MP 1,1-5,1 MacPro5.1 Boot Issues

[TinyRebel]

My Mac Pro never boots first attempt, the power light comes on and things start up inside the machine, but no chime, and no picture. Occasionally, simply forcing a restart does the job. However, mostly I have to turn off the power at the mains, keep the power button pressed in for 20 seconds and let go, switch mains power back on, then start the machine as normal. Having gone through this process nine times out of ten the machine will chime, if it chimes then it will go on to display a picture and boot up.

Sadly that is not the end of the story! Once at the desktop, I find that the NVMe drives are not there. However, if I let the machine warmup for about 5 minutes and then restart, everything will work as it should and the NVMe drives will show on the desktop.

Any help overcoming these issues would be most welcome. Thank you.

Hardware Overview:
macOS: 10.14.6
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro5,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Memory: 64 GB
Boot ROM Version: 144.0.0.0.0
Graphics: Radeon RX 580 (using DisplayPort)

 

[startergo]

Very similar to the PS issues I had. I had to replace 2 PS and the current one shows also some signs of failure. Remember these are all used PS 9-10 years old.

 

[Snow Tiger]

My Mac Pro never boots first attempt, the power light comes on and things start up inside the machine, but no chime, and no picture. Occasionally, simply forcing a restart does the job. However, mostly I have to turn off the power at the mains, keep the power button pressed in for 20 seconds and let go, switch mains power back on, then start the machine as normal. Having gone through this process nine times out of ten the machine will chime, if it chimes then it will go on to display a picture and boot up.

Sadly that is not the end of the story! Once at the desktop, I find that the NVMe drives are not there. However, if I let the machine warmup for about 5 minutes and then restart, everything will work as it should and the NVMe drives will show on the desktop.

Any help overcoming these issues would be most welcome. Thank you.

Hardware Overview:
macOS: 10.14.6
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro5,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Memory: 64 GB
Boot ROM Version: 144.0.0.0.0
Graphics: Radeon RX 580 (using DisplayPort)

Seems to be PSU related . Before you buy a new power supply , though , remove your current one and thoroughly clean it with a compressor . 60 PSI around 6 inches away from the nozzle . Don't use canned air , a hair drier or a vacuum ( for chemical and static reasons ) . Then let dry properly ( 12 to 24 hours usually ) and reinstall . The cMPs are like huge vacuum cleaners and suck up all the ambient dust in your room . There's an enclosed relay in the PSU that is sensitive to particulate contamination ... it must be kept dust free .

You might also just want to reset the NVRAM ( the old PRAM routine ) .

Reset NVRAM on your Mac

If one or more settings stored in NVRAM don't work as expected on an Intel-based Mac, resetting NVRAM might help.

support.apple.com

 

[crjackson2134]

My Mac Pro never boots first attempt, the power light comes on and things start up inside the machine, but no chime, and no picture. Occasionally, simply forcing a restart does the job. However, mostly I have to turn off the power at the mains, keep the power button pressed in for 20 seconds and let go, switch mains power back on, then start the machine as normal. Having gone through this process nine times out of ten the machine will chime, if it chimes then it will go on to display a picture and boot up.

Sadly that is not the end of the story! Once at the desktop, I find that the NVMe drives are not there. However, if I let the machine warmup for about 5 minutes and then restart, everything will work as it should and the NVMe drives will show on the desktop.

Any help overcoming these issues would be most welcome. Thank you.

Hardware Overview:
macOS: 10.14.6
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro5,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 2
Memory: 64 GB
Boot ROM Version: 144.0.0.0.0
Graphics: Radeon RX 580 (using DisplayPort)

I've had that EXACT issue before...

Install 10.14.6 CLEAN onto a different blank drive (do not migrate or add any apps or data after the install) and see if the problem persists... Be sure to remove your current boot drive before testing.

 

[TinyRebel]

Thank you all for your helpful replies. This is a progress report.

I went ahead and took out the power supply. It already looked quite clean, but I carefully opened it up and gave it a blast of compressed air. During the disassembly I undid an earth connector screw in a corner inside the PSU. In the end I don't think that undoing this was actually necessary. However, I believe that it was originally a little on the loose side, and the computer may have benefitted from this going back together more tightly!

So may be there was a little dust in the wrong place, or may be the earth connection was not too good. The upshot is that the computer now chimes and boots okay at the first attempt. BUT it still needs to run a little while, and have a reboot before the NVMe card works and the two SSDs attached to it show up. This is the current state of play although it did work perfectly for 3 days as described below.

After attending to the power supply unit I did follow the second suggestion and try a completely fresh macOS install:
- Removed the SATA drives and put an old one in for the test
- Tried and failed to boot from the USB drive prepared with the macOS Mojave installer. No picture on screen. Unable to get it to respond by trying to do it blind.
- Booted to Recovery Mode instead, was able to erase the old SATA drive, and then 'Reinstall macOS' from the 'macOS Utilities' window.
- The first time the new installation booted all went well (much as before with other installations) and it booted in one go with the NVMe drives mounting on the Desktop
- The next morning after the computer had been switched off all night it would not boot, i.e. no picture. Tried a couple of forced shutdowns and restart but no joy!
- Swapped back to the original SATA drives, and strangely, the computed then worked, that is it booted on the first attempt and mounted the NVMe drives. It did this on three consecutive days from cold (power switched off to the machine during the night)!
- BUT after the recent Apple security update (macOS 10.14.6 and Safari update) I was back to square one.
- Doing the reset with [cmd]+[alt]+[P]+[R] leads my system to boot to recovery mode, at which point I disabled SIP again, and repaired all the volumes.

I would welcome your advice on what to do next. I would like to resolve the issue of the missing SSDs requiring the extra reboot. Should I try a replacement power supply, or make a fresh post here explicitly about the IO Crest/Syba PCIe card? Any further suggestions most welcome!