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MP 1,1-5,1 No boot white led stays on on Mac Pro 4.1 flashed 5.1

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Muziekschuur said:
Based on your story I think your powersupply has dried out capacitors. Meaning it needs to be replaced or refurbished.
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I have the service manual for this 2009 Mac Pro, and I went thru the steps to test to see if the power supply was working properly. All the leds light up as they should…?
 
SAKart said:
I have the service manual for this 2009 Mac Pro, and I went thru the steps to test to see if the power supply was working properly. All the leds light up as they should…?
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But then you still don't know if it performs under load I think. Well. If you open up the powersupply and inspect the biggest capacitors and they look fine... Usually you are good. But since you are reporting issues....

They should be measured.
 
1. If it boots with the old CPU tray then the power supply is probably ok.
2. You could try rebooting with just one stick of memory.
3. I thought that the CPU tray needed to be flashed, too, but that may be wrong.
4. Probably a bad dual CPU tray.
 
USB 4 will integrate thunderbolt and usb 3.2 meaning it will support 40gb/s. It will replace pci-e

PCI would support 133mb/s
Pci-E bitrate OF 8 GT/s PCIe 3.0 delivers effectively 985 MB/s per lane.

If thunderbolt and USB4 will surpass these speeds remains to be seen. The connections in a pci-e slot are much bigger than the serial connection in one wire.

These are all theoreticly numbers of how wide the roads are and the maximum speeds allowed.

I believe (but correct me if I am wrong) a movie needs 7mb/s transmission to play.
SATA3 lets storage devices deliver data at a rate of 600mb/s. Where the speed of a Mac 4.1 is SATA2 at 300mb/s.
NVMe without a dedicated chip over the PCI-e 2.0 bus will do 1500mb/s. But the NVMe cards usually in 2023 can do 5000 mb/s. That's where a card with a dedicated chip comes in to make that possible on a Mac Pro 4.1 and 5.1.

The newest fastest Nvme ssd: The Crucial T700 PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD is one of the fastest solid-state drives on the planet, with up to 11,700MB/s reads and 9,500MB/s writes on the 1TB capacity, increasing to 12,400MB/s reads and 11,800MB/s writes on the larger capacities.

This article says those NVMe cards support PCI-e 5.0. I am not sure if that means that those speeds are only possible in a PCI-e 5.0 slot. https://www.xda-developers.com/best...700 PCIe Gen5,writes on the larger capacities.
 
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The sonnet mcfiver has been discussed. The McFiver PCIe Card features an advanced USB 3.2 Gen 2 controller that delivers full 10Gbps bandwidth per port and implements advanced data traffic management to eliminate bandwidth congestion.

So... It does not support usb 4.0 and it will or will not support thunderbolt... Will it support a thunderbolt 1 device if connected?
 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) | Thunderbolt Technology Community

www.thunderbolttechnology.net www.thunderbolttechnology.net

For full compatibility a Thunderbolt™ device should be plugged into a Thunderbolt computer port. Some functionality may be available over a USB-C port depending on its implementation, but cannot be guaranteed.

Are Thunderbolt™ 4 PCs backwards compatible with Thunderbolt™, Thunderbolt™ 2, or Thunderbolt 3 based accessories?Accessories built to Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 specifications are not supported by Thunderbolt 4 PCs.
Accessories built to the Thunderbolt 3 specification are fully supported by Thunderbolt 4 PCs.

Are Thunderbolt™ 3 PCs backwards compatible with Thunderbolt™ and Thunderbolt™ 2 accessories?Yes, solutions and products built to Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 specifications will work with most Thunderbolt 3 PCs via an adapter, except Intel platforms launched in 2020 and later such as 10th gen Intel® Core™ vPro® platforms, 10th gen Intel® Core™ desktop and mobile processors. See the following link for information on specific launch dates for specific CPU skus.
The Apple Thunderbolt display was certified for Mac only and may not work properly when connected to Windows based PCs.Why did Thunderbolt™ 3 move to the USB-C connector? Thunderbolt 3 needed a new connector to achieve 40Gbps and fit into smaller form factor devices. With the USB-C connector allowing for alternate modes, it made sense to bring Thunderbolt to this connector and create a superset solution that supports both Thunderbolt and USB.

So it remains to be seen if a Avid hd native thunderbolt device would work over usb-c like provided by the Sonnet Mcfiver.

Thunderbolt requires intel thunderbolt chips being present in the machine. USB-C is just a connector. I assume the Sonnect card does not have the required Thunderbolt chip. Tho with USB-4 they plan on making thunderbolt available without requiring the thunderbolt chip...

So this stuff is like murky water.
 
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Muziekschuur said:
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The photo of the dual cpu tray above looks like a 2010-2012 dual CPU tray instead of a 2009, 4,1 Mac Pro. But I hope you have the correct CPU tray for your 2009 Mac Pro. The four screw holes on the heatsink are closer to each other in a 2009 dual CPU tray. With a 2010-2012 dual CPU tray, the screw holes are farther apart.
thehouseofmoth.com

The differences between the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pro - The House of Moth

While the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pro's are almost identical, there are a few key differences when it comes to the processor trays. read all about them here!
thehouseofmoth.com thehouseofmoth.com

MacPro-Dual-CPU-Tray-Post.jpg
 
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Macsonic said:
The photo of the dual cpu tray above looks like a 2010-2012 dual CPU tray instead of a 2009, 4,1 Mac Pro. But I hope you have the correct CPU tray for your 2009 Mac Pro. The four screw holes on the heatsink are closer to each other in a 2009 dual CPU tray. With a 2010-2012 dual CPU tray, the screw holes are farther apart.
thehouseofmoth.com

The differences between the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pro - The House of Moth

While the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pro's are almost identical, there are a few key differences when it comes to the processor trays. read all about them here!
thehouseofmoth.com thehouseofmoth.com

View attachment 2303122
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If that is true... Then I have to replace the backplane instead of sending this back to the other side of the world.
 
Muziekschuur said:
If that is true... Then I have to replace the backplane instead of sending this back to the other side of the world.
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It's a hassle when sellers sells you the wrong tray for your Mac Pro. And some listed dual trays don't show the actual photo of the tray. I've just purchased a 2010-2012 dual tray and had to verify and communicate with the seller if the dual tray he is selling is a genuine 2010-2012 dual tray, if his photos are the actual item and if he has tested all the 8 ram slots. Got the correct dual tray. Hope your Mac Pro will be up and running. If I recall correctly, tsialex mentioned that aside from the fans revving up, the logic board won't be able to read the processor tray correctly due to the different SMC firmware.

Here's a good read on upgrading the classic Mac Pro of a guide by Greg. He also has a Youtube channel. It's a good source for users who are new to the Mac Pro.

Mac Pro Guide
Youtube Channel


Wrong-Dual-CPU-Tray-03.jpg
 
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Thank you. I purchased from a very big seller. But it may be a wrong dual cpu board. We will see. I want two Mac Pro's in a while. I do not have an direct need for this computer right now. If I receive a 5.1 dual cpu tray... I will go and look for a backplane or a single cpu 5.1 Mac pro.
 
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I am happy that old firewire hardware works over Thunderbolt 1 on Catalina.. I am interested to find out if it will work on Sonoma. So maybe this will all work with the new USB4....specification.

But in the mean time the Mac Pro 5.1 is an affordable platform and I believe from tests more powerful than I need. So that gives me the assurance it will not hold me back. When writing music.

Offcourse pci-e tunneling over thunderbolt/usb4 maybe possible in the near future... Meaning it will allways work wich seems still a long way off at the moment.
 
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On the board I sent out the hardware guy said the northbridge is toast. I have yet to find someone who repairs those and to find what actual chip (s) make the northbridge on the Mac Pro 4.1 /5.1 .
 
Macschrauber said:
You will pay way more for a repair than another board.
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Yes. Maybe now. But prices will drop. I am just trying to find all faults and find parts for it so people are able to service these machines. Usually electronics are made to work for around 15 years. Investing in a 14 year old computer..... Means you will have to deal with maintenance.

A heatgun for replacing chips, soldering iron, some test units for perhaps the powersupply. A scope and maybe some other tools. And offcourse most important of all. This forum and other places to help each other out.
 
Muziekschuur said:
Yes. Maybe now. But prices will drop.
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What will drop? Price of tools? Repair prices? This doesn't make sense.

Replacement parts are the lowest right now, with lot's of people liquidating MacPro5,1s since you can't run it reliably with Ventura/Sonoma and the energy cost in some places are making economically inviable to run the old power guzzler.

Over time the current flood of parts will extinguish and parts will be more scarce/costly, but to get to Amiga levels nowadays will take more than a decade.

Muziekschuur said:
I am just trying to find all faults and find parts for it so people are able to service these machines. Usually electronics are made to work for around 15 years. Investing in a 14 year old computer..... Means you will have to deal with maintenance.

A heatgun for replacing chips, soldering iron, some test units for perhaps the powersupply. A scope and maybe some other tools. And offcourse most important of all. This forum and other places to help each other out.
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Sure, for simpler things like the SPI flash memory, but for anything more complex it's not economically viable.

Not trying to de-stimulate anyone here, but being realistic, you can't replace a big BGA chip like the northbridge just with a heat gun or a hot-air station, you need a programable IR BGA station with a heater base, lot's of supplies that are not cheap, a big ultrasonic cleaner, compressed air and a drying oven. More importantly, countless hours of training/experience.

Even the price of a brand new never balled northbridge is more than what you'd pay right now for a single CPU tray if you search carefully. Even used and allegedly tested replacement northbridges are more than what you would pay for a single CPU tray.
 
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Thank you for your informed post. I agree. And I did not know about the IR BGA station. But I could not imagine when these computers were released that they would be still in use by a large usergroup today.

Any PC bought now by a family is usually in use at least 7-12 years. I do not predict the future. I look back on guitar amplifiers that sometimes serve their third owner being serviced maybe over 6 times.

That is why I want to buy one more Mac Pro so I hopefully will be able to use the platform for at least 10 more years. But maybe I won't. We'll see.
 
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