Mac Pro listing - potential or headache

Pass.

Unless, of course, the seller is going to pay you to troubleshoot it.

Kernel panics are often RAM related, but from the information provided it's impossible to tell.

jdblas69 said:

Mac Pro listing - potential or headache

Came across an listing for an 09 Mac Pro 8 core
This is noted in the description, also no video card is installed:
"This computer was purchased used on Ebay in fall 2013. After installing OSX 10.9 on release, the system started exhibiting stability issues which were not resolved by reverting the OS. It currently kernel panics at random times, will fail to wake if left to sleep for several hours, intermittently fail to chime (resolved by clearing PRAM), and on occasion it will simply refuse to power up (a relay “click” is heard shortly after the power button is pressed)."

Based on the above description any experts out there with their thoughts. Is this just a big headache not worth my time or money, or is some of the above potential minor fixes??

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Your title should say: potential for headache. Unless you are intimately familiar with that particular Pro, and love to tinker with it, a big PASS on a computer that's close to going 'Legacy', with no video card and multiple red flags.

Just my opinion, but it might be the cat's meow for the right person.

Depends on Need

If you need it bad, obviously take it. It really depends on how good you are and do you think you have enough skill to go after whatever is making this thing bug out.

Quite honestly any number of things can cause kernel panics.

I know I'm good with Macs, but this computer sounds like a black hole for wallets and even I would stay very, very far away.

Hmm....

Actually, I was going to ask what kind of asking price it had?

For a Mac Pro that has known problems like that, the seller should be offering it at a pretty big discount.

For the right price, I'd certainly buy something like this....

I was going to suggest that the most common culprits (once an OS re-installation is done and that's ruled out) are RAM, followed by a failing hard drive, and possibly a failing graphics card.

I just re-read your original post though, and the part about it clicking but failing to power on occasionally sounds a bit more troublesome. That could indicate a power supply that's starting to fail, which wouldn't be a terribly expensive repair if you did it yourself -- but is a bit of a hassle disconnecting the original one and trying to properly re-route all of the wiring. Worse though, it could also mean a bad main logic board -- which would probably not be a cheap repair.

So yeah .... this would be a good buy if it was cheap enough so you could still turn a small profit parting it out and selling whatever components were good, once you figured out what failed. Otherwise, kind of risky.

intermittently fail to chime (resolved by clearing PRAM)

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Classic signs of a nearly dead PRAM/CMOS battery.....$5 @any place that sells electronics parts/supplies (RadioSmack, BustBuy etc)

on occasion it will simply refuse to power up (a relay “click” is heard shortly after the power button is pressed)

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Classic signs of a failing PSU.....question is....can you find a replacement & for how much

Personally, for the right price, I'd jump all over this.... IF I were in the market for a MP that is

Also remember that the current Quad mini 2.6 is equally fast on the CPU, it is a lot faster on the GPU if the Mac Pro has the 120GT (now I see it hasn't any), and you will miss all the Mini's modern connections like Thunderbolt, USB3, SATA 6, Wifi-N.
So unless it is under 500 bucks and you love to tinker, don't buy it.