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Mac Pro - Died out of no were?

V

varsis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 30, 2005
209
1
Ok, so I got a Mac Pro I believe it's a 2007 model or some where along those lines, it's 2.63 ghz quad core.

None the less here is what happened.

Came home one day to find my USB not working at all it would charge but not connect to the computer.

So I reboot still not working. I turn it off and take a look inside nothing, reseat the ram just to be sure. Ok, turn it on, nothing happens, no screen I hear the fans spinning and the hd spinning.

Hmm odd.

So I take out each card and try one by one to see if any one them are causing a problem nope.

As a side note the computer light comes on, but if I like the power button it just shuts right off. Also the computer power up when I put the plug in the back without pressing the on button.

today i took the computer apart to see if I could find any blown caps... hmm nope. Went to the local computer store but they don't test for anything mac so he said I could try out their power tester nothing would light up on the tester but it may have been wrong pins. CD drive showed all voltages but 3.3v.

Now im not sure if it's the MOBO or the Power supply is there any way to test this out? or if I toast something else? I have no clue.

Chris

ps. if I plug usb in while it's on I can charge my iphone.
 
jav6454 said:
Did you check your HDDs? If your hard drive failed, your computer won't boot up. Everything will work, but you won't load the OS.
Click to expand...

I don't get a chime or the grey start screen of any sort to boot to. I'm stumped and no warranty. Not to pleased right now.
 
macbookairman said:
I'm certainly not an expert on this sort of thing, but my guess would be a dead logic board.
Click to expand...

I might just have to take it in than. I wish it had warranty this is my only issue ever with it. My six year old Mac book surpassed this one greatly which is pretty sad.
 
I dont have experience with MPs, but in a similar situation on PC, youd remove all the ram but the minimum required and see if its the ram problem (try the different combinations to determine if one of the sticks is faulty). Also could be the GPU aside from the mobo.
 
skiffx said:
I dont have experience with MPs, but in a similar situation on PC, youd remove all the ram but the minimum required and see if its the ram problem (try the different combinations to determine if one of the sticks is faulty). Also could be the GPU aside from the mobo.
Click to expand...

I checked with different ram didn't change anything and same with gpu I have two of each.
 
skiffx said:
I dont have experience with MPs, but in a similar situation on PC, youd remove all the ram but the minimum required and see if its the ram problem (try the different combinations to determine if one of the sticks is faulty). Also could be the GPU aside from the mobo.
Click to expand...

skiffx said:
Unfortunately you will need to take it in I guess, see if its the board or cpu.
Click to expand...

Is there any tests I can run to verify the logic board or something else. I would love to be able to do it myself instead of driving it to someone out of town.
 
varsis said:
Is there any tests I can run to verify the logic board or something else. I would love to be able to do it myself instead of driving it to someone out of town.
Click to expand...

The only tests you can do apply for if you're having intermittent problems, i.e. the booting process starts. If you can get that far then you can do the following:

Run the Apple Hardware test. Put in your Mac OS X Install Disc (Disc 1 for 2007 Mac Pros that came stock with Tiger) and then boot up holding the "D" key.

Once it's up, you can click the "Test" button or press "T" on the keyboard to perform a basic test. Do this first. If you then want to do a more thorough diagnostic test then you can select "Perform extended testing" before clicking the "Test" button. However, if you want to do an extended test I highly recommend you remove all RAM except for a pair of your smallest chips otherwise it will literally take hours. If you do think it's your RAM or certain RAM slots then I advise you test the different slots / different RAM sticks separately. The time it takes seems to go up exponentially depending on how many RAM sticks you have.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
The only tests you can do apply for if you're having intermittent problems, i.e. the booting process starts. If you can get that far then you can do the following:

Run the Apple Hardware test. Put in your Mac OS X Install Disc (Disc 1 for 2007 Mac Pros that came stock with Tiger) and then boot up holding the "D" key.

Once it's up, you can click the "Test" button or press "T" on the keyboard to perform a basic test. Do this first. If you then want to do a more thorough diagnostic test then you can select "Perform extended testing" before clicking the "Test" button. However, if you want to do an extended test I highly recommend you remove all RAM except for a pair of your smallest chips otherwise it will literally take hours. If you do think it's your RAM or certain RAM slots then I advise you test the different slots / different RAM sticks separately. The time it takes seems to go up exponentially depending on how many RAM sticks you have.
Click to expand...
Good advice IMO, as it could be a bad HDD, logic board, or PSU (memory too, but presuming all the DIMM's aren't shot, cycling through one at a time would have resulted in a successful boot if that's all that was wrong).
 
I agree with others that it sounds like a logic board (although advise on these kinda things should be taken lightly).

If you wanted one more thing to try, get Disk Warrior. At best, it will discover/confirm the problem is the disk (which I don't think it is). At worst, you'll have an excuse for getting a great program everyone needs anyways (DW has really saved my shirt many times).
 
Logic Board for sure

Power supply seems to be running the fans fine but since the USB wasn't connecting before the fail, it appears either the I/O or Logic is bad.
 
ryfly said:
Logic Board for sure

Power supply seems to be running the fans fine but since the USB wasn't connecting before the fail, it appears either the I/O or Logic is bad.
Click to expand...

Thats What i figured but I want to be a 100% sure I think im just going to buy a new computer.

As for the PRAM battery I removed it and started with it out and nothing changed.
 
Did you reset SMC? Check diagnostic LEDs also, they're located over upper RAM riser. If you need service manual, PM me. If you got it already, see Troubleshooting chapter for LEDs description table.
 
666sheep said:
Did you reset SMC? Check diagnostic LEDs also, they're located over upper RAM riser. If you need service manual, PM me. If you got it already, see Troubleshooting chapter for LEDs description table.
Click to expand...

Ya I got the manual. I tried the smc rest with no anvil. Diagnostics LEDs only show trickle and power on. There is a video light but not sure if that's for failure or power none the less the service manual says replace logic board.
 
From what you wrote, PSU seems to be OK. Did you took a look on front panel board (burns, smell etc)?

About LEDs: EFI Good LED (8) should light too, about 5 sec after pushing Power (when you press DIAG btn).
Rest of LEDs looks OK.

Try what service manual says: remove all additional hardware, including HDD (see this thread, especially its solution). I know that you've did it before, but maybe not all of them (graphics)?. Try with minimal amount of RAM and w/o graphics card too. If you'll hear chime, you've find source of problem. If all of this will fail - logic board is dead (99% of chance for this, 1% is always left for magic ;)).
 
Never Mind. I missed their subsequent post where they said no screen, no chime. The post below is not applicable. Maybe good advice in general, just not in this case. Sorry.

Listen to 666sheep. I just fixed what I thought was a hardware problem on my wife's MacBook Air by reinstalling the OS. I'm not saying that is what you should do, at this point, but what appeared to be a HW problem ended up being SW.

I went through all the diagnostic steps, one by one. Nothing worked. (Apple's support site has good articles on what to do.) Finally booted off the install disk and the Disk verify failed. But.... did an erase and reinstall, and now it's working just fine again. Lots cheaper than buying a new computer.
 
^ How could you do Erase and install on computer which doesn't POST (excluding taking out HDD and installing on other machine)? OP's problem is definitely HW related, but he/she needs to identify what part has failed.
 
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