It is an ATI HD 5770 but I don't know if it is an Apple one or a flashed PC one. It has a normal boot screen. The computer was put together a system builder and there have been some economies made. Does it make a difference if it is an official Apple one or not?
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Mac Pro fans revving up.
- Thread starter Chriscotech
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If your Mac Pro is a 4,1, then the 5770 is not officially supported even if it is the Apple OEM card. It will still work just fine, but may exhibit some of the PCI fan weirdness that other non-supported cards experience.
If it's an Apple card, then it will have bracket built into it. It looks like a handle when you pull the card out.
Let us know what your fanspeeds look like if you move into Slot 2.
It is an Apple card in that case. My computer is a 4,1 with a processor upgrade to 6x 3.06 GHz so that might complicate things. It ran well until recently though.
I moved the card to slot 2 and the first boot is promising. I will need to run it for a while to find out for sure. I will report back. Just need to check, can I put my Sonnet 4x PCIe SSD RAID card in the bottom 16x slot or does it need to be in a 4x slot only?
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Yep, it's one of those.
In slot 2 it booted with the fans at normal speed. When running Heaven it built up slowly but took a lot longer to slow down, 6-7 minutes (as opposed to quick increase and quick slow down with the card in slot 1). The fan behaviour is making more sense now, though still not like any of my previous Mac Pros. So far, so good though.
In slot 2 it booted with the fans at normal speed. When running Heaven it built up slowly but took a lot longer to slow down, 6-7 minutes (as opposed to quick increase and quick slow down with the card in slot 1). The fan behaviour is making more sense now, though still not like any of my previous Mac Pros. So far, so good though.
What you've described is EXACTLY what I've seen with GTX 650 in Slot 2. The Heaven benchmark will cause the PCI fan to increase modestly (up to 900 rpms) and then gradually settle back down to 799.
In Slot 1, the fan would rapidly jump to 2100 rpms and then fall back to 799 rather quickly.
If you've got the time or the inclination, would you consider running Luxmark? It causes my PcI fan to increase slowly to 1000 rpms where it will remain until I reboot or power down. I'd like to see if others experience this. Thanks.
I wish I knew. I've never tried doing that in a Mac Pro.
I have placed x1 cards into x4 PCIe lanes on my Hackintosh.
The obvious disadvantage to this 'Slot 2 workaround' is that you end up blocking access to Slot 3.
Thank you for confirming that.
I will certainly try running "Luxmark" but I am much more of a bloke than a geek and don't know where/which version to get. In layman's terms, how do I do this test?
I really want to make my Mac work properly but please understand, it is 2:25 am on Sunday, my friends are all out partying, I have clocked up 71 hours this week with a limping computer and I have at least 12 more to put in by Monday morning. (I wish these glitches could happen in "down time").
Please send me the direct link for the test and I'll run it, for everyone's sake.
Thanks
It sounds like you've got more important things to do than run benchmarks. The Luxmark thing is just a little something to satisfy my curiosty, really.
I do hope your system is stable enough to do what you need to do now.
Best of luck
Still struggling
It has been a few months now and I am sorry to say I have never got to the bottom of my fan problems. I have now tried two different video cards. I still find it asleep with the fans running fast and can only shut it down with the power button. It struggles with video editing, dropping frames in Final cut pro x. Even scrolling through the finder speeds the fans up a bit on a bad day.
Just to recap, this is an Early 2009 (5.1) Mac Pro with a 12 core 3.06Ghz processor upgrade, 64GB of RAM (3rd party) and an ATI Radeon 5770 video card I also have a 7990 which is compatible and reports all of its 3GB of VRAM.
One of the biggest problems I have is that I can't get any help from Apple because of its non standard configuration. I can't find a way of getting the hardware diagnosed. It might be a main board/processor board compatibility problem or or it could be something different like a heat sensor. Can they be replaced? The RAM is 3rd party so I am wondering if I should buy some genuine stuff. I have tried removing most of it and using different sticks from the 8 I have but that hasn't changed the pattern.
Obviously this wasn't a cheap computer but I can't afford to waste money on it that might be needed to buy a replacement if it turns out to be a paperweight. Work is really slow but if it picks up I will need a computer that works much better than this. Not a good time to have computer problems. It is the second most valuable thing I own.
Any further advice would be much appreciated. The advice so far has been excellent. Thanks to all who have helped.
It has been a few months now and I am sorry to say I have never got to the bottom of my fan problems. I have now tried two different video cards. I still find it asleep with the fans running fast and can only shut it down with the power button. It struggles with video editing, dropping frames in Final cut pro x. Even scrolling through the finder speeds the fans up a bit on a bad day.
Just to recap, this is an Early 2009 (5.1) Mac Pro with a 12 core 3.06Ghz processor upgrade, 64GB of RAM (3rd party) and an ATI Radeon 5770 video card I also have a 7990 which is compatible and reports all of its 3GB of VRAM.
One of the biggest problems I have is that I can't get any help from Apple because of its non standard configuration. I can't find a way of getting the hardware diagnosed. It might be a main board/processor board compatibility problem or or it could be something different like a heat sensor. Can they be replaced? The RAM is 3rd party so I am wondering if I should buy some genuine stuff. I have tried removing most of it and using different sticks from the 8 I have but that hasn't changed the pattern.
Obviously this wasn't a cheap computer but I can't afford to waste money on it that might be needed to buy a replacement if it turns out to be a paperweight. Work is really slow but if it picks up I will need a computer that works much better than this. Not a good time to have computer problems. It is the second most valuable thing I own.
Any further advice would be much appreciated. The advice so far has been excellent. Thanks to all who have helped.