Mac Pro won't boot, not even a dong ?

[617arg]

I came home yesterday and found my monitor in standby mode even though my Mac Pro was on. Moved the mouse and nothing happened. I thought it was the monitor and decided to do a hard restart.

The computer turns on - the power light and fans do at least - but there is no 'dong'.

Any ideas of what could have happened, why, and how to fix this?

The computer is an early 2008 dual quad core, with an 8800gt. First time something like this has ever happened.

Thanks for any help.

 

[spinnerlys]

Mac doesn't boot

Did that help?

 

[617arg]

I've seen that and tried the SMC reset and a PRAM reset - neither worked. I thought it must have been a failed logic board since I did just have a black screen.

After a while I came back and just tried holding option while restarting and that seemed to do the trick.

Any idea what could have happened? It's a bit scary considering this is the machine I use for work.......

Thanks for the help (and the writeup!)

 

[Spacedust]

Check diagnostic LED's !

This might be everything:

- dead RAM
- dead logic board
- dead processor

 

[Heilage]

Simple thing, try to remove all the RAM. If no error beeps occur, it could very well be the logic board or one of the CPUs. Nothing is definite, but it's a good place to start.

 

[617arg]

Here's an update -

After the machine began working properly (after holding down 'option' while restarting) I checked the RAM status using System Profiler. Everything checked out OK.

I then removed the side panel to check for diagnostic LED's but could not even tell where they might be located. Would it be obvious if an LED was on?

I assumed it might have just been an anomaly and continued normal work on my machine.

This morning when I tried to start-up a new problem seems to have occurred however -

This time the LED over the power button just blinks and the fans stay on. The machine once again won't boot. Holding down 'option' during start-up doesn't work. Holding down 'command', 'option', 'r', 'p' does not work.

Any ideas would be great. I leave for two weeks tomorrow and really don't want this to be in the back of my mind as the first thing to deal with when I return.......

Thanks.

 

[617arg]

another update -

I removed and reinstalled all the RAM to make sure they were properly seated. At the attempt to restart the LED just continued blinking as before.

I then removed all the RAM and reinserted the boards. Tried restarting and more of the same blinking LED over the power button. No error beeps.

I then reinstalled only the (2)-1GB RAM modules that came with the machine and it restarted fine. I'm going to now reinstall the remaining (4)-4GB sticks a pair at a time to see what happens........

 

[617arg]

it looks like the culprit was bad RAM. One of the 4GB sticks seems to have gone bad.