Couple of Mac Pro problems - help?

[edesignuk]

Mac Pro - Early 2008 - Octo 2.8
6GB RAM - 2GB Stock + 4GB Crucial
All 4 hard drive bays used:
- WD Caviar Blue 640GB
- Samsung F1 750GB
- Samsung F1 750GB
- Stock 320GB
ATI 2600 Graphics - Stock

No weird USB stuff plugged in, just kbd & mouse + iPod charger.

Occasionally when I wake the Mac Pro from sleep it wakes up like this:

155631

All you can do is cold boot it, then it's fine again. Worrying though, anyone ever seen this?

Off the back of that problem I ran the hardware test and got this error:

4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(1,0)

Disk Utility says all is fine, obviously hardware test disagrees. Does anyone know how to read this error, which drive bay is it referring too?

Thank you :)

[Tallest Skil]

I'm going to say it's your graphics card. That's about the only thing you didn't mention here, so I don't know if it has a rash of failures.

That's interesting that your hard drive would come back as the cause of a graphics error. Unless the GUI data is corrupted... I'm a little out of my league here.

It just looks like every graphics card error I've ever seen... :o

[edesignuk]

ah yes, sorry, the video card is the stock ATI 2600.

[edesignuk]

Any other ideas boys and girls? :o

[Chaos123x]

Run the firmware update for the 2600.

You download it in software update.

It should show up in your Utilities folder, just double click it to run.

If your card already has the current firmware it will tell you.

[edesignuk]

^ Pretty sure I've already done that some time ago unfortunately.

[Sesshi]

Check the GPU fan is spinning when you boot the Mac, and a while later. Cheap GPU's have cheap fans and when they fail the card overheats and you end up with similar tearing / artifacts on the screen like that - it's the #1 failure point of any machine when we e.g. buy entry-level GPU'd workstations with something like a Quadro FX5xx. Either way it also looks like a GPU issue to me, either though an outright failure or cumulative thermal damage.

Fortunately it's easy enough for me to explain to Dell and get it replaced by a courier within a few hours... Good luck on Applecaring that :p

[edesignuk]

Check the GPU fan is spinning when you boot the Mac, and a while later. Cheap GPU's have cheap fans and when they fail the card overheats and you end up with similar tearing / artifacts on the screen like that.Good idea, I'll check that out.
Fortunately it's easy enough for me to explain to Dell and get it replaced by a courier within a few hours... Good luck on Applecaring that :pI know, not looking forward to this. It's so intermittent I just know it's destined to be a huge headache. At least I know I can count on you for you sympathy ;)

[Chaos123x]

Just setup a appointment with Genius Bar, they will hook you up.

[edesignuk]

Just setup a appointment with Genius Bar, they will hook you up.I doubt it. Intermittent problems are never so simple. I cannot make the system repeat this behaviour on demand.

Plus hauling a Mac Pro in to see some jumped up salesman doesn't really fill me with confidence. I may have to, but I'm trying to avoid it.

[Chaos123x]

I doubt it. Intermittent problems are never so simple. I cannot make the system repeat this behaviour on demand.

Plus hauling a Mac Pro in to see some jumped up salesman doesn't really fill me with confidence. I may have to, but I'm trying to avoid it.

Wow really? Your local Apple store must really suck, mine are really helpful.

You can call ahead to make one there employees carry your machine in and out.

If you don't want to put up with that little bit of hassle just got to macsales.com and order a 3870 card to replace it.

[edesignuk]

Wow really? Your local Apple store must really suck, mine are really helpful.I'm possibly being overly pessimistic :o We'll see, maybe they will surprise and dazzle me :D
You can call ahead to make one there employees carry your machine in and out.My local store is in a shopping centre, so I think I'll probably be hauling it in myself. Not the end of the world by any means, just irritating.
If you don't want to put up with that little bit of hassle just got to macsales.com and order a 3870 card to replace it.Hell no. I paid for Apple Care for a reason, they can fix it!


Maybe I will just try to convince someone over the phone that the likely candidate is just the video card, and that maybe they can just ship a replacement out. </wishful thinking>

[siorai]

I had a similar problem quite awhile ago. I hunted for weeks to find the cause of it all. Then one day one of my older Western Digital storage drives died. No more problems on waking from sleep. I can't really say how it actually caused it, but it had to be the drive in it's last throes of life screwing things up. Ever since that drive died, I have never had the graphical corruption issue.

[mperkins37]

Definitely a dead card. I would run diagnostics on the HD's once again once replaced though as you may have 2 problems lurking.
The Video card & the hd.

[edesignuk]

I had a similar problem quite awhile ago. I hunted for weeks to find the cause of it all. Then one day one of my older Western Digital storage drives died. No more problems on waking from sleep. I can't really say how it actually caused it, but it had to be the drive in it's last throes of life screwing things up. Ever since that drive died, I have never had the graphical corruption issue.Interestingly I've just recently replaced my boot drive, but this problem still persists.
Definitely a dead card. I would run diagnostics on the HD's once again once replaced though as you may have 2 problems lurking.
The Video card & the hd.I ran diags (as noted in first post) and got this error: 4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(1,0). I just don't know how to understand which drive it is referring too.

[yellow]

To me, it seems more like a GPU issue.

Not sure what to tell you about which SATA drive that is.

null:~ yellow$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *465.8 Gi disk0
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1
2: Apple_RAID 465.4 Gi disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *465.8 Gi disk1
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk1s1
2: Apple_RAID 465.4 Gi disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *465.8 Gi disk2
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS ChunkyMonkey 465.4 Gi disk2s2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *232.9 Gi disk3
1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS SkinnyMinny 115.9 Gi disk3s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data Visterific 116.7 Gi disk3s3
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS MacHero *465.4 Gi disk4

Maybe the 2nd disk (disk1) with a bad GUID_partition_scheme?

[edesignuk]

To me, it seems more like a GPU issue.It certainly looks that way. I worry about the HDD error though, but I don't really see a connection between this and the display issue. :confused:
Not sure what to tell you about which SATA drive that is.

Maybe the 2nd disk (disk1) with a bad GUID_partition_scheme?Confusing huh!

[yellow]

One easy way to tell is to do a process of elimination.. Unplug 2 of the drives and run the hardware test, etc.
Then maybe you can find the culprit. Time consuming, but effective.

[edesignuk]

One easy way to tell is to do a process of elimination.. Unplug 2 of the drives and run the hardware test, etc.
Then maybe you can find the culprit. Time consuming, but effective.Argh, yeah, that would work, but it would take ages. 1hr36m it took when I ran full diags last.

Think I would rather waste my time on hold with Apple :rolleyes:

[yellow]

IMO, you should do it first. It should be faster with 1/2 the disks.

The more info you are armed with when you call, the less wiggle room they have to pawn you off on some wild goose chase
(i.e., "reinstall the OS" :rolleyes:).

[edesignuk]

(i.e., "reinstall the OS" :rolleyes:).Already did that! :D

[yellow]

Already did that! :D

See what I mean? I understand the urge to do that to people that call, as it's very hard to gauge a user's technical competence over the phone, but damn.. It's annoying to hear that just so you can close a call.

Jeeze, that barely makes sense. It makes sense in my head though.

End result:

UNLAZY YOUR ASS ARSE, LAZY ARSE!

[edesignuk]

On the phone to Apple now, so far everything they've asked I've already done. I think she's confused, going to palm me off to a "product specialist". Well, she will just as soon as she finally takes me of hold while she "writes her notes".

[edesignuk]

I believe the phrase "useless shower of bastards" is fitting here.

They don't know what's wrong, the product specialist doesn't know what's wrong. No one has access to or is able to lookup what an error code means. I mean seriously. Are they ********* kidding?

[djjclark]

Not sure I would point at the GPU when you are getting a Hard Disk error. I would think maybe disk 1 is drawing to much current on wake sometimes and causing the system to screw up. Would try running it without the one drive for a bit.

[edesignuk]

Not sure I would point at the GPU when you are getting a Hard Disk error. I would think maybe disk 1 is drawing to much current on wake sometimes and causing the system to screw up. Would try running it without the one drive for a bit.If so it's not the drive, since the drive was replaced with another and the problem persists. Possible the port on the board though. Good point.

All hope is lost when a "product specialist" isn't able to look up a simple error code from their own on-board diagnostics.

[jaw04005]

We had one Mac Pro do that at work sporadically, and it was the video card.

I don't know how good AppleCare is in the UK, but I would make them overnight you a graphics card.

Also, did you try reseating the graphics card?

[yellow]

So, what happened?

[dabirdwell]

Looks like the display of my PowerBook 1.25 when I OC'd the graphics card too far. Doesn't seem like it would really be a fan issue if it runs fine after a hard reboot..

I've also had a few really weird occurrences of this happening on my 24" iMac at work, but only when using "Connect to Server" in Finder. Really strange..

Hopefully AppleCare will at least send you a new card. You might really consider the 3870 at some point too. Surely you could sell the 2600 to somebody who wants a dual setup. I think the 3870 is only about $200US, but seems like the best overall graphics choice for your machine right now, and far and away better than the 2600. I was looking at getting your exact setup with a 3870 before I decided to wait for the new MPs.

[edesignuk]

So, what happened?Nothing yet. AppleCare don't want to just send me a card (tossers), they're all too stupid/ill-equipped to be able to look up the SATA error, and I apparently have no choice but to drag it in to an Apple Store. When I'm going to get round to doing that I have no idea.

[Sesshi]

I'm torn between a sympathetic 'Man, that's bad luck' and a malicious 'pfffffft... see, what'd I tell ya about Crapplecare?'.

So I'll offer both in equal amounts of sincerity and you can pick one ;)

[edesignuk]

I'm torn between a sympathetic 'Man, that's bad luck' and a malicious 'pfffffft... see, what'd I tell ya about Crapplecare?'.

So I'll offer both in equal amounts of sincerity and you can pick one ;)I knew it was going to suck, I had hoped they would be able to tell me the meaning of an error code over the phone at the very least. Evidently I expect too much.

[yellow]

Well, your YellowCare representative tells you to pull 2 disks, run the diag, and continue until you find the errant drive. Then keep it out of the bay and see if the problem still plagues you. If so, it's unrelated to the drive error which is a separate event. If it does seem to be tied to the drive, you should be able to call AppleCare and have then send you a replacement (if it's a 1st party drive).

Do it. Do it now.

[edesignuk]

Do it. Do it now.I will endeavour to. Captain.

[yellow]

I will endeavour to. Captain.

Welcome to this yellow's Army.

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x97/soxanddawgs/general%20baseball/Salute.gif



:D

[surflordca]

Welcome to this yellow's Army.

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x97/soxanddawgs/general%20baseball/Salute.gif



:D

Where did you get the pictures of my daughters :)

[edesignuk]

So I took myself and my piece of paper with my assumed hard drive error to the Apple Store and grabbed a few minutes with a "genius" without having made an appointment. Present the "genius" with my error, to which he hasn't the faintest idea what it means. He toddles off out back to speak to colleagues who also don't have a clue. None of them seem to have the faintest idea how to proceed when they don't just happen to know off the top of their head what the problem is. We wander down to their Mac Pro where he proceeds to remove the side of it, like that's somehow going to make my error make some sort of sense. In the end I realise that I'm obviously not going to get any sense out of these guys and leave my details and the error. Will be interesting to see if they ever bother getting back to me.

This is a Pro machine with AppleCare. I'm astounded at the abysmal quality of their "care". I have an error presented to me by their diagnostics and no one is able to tell me which bay it's referring to. Incredible.

So it leaves it down to me to figure it out through the long drawn out process of removing drives, re-running diags again and again (taking 90mins each time) to figure out which one it is.

Finally I have it figured out. It was my Samsung in bay 2.

If anyone should suffer this in future, this is how the error works.

My error: 4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(1,0)

(1,0) means bay 2.

(0,0) would mean bay 1. (2,0) would mean bay 3, and (3,0) would mean bay 4. I imagine the second figure would represent the partition the error was found on, but since my drive only has 1 partition it just shows up as 0.

Not out of the woods yet, but making progress. No thanks what so ever to Apple and their "genius" techs. http://up.edesignuk.com/files/1/Images/Smilies/MoFugger.gif

[yellow]

So, has your performance issue gotten better now that you've opt'd out of the disk in bay 2? What did you do with it, unplug it, wipe it?

[edesignuk]

So, has your performance issue gotten better now that you've opt'd out of the disk in bay 2? What did you do with it, unplug it, wipe it?Bay 2 was my data drive (where my home folder sat), so it was in active use all the time. I had a 2nd identical drive in bay 3 that was a nightly backup of bay 2.

I am now using the drive in bay 3 as my data drive, so the faulty one in bay 2 isn't used, though it is still in the machine.

Last couple of days it's woken up OK, but then it wasn't happening constantly before anyway, so it may perk up again yet.

I have started the process for an RMA with Samsung this morning.

I still hate Apple's support, and hope that the graphics issue was somehow weirdly related to the drive issue (which by the way only turned up an error under the extended hardware test). If not I will still need to convince Apple of the need to replace my video card. :rolleyes:

[edesignuk]

Update on progress...

Since I removed the drive reporting the error the machine has not woken up with the cranky display problem pictured in my first post. So amazingly it does seem to have been a hard disk error only identifiable by extended hardware test that was causing the bizarre graphics issue.

I got the faulty Samsung replaced under warranty (very easy and quick process I might add, right on Samsung!). The replacement is now back in the system and hopefully that’ll be the end of it :)

All fixed no thanks what so ever to any help from Apple. Useless twunts.

[Rt&Dzine]

All fixed no thanks what so ever to any help from Apple. Useless twunts.

AppleCare = Fail.

YellowCare Rules!

[Macpropro80]

I got them to replace my graphic card after they refused to by breaking it a little more till it didnt turn on and then what do you know they send me a new one the next day. (but dont tell apple :) )

[Sesshi]

AppleCare = Fail.

YellowCare Rules!

+1.

I'm filing this one away for the almost inevitable possibility of it hitting me some day.

(Mind you, I am the 'crazy' one who buys Apple Storage, so... ;) )