Several parts of my Mac are not functioning well

Question

Greetings,
I own a Mac Pro (2008 model), which, while working perfectly, exhibits some issues. Having been annoyed by one of them today, I've finally managed to ask in this forum (english isn't my native language, so I hope to be clear enough in my phrases).
Here are the problems (I'm asking with the hope that someone knowing better than me can answer me):
1: the CD drive trays are hard to open.
The one on top always require me to use my finger to open (otherwise, the drawer stays closed and the drive finally give up and close the tray back).
The one on the bottom has a similar issue, that happens only the first time in a row (e.g it fails only the first time in a day). Here, it's not the drawer that gets stuck, it's the tray. For instance, I press the option-eject keys and I hear the bottom drive trying to open (and is stuck). I manually open the drawer, but the drive still does not open (and is "closed" after a couple of seconds). Then I can use option-eject again and it finally works.
I've tried "pushing" slightly some components in the hope to unstuck a possibly stuck piece, with no luck. I'm asking for what I can do next (I guess it's bad for the drive to try to force-open and then give up).
(just a note: I say "drawer" for the "outer door" and "tray" for the whole support that comes outside of the drive when it's ejected. I hope these are correct english terms).
2: one of my USB ports (front ones) isn't working, While I know it's common, on a Mac Pro, to have USB ports not working (I've read some pages on this forum), my symptoms are slightly different:
•First, only one of them isn't working (the one below the other), while on every post in this forum, it seems to have been both.
•Second, it seems only data aren't transmitted (power is sent just fine, as my iPhone gets charging but iTunes does not sees it (as does the whole computer)). In the forum, problems are related to USB that does not work at all (while not explicitly said, it appears no power is delivered either).
So I guess it's another kind of problem, but I don't know how to investigate here (is it a driver problem? Only affecting one port? Is it possible?).
3: My graphics card is a bad one (ATI HD 2600, known to be in the series of cards that are likely to fail). When in 10.4.11 (my preferred one), my computer will eventually hang when viewing movies (even short ones) using QuickTime (it appears to hang after some times of use, probably having something to do with temperature, but I'm not sure); the computer then does not update the display anymore, except for the mouse (why is the mouse still updated, by the way?). When not using QuickTime, or when using 10.5, the computer does not hang, but I see noise all around the screen (it's green noise, which seems to be "computed" (e.g happens more in black or grey areas, but also depends on the shape of the region; I try to be as most precise as I can, since screenshots aren't taking the default and I can't therefore post one). The second monitor does not show such problems.
•Will the problem get worse, theoretically?
•How long, based on my description, can I expect to use the current graphics card?
•Why does the problem occurs only on the first monitor (i.e the left connector when the card is in front of us)?
•May I use only the second output and be happy with that? (just giving up using two screens) This question is related to the previous (why only one output has the problem)
•Would watching my QuickTime movies only on the second monitor get rid of the problem (because the first output would not be stimulated that much)?
•Finally, I'm afraid of buying a graphics card to discover it may not be the problem (or the new one isn't working either). It seems these cards are rather expensive, and I can't afford to be wrong, buying a card that wouldn't solve the problem. Are my fears correct?
4: the fans are running almost always, except when I have to force-restart my computer (for instance, when the graphics card issue happens).
When the computer hangs and I restart it, the fans won't run at all (they are fully quiet). Then, I come to the login window and I log in. So the desktop appears, but only the boot partition shows up (my internal drive has 3 partitions). According to Activity Monitor, the other 2 are still being checked (since the hard restart). As long as both partitions are still being checked, the fans are quiet. When the 3rd one appears on the desktop (so all my partitions are mounted), the fans start making noise like they do all the rest of the day.
So I'm wondering:
•does it actually make sense that fans are sleeping as long as the computer hasn't mounted all the volumes?
•when is the behaviour normal: when the fans aren't running or when they are? (assuming the temperature isn't high, for example when the computer has just started).
5: it has happened to me twice since the beginning of this year: my Mac Pro turns itself on in the middle of the night (and it makes me waking up as well). The console says it's an USB peripheral that made the computer waking up (but since I was sleeping and I have no animal in my room, it sounds strange to me).
Would it be possible that an USB cable, because of changing temperature, is moving a bit and makes the computer waking up? What else can cause that?
6: when I plug a computer in the 2nd ethernet device (the 1st one being connected to the Internet), I can't seem to be able to connect both to the other computer and to the Internet (I can only connect to the one whose position in "System Preferences" ("Network" then "Ports") is above the other; the other one being always not reachable (either web pages can't be loaded, or Finder's connect to window stays at "Searching for host…")). If it's not possible, what's the purpose of 2 ethernet ports?
Sorry for the long message, but I'm always curious (and the message would have been shorter if english was my primary language).
P.S: I used to know computers fairly well in Mac OS 9 days, but Mac OS X has complicated things (and hidden a bunch of them through undocumented error codes and behaviours/logs), that I'm being more curious than I used to be.
Thanks in advance if you can answer some or all of my questions.

Answer 1

Smokerz wrote:
I have a 2008 Mac Pro. Don't know where to start addressing your situation but here goes:
1) go to Apple/support and make sure your SMC version is up to date
Already done
2) at the same place search for smc reset or power manager reset
I did that several months ago as well.
3) two ethernets connected. Example one ethernet port for connector to router which then connects to cable modem to get to the internet. The other ethernet connect to say an HP laserjet will not be shown on the local network if the Mac Pro is slept or shutdown. So its either one or the other, think of it that way.
So, not possible to have the 2 ethernets for 2 different networks?
(e.g one for the Internet and the other for connecting another computer)
4) you don't make it clear about the optical eject/retract sticking. If you installed some your self then you should remove the face plate because 99.9% don't fit properly(they don't clear).
I didn't install it myself, it came so. Anyway, I think you're right with the end of your sentence (it doesn't fit properly). However, both trays have different symptoms (one is blocking because of the front door and the other is blocking because of the internal tray), so I'm not sure how to solve that (I could keep the door open for the first one, but what about the 2nd one?).
Please tell me how I can be more clear about this issue.
5) the USB , try a good power usb hub, the smc reset may help this point of usb failure. The hub will definitely help, I use a very small CYBER POWER and have never a problem. Other vendor hubs yes but not this one.
I guess I've not be clear on that as well?
The power is the working part of that USB port. For example, if I put my external Hard Disk (powered only from USB), the light comes up and the drive spins up, yet the mount process does not happen (the disk isn't read and isn't detected).
So, if the port fails to send data without a hub (i.e directly) how would a hub address the issue?
(and, by the way, I've actually a hub, but things get worse when I use it, even with a single device; e.g my iPhone, if connected to it, disconnects at various time).
6) you mention running in 10.4.11 that 2008 Mac Pro is unsupported for Tiger.
Really? That's a shame, 10.5 is unusable to me (unbelievable bad changes in the OS). Well, 10.4 works fine there anyway.
You mention 10.5 have you updated to 10.5.8 and all system updaters. The 2008 Mac Pro runs very reliably using 10.6 or higher.
I've 3 partitions:
•One with 10.4.11
•One with 10.5.8
•One with 10.6.x (I do the update more rarely on this one because I usually don't use it)
As I said earlier, 10.4 is almost required for me. Only for watching videos I restart to 10.5 (and make the update there when available). But I can't afford to live with 10.5. 10.6 is even worse.
The fan situation would be a non issue. I just did a clean install of my son's 2006 Mac Pro and while it was running in 10.5.8 the fan noise bothered me but once 10.6+ went in the fan noise was a non issue.
Are you implying that 10.6 made the noise reduce?
You could replace that 2600 with a Nvidia 8800GT, if you can find one but do not buy the one created for the 2006 Mac Pro, it will not work. Also the GT 120 or Radeon 5770 or 5870 will work but unsupported. That means if you ever do a clean install your install disks will not have the drivers for those radeon cards but the OS will install. Then once you update Snow Leopard the drivers will be installed. Snow Leopard 10.6.4 is minimum.
I'd prefer to avoid using 10.6.4, indeed.
Thank you