Early 2008 Mac Pro RAM placement issue

A few years back, I purchased a 4GB upgrade (from OWC) to augment the 2GB stock memory. I installed the 4GB in slots 1 and 2 of the top riser (the existing 2GB were in the bottom riser, also slots 1 and 2).
I just discovered that the 2GB on the bottom riser were no longer registering in System Profiler. I moved them to slots 3 and 4 of the bottom riser and still had no joy.
When I moved them to slots 3 and 4 of the top riser, I now "see" the entire 6GB.
Were they improperly installed originally, or should I suspect an issue with the bottom riser RAM board (or motherboard receptacle)?
Thanks....

The last couple of years, seems OWC's FBDIMMs are "different" as in some users have had to exchange for a new set.
If theirs by themselves work - alone - and test on each Riser (swap the DIMMs to the other Riser but move the Riser to the top slot, I don't know if you can boot wtih no DIMMs in top)
Mixing fbdimms use to and can be an issue.
Does the old RAM also work alone on both Risers?
Ideal is to use all 8 DIMM slots.
2x2GB FBDIMM DDR2 667MHz @ $30
http://www.amazon.com/BUFFERED-PC2-5300-FB-DIMM-APPLE-Memory/dp/B002ORUUAC/
Ideal RAM config is 8 DIMMs - offers 17% improvement memory bandwidth performance
667MHz FBDIMMs are cheap, excellent and 4% 'hit' you would never know about.
http://www.barefeats.com/harper5.html
If you need to or want to try new Risers:
Risers
http://www.dvwarehouse.com/Apple-Memory-Riser-card-for-Mac-Pro-First-Generation- 922-7695-----NEW-p-37247.html
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Mac-Pro-Memory-Riser-p-17711.html
Those are for MacPro 1,1 Risers. I asssume they won't work but should be easy to navigate up to find 2008 parts.

Similar Messages

Early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 Mystery Logic Board/GPU Issue

I recently received an Early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 for free because the owner couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. It would boot up with the startup chime, but never output any video, and kept rebooting and replaying the startup chime. Using the diagnostic LEDs on the logic board, I was able to see that the Power Good LED (LED 7) and the EFI LED (LED 9) were both on, but the GPU LED (LED 8) never lit up. After trying all the PCI slots and confirming that the graphics card worked in another Mac Pro, I confirmed it wasn't the graphics card. I then tried a different power supply and different power supply cables, different RAM, different RAM boards, but still nothing. (Note: I also went through all the usual stuff: Power Cycling, PRAM, SMC Reset)
I then ordered a replacement logic board (used from eBay) and spent the weekend swapping out the logic board. After the swap, the Mac Pro STILL won't output video, and now the EFI LED (LED 9) won't even light up. Tried resetting the EFI Firmware via a CD, and still nothing. Does anyone have any idea as to what the issue could be? I'm 95% certain I plugged everything back in correctly on the board, but I don't know what else to do other than tear it apart again to confirm everything is plugged in. The only other thing I can think of is that the second logic board I received was also bad.
Please help!!!

Your problem sounds like a graphics card problem to me.
confirming that the graphics card worked in another Mac Pro,
Was this also a Mac Pro 2008 model? was it running the same Mac OS X version as you are testing? what version?
what graphics card are you trying to use? Genuine Apple or flashed PC or unflashed PC? what Mac OS X version?
That second board sounds Bad to me if it won't say EFI-OK.

I need an "Open CL compatible graphics card for an early 2008 Mac Pro with 1 gig of V-Ram", any recommendations? Thanks.

I need an "Open CL compatible graphics card for an early 2008 Mac Pro with 1 gig of V-Ram", any recommendations?
Thanks.

BlackList:
Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, Compressor 4: Graphics card compatibility
WhiteList:
Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, Compressor 4: Using OpenCL-enabled graphics cards
OpenCL graphics cards available now, for any Mac Pro model, for a reasonable cost:
Apple 5770 US$250 Avail: in stock
Apple 5870 US$450 Avail: 2-3 weeks

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 gb ram with a Dell 27" display and a 42" LG TV. I am thinking about upgrading the stock ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for better resolution, preferring 2 dvi outputs. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best card?

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 gb ram with a Dell 27” display and a 42” LG TV. I am thinking about upgrading the stock ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for better resolution, preferring 2 dvi outputs or 1 dvi and 1 vga vs 1 dvi and a mini. I don't do a lot of Final Cut Pro, gaming, etc. I am interested in best value for the graphics card.
Does anyone have any suggestions on the best graphics card for these larger displays for the best value?
Thanks,
Kevin

I recommend you install nothing older than the Apple-firware 5770, about US$250.
RE: Mac Pro Replacement Graphics cards
1) Apple brand cards,
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards, and
3) "Mac Edition" cards ...
... show all the screens, including Boot up screens, Safe Mode, Installer, Recovery, debug screens, and Alt/Option boot screens. At this writing, these choices include:
1) Apple brand cards:
• Apple-firmware 5770, about US$250** works near full speed in every model Mac Pro, Drivers in 10.6.5
• Apple-firmware 5870, about US$450
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards
• NVIDIA Quadro 4000, about US$1200
• NVIDIA Quadro 5000, about US$2500
3) "Mac Edition" cards -- REQUIRE 10.8.3 or later:
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition, about US$480** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 4,1
• EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition, about US$600
The cards above require no more than the provided two 6-pin aux power connectors provided in the Mac Pro through 2012 model. Aux cables may not be provided for third-party cards, but are readily available.
If you are Meet ALL of these:
• running 10.8.3 or later AND
• don't care about "no boot screens" etc AND
• can re-wire or otherwise "work out" the power cabling, THEN:
You can use many more cards, even most "PC-only cards"

Early 2008 Mac Pro - ATI 4870 - Apple 30'' Monitor - SL .... Does it work?

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro with a ATI 2600XT on an Apple 30" Cinema Display. I want to upgrade the video card to take advantage of the new features of Snow Leopard.
Before I take the plunge on buying the ATI 4870 I want to make sure there are no issues with this configuration... Does anyone have an experience with this setup? any issues? ( I assume I will not need to load the drivers since SL should have them)
Also how is the noise level of the ATI 4870? is the GTX card better in this regards?
Thanks in advance,

Other than benchtests and synthetic, there are no OpenCL aware or optimized apps out there. So it is a non-starter I think.
There are performance tests and depends on what you prefer and type of work. Some places the GTX is better and more RAM might help. The $100 is the other factor.
The ATI X1900 and 2600 and 3870 didn't look that good to my eye and I use the 8800GT, shame it was dropped, it was a nice card (just needed better $189 price, but that is true of the X1900 ($89?) and others. I think $349 is way too much for 4870 512MB. Flash PC.
Barefeats has OpenCL TEST in Snow L.

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

Problem on my early 2008 Mac Pro

I had this problem with my early 2008 Mac Pro which started last week.
Some background; I'm using 8GB RAMs, using Snow Leopard and bootcamp Windows 7 and 3 days before the start of the problem, I had replaced the original 320GB HDD for 640GB HDD and reinstalled both OSes.
While I was playing some videos in Windows 7 last week, it displayed the blue screen with memory dump message and restarted on its own. Thereafter, I was unable to load Windows 7 and SL respectively, both hung before they can be loaded. In SL, I noticed that there were some faint red dots in the Apple logo and subsequently, the entire screen started to flicker with some random black and white strips. In Windows 7, it frozen at the Windows logo with a 640x480 resolution. My default resolution was 1920x1200. However, I managed to loaded into the safe mode of Windows and extracted my work.
I tried to re-install SL and it hung again at the Apple logo followed by the flickering.
I sent it to my local service centre and the technician removed my video card, RAMs and memory risers and cleaned the contact, ran the stress test overnight, AHT3A152 and ASD3S123 tests and concluded that he found no issues with the hardwares and the problem did not occur again.
The Mac Pro was sent back to me today and earlier, I started up with no problem and decided to remove the Windows partition and I restarted it again to confirm everything was ok. However, at the next startup, the problem re-surfaced and I could no longer start up my Mac Pro in SL.
I tried to swopped back the original 320GB HDD, but the problem still persists. Before I send back my Mac Pro to the service centre tomorrow, I would like to have some 2nd opinions. Based on my description, what is the likely cause of this problem, is the newly replaced 640GB be the root cause?

Do you keep Windows on its own hard drive?
I would have kept the 320GB while using Windows WD Lifeguard to test, zero, run extended tests and slow long format of the new WD 640. Then just cloned system to new drive.
Casper 6.0 seems to be great utility if you want to avoid reinstalling 7, though I've found 7 to be fast and easy to install even with dozens of programs to add.
Are you using the current / latest graphic driver for 7? I don't notice you even list which card.
RAM - there is no perfect test, AHT finds some while Memtest takes time and may find others.
Windows may be more sensitive to weak hard drive sectors and memory than Mac OS or than HFS+.
Do you have any 3rd party devices? PCIe? Cables etc?
And you can't boot off Windows 7 DVD or Safe Mode?
Windows should automatically offer to boot in Safe Mode.
Also, try restore from last good restore point.

Why are there so many problems with the early 2008 Mac Pro ???

Hi everybody out there using Mac Pro's early 2008,
I found out there is a lot of problems with the early 2008 Mac Pro.
My early 2008 Mac Pro has been repaired ones under warranty and now it stopped working again ! Also see under: Mac Pro early 2008 no chime and does not start up. Why is this ????
It worked well for about 2 years and then it just fails and i had this failing issue twice already !!! Is this just a BAD Apple product or how do you think I need to approach this. Let’s face it, these machine don’t come cheap and you at least expect them to work without problems for 4-5 years. What is happening here ???
Cheers, Kavango

go to a black screen after 15 minutes or a couple hours
That is probably an indication that you need to find a new graphics card.
RE: Mac Pro Replacement Graphics cards
1) Apple brand cards,
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards, and
3) "Mac Edition" cards ...
... show all the screens, including Boot up screens, Safe Mode, Installer, Recovery, debug screens, and Alt/Option boot screens. At this writing, these choices include:
1) Apple brand cards:
• Apple-firmware 5770, about US$250** works near full speed in every model Mac Pro, Drivers in 10.6.5
• Apple-firmware 5870, about US$450
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards
• NVIDIA Quadro 4000, about US$1200
• NVIDIA Quadro 5000, about US$2500
3) "Mac Edition" cards -- REQUIRE 10.8.3 or later:
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition, about US$480** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 4,1
• EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition, about US$600
The cards above require no more than the provided two 6-pin aux power connectors provided in the Mac Pro through 2012 model. Aux cables may not be provided for third-party cards, but are readily available.
If you are Meet ALL of these:
• running 10.8.3 or later AND
• don't care about "no boot screens" etc AND
• can re-wire or otherwise "work out" the power cabling, THEN:
You can use many more cards, even most "PC-only cards"

Early 2008 Mac Pro + ATI Radeon HD 4870 = Not working

Just took delivery of my new HD 4870 video card today. I installed it in my Early 2008 Mac Pro and booted up. I got a picture no problem on one monitor, but nothing on the other. Furthermore, the display perfpane was missing a lot of controls, like Arrangement and Detect Displays and whatnot.
I did a bunch of rebooting and swapping of cables, and determined that both the mini-display port and the standard DVI connection will drive a monitor. However, if both are plugged in, the only active display is the one plugged into the mini-display port, and there's no option to setup the secondary display.
So I booted into bootcamp, and it automatically recognized both display ports, and mirrored my desktop on both monitors. I downloaded and installed the latest windows drivers, rebooted the machine into windows once more, and was able to configure a multiple monitor display with no problem.
This tells me it's not the card and it's not the motherboard.
Booting back into mac OS, I discovered that it doesn't even recognize that the card has video ram. It thought I had no video ram in the system.
So, this all leads me to the conclusion that Apple shipped me a card that it has not yet provided driver support for.
Hey Apple, can I have my 4870 display driver now?

Hi again,
It was funny to read all your answers on my iPhone while away from my computer. I could have reply on the iPhone but I preferred to wait to give you all the procedure I used to install the beta driver successfully this morning.
To start, I found this link:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=155477
and followed the "4870 INSTRUCTIONS", starting like suggested by doing the "First, follow the 4850 INSTRUCTIONS above"... (See the link)
I would like also to specify that I did this without having installed the card physically yet. So I kept my HD 2600 in the computer, followed all the steps excepted for the step 3:
3. Reboot with -f -v (kextcache/verbose mode)
There is no -f nor -v switches available for the reboot command at the shell prompt. I simply rebooted as usual "Pomme -> Redémarrer".
After the reboot, all my software was still working as expected with my HD 2600 card, meaning that these steps are specific and active only for the HD 4870 when it's detected at boot-up.
You may have to Google for the string "Kext" in order to get the application to install the file ATY_Motmot.kext. For your information, ATY_Motmot filename is the same string as the one found under "System Information ->PCI cards" under "Name".
I get:
ATI Radeon HD 4870:
Name: ATY, Motmot
The article is not clear regarding where to find the OpenGL.framework to backup before installing the downloaded one. I found mine under:
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework
After having shutdown the computer, just after the reboot that proofed everything was ok, I removed the original HD 2600 card and put back the new HD 4870 and boot up...
Then I check the "System Information" and found both "Quartz Extreme" and "Core image" supported!
I launched Aperture, got it!
I launched Final Cut Express, got it!
I launched Starry Night Pro Plus, got it! Then I checked the OpenGL settings in Starry Night Pro PLus and activated both options:
Use shaders where available
Use AllSky shader (Not compatible with all hardware)
When I was doing these actions with my original HD 2600 card, the software was giving me a warning that my hardware did not support these options and that it could crash.
This time, with the HD 4870, it accepted my settings and give me back a very beautiful blue sky with much more shades!
So in conclusion, it works very smoothtly with my system and I am writing this with two monitors, having bought the MiniDP to DVI adapter this afternoon
I am happy!
P.S.: A girl from Apple support called me back this afternoon regarding my problem. She was very happy two when I told her that I did apply the beta driver and that it was working very well...
Good luck and best regards...

Early 2008 Mac Pro + nVidia 8800: Never going to work?

This forum is littered with threads about early 2008 Mac Pros with the nVidia 8800 card - none of them positive.
I was unfortunate enough to wait for Apple to release such a machine and buy it. Graphics performance is dire given the hardware available. The machine routinely crashes with the window manager hang problem (the user interface just locks up, yet network services etc. still work), in the way familiar to anyone blighted by this particular bug; just run the Folding@Home client on your machine if you want to experience the joy. Or screensavers, sometimes, so I've had to turn those off. And I've had to turn off monitor power saving too, because I too suffer from the 'monitors sometimes don't wake up' bug. And of course I can't sleep the machine either, because firmware upgrade or not, it's still not reliable. And after all this, still the machine crashes.
SSH to the machine; try to restart cleanly; even 'sudo reboot' won't restart it. Apple have achieved something I've never seen out of any Unix or Unix-like operating system, ever; the kernel is unable to kill its own processes.
There have been no indications from Apple that I've seen on these forums over several weeks that the problem is even being acknowledged, let alone tackled. Latest reports indicate that even the 1st gen Mac Pro owners are suffering if they install the 8800.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1460752&tstart=0
My machine rarely makes it through the day without a forced reboot due to the window manager hanging. I can't do any work on it. I can't rely on it. I can't enjoy it. I can't even use it for web browsing without fear of it hanging.
There seem to be no facts about this at all. So all I can ask for is opinions. Does anyone have any offering of hope that early 2008 Mac Pros might ever work properly with 8800 cards? Y'know, little things, like actually being able to handle graphics? Or sleeping the monitors? Or, heaven forbid, sleeping the whole machine? Or should I just send it back as unfit for purpose?
Yours, tired and exasperated... :-/

I posted this in some other blog (forum), I should have posted this here also but I hope this gives you and all with these problems hope!! I also ran some fish tank test some else posted to get the folding problem to happen and I can not get it to happen at all now, and since my 8800 went in I get NO LOCKUPS, SCREEN FREEZES, shaky blurry video when I boot, so far NOTHING, IT JUST WORKS!!!!!!!!
Now that I think about it the person who said to use the fish tank program had a bad 8800 and maybe you do also!! here is the link to that:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6965475&#6965475
I purchased my first mac pro early 08 2 months ago (amazon.com).
2 quad core 2.8's, 2 gig apple 4 gig OWC total 6 gig ram,2-WD raptors (1st mac 2nd boot camp winxp 32 bit), apple care.
I had all my problems with the ATI card (I always purchased ATI, never Nvidia, for all the PC's I built) a couple of times I bought the first ones out, these had all kinds of problems until good drivers that actually worked were released (usually 6-12 months after the release of the card).
So I try not to buy routers, graphic cards, etc.. for at least 6-12 months, but back to my 2600 card!!
When I received my mac the graphics would freeze, I did a lot of online reading only to find out the ATI 2600 was the problem, the cure was to hook up 2 monitors to the card (and that worked!!).
Then they came out with the firmware update, now my main monitor would after 2 days on a reboot be scambled (samsung syncmaster 213t, NEVER had ANY problem with it before on any PC I had, so I knew it was not the monitor) to fix the problem I had to either turn power off to the syncmaster or resetting PRAM (worked for a couple more days, then the same problem).
I called apple and they sent a tech out within days to replace the ATI card, the replacement did the same thing after a couple of days, so I called Apple back and they took a bunch of info from my computer (BTW not much at all loaded in the mac side) and said to call back in a week, so I called back a week later and they said they were going to exchange the card for either another ati 2600 or the Nvidia 8800, I said 8800 and a day later on a saturday I received it, swapped the card and NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS at all!!
So I don't know if the ATI card has problems with certain monitors or they are just poorly made (maybe AMD is mad with Apple that Apple did not use AMD processors).
I have read others that swapped with the 8800 and their problems went away also!!!!
Maybe some have no problems with the 2600, but I would not recommend it to anyone, if you can avoid the 2600 GO WITH THE 8800, the drivers will get better (and the 8800 will eventually outperform the ATI)and you will not be sorry.
Apple is awesome, they are 2nd to none, their is no other company like this anymore that I have dealt with in a long time (not just because they gave me a 8800), like I said in the beginning of this post I always purchased ATI cards and would have kept it if it would have worked but 2 doing the same, ATI [AMD] has lost my support until they prove otherwise.
I recommend Mac's to everyone now!!
good luck and let me know it any of this has helped!!!!!!!!!!

Upgrading early 2008 Mac Pro

I work in animation, I have a Early 2008 mac pro. I am a motion graphics artist, I currently have a 2gb graphics card in the system but only 10gb of ram. Will I only see the best performance if I also max out the computer memory to 32gb of ram??

8 DIMMs are suppose to improve memory bandwidth by 15%+
SSD for system and for scratch, for photo libraries also helps - you have to watch for SSD PCIe controllers though and your free 16x slot for those.
Putting the system on SSD helps, and with 500GB $300 or half size for $160 and Samsung 840 EVO.
www.macperformanceguide.com

External desktop drives for early 2008 Mac Pro: USB 2.0 or 3.0 question

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 (OS 10.6.8).
I currently have a 1 TB Fantom Drive with USB 2.0 that I use for the Time Machine. I want to get the second external drive to use as a boot drive so I can install & boot from Mountain Lion to use Maya 2014 3D application software that requires the Mountain Lion OS. For all other applications, I want to stick with Snow Leopard (10.6.8), which works well for me.
Most of the searches I've done for external drives have USB 3.0. Some have USB 3.0/2.0.
Questions:
1. Will one of the USB 3.0-only external drives work with my early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1, which is only equipped for USB 2.0? If so, would I need some sort of adapter? (I realize that the speed would still be USB 2.0 speed.)
2. Or do I need to get the USB 3.0/2.0 external drive (which is more expensive)? I am assuming this would not require any adapter.
3. Will I be able to boot from the external drive with Mountain Lion?
Thanks for any help with this.
S

First, many thanks to both Grant Bennet-Alder and The hatter for their fast responses to my questions. I really appreciate this information. Based on your suggestions I did some research in order to better understand the proposed solutions.
Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
You can add a PCIe card to get these interfaces:
eSATA
USB-3
1. Does one need to get a separate PCIe card for each interface, or is there one PCIe card for multiple interfaces?
The hatter wrote:
Installing or cloning OS X should be done on SATA II drive bay or external and then moved to the PCIe - depends what card you buy, and some issues are with arrays (no need for system on one).
2. I went to http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/faq/, which says, "By default, a single 3 Gb/s Serial ATA -- sometimes referred to as SATA 2.0 or SATA II -- hard drive is installed in the first of four bays for all models." I interpret that to mean that SATA II is a in the first bay located on my internal hard drive. Can I create a partition here and install Mountain Lion as a separate system, and then move it to a PCIe SSD?
3. Or, can I install it on my external Falcon Drive (which has a Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table, and which, I believe means it is not a bootable drive). Following that installation could I then move it to the PCIe SSD and boot Mountain Lion from there?
4. Or, if partitioning is an option, can I just clone it to the Falcon Drive for backup?
My apologies for my ignorance. This is not my forte. Thanks for any help you can give.

Early 2008 Mac Pro Startup Problems.

Hi all,
I have an Early 2008 Mac Pro - 2x 2.8ghz Intel Xeon Quad Core processors, 12 gigs of Ram, 1x Nvidia 8800GT graphics card and I am running Windows Vista 64bit through bootcamp. I am running Snow Leopard. I have one monitor it is a Samsung 226bw - 22inch and it is connected via dvi and vga on the monitor side.
I have recently had my computer updated to the latest 10.65 (something like that).
Anyway my current problem is that:
a)The computer does not load up any operating systems and it is just a blank screen.
b) Sometimes all you hear is the Apple loading Chime "doong" constantly, and a blank screen.
c) Sometimes I can get to the windows selection screen for safe mode. I pick safe mode but it just goes to a blank screen. Also the monitor does not pick any signals up as it goes no source etc.
What I have tried:
a) I have changed the monitor cables 3 different ones.
b) I have taken all the other hard drives out.
c) I cannot get into Mac OSX or Windows Vista ( however Vista is the default OS right now)
d) I can connect my main hdd and copy all my windows stuff, but I cannot see any of the apple osx.
My suspicions are it is graphics card,or hard drive related.
I have ordered a new graphics card a ATI Radeon 5770 ( wont come for 6days) and I have a new hard drive a WD Black Caviar 1tb.
My Questions:
a) I would like to know what your ideas are on my current situation and Mac Pro symptons.
b) Is there a way I could format the WD Black Caviar HDD to a Mac Extended one in Windows on my laptop connected via sata?
c) If "b" is possible could I then use my Mac Pro/Mac OSX or snow leopard discs to create a OSX for my Mac Pro?
d) Or should I just wait for my graphics card to come and see if is just the Nvidia 8800gt failing?
e) If it is not the graphics card then do you believe it is the hard drive? or could it be something else?
Any assistance would be kindly appreciated.
KInd Regards
Bobby

Vista on its own hard drive? Windows doesn't like to move the drive bay.
you could boot from Vista DVD (I'd upgrade to Windows 7 SP1 when possible)
clone backups - for both
emergency boot drive / OS X DVD - you can, and should, always have more than one Mac OS boot volume handy. So yes use 10.6 DVD
Preventative and disk maintenance (Disk Warrior etc)
You would need something like MacDrive8 or Paragon HFS8 to really have good access to HFS from Vista assuming the volume is safe to mount and access.

Early 2008 Mac Pro - worth bothering with?

Hi,
Someone in my building threw out an early 2008 Mac Pro with no hard drives.
I put in a spare that I have lying around and it seems ok -- but a bit slow. I'm now in the process of installing Mavericks on it.
I'm curious if this computer is worth bothering with? If so, what are some essential upgrades that would make this hum? I'm assuming an SSD? Should I bother finding extra ram for it (it has 4gb now).
What would be some good uses -- I already have an apple tv and a htpc in the living room.. I suppose I can use it in the bedroom? Can this be a functioning secondary computer for my wife who doesn't game but does use iPhoto/Word/Netflix etc? And if so what should I add?
Thanks everyone for your help!

alphaace wrote:
If my wife just watches netflix/browser/word etc --- no games -- but does do a heavy bit of photo editing -- should I upgrade the gpus?
And if so, what would everyone recommend?
Also, I need to buy some hard drive caddies (only one left in it) -- however, I need a converter to put in a ssd right (as they are 2.5")? Any recommendations on those?
I have been able to find Mac Pro drive caddies on eBay. Here's one that would get you a set of 4:http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-Pro-Hard-Drive-Sled-Caddy-Complete-Set-1-4-Mac -Pro-2006-2008-/111386524693?pt=US_Drive_Bay_Caddies&hash=item19ef277c15. The screws appear to all be there.
In terms of adapters, this one was in my 2006 Mac Pro when I got it, and it seemed to work fine, although I didn't keep it in there very long:
http://www.amazon.com/Icy-Dock-EZConvert-2-5-Inch-Converter/dp/B002Z2QDNE
OWC sells a couple of 2.5" drive adapters also.
I wouldn't worry about upgrading the graphics until your wife has had a chance to do some photo editing on it. You may not need to upgrade the card for a while, if ever.

Early 2008 Mac Pro and the 5870

Several sources has stated that this card will work in the Early 2008 Mac Pro, but I am having issues. The card tests as bad and on restart the card is not seen as being installed. I can Screen Share and verify through System Profiler that the card is not seen by the system. Is anyone else having this issue, or is it just my luck?

and this is an Apple version card, right? not a PC.
What other video card did you have etc?
Apple ATI 5770 and 5870 work with 10.6.4+ in all Mac pro models.
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Upgrade
Radeon 5870 vs 5770 GTX 285 4870

Early 2008 Mac Pro RAM placement issue

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