Early 08 Mac Pro display black on start up!

Hi
I have an early 2008 Mac Pro with what looks like a faulty ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT.
There has been a longstanding issue with my 30" Cinema Display going blank (black) during a restart. It happens about halfway through startup when the spinning wheel is on screen. The white LED on the display lights solidly. The Mac appears to boot up normally and I can shut it down blindly using key commands.
Occasionally, unplugging the display and then re-plugging it brings it back to life but animation such as Dock magnification then becomes very jerky.
I've zapped the PRAM, reset the SMC numerous times. Both have occasionally bought the screen back to life but the problem has always re-occured. I've removed the graphics card, cleaned the connectors and then replaced it.
The issue has remained through a complete reformat and installation of Leopard and then Snow Leopard plus numerous OS updates.
The Mac almost always starts up normally first thing in the morning. The problem seems to get worse throughout the day, i.e. the longer the Mac has been on, the more likely the graphics are to fail on restart suggesting an overheating issue perhaps?
I would send the Mac in for repair BUT... it is stuff full of 3x Pro Tools PCIe cards and I REALLY don't want take them out OR send it in with the cards in place. (Please note: the problem was occurring long before the Pro Tools cards were installed.
So... my question is, does this sound like a faulty ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT? If so, I'll try and get a replacement. (Any idea where in the UK? I've searched everywhere!)

Your Mac uses a default setting to fire up the display and set a start-up picture. Halfway through the boot-up process, it switches to the stored System Preferences. This file may be damaged. A re-install (keep my preferences) would not fix it.
I suggest you boot up in safe mode (hold down the shift key all the way through startup) and use System Preferences > Displays
... to change something about your display, so that it will re-write the Preferences files.

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Mac Pro display remains black after start up.

My 2008 Mac Pro display remains black after start up. It is plugged in properly and the light comes on, but the screen stays black. It first started doing this about a week ago, but after a manual restart or two, it would start up properly with the display working. Today the display has remained black every time I've tried to start up. Any suggestions for troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Safe Mode uses a very simple way of talking to the screen -- it does not even load the screen driver, and it uses a very common low resolution.
If it does not work that way, it simply does not work. You need a replacement graphics card.
User Tip: Mac Pro silver tower (2006-2012) Replacement Graphics cards

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Are you able to - and is there a Windows 7 WHQL driver?
I know in the past automatic Windows Update wasn't trusted or the best, though I think with 7RC that is changed, but getting the standalone driver installed would be best bet.
And, you probably want/need to uninstall any driver that was installed, whether by Apple or Microsoft, and use one from Nvidia.
Driver Sweeper 2.0 is also strongly recommended to delete and remove drivers after uninstall, while in Safe Mode on next boot, before installing new drivers - especially if having trouble. Might even want to disconnect from 'net to prevent auto update/install for that.
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Help Installing Windows 7 64 Bit on Early Mac Pro

As previously noted, Wind 7 RC 64 bit DVD will not boot on early Mac Pro. I installed Win 7 64 bit on a dedicated hard drive as follows: 1) I booted into Vista 64bit successfully 2) I installed Win 7 64 bit on a second black disk, as noted above 3)All files installed correctly I think since Win 7 will begin to boot showing the Windows 7 startup screen 4) However, the startup screen will then disappear and the screen goes black, indicating a failed boot. When I engage the option screen (with primary Mac drive installed) during boot, no Windows disk is shown, indicating that boot camp does not recognize the Win 7 disk as a valid startup drive.
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Burn a DVD with Windows 7 RC 32-bit which you can boot from.
Try Safe Boot also.
From Vista you can install 7 on another hard drive. You can also copy the DVD to 6GB partition and run the install setup off that while in Vista.
Mixing ATI and Nvidia probably still doesn't work (may when 7 ships).
Windows is more aware of disk I/O errors than Mac OS.
Keep your system basic, don't have anything connected or installed you don't need (like PCIe controllers).
Vista SP1 or later, 64-bit also looks for EFI64/UEFI 2.x which causes the "Choose 1 or 2" boot menu and which 2008 Mac Pro (and 2009) work with.
You aren't the first or only person to run into this, and there are people running on 2006 Mac Pro.
http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1866970&tstart=0

Windows 7 Install fails on early Mac Pro

Just wondered if anyone else has experienced a blue screen failure during installation of Windows 7 RC 32-bit on an early Mac Pro (pre-2008). I get almost to the very end of the install during the copy files/settings phase (last one), and after a reboot, Win7 seems to start, but eventually crashes with a blue screen.
This is on a separate hard drive formatted to all NTFS. I've tried an install from the DVD from scratch (freshly formatted drive), and then again as an upgrade from a Vista installation (this all took many hours - and I do this for fun?). All with 32 bit since I don't have access to 64 bit drivers. But the result was uniform in both cases. The same version installed perfectly with vmWare Fusion.
So I suspect some issue with my Mac Pro Quad, which is an early, first generation version. I know others have had success with Win7 on a Mac Pro, but maybe on 2008 and later versions?
I have yet to try Win7 64-bit. Hopefully will get cured by final release, but would just like to know if anyone else with early Mac Pros have had success.

I don't think you really need to worry about 64-bit drivers - I don't have any Apple software or Boot Camp.
You don't mention RAM, disk drives, or graphics card, or any other hardware and whether you tried w/o.
I would warn that our early Mac Pro will have to work around the EFI boot menu that Windows 7 RC x64 presents.
I've had my 7300GT culprit; a disk drive that had to be reformatted in Vista; pull the 4 x 512MB of RAM (Apple) that was beginning to trigger a red light. So there are various items. And they all took hours to diagnose, swapping hardware; lots of head scratching.
There is no cure except to get around hurdles. We are stuck in EFI 32-bit land. May have to / want to buy 10.6 to get newer drivers, but that won't add 64-bit support. You can if you must, get 64-bit Boot Camp. I feel it is optional.
If you can install Vista, then install Windows to another drive, leaving Vista alone. Burn the ISO to DVD and copy the DVD back to a 8GB NTFS partition and run Windows Install Setup off that is fast and neat.
Setup a drive with room for Vista, Windows 7 RC, 8GB ISO partition, and data partition. Or expand to multiple drives.
Burn the DVD slower. There are other tips and ideas.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1866970&tstart=0
I've found Kaspersky 2010 beta and license from 2009 Internet Suite to probably be the best I've tested so far in that area.
Fusion use to use Windows Server 2008, maybe it got updated to include a better profile, or it was only x64 that had any problems. Sun VirtualBox is another. With that, you can modify the DVD to allow booting easier if needed.
I have Vista SP1, then put in Vista SP2-RC (same drive) and for Windows 7 I have one install that is for testing anything new first, and another that I use daily regularly - and prefer to use 7.7100 RC now instead of Vista.
Installing Windows while booted in Windows is neat, can be fast, but first find the hardware issue. Most BSOD is drivers and need to safe boot and uninstall drivers, but you may not have gotten even that far. And don't until you have a restore point, and be ready to reboot from Vista or 7 DVD to repair Windows.

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A couple things are holding me back. I'm guessing with MiniDP in, you only get the video, no audio like on the 24" LED (which uses USB). Since there's no USB, I'm also guessing there's no iSight pass-through. I could always add speakers and and a mic/cam combo, but that seems less elegant.
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Peter Miller wrote:
... if there is a "target display mode", ...
Hello Pete.
Search your SnowLeopard Mac Finder > Help for "target display mode" (without the quotation marks) to find the instructions for this new feature.
Among those instructions are:
The external display computer works like any other external display. To change display settings, open System Preferences on the primary computer and click Display.
I looked for the web-based page, but I could not find it, so, at least for now, you will need to view it in your Mac's Help viewer.
EZ Jim
MacPro QuadCore(Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/MacOSX (10.6.2) MacBookPro(13inch,Mid2009) 2.26GHz(10.6.2)
LED Cinema Display G4PowerBook1.67GHz(10.4.11) iBookSE366MHz(10.3.9) External iSight

Mac Pro Display Issue

Mac Pro Display Issue - Unexpectedly Sleeps and Freezes
Just since a couple of days my Mac Pro desktop has been having display issues. Unexpectedly the screens go into sleep mode, it turns black and freezes, the computer doesnot respond to the keyboard or mouse.
At first I thought this was related to Chrome, and switched to Firefox, but the computer is still having the same issue. I have to shut down and restart each time it gets stuck.
I even went into preferences and changed the energy saver settings to "Never" allow display or harddrive to sleep. But this problem is stil happening.
Does anyone have the same problems? Or a solution?

I cleaned out my mac with compressed air, it was dusty, but the display flickering happened again.
So I followed your advice and installed:
Temperature Monitor
http://www.bresink.de/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
Which showed that my memory module 1B and 2B were 70 - 75'C(160 -167'F). There was no reading for the graphic card so I couldn't tell if that was over heating.
Then I installed:
smc fan controller
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol
and increased the memory_cpu fan speed which lowered the temperature of the ram to 60'C (143'F).
I even changed this ram's placement and put it in different slots.This ram was the same temperature in the new placements.
Also this is the kingston 2gb ram without heatsinks. Ive used it for 1.5 yrs, and this is the first time its giving me these problems.
Do you know how I can check if the graphic card is over heating? or is the problem just with the ram?
Thank you for all your help!

Compatible HD for Early Mac Pro 2008

Hello All,
I have two failing drives in my early Mac Pro 2008 and its time to find some replacements. The drives I need to replace are 1TB in size but I was looking to get something larger being 1.5TB. I read on a site that this version of Mac Pro supports a maximum of 4TB accross all the four bays which would essentially mean a maximum of 1TB for each Bay. Here is the link to the site: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/faq/mac-pro-how-to-upgrade-hard-dr ives-what-type-supported.html
Question I have, is whether its safe to add two 1.5TB drives (I also have a 640GB for the boot and 500GB additional data drive) or should I stick with 1TB drives? Also, is there any advantage in going beyond the 3Gb/s Serial ATA spec as I would suspect the faster drives would not be utilized to their capacity given the older data path in this machine.
Any help/advice would be appreciated and thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Vin.

You can put any make and any size 3.5" drive in all the bays in any combination. Also SATA 3's will work but of course at not their full maximum speed as you mentioned so SATA 2's are OK.
As an example, if you got 4 3TB's you could stuff them in there for a max of 12TB. Bit of overkill unless you really need all that space!
Personally I like Western Digital 1TB and 2TB blacks.
You might also want to consider using an SSD as your boot drive.
Update: I took a look at that site you linked. That 4TB limit is the max any one drive bay can support, not the total capacity across all 4 bays.

Geforce 9800 GT Running On Early Mac Pro (EFI32)

I arrived at this point from another thread, which is here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8988306#8988306
To make a long story short, I now have a 9800 GT running safely on my early Mac Pro.
It is a single GPU solution and it works reliably under both Mac OS X and Boot Camp Vista Ultimate 32 and is the fastest GPU (according to the Open GL benchmarks) I've ever seen on any Mac Pro. Absolutely no artifacts under either environment and the Crysis series is easily handled in Boot Camp. Still testing though...
Here is the specific GPU that's now installed:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187026
The dual fans make it insanely cool. It's also quiet and while perhaps a useless observation, its setup of copper heat sinks and connectors, etc., appears very practically done while also being a kind of attractive arrangement as well.
My 9800 GT is a reflashed PC board by bruinmacs:
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/bruinmacsW0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQmdoZ
As for installation to replace my also very fast 8800 GTS, I had to remove the side rail (two screws) and the daughter board (small lcd display) from the standard 9800 GT so it could fit in the lowest slot. The small lcd is not helpful for us Mac Pro owners.
I don't know for sure, but I believe this board by bruinmacs will run in any Mac Pro (it is PCIE 2).
FYI...
Cheers,
tyvol

Thanks for the reminder hatter...
I think that you are correct that the ROM's on these reflashed PC GPU's should be targeted to either the EFI32 or EFI64 Mac Pro version.
I forgot to mention that in addition to reflashing the 9800 GT with their ROM update for my EFI32 Mac Pro, bruinmacs also first increased the ROM to 128k.
Don't know for sure (bruinmacs would, though) but it seems to me that with the proper EFI32 or EFI64 ROM reflash, this 9800 GT could work in any current Mac Pro.
Cheers,
tyvol

User Contributed Tips in the Mac Pro Displays and the Mac Pro forum

*The following User Contributed Tips are located in the Mac Pro > Displays and the Mac Pro forum:*
None at this time.
*The following related tips are located in other areas of Apple Discussions:*
a brody - Using a second Mac as a display for a first
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1587927
Publish date: July 7, 2008
See also User Tips Library

You can use the two graphics cards, but it's only useful if you have more than two displays. It won't give you higher speed.

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Let's see, different motherboard and you don't think that matters? the front side bus and memory operate differently, the PCI slots are configured different.
You can't just "update" firmware to cross those bridges. And I'm sure there is even more involved between EFI32 and UEFI 2.x (EFI64).
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Upgrade early Mac Pro to 802.11n?

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There is an upgrade card from Apple.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=85A 8FBC1&nplm=M8881LL/A

REAL hard drive space on early mac pros??

REAL hard drive space on early mac pros??
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I currently have 3 x 500 gb drives and 1 x 2TB drive in my machine.
I'd actually like to put in 3 more 2TB drives. Has anyone done this?
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No, not really.
A 3TB HD can be troublesome for BootCamp use, since the Windows partition is put in the area above 2TB and the Master Boot Record (MBR) Windows still uses has trouble / is incompatible with adressing harddisk space above 2.2TB.
With some RAID setup and IIRC the Apple Raid 3TB harddisks are shown and using also only 2.2TB.
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Stefan

Early 08 Mac Pro display black on start up!

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