a password which I did. Since I'm very forgetful and not too tech savy, I wrote it down as I typed it in. I first went to install Office Mac 2011 but when it asks for a password, it won't accept the one I set up. I was told that if I bought the new Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and installed it, that it would reset everything. Well, it won't allow me to load it without the password. I am new to Apple - this is my first. I have always been able to "reboot" a computer with discs but I'm not sure how to do this one. Is there a way to do it without the password and reset everything? Could somone please email me
Thank You. David Moore
<Email Edited by Host>

If you don't have original install disks for your Mac, you can order replacements disks directly from Apple at a nominal cost. The original install DVDs are required to reset the password.
If you have no data on your drive that you want to keep, you can boot up from the OSX Snow Leopard disk and install OSX SL.
Insert the Snow Leopard DVD and hold the C key during startup. The Mac should boot from the CD/DVD drive into the installer.
Follow the prompts, erase the disk and install OSX Snow Leopard.

Multiple graphics cards on 2008 mac pro, won't work

Hi, I have a 2008 Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon with 14 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM. I have used a ATI Radeon HD 2600 Graphics card connected to 2 x BenQ E2400HD screens. Now, I want 4 screens so I bought a NVidia Geforce 8800 GT graphics card as I found these to be compatible with my setup on Ebay (only place I could find it). Got it in a brand new condition in a Apple graphics card box so should be all good. Put it in PCI-E slot 2. Now when I started my Mac after installing I could hear a loud fan noise (fan going on max speed) and tracked it to the new graphics card. When I open the system profiler it shows up as a display. The screen connected to the graphics card with a DVDI-cable does not show an image and the screen indicates that it does not have an input. Any ideas what's wrong here? Is my graphics card broken?

More than likely you got wrong verion.
1,1 and 2,1 Mac Pros are EFI32, and for Nvidia cards need proper version.
If your machine is a 3,1 or later you need an EFI64 version.
Contact the seller and clarify.
If you install "ATY_Init" and are running 10.6.8 you will find the card will work once machine boots all the way.
You could then flash the card into proper version if you were especially clever with things like that.
But your seller should help you.
You need to know "Model Identifier"
http://macvidcards.com/macpro/which-mac-pro-do-you-own/

When I power up my 2008 Mac Pro I get the "welcome", chime, fan goes on, a light goes on on my Apple monitor and then nothing - black screen. Whats going on?

When I power up my 2008 Mac Pro I get the "welcome chime", fan comes on, a light comes on on my Apple moniter and then nothing - black screen. What,s going on?

what you describe as the "welcome chime" is the indicator that your Mac has passed the Power-On Self test, and if a suitable source of software can be found, booting is likely.
If the screen stays dark, the most likely explanation is a graphics card failure. But it could also be caused by a backlight failure in the LCD, so be sure you try shining a bright light at the screen to be check whether the picture is there, but just not illuminated.
Graphics card failure will end the boot-up process in some cases, and not have an impact in others. Two external indications you can use when your display is not working are: The Caps Lock key, which is under the control of Mac OS X, and the Control-Eject dialog box shown below. Note that the default is Shutdown, so a Mac that shuts down in response to Control-Eject followed by Return is working fine.

Early 2008 Mac Pro won't boot after installing 2nd DVD drive

All,
I purchased a Pioneer DVR-117D from Mac Sales and after installing it in my new refurbished 2008 Mac Pro it won't boot. My MP will boot if I remove the drive. According to the Mac Sales website this drive should work fine in my MP. Any ideas as to why this is happening. I literally just got my MP today and installed the drive. Is it the drive or the Mac Pro. Thank you all.

The drive was set to master, I switched it to CS before I left for work but haven't tried reinstalling it. I will try when I get back and let you know if it worked. Thank you again.

2008 Mac Pro 8-core Red Lights-Won't Start

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