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I think my Mac Pro is having kernel panic attacks!

E

echobaygal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 7, 2010
7
0
I bought my first general Mac Pro in 2007. One week ago, when starting up the computer in the morning the screen would go crazy with flashing colors. Eventually, I could get it to boot up but only after 5 or 6 times. Now, it is impossible.

This computer is used primarily for a small recording facility with a Digi Board and Pro Tools 7.1 installed.

Here are the specs on the computer:

Mac Pro
Dual Core Intel Xeon
2.66 GHz
Processors: 2
No. of cores: 4
L2 Cache per processor: 4 MB
Memory: 2G
Bus Speed: 1:33 GHz
SMC Version: 1.7f8

I'm running OS X 10.47

I've checked the Log folder and can see multiple kernel panic attacks but I think I may have been the cause of it. I happened to be holding some old photos that I had taken and saved to a cd back when I owned a very early version of Photo Shop. I loaded the photos onto my desktop from my CD and then downloaded a sample version of Photo Shop CS.

Well, ever since then the computer has been totally wonky! Shame on me as I forgot to do an uninstall and just dumped things in the trash and probably missed a whole bunch of extensions and plug ins related to the program.

Nonetheless, just to be sure I do not have any hardware issues, I rebooted from the original CD holding down the D key and did an extended test on hardware. The prompt tells me that no hardware problems were found.

I then rebooted with the CD holding down the C key to use the disk utilities and disk repair and proceeded with verifying the hard drives and doing a disk repair on the first drive.

Upon rebooting in a normal mode, I find that the screen still flashes crazy colors and ultimately freezes. My next approach has been to reboot in the "Safe" mode and here I find absolutely no problems with the monitor, or flashing colors and can run the computer for many hours. Can't use it to record as I'm aware that most of my extensions are disabled.

I am running Mac OS 10.4.7 as my Digi Board is running on Pro Tools 7.1 and I purchased several plug ins that I don't want to interfere with if I were to upgrade my operating system. That plus the cost of buying upgrades for the Pro Tools plug ins to run on a higher level OS. Runs just fine on OS 10.4.7 anyhow.

So my query here is: 1: have I missed anything? 2: do I need to look at my video card? .... anything else.

I am dreading having to reformat the hard drives and reinstall all of my software for my Digi Board and Pro Tools. A tedious process.

And yes, I have back up on everything.

Many thanks for any input brighter minds than me can supply!
 
Have you moved the computer recently or have you tugged on the video cable? I had a G5 tower once that had lots of video kernel panics. After trying everything else, I took the video card out and reseated it. All the problems went away. Must have just been a bad connection.
 
dacreativeguy said:
Have you moved the computer recently or have you tugged on the video cable? I had a G5 tower once that had lots of video kernel panics. After trying everything else, I took the video card out and reseated it. All the problems went away. Must have just been a bad connection.
Click to expand...

No, haven't moved the computer and haven't tugged on the video cable. I'm seriously considering taking the video card out and reseating it to see if that makes the problems go away.
 
echobaygal said:
No, haven't moved the computer and haven't tugged on the video cable. I'm seriously considering taking the video card out and reseating it to see if that makes the problems go away.
Click to expand...

The video card is dead. The Mac store here in Toronto has quoted me $784.98 for a new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, 512 MBand Cable - they list this as an exchange price:eek:

What highway robbery! I am now on the prowl for either a 7300 GT replacement or a much better priced NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT.
 
Might I suggest the Radeon 5770:

http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MC742ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTg2OTU0NzM

(I believe that's the link for the Canadian Apple store.)

The only issue (from anecdotal reports from others who purchased other graphics cards previously) is that, while it has been reported to work in the 2006/7 Mac Pro's (see my "What We Know So Far" thread), Apple won't support it because it's advertised as 2010 compatible only.

FWIW I have a former colleague in the UK who installed the 5770 in his 2006 Mac Pro, and he said it works great.
 
echobaygal said:
The video card is dead. The Mac store here in Toronto has quoted me $784.98 for a new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, 512 MBand Cable - they list this as an exchange price:eek:

What highway robbery! I am now on the prowl for either a 7300 GT replacement or a much better priced NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT.
Click to expand...

Try searching on ebay for a replacement video card. $785 is way too much.
 
DualShock said:
32 bit EFI (2006/7 Mac Pro) or 64 bit EFI (2008/9/10 Mac Pro)?
Click to expand...

I've just this morning located two (2!) Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT video cards for the Mac Pro 1.1 (right here in River City!). Can't believe my luck. Now let's see if they're still available.

I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible as going the route of the 8800 card entails me having to upgrade to Leopard and then upgrading my ProTools 7.1 and all of it's plug-ins. This is purely a dedicated small recording studio for commercial work that my husband does work on. He doesn't have anything to do with the equipment, or computer or software; I take care of all of that, so I much appreciate the input on the alternate video card that should work on the Mac Pro 1.1.
 
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