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Couple of Mac Pro problems - help?

edesignuk

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
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:

borked.jpg

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 :)
 
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... :eek:
 
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.
 
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
 
Sesshi said:
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.
Click to expand...
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 :p
Click to expand...
I 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 said:
Just setup a appointment with Genius Bar, they will hook you up.
Click to expand...
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.
 
edesignuk said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Chaos123x said:
Wow really? Your local Apple store must really suck, mine are really helpful.
Click to expand...
I'm possibly being overly pessimistic :eek: 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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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>
 
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.
 
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.
 
siorai said:
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.
Click to expand...
Interestingly I've just recently replaced my boot drive, but this problem still persists.
mperkins37 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
To me, it seems more like a GPU issue.

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

Code: 
null:~ yellow$ [B]diskutil list[/B]
/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?
 
yellow said:
To me, it seems more like a GPU issue.
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
Confusing huh!
 
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.
 
yellow said:
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.
Click to expand...
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:
 
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 said:
Already did that! :D
Click to expand...

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!
 
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".
 
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 f**king kidding?
 
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.
 
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