Hi guys..any help would be MUCH appreciated! Merry Christmas to you all :)

[sol77]

Hi, ive a mac pro 8 core 6 gigs of ram....today the machine will not get past the white, apple logo and spinning wheel....ive tried hardware test - ALL was good. I even tried the 'extended' testing again NO problem...Strange thing is ive tried to boot from cd and it keeps crashing. I cant even access the utilities mode. I have also tried a safe boot - this just made it hang...but this time without the logo - it was just blank grey screen....I have a lot of music production work stored and need to access it asap....any help or suggestions to this would help me so much, im at my wits end Please, please help! Merry Christmas to you all!!

 

[Paratel]

Have you changed your video card? Might be a ram problem. You are going to need to eliminating things like a bad RAM stick, a HDD Problem, etc. I know when ugrading to LION min MacPRo hung up on the grey screen and the little wheel would spin and then just stop with nothing. turns out it was a bad video card.

 

[sol77]

Hi paratel, thanks for that. I havent upgraded to lion...its still on snow leopard 10.6.8. It was working this morning no problems until i went out and the screen went a bit bizare on the screen saver. I turned off the mac (holding down the switch) because it had crashed and upon restarting the only thing that happened was the apple logo and timer....after a few seconds i tried to test any button - now heres the wierd part...skype could be heard starting up and my vulume keys were both audible!!!! but the screen was still on the apple white screen with circle timer stopped.....what else do you think it might be?

 

[Paratel]

input the snowleopard CD and boot from the CD and run the disk repair utility. if that doesn't work. I am at a loss. You could do a dirty install of snow leopard.

 

[Loa]

Hello,

To access the data: pull the hard drive from the mac and put it in another Mac with enclosure if necessary.

My guess is that your vid card is defective. Can you try another?

Loa

 

[OLDCODGER]

Ram Test

Try pulling your ram sticks and putting one back and firing up. Repeat with other sticks.

 

[sol77]

Thanks guys, just to update....I removed the RAM then put them back and guess what.....it started up!!! I checked the 'about this mac' and it was reading the FULL 8 gigs of ram that was installed....It then was working flawlessly for 30 mins then the strangest thing happened...the machine and my mouse clicker started to miss movements and then the machine really slowed down. I did a shutdown holding the power off...and....it happened again white screen with the apple logo and timer. It probably IS the graphics card as I did manage to test the ram and it was reading the full 8 gigs. Any other suggestions before I buy a new graphics card? Also for a 2008 mac pro 2.8 eight core which graphics card is best suited? Thanks once again for your help guys Merry Christmas!!

 

[BigJohno]

Thanks guys, just to update....I removed the RAM then put them back and guess what.....it started up!!! I checked the 'about this mac' and it was reading the FULL 8 gigs of ram that was installed....It then was working flawlessly for 30 mins then the strangest thing happened...the machine and my mouse clicker started to miss movements and then the machine really slowed down. I did a shutdown holding the power off...and....it happened again white screen with the apple logo and timer. It probably IS the graphics card as I did manage to test the ram and it was reading the full 8 gigs. Any other suggestions before I buy a new graphics card? Also for a 2008 mac pro 2.8 eight core which graphics card is best suited? Thanks once again for your help guys Merry Christmas!!

5770 does the job for me and will work in your model but I'm waiting till the 7000 series. Hopefully we get the upgrade.

 

[OLDCODGER]

Thanks guys, just to update....I removed the RAM then put them back and guess what.....it started up!!! I checked the 'about this mac' and it was reading the FULL 8 gigs of ram that was installed....It then was working flawlessly for 30 mins then the strangest thing happened...the machine and my mouse clicker started to miss movements and then the machine really slowed down. I did a shutdown holding the power off...and....it happened again white screen with the apple logo and timer. It probably IS the graphics card as I did manage to test the ram and it was reading the full 8 gigs. Any other suggestions before I buy a new graphics card? Also for a 2008 mac pro 2.8 eight core which graphics card is best suited? Thanks once again for your help guys Merry Christmas!!

Your symptoms still indicate a bad ram stick. As I said before, try one stick at a time - with only minimal apps running. Best of luck.

 

[Vapor matt]

Hi, if your mac went all funny while in screen saver mode it could well be bad GFX memory, I would put my money on the GFX card gone bad.

easy test, try 1 memory stick, if it fails with 1 stick try another, if that fails chances are 2 sticks will not have gone bad, so it point to video memory on the GFX card in your mac, so it might be upgrade time for that.

least its xmas a good excuse to upgrade your mac!