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MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 4,1 flashed to 5,1 boots but no startup chime

B

be236

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 7, 2017
30
0
Seattle
I had this working Mac Pro 4,1 put into storage box about five years back. Now I took it out, tried to turn it on, see white power light, and see fans spinning, but no startup chime. Replaced the internal 3V battery with a good one, and reseated the two RAM sticks, but still no chime.

Any ideas? Could the motherboard and power supply go bad after being in storage in its own box?
 
Do you get anything on an attached display? If it's booting but silent, your last sound settings might have been digital-out. The internal speaker might not be getting the sound output.

Assuming it's not booting, I'd be wondering about the hard drive after 5 years in storage. Can you bring up the firmware boot picker by holding Option while booting? If so, try booting from an external drive. Try unplugging the internal drive, then booting. I've seen HDs go bad, in such a way that the Mac plays dead.

Also, the usual advice. Take an apple a day ... er, try a PRAM reset. PRAM settings may have become incomprehensible after 5 years without power.
 
reader50 said:
Do you get anything on an attached display? If it's booting but silent, your last sound settings might have been digital-out. The internal speaker might not be getting the sound output.

Assuming it's not booting, I'd be wondering about the hard drive after 5 years in storage. Can you bring up the firmware boot picker by holding Option while booting? If so, try booting from an external drive. Try unplugging the internal drive, then booting. I've seen HDs go bad, in such a way that the Mac plays dead.

Also, the usual advice. Take an apple a day ... er, try a PRAM reset. PRAM settings may have become incomprehensible after 5 years without power.
Click to expand...
No, I didnt bother to plug in the monitor, as I figured no point since no chime... I think its got the single video card which has DVI output which I then use an adapter to give me the standard 15-pin cable to go into my TV/monitor... I'll attach a monitor next time.

When I turn it on, I seem to hear the DVD drive and hard drive try to spin up... I have disconnected the DVD and hard drive, made no difference.

I also noticed if I removed all the RAM, the fans spin hard and making louder fan noise.. not sure if that means anything... though if I remove all the RAM, I read that the white power light should flash, but instead it remains steady all the time.

The keyboard I dont think gets any power, as the "caps lock" light dont turn on , and the mouse attached to it has no red light for its sensor underneath...

I have re-seated both the GPU card and the main tray at bottom holding the CPU and RAM and blown away as much dirt in the area as possible...

It's just weird that this worked fine when I put it away for storage 5-6 years ago... alas...

I've put in a good 3V internal PRAM battery too.. no difference.

As for PRAM reset, doesnt that require the keyboard to be active ,but I think they keyboard has no power when plugged in...
 
I hooked up a HDMI monitor and still no display. I took out the GT 120 graphics card and put it into a Mac Pro 3,1 and that worked fine there.

I also did the diagnostics lights and they all appear to turn on as expected (reading from what AI told me)... did the SMC reset (eg, disconnecting power for a bit and replugging power in again).. still no difference.

But I noticed that with all the four RAM slots empty, the white power light is still solid, not flashing as expected... so not sure what's going on...
 
It's hanging up very early in POST. Did you do the PRAM reset? An SMC reset doesn't do anything to the PRAM, they're separate resets.

Do you have any other PCIe cards installed? Have you tested the USB keyboard & mouse on another computer? I've seen PCIe cards hang up boot. Bad USB devices too.
 
There's no power to keyboard, so doing option+cmd+p+r would not work, though I did do that as well.. no difference.

Just that one PCIe card installed (and known working from another Mac Pro)... yes, the keyboard and mouse works on another Mac.

I've also unplugged the DVD and hard drive no difference...

But when I had them plugged in, I could hear the DVD drive spin for a short time before it stops.

Also, I noticed with no RAM sticks, the fan blows hard and loud ... whereas with a RAM stick in , the fan is quieter...

Hit the diag button on the MB, the lights that "should" be on, did light up (per AI's instructions)...

This Mac Pro was flashed from 4,1 to 5,1 and it worked back about 5-6 years ago, before I put it into storage and just took it out recently.. I can't imagine the RAM would just go bad all these years.
 
Have you tried the HD in another Mac?

At this point, I'd consider the HD the top suspect. I'd swap it, do another SMC reset, and see if the Mac Pro will boot. I might even dig out an optical disc, see if it will boot from that.

Beware that if you've upgraded the CPUs to later Xeons (especially a 6-core), a Leopard install disc will no longer work. Snow Leopard becomes the minimum bootable OS.
 
I've not tried that HD on another Mac, but I did physically remove it (the HD and DVD drive), so if it was a problem, I should have gotten the startup chime?

SMC reset is simply unplug power, wait a few minutes and plug power cord back in? I've already done that a few times.

CPU is stock Xeons, no upgrade.
 
Apple's official answer for a non-T2 desktop is to unplug the power cord for 15 seconds. Plug back in, wait 5 seconds, then push the power button. I usually hold the power button in for 10 seconds while my Mac Pro is unplugged, as I seem to recall reading that advice somewhere. However, I haven't found a source for it.

There is an alternative for us Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1 users.
Alternative SMC Reset for Mac Pro (2012 and Earlier)

If you have a 2012 or earlier Mac Pro that isn't responding to the normal SMC reset, force a manual SMC reset by using the SMC reset button located on the Mac Pro's motherboard.
  1. Shut down the Mac.
  2. Unplug the Mac's power cord.
  3. Open the Mac Pro's side access panel.
  4. Just below the Drive 4 sled and adjacent to the top PCI-e slot is a small button labeled SMC. Press and hold this button for 10 seconds.
  5. Close the Mac Pro's side door.
  6. Reconnect the Mac's power cord.
  7. Wait five seconds.
  8. Start the Mac by pressing the power button.
Click to expand...
Test the old HD.

Macs may behave oddly with no HD present. Without a drive installed, it should chime, then display the prohibition sign (no bootable sources). But it's hanging on something, and you've heard the optical drive attempt a read. You've not mentioned any HD chatter. It sounds like things are stopping when it reaches the HD.

So I'd pull the HD and test it. I'd also swap in a known-good HD, do an SMC reset to get the Mac out of any confusion a dead HD might leave, and attempt booting again.
 
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Ok, I put in a known working HD... did the manual SMC reset per above steps... after I plugged back in power cord, the Mac Pro automatically turned on, but still no difference... no startup chime... alas!

I can only assume the PSU is good, as the fans are working... so could it be a motherboard problem? Or maybe the CPU has loosened? I guess that's my next step is to take off that large heat-sink and look at the CPU area?
 
It does look that way - logic board or processor board. Or CPU not making good contact on all pins. Though it could still be something exotic, like BT card failed. This is getting past my diagnostic skills - hopefully someone else has thoughts.
 
Yeah, what puzzles me is.. that I put this Mac into its own box for storage 5-6 years ago and was working fine back then... how could a MB or CPU card area fail sitting around, doing nothing... I guess my next step is to take off CPU heatsink and look a the CPU and re-seat it as needed..?
 
be236 said:
Yeah, what puzzles me is.. that I put this Mac into its own box for storage 5-6 years ago and was working fine back then... how could a MB or CPU card area fail sitting around, doing nothing... I guess my next step is to take off CPU heatsink and look a the CPU and re-seat it as needed..?
Click to expand...
It happens. There are three things which remain untested: Power supply, CPU tray, and motherboard. Testing the CPU tray is easy if you have another 4,1 / 5,1 Mac Pro. The other two would require disassembly and, sadly, I am not sure it'd be worth it to go through that level of effort anymore.
 
I'm thinking about your firmware chip. True ROM chips will hold data forever. But flash memory needs refreshing. SSDs are rated to retain data for at least 1 year unplugged. I'd imagine a chip meant for firmware would have a longer rating. And the PRAM battery may also maintain your firmware chip.

But 5 years without power is a long time. Especially if the PRAM battery died a year or two in. Your firmware chip may have gone 3-4 years without a refresh cycle (pushing the "1"s back to full strength).

If it is corrupted firmware, you'd need specialist help to recover your Mac Pro. There is a thread around here, covering worn-out firmware chip service. Along with people who do such work. I don't have them bookmarked, unfortunately.
 
Diagnostics LEDs looked good when I pushed the diag button in the MB.... the top set of lights had two lights turn on... and the bottom set (near the diag button) has three lights on... per AI, I think that's correct... the PSU should be good, since fans are spinning, no?

... as for firmware, you're saying it can go bad if it doesnt have power , say on a regular basis? hmmm...

I only have a working Mac Pro 3,1 to play with and compare...

I dont want to spend any more money to get a new MB or PSU, etc... it's such a shame this unit doesnt start up.. not sure what to do with it, hate to recycle it.
 
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