Mac Pro early 2008 boots to black screen

Four times out of five, on average, the Mac boots to a black screen -- a 30" Cinema Display.
I believe the computer is booting all the way up, because I have the front power button set to put the computer to sleep, and when I manually power down the machine using the power button, the Mac will go to sleep first.
Also, the Mac will go into Firewire disk mode when connected to my MacBook.
The "boot-to-black-screen" occurs from cold or warm boots.
I've tried both 10.5 and 10.6 OS -- no difference, results the same on both.
Here's what I've tried:
Reinstalling and updating OS both 10.5 and 10.6
Diskwarrior
PRAM zap
Pulling all USB and firewire peripherals off the computer (except the Apple Wired Keyboard that shipped with the PC) -- Mac promptly booted to black screen, so peripherals are not the issue.
Changing displays (in this case, a Samsung 17") -- same result
I have tried booting to the Apple Hardware Test on my commercial Leopard DVD and Snow Leopard DVD, but the machine will not boot to this (the Leopard disk will boot the AHT on other Macs). I no longer have the original CDs that shipped with the Mac.
I've suspected the video card, but according to other posts, apparently this is not the cause.
I'm now suspecting a motherboard firmware issue.
Before this, the Mac Pro was having a related issue pertaining to VMWare Fusion, wherein the Mac would occasionally not wake from sleep, logging a VMWare Fusion kernel crash.
For the moment, I'm not shutting down the Mac Pro, just turning off the Cinema Display. I've left this computer running for up to two months without a reboot, so I'm confident that it will stay up and remain stable.

I'll watch to see if you get an answer. I have a late 2008 Mac Book Pro 15 with the same problem. It boots xp good every time. But I often need to use external monitor to gain control of the OSX boot. It gives tone, shows gray, shows apple and gear the short blue and then strait to black and front LED seems to indicate sleep. Very frustrating. Happens on both use best graphics and conserve battery display settings. Tried the reset pram, safe boot, save boot verbose. All no good.

Similar Messages

Mac Pro Early 2008 + boot camp!!! pliz help from Pros!

Hi guys,
I'm currently using a Mac pro Early 2008 Quad 2.8 with 4 Gb of RAM. I also have 4 HDDs ( 2 of them are 1Tb( Western Digital Black and Green series), 1 is 320Gb-original comes with MP and one 250 Gb Western Digital caviar). All of my HDDs are internal. Recently, my superdrive failed on me. Therefore, i have to replace it using a Samsung OEM DVD optical drive ( TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203D ) which was connected via the extra SATA port on my MP logic board. The optical drive was recognized fine by my MP.
Recently, as I used to work on both platforms ( Mac and PC) for audio mastering, I've decided to install windows 7 using bootcamp so that I can use Wavelab on my Mac for audio mastering. I had my 250Gbs SATA on HDD bay 4 formatted as a single volume for Bootcamp using Bootcamp Assistant. The process went fine until the system restarts for Windows installation. As I used Bootcamp before, i understood that freaking apple EFI wont read SATA (or external) optical drive to install Windows via Bootcamp, therefore I used RefiT as bootloader ( this method always worked for me before on other macs). I also have windows 7 ultimate ligit DVD. However, I experienced this :
- when I restarted my MP without having refit installed , there was always a flashing Apple + a prohibition mark and Windows installation didnt start. I've tried to reboot, hold down OPTION key so that the Windows installation DVD is read by optical drive and then choose it, same thing happened.
- After trying Bootcamp traditional way of installation without success, I install RefiT into my OSX drive ( 320 GBs), have MP restarted twice, then i got Refit boot menu, chose the windows installtion DVD..... now REFIT shows me that having some problem with Legacy boot and can't start the DVD.
Anyone is having the same problem like me with the flashing Apple+ prohibition mark ? Please HELP me!!!! I've used Bootcamp and REFIT for ages on Mac and never had this happened. Bleh!
I'm using Mac OSX 10.6.3. And below is my system profile:
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.25f4
Disc Burning:
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203D:
Firmware Revision: SB00
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Generic Drive Support)
Profile Path: None
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RAM, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO

hi all,
Finally I had my Mac pro Early 2008 Quad installed Windows XP SP3 on 2nd internal HDD.
Here's the update for anyone that is having the same problem as I had.
1st : you need to prepare some elements for a smooth installation
- Winclone for mac osx
- Windows XP image that was made from Winclone ( I had to download Winclone 1st, then ran to a friend of mine who had Windows already installed on his Mac using bootcamp and made an image of a version of Windows ( XP/vista/7) on his HDD via Winclone. The image will have file extension like this : xxxx.winclone ( xxxx is the name you choose)
- bootcamp 3.0 drivers for windows, just in case.
2nd : install Winclone on your Mac osx drive.
3rd: open bootcamp Assistant. prepare your drive for a Windows installation then quit it. However, somehow in my Mac Pro, the partition that BCA created wasn't mounted on my Finder, therefore I opened disk Utility and then reformat my BOOTCAMP drive to FAT32 or NTFS ( if you install NTFS-3G, disk utility will allow you).
4th: Open winclone. Now choose Restore. Then choose your Windows image that you made earlier and choose the Partition that you formatted for Windows and wait. It wont take long for the software to copy the image to your partition.
5th: now its time to restart your computer. hold down Option key so that you can choose the Windows Partition to boot.
6th: Windows will boot up and starting to scan for hardware changes again ( as the computer hardware ID and specs changed).
7th: if needed, use bootcamp 3.0 to install drivers for your Mac in windows.
8th: register your copy of Windows
Hope this help.by the way, you also want to force your Mac Pro to recognize all of your SATA HDDs and optical drive by force it to load up drivers in AHCI mode. There are lots of threads over Internet about how to do it. Perhaps InsanelyMac forum ( that's where i find it).
And finally good luck with guys who are having the same problems like me. It took me 3 weeks to find out how to do it.
Sorry admin for any violations ( I only want to help people cos I know its hard with guys who dont know ).
CHEERS!

Black Screen for Install of Windows 7 on Mac Pro Early 2008

I have a mac pro early 2008 with lion 10.7.4 and boot camp 4.0.3 I think... anyways the problem I have is when I am in boot camp, and configure the HDD partition, then the machine reboots... when it reboots and starts up boot from the install DVD (legit retail copy) I just get a black screen on both monitors. No curser, nothing just a black screen, same as I get when the machine is off! the little white LED lights are on and nothing...
I can hear the DVD spinning up and down a few times then that just stops too...
I have tried resetting the PRAM, pulling the power and watch battery inside for a few minutes, I tried the "fix" that is online for the imac problem with the answerfile and got no different resutls with anything, still the same probelm.
I have the OEM ATI Radeon video card 512MB.
* as a side note, I was never able to download the windows support drivers prior to trying the install... I tried and tried for the last two days so this time I "unchekced" that box and just went for the install...
Any help will be greatly appriciated, thank you :-)
Mike

Hey Hatter, I know this is a little old but I've just picked up this thread and I wonder if you can help. I get the same issue as:
JRASupport
Jun 28, 2012 1:56 PM
I have a mac pro early 2008 with lion 10.7.4 and boot camp 4.0.3 I think... anyways the problem I have is when I am in boot camp, and configure the HDD partition, then the machine reboots... when it reboots and starts up boot from the install DVD (legit retail copy) I just get a black screen on both monitors. No curser, nothing just a black screen, same as I get when the machine is off! the little white LED lights are on and nothing...
I get that dreaded black screen following partioning of my drive on the Windows 7 install on Mavericks on a Macbook Pro late-2008 (MBP5,1) but I'm at a loss to work out where the solution lies in the thread! ;-(
To date I've spent about 5 days going back and forth trying all sorts of combinations, including the obvious:
- removing bootcamp 5 and reverting to 4
- installing the imac drivers
A HUGE thanks if you can offer any help as I'm at the end of my tether...!
Adam
BTW I'm working off USB with 32 bit Windows 7 ISO

Mac Pro (early 2008) black screen after 2015-004 Mavericks security update

Hi,
My Mac Pro (early 2008) does not start up after 2015-004 security update last week. I can't
get anything on my monitors. I can hear it starts booting, but not sure if does so fully, because the screen
stays black. Have tried all the different booting options, e.g. safe boot, but no effect. Is there a way to revert
the update or even do a clean OS install, even if I can't see anything on the monitor?
I just noticed that Apple has released a supplemental update today for Yosemite 10.10.3,
"that will fix video driver issuesthat will prevent your mac from starting up when running certain apps that capture video"
I am wondering if this is my problem, even if I use Mavericks. Any thoughts?

Try booting to Recovery and repairing the the startup disk via Disk Utility.
OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
Next try resinstalling the OS
OS X Mavericks: Reinstall OS X

Mac Pro (early 2008) No chime, pixelated white apple screen

My Mac Pro (early 2008) stopped working this morning. It was working fine yesterday, but did not start today.
i Press the power button, and there is no chime. The fan whirls around and the cd disc drive makes a noise. The startup screen shows up with Pixelated black bars across the whole screen.
this his stays onscreen, freezes for a few minutes, then restarts And continues the cycle of freezing and restarting.
iI've tried to reset the smc and pram and that hasn't done anything.
i've cleaned the inside of the computer, checked the RAM and graphics card, they seem to be in good working order.
does anyone know what's wrong with it?

Hi BDAqua
i tried safe boot. The white apple screen still comes up pixelated but with a grey loading bar at the bottom. Once the bar has loaded fully, nothing happens. it stays frozen on that screen until I have to force it to shutdown by pressing and holding the power button on the front of the tower.
i Tried holding the alt key. It brings up the devices, the screen is still pixelated. Pressing either one of the disk drives, didn't do anything new Unfortunately.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SundeepToor/status/559966340883415040/photos
hopefully you can see what my screen looks like in the link.

Mac Pro Early 2008 crash after gear on boot

Hi. I have a Mac Pro (Early 2008), with Mavericks installed. A couple of days ago, it crashed hard (in Portal, as it happens) and then wouldn't boot. When it was crashing it showed full green in various (dark? or random?) areas of the screen, and then random vertical lines of coloured noise. The cursor went jerky, and then stopped moving at all. Having decided this was a more serious problem than a simple steam error, I forced the machine to shut down with the case button, and then turned it back on again, but it wouldn't come up, and hasn't (with exceptions, see below) since.
The behaviour is:
Boot chime, Apple, Apple-with-spinning-gear, a sensible (it seems) amount of spinning gear, then the gear stops and I get some flashing on my screen (like, a complete red screen, or orange screen – colours vary – displayed for less than one refresh, so I see a brief flash of colour with tearing). Occasionally instead of flashing I get an unexpected reboot: once when this happened I also got the kernel's (multiple language) "Your computer restarted because of a problem" screen.
Safe Mode has the same problem (I get a progress bar, when the progress bar completes everything stops and "screen flashing" happens).
EFI boot volume selector works fine, but when I continue to boot, either from my main partition or the Recovery partition, I get the same problem.
Verbose mode works until the point where the graphical user interface should come back, which gives me a white screen and nothing (except screen flashing). I do get a certain amount of "kSMCBadArgumentError" before that point, but see below.
Single User Mode works as it should, fsck finds no errors, all my data appears to be on my hard drive as expected, but on typing "exit" to continue boot I end up in the same position as Verbose Mode. Trying kextload to load all my extensions gives the kSMCBadArgumentError lines, but no other problems (until I try to boot). I have already tried using SUM to remove all the launch agents/daemons/extensions from /Library/ (leaving only the ones in /System/Library/). This worked (I modified the disk as I intended) but didn't help me boot.
I did get the recovery partition to boot once (seemingly randomly), Disk Utility found no errors. The full Apple Hardware Test doesn't seem to be an option from the recovery partition? (I've moved house a few times in the last 6 years, and I don't know where my physical AHT disk is any more. I do have a friend who would probably be able to burn one if Apple provides the disk image as a download.) I have had a full successful boot once too (maybe on the restart after using the recovery partition?) which let me use my administrator user perfectly (I used it for about 5 minutes?), but then after logging out and while trying to log in as my "standard" user I got full green noise as before, and the machine locked up again.
I've rotated my RAM (I have 2x1GB sticks and 2x2GB, as well as my usual 6GB config I've tried each of the pairs in "two-stick" configuration). No difference, except on one boot I got error lights (full on) on one riser, I assume that was because I hadn't seated it properly during rotation, because I took it out and put it back in again and I've not had the lights before or since.
I've also tried swapping in an older system drive, but that made no difference. (The old drive may have been a little flaky itself, but single-user mode booting reliably suggests, at least to me, that my normal drives aren't the problem?)
Without wishing to privilege a hypothesis, could it be the graphics card? I have the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, I believe (it looks exactly like the pictures of that card online, anyway) – installed by Apple at build time. I tried taking it out and putting it back in again, in case it had become poorly seated, but it seemed firmly in place – for example, the PCIe retainer clip was fully engaged before I removed the card – and reseating it didn't make any difference. I don't have a second card to test with, unfortunately. I wouldn't mind getting a new card to keep the machine running, of course, but I'd like to make sure that it's going to solve my problem before buying it!
Thanks for any help you can give!
Edited to correct OS field, which didn't work. I really do mean Mavericks.

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"

Mac Pro Early 2008 Crash on Boot Up

I have a Mac Pro early 2008 running OSX 10.8.5, and yesterday morning for seemingly no reason I had a screen corruption and freeze up, a kernel panic and then it rebooted itself. I have tried all of the memory( no flashing LED over power switch), cleared and reset all of the PRAM via keyboard and motherboard etc etc and everytime I reboot it crashes at the same point with a screen corruption and reboot. When I tried to boot in safe mode it the bar got 50% of the way across and it rebooted. I booted in verbose mode and single user mode and on both the last entry related to 'Ambrosiaaudiosupport' (as best I can remember) before it rebooted itself again. I sent the Kernel Panic to Apple but as I cannot get back into the OS I cannot obtain another.
Is there a solution to this please, and if so what do I need to do to rectify it
Many thanks in advance
Alan

If you can't boot in the usual way, try a safe boot. During startup, you’ll see a progress bar, and then the login screen, which appears even if you normally log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out these instructions. Safe mode is slower than normal, and some things won’t work at all. Note: If FileVault is enabled on some models, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is on a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. If you're able to boot, launch the Console application in any of the following ways: ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.) ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens. ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid. Select the most recent panic log under the heading System Diagnostic Reports on the left. If you don't see that heading, select View ▹ Show Log List from the menu bar. Post the entire contents of the panic report — the text, please, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header and body of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don't post shutdownStall, spin, or hang reports.

Mac Pro Early 2008 will not boot off Win7 Install DVD

Hello,
I am hoping someone out there will have encountered something similar and have some suggestions or ideas, because at this point I can't think of anything else to try.
I have a 2.8 Ghz 8-core Mac Pro (Early 2008) with an Nvidia 8800GT Graphics card. I am running OS 10.6.2, fully patched and updated.
I am attempting to install Windows 7 Ultimate via Boot Camp, and am encountering a rather odd problem.
Once I have launched Boot Camp Assistant it allows me to partition the drive and does so correctly, but when it attempts to reboot off the Windows 7 installation DVD, I encounter a blank grey-white screen similar to that which you normally get on startup but without the Apple logo. This continues for some time (it seems to vary), and then the screen goes dark and the monitor says it is receiving no signal. The fans on the Mac Pro go for a while, then it goes to sleep. I've tried leaving it for a couple hours, no dice.
I've tried both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows install disks. I had the release candidate for Windows 7 installed previously, and it worked perfectly. I have since tried that same install DVD that I used to install the release candidate, and it encounters the exact same issue. Booting up off the Snow Leopard Install DVD works fine.
I tried doing a clean install of Snow Leopard on a spare drive, booting off that, and then starting from square 1 using Boot Camp Assistant to re-partition that same drive. Same problem. No matter what I do or try, my Mac Pro does not want to boot off this install disc. I have yet to try the disc in another machine to see if it works there, and I will as soon as I can, but the fact that the RC disc worked a few months back and now will not seems to rule out the boot discs as defective. I've also tried both my internal optical drives with no change, and no other discs have any issues.
I've already spent an hour and a half talking to Apple Technical Support, and they seemed stumped, so I'm hoping someone will have a notion. If not, I understand and appreciate you taking the time to read this- I have no idea at this point, and I'm generally a pretty knowledgeable user.
- Andrew

Thank you for your reply,
Pull all the drives you have other than the one that you will install Windows 7 to.
I think I will try this next.
Don't put Windows 7 on the same drive as OS X, give it its own.
That was initially what I started out doing.
And you don't even need Boot Camp Assistant.
True, but it's what Apple suggests using.
Might also want to try moving the monitor cable to the other card port.
Hmm, I think I'll try that.
Any other PCI cards or devices attached or installed should also be questioned or disconnected.
I've disconnected everything I could.
Always a good idea to start fresh which I assume you are doing (not trying to upgrade over RC etc).
Yes, the drive was empty to start with.
Honestly it seems like the Mac Pro is generally refusing to boot from any Windows disc. Things I've tried since my initial post:
- Loaded Windows 7 Install disc into my room mate's windows PC... loaded up fine, got to install screen
- Tried his OEM copy of Windows Vista 32-bit, same issue
At this point it seems like maybe some kind of firmware issue or some kind or graphics driver issue, but I'm pretty much grasping at straws at this point. It doesn't seem like it's even getting to the point where hard drives or anything matters.
It does recognize that I have a Windows 7 install disc inserted when I use the boot selector/startup disk chooser.
Thanks for the ideas, I'll try those out and see if any of them help,
-Andrew

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

Upgrade boot drive in MAC PRO Early 2008 to SSD

Looking to upgrade my boot drive on Mac Pro Early 2008.
Possibly with SSD, but wasnt sure of compatibility. Also, is it a huge sacrafice in storage?
I'd appreciate any assistance.
Thank you!!!
Lyle

Establish a Boot Drive on the fast SSD, and move all User files off to other drives. These articles may help:
Japamac's Blog: Make space for performance -- Moving the Home Folder
http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-move-the-home-folder-in-os-x-and-why/
OSX Tips: Setting-up a new Mac from an old one or its Backups
Transferring Home Folders not on a Startup volume
be sure to heed Pondini's warning:
If you do put home folders on a separate volume, it's strongly recommended that an Admin account and its home folder remain on the Startup volume. If there isn't one, and you have a problem with the separate home folder volume, you cannot log on to your Mac! And in some cases it will greatly complicatetransferring to a new Mac.
So if you're transferring from an available Mac that doesn't have an Admin account on its Startup volume, create one via System Preferences > Accounts before starting.
I have created a new User Tip with this information in it:
User Tip: Creating a lean, fast Boot Drive

Mac Pro (Early 2008), Tiger Boot

Is my Mac Pro (Early 2008) able to boot from Tiger normally? I 've tried many times but it seems that Tiger has not the necessary drivers for my ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro! Boots, but there is no communication with my graphics card. Is there any way to make it work?
I' ve tried to install Tiger from the DVDs of my MacBook Pro, MacBook and from the DVDs of a friend's previous generation Mac Pro, but not from a Retail Tiger DVD... Do you think that this is my problem?

The only hack is to find a system with 2600M it sounds like.
Or get X1900 that works in 10.4.11 and 10.5.x
Cloned system and then reapply the combo update would do if you do have an Intel Tiger system.
I've been using Vista x64 since late '06, before it was RTM forward, and the horror stories of trying to get it to run on some motherboards, BIOS, etc - I have more respect for what people are willing to go through, how different it is on Mac Pro, and the way OS X is tighter controlled to hardware... but it does make for problems.
People held off buying Mac Pro until CS3. And now some are considering buying ref'd units just to run Tiger or wait 3-6 months for things to catch up.
Game developers love 8-cores, cuts down time to compile, test and develop, and will pay dividends down the road in games that unless the power, but most, a lot, of applications really have trouble using more than 4-cores, it is a technical challenge and requires new compilers and tools.
ATI and Apple aren't likely to build any new drivers for Tiger

Mac Pro (Early 2008) periodically crashes in unusual way, requires reinstall

Mac Pro (Early 2008), 2 x Intel Quad-core Xeon 3.2 GHz (8 cores), 14 GB RAM, 3 TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 and/or ATI Radeon HD 4870), OS X Lion 10.7.4
OK, I've got a weird one here. Every few days, my machine crashes in an unusual manner. Examples:
* the first time this happened, any attempt to play a video file (either from within iTunes or externally using Quicktime) would result in a blank, black video window, but I could still hear the sound from the video. If I moved my mouse within the black window I'd get playback controls and when pressed, I could hear the audio rewind/fast forward/etc. (but of course the video window would remain black) Also, any attempt to use screen sharing would result in a completely white window where the remote screen should be.
* another time this happened, I would constantly get the error message that VTDecoderXPCService quit unexpectedly, even if I wasn't playing a video. Trying the suggested fixes from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193904?start=15&tstart=0 did not fix the issue.
* another time this happened, the machine appeared to work fine, except any attempt to access System Preferences resulted in the spinning beach ball of death and would completely lock up the machine.
In any case, rebooting the machine does not result in the problem being fixed -- in fact, it gets worse. After I reboot, I am unable to log in to my machine at all. Either the desktop window flashes briefly but then it goes back to the login screen, or the login screen never appears. I have tried both the "guest" account as well as a standard "test" user I set up when I first installed OS X (i.e. a "clean" user), and none of those help.
What *does* help, however, is completely reinstalling OS X Lion (including running the combo updater to get back to 10.7.4). Once I do this, the machine becomes usable again, and I can use it error-free for a few more days - after which it fails again in some strange manner.
At first I thought my hard drive might be failing; however replacing the hard drive did not help. I then thought that I might have a glitchy graphics card (the black video windows and the VTDecoderXPCService crashing suggested this to me). However replacing the video card didn't help either. (I tried another GeForce GT 120 as well as an ATI Radeon HD 4870, both of which were known to be good in other machines). I have also tried countless times fixing permissions, clearing cache files, etc. and none of that helps. The only thing that brings this machine back from the dead is, like I said before, reinstalling OS X - but only for a few days.
I didn't see anything out of the ordinary when checking the system log files.
In case there was some sort of hardware problem going on, I tried running Apple Hardware Test overnight in loop mode. The hardware passed all checks. I also tried running Memtest86+ overnight, again with no failures or errors.
The machine doesn't seem to me to run particularly hot - typically temps hover in the 40-45 C range, and can jump to 55-60 when doing heavy activity (mostly video encoding). Voltage levels look good as well. (I'm using iStat Menus for both the temperature and voltage readings)
I'm about at my wit's end here. Unfortunately the machine is out of warranty (AppleCare too) and I don't really have the money to take this into a shop and get it diagnosed. So does anyone have any ideas?

Results from Step 1:
com.rogueamoeba.InstantOn (5.0.2)
com.squirrels.driver.AirParrotSpeakers (1.7)
com.squirrels.airparrot.framebuffer (3)
com.attotech.driver.ATTOiSCSI (3.4.1b1)
com.avatron.AVExVideo (1.6.1)
com.makemkv.kext.daspi (1)
com.blackmagic-design.iokit.DeckLinkFrameBuffer (9.5.2)
com.blackmagic-design.iokit.DeckLinkHD_Driver (1.0.0)
com.blackmagic-design.iokit.DeckLinkDriver (9.5.2)
com.kensington.trackballworks.driver (1.1.0)
com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.3)
net.telestream.driver.TelestreamAudio (1.0.5)
com.avatron.AVExFramebuffer (1.6.1)
foo.tun (1.0)
foo.tap (1.0)
com.parallels.kext.prl_usb_connect (7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_hypervisor (7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_hid_hook (7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_netbridge (7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_vnic (7.0
Results from Step 2:
com.agilebits.onepassword-osx-thumbs
com.parallels.vm.prl_naptd
de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher
com.squirrels.kextinstaller
com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
com.datarobotics.ddserviced
com.datarobotics.ddservice64d
com.blackmagic-design.streaming.BMDStreamingServer
com.bjango.istatlocaldaemon
Results from Step 3:
com.agilebits.onepassword-osx-helper
net.culater.SIMBL.Agent
com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy
com.parallels.DesktopControlAgent
com.parallels.desktop.client.launch
com.delicioussafari.DeliciousSafariAgent
com.blackmagic-design.DesktopVideoFirmwareUpdater
com.bjango.istatlocal
com.google.keystone.user.agent
com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0
Results from Step 4:
/Library/Components:
total 0
/Library/Extensions:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 May 31 12:21 fuse4x.kext/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Apr 27 13:45 tap.kext/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Apr 27 13:45 tun.kext/
/Library/Frameworks:
total 24K
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 71 Jun 4 14:47 AEProfiling.framework -> ../../Applications/Motion.app/Contents/Frameworks/AEProfiling.framework
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 74 Jun 4 14:47 AERegistration.framework -> ../../Applications/Motion.app/Contents/Frameworks/AERegistration.framework
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Apr 6 2011 Adobe AIR.framework/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 74 Jun 4 14:47 AudioMixEngine.framework -> ../../Applications/Motion.app/Contents/Frameworks/AudioMixEngine.framework
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Jun 4 17:20 NyxAudioAnalysis.framework/
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Jun 4 17:20 PluginManager.framework/
drwxrwxr-x 6 dburr admin 204 Aug 9 2011 Turbo264.framework/
drwxrwxr-x 6 root admin 204 May 14 23:19 iLifeFaceRecognition.framework/
drwxrwxr-x 7 root admin 238 May 14 23:19 iLifeSlideshow.framework/
/Library/Input Methods:
total 0
/Library/InputManagers:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Oct 27 2011 DeliciousSafari/
drwxr-xr-x 5 root admin 170 May 15 07:05 Ecamm/
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
total 16K
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Oct 25 2010 AdobePDFViewer.plugin/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 1 17:48 Flash Player.plugin/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel   80 Jun 4 15:30 JavaAppletPlugin.plugin -> //System/Library/Java/Support/CoreDeploy.bundle/Contents/JavaAppletPlugin.plugi n/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 16 2011 Quartz Composer.webplugin/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 19 2011 QuickTime Plugin.plugin/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 25 2010 SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Aug 25 2010 SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Apr 11 10:26 Silverlight.plugin/
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 856 Apr 27 12:13 flashplayer.xpt
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 May 15 10:27 npContributeMac.bundle/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2.4K Jun 4 14:46 nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
/Library/Keyboard Layouts:
total 0
/Library/LaunchAgents:
total 64K
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 612 May 15 10:11 com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 456 May 15 07:08 com.bjango.istatlocal.plist*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 574 May 24 22:05 com.blackmagic-design.DesktopVideoFirmwareUpdater.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 576 Oct 27 2011 com.delicioussafari.DeliciousSafariAgent.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 721 Apr 5 10:21 com.parallels.DesktopControlAgent.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 565 Apr 5 10:21 com.parallels.desktop.launch.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 797 Apr 5 10:20 com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 508 May 17 21:18 net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons:
total 104K
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 634 May 15 10:15 com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 421 Jun 4 14:44 com.apple.remotepairtool.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1.1K May 15 08:53 com.attotech.iscsid.plist
-rwxr-x--- 1 root wheel 597 May 15 07:08 com.bjango.istatlocaldaemon.plist*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 471 May 24 22:05 com.blackmagic-design.streaming.BMDStreamingServer.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 488 Jan 18 22:50 com.datarobotics.ddservice64d.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 484 Jan 18 22:50 com.datarobotics.ddserviced.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 510 May 23 2011 com.econtechnologies.ChronoAgentRemote.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 568 Aug 25 2010 com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 567 Apr 5 10:21 com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 675 May 17 21:43 com.squirrels.kextinstaller.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 517 May 15 09:45 de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher-20compatibility.plist
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin   74 Apr 4 17:45 org.macports.rsyncd.plist -> /opt/local/etc/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.rsyncd/org.macports.rsyncd.plist
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin   72 Apr 4 23:19 org.macports.slapd.plist -> /opt/local/etc/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.slapd/org.macports.slapd.plist
/Library/Mail/Bundles:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 root admin 136 May 17 16:43 GPGMail.mailbundle/
drwxrwxr-x 4 root admin 136 Jan 11 12:54 OMiC.mailbundle/
/Library/PreferencePanes:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 Feb 6 15:03 Air Display Preferences.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 Jun 27 2010 Choosy.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 Feb 3 11:21 ChronoAgent.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root admin 136 May 15 09:13 Cursorcerer.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 May 24 22:05 DesktopVideoPrefsPanel.prefPane/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 102 Apr 27 12:14 Flash Player.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 May 20 12:13 Hazel.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 Jul 23 2011 Perian.prefPane/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Jul 18 2011 TrackballWorks.prefPane/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Aug 30 2011 Tuxera NTFS.prefPane/
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools:
total 168K
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 102K Aug 25 2010 com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper*
-r-xr--r-- 1 root wheel 59K May 17 21:43 com.squirrels.kextinstaller*
/Library/QuickLook:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr staff 102 Feb 12 12:36 QLMarkdown.qlgenerator/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 16 2011 iWork.qlgenerator/
/Library/QuickTime:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 Jul 23 2011 AC3MovieImport.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 12 2011 AppleAVCIntraCodec.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 12 2011 AppleHDVCodec.component/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 13 2011 AppleIntermediateCodec.component/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 13 2011 AppleMPEG2Codec.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 12 2011 AppleProResCodec.component/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 May 24 22:05 Blackmagic Codec.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 12 2011 DVCPROHDCodec.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 dburr admin 102 Aug 9 2011 Elgato Turbo.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 12 2011 FCP Uncompressed 422.component/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin 102 Sep 12 2011 IMXCodec.component/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 102 Jul 23 2011 Perian.component/
/Library/ScriptingAdditions:
total 0
drwxrwxr-x 3 root admin    102 May 15 10:54 Adobe Unit Types.osax/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel    102 Oct 27 2011 DeliciousSafari Addition.osax/
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr macports 102 Jan 5 06:45 SIMBL.osax/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin    102 Apr 26 00:00 TotalFinder.osax/
/Library/Spotlight:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jan 21 2009 Microsoft Office.mdimporter/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 16 2011 iWork.mdimporter/
/Library/StartupItems:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Apr 27 13:39 tap/
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Sep 1 2009 tun/
/etc/mach_init.d:
total 0
/etc/mach_init_per_login_session.d:
total 0
/etc/mach_init_per_user.d:
total 0
Library/Address Book Plug-Ins:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr admin 102 Mar 5 02:01 SkypeABDialer.bundle/
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr admin 102 Mar 5 02:01 SkypeABSMS.bundle/
Library/Fonts:
total 0
Library/Frameworks:
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 5 dburr staff 170 Aug 24 2010 EWSMac-GC.framework/
drwxrwxrwx 5 dburr staff 170 May 17 22:42 EWSMac.framework/
Library/Input Methods:
total 0
-rw------- 1 dburr staff 0 May 14 15:18 .localized
Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 5 dburr staff 170 Feb 4 04:26 Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin/
Library/Keyboard Layouts:
total 0
Library/LaunchAgents:
total 32K
-rw-r--r-- 1 dburr staff 697 May 15 11:01 com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 dburr staff 618 May 15 08:13 com.apple.AddressBook.ScheduledSync.PHXCardDAVSource.AA278322-D5AB-4321-B4ED-D9 0478690405.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 dburr staff 886 May 14 15:18 [email protected]ist
-rw-r--r-- 1 dburr staff 802 May 14 18:47 com.google.keystone.agent.plist
Library/Mail/Bundles:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 4 dburr staff 136 Jan 23 09:53 MailActOn.mailbundle/
drwxr-xr-x 4 dburr staff 136 May 11 10:08 MailTags.mailbundle/
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr staff 102 Apr 26 08:28 SpamSieve.mailbundle/
Library/PreferencePanes:
total 0
Library/Services:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr staff 102 May 15 10:04 ToastIt.service/
Library/Spotlight:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 dburr staff 102 May 11 10:08 MailTags.mdimporter/
Results from Step 5:
Cobook, ScreenSharingMenulet, PhotoSync, Growl, PinPoint, EvernoteHelper, Caffeine, TrackballWorksHelper, Alfred, DropCopy Pro, Fantastical, Moom, TextExpander, ChronoSyncBackgrounder, TotalFinder, Yoink, AirDisplayStatusItem, Choosy, AirParrot, Melo, Synergy, Cursorcerer, ScreenCapture, HazelHelper, PleaseSleep, SMARTReporter, iTunesHelper, DDAssist, Dropbox

What drive in Mac Pro early 2008 or 2009?

I purchased a Western Digital Black 1Tb SATA hard drive and it did not work in any of my three Mac Pros (two are Early 2008, one is early 2009). It made a strange noise and was never seen by Disk Utility no matter what I did.
There are already three other drives in these machines, some of them are Western Digital drives and they work fine, but they were purchased years ago.
I returned the drive and purchased a Western Digital Red 1Tb drive in replacement. I chose a Red because I will be setting up a RAID system soon but needed it temporarily as storage in the Mac Pro. It didn't work at all in the Mac Pro Early 2008. At first it seemed to work but at restart, the system said the disk was not formatted, although I had formatted it successfully (but it really took a long time) with Disk Utility.
On the Mac Pro Early 2009 formatting was difficult. I tried to make two partitions instead of one and finally managed to format it and even copy some files to it. But Disk Utility couldn't verify it and Disk Warrior said it was having problems because of disk malfunction.
Apparently, I should be able to put a 1Tb disk in these machines, and the SATA 3 drives are supposed to be compatible with the SATA 2 of the Mac Pros. But it doesn't work although we spent hours trying everything and reading everything we could find on the subject.
My question is: are these drives supposed to work in older Mac Pros from 2008 and 2009?
If not, what drive should I purchase for these machines? I need a quiet, fast drive.
Thanks.
Ellen

Yes, I'm aware that SSD is the way to go. I have one (OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD), 480 GB, as my boot disk. It has the system and all my apps, plus my virtual machines for Windows. These are used very little, only to check if things we put on the web are OK in the various Win Browsers. But they need to be fast because otherwise, I'll go nuts.
About using SSD for Photoshop's scratch, I seem to remember reading something saying that it will reduce the drive's life somewhat. I don't know how much or if it matters, or if it's the better choice anyway.
Actually, the reason we still have these old Mac Pros (two for work, one for the server) is that, every year, we hoped to see some major improvement and put off upgrading because we didn't feel the new ones announced year after year would change our life.
We've been using Macs for almost 30 years now. The first was a Mac Plus 512k, in January 1985. (My first computer (in 1981) was a ZX81, with 1k of RAM... I did get a 16 k plug in extension though). We usually upgrade when the specs show a speed improvement of at least 4X, or when the architecture changes radically. All this to say we are now waiting to spend all our Christmas money on some shiny new tubular Mac Pros. We will then have to reconsider our whole setup, and add some external Thunderbolt drives. At that time, I'll be back to discuss the best options. Till then, this will do.
And the reason we tried a Red was because we thought maybe we could use it later on a dedicated machine used only for music over the network. The drive is used just about continuously all day long. Bad idea obviously.

Mac Pro (early 2008) cannot startup

Today, I shut down my Mac Pro (early 2008) for about two hours and now it just refuses to startup.
This is the symptom:
Power-on LED illuminates when power button is pressed and fans spin continuously but there is no boot tone or video
Apple Service Guide
1. Reseat video card. (Make sure video card is fully inserted in connector and end of card is 1. secured by the connector latch.) For video cards that require power cables, check that they are connected.
I have two GPUs. NVidia GeForce 8800 GT and NVidia GeForce GT120. Tried them individually. Cards' fans spinning. Check diagnostic LED and LED 7 & 8 no light. Only LED 2 Yellow and LED 9 Green.
2. Verify speaker cable is fully seated.
No idea where this is.
3. Reset logic board. Refer to “Resetting the Logic Board” in this chapter.
Same symptom. LED 7 & 8 no light. Only LED 2 Yellow and LED 9 Green.
4. Check diagnostic LED 3 and/or LED 4 for processor connection.
Off.
5. If only one of the CPU Error LEDs (LED 3 or 4) comes on, try swapping the processors. If the Error LED follows the processor to the other processor location, replace that processor.
Since LED 3 & 4 are off, I guess CPUs are fine.
6. Replace logic board
This seems to be a standard fix suggestion for all startup failures in the service guide. Anyway, to check if it's a logic board issue?
I tried this too:
System Reset
Mac Pro (Early 2008) has a system reset switch on the logic board that may be used to restart the system while it is powered up. This switch can be used to determine if a computer that won’t consistently boot from a cold start has power supply issues. Follow these steps to reset the system:
1. With the computer powered up, press the SYS_RST switch located in the upper right-hand corner of the logic board. To press the switch, use the nylon probe tool (Apple part number 922-5065).
2. If the computer boots after you press the SYS_RST switch, try shutting the computer off and restarting by pressing the front power button. If the computer restarts when you press the SYS_RST switch but not from a cold start, the power supply may need to be replaced.
and I experienced 1. Can conclude not power supply issue? Did diagnostic check and still the same LED 7 & 8 no light. Only LED 2 Yellow and LED 9 Green.
I checked both memory riser cards. No red light. Half a year ago, I experienced the same no chime startup issue and found that Apple's supplied DIMMs were the culprits. I tested individual DIMM and still no go.
At loss now.
Apart from sending in for repair, no budget for that, and other steps to revive my Mac Pro?

had this exact problem yesterday. this is how i solved it although im no apple genius
My Mac pro 3,1 simply woudlnt boot normally no matter how i tried to reset it. power light was fine, no ram errors, just no chime and no video.
how i fixed it:
1. shut down and unplug
2. open side case (you should be using an antistatic wrist strap if you do this)
3. unplug EVERYTHING. (remove all 4 HDDs, video cards, Ram boards, power cable, USB cable, audio1/8" jack, firewire cables. leterally you want it bare bones. only thing i left in was my superdrives)
4. i removed the logic board battery and while unplugged held the power button for 1 min to drain all capacitors on the board. left it unplugged for 10-15min after this
5. after 15 mins, the only things i put back were the logic board battery, ram boards, the audio jack to check for a boot chime, and the power cable. ( no video cards, no hard drives, not even the boot drive, no keyboard etc.)
6. press power button to boot. HOPEFULLY you head a chime. if you do, hold power button to power off system.
7. now only insert the boot drive and one video card into pci slot one (power plug should be out to install things)
8. start the computer back up and look for video. hopefully it asks for a keybaord and mouse on the screen
9. shut down without reinserting keybaord, mouse, or anything else.
10. unplug system after power off, and reinstall and plug back in EVERYTHING
11. reboot and hopefully all is well????
-Mitch

GeForce GTX 285 for Mac with Mavericks OK on Mac Pro early-2008?

GeForce GTX 285 for Mac with Mavericks OK on Mac Pro early-2008?

I am running a GTX 285 video card in an Early 2008 Mac Pro under Mavericks with no problems whatsoever. I get all the usual start up screens and the Alt-Boot screen as well.
Tom

Mac Pro early 2008 boots to black screen

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