MP 1,1-5,1 Problem, but is it Mojave or the Radeon RX560, both newly installed?

[macguru9999]

Ah, then I more or less got it right. Thanks, Alex.

I think you should try and find a local mac guru to look at your machine before spending alot of money on it. If you cant run mojave something is wrong and you need ti troubleshoot properly.

 

[Levina]

I can do it for you if you still need it, have loads of x5675 and x5690’s on stock. Near Zwolle 🙂

That's awfully nice of you, Rolf, and I very much appreciate the offer, so thank you, but I thought about it and I don't think I will go that route after all.

I think you should try and find a local mac guru to look at your machine before spending alot of money on it. If you cant run mojave something is wrong and you need ti troubleshoot properly.

Thank you for the advice. I can run Mojave though. I mean, it works just fine on the SSD. It just does this thing in Photoshop that is annoying. I did a short screen recording of it. Hopefully I can upload it directly. It's just a short bit of footage of the spinning ball whilst using certain tools in PS, like the brush and the selection tool. Never had that before. The ball only stops spinning when I release it. Funny thing is that during the spinning of the ball, the tools still work, as you can see. But it is annoying as it means I don't have a precision cursor and that's bad.

Games though baffle me. After installing Mojave I tried a few games, fast platformers and an oldie like Braid. They all glitched and were unplayable. The next day when I wanted to record that for you guys, the glitching was gone but they performed horribly, with lots of stuttering and heroes moving on their own, falling of their platform. etc. Well, for some reason that seems to have all gone away now. Sound is also normal now. No stuttering of any kind anymore. I have no idea why. It seems that every time I boot the Mac, Mojave performs better. Maybe some updates did some good? No idea.

I would still like to get the Sapphire GPU though. Unfortunately the local guy who was selling one for 90 euro sold it to someone else. It seems to be a popular card. But I don't think I want to take it further than that. So I'll be on the lookout for that card and for the rest just leave it be.

One question, just out of curiosity. If I were to take out the GPU and put back the GT120 with Mojave still on the boot drive, what would happen? Will the Mac refuse to boot? Just wondering.

 

[tsialex]

One question, just out of curiosity. If I were to take out the GPU and put back the GT120 with Mojave still on the boot drive, what would happen? Will the Mac refuse to boot? Just wondering.

Since the GT120 is a not supported GPU anymore, no drivers after High Sierra, but it's a Mac EFI GPU, the fail-safe unaccelerated EFI drivers will be loaded and the display will work, but it's completely unaccelerated and anything requiring METAL will not run.

If you do it, things like Stocks/News/VoiceMemos/Home will not even open and everything else will be slow like molasses.

 

[RolfNoot]

The problem may be hardware related, without exchanging parts you’ll be left to guess about the problem. For example, I have had issues with a spinning wheel like every few minutes. Turned out to be a bad HDD. Maybe Northbridge pin has broken, causing throttling of CPU speed. Maybe a bad memory stick or an issue with the GPU card itself.

Broken hardware doesn’t always have to show clear signs…

 

[Levina]

The problem may be hardware related, without exchanging parts you’ll be left to guess about the problem. For example, I have had issues with a spinning wheel like every few minutes. Turned out to be a bad HDD. Maybe Northbridge pin has broken, causing throttling of CPU speed. Maybe a bad memory stick or an issue with the GPU card itself.

Broken hardware doesn’t always have to show clear signs…

See, this is where mr. Macguru9999 comes in, in that if something is wrong I "need to troubleshoot properly." He is absolutely right but I'm not qualified to do so as I know too little of these hardware matters.

However, reading what you said about a faulty HDD, I decided to run Disk Utility on the Start-up SSD (with Mojave). I first ran it on the top level, so the SSD itself. That was all alright. But when I ran it on the Container disk it said there is something wrong that needs to be repaired. Here's the message. Of course I have no idea what "nchildren of inode object" means. It ends with some Dutch, saying the "endcode file system is 8". And the drive is again activated. Could whatever this is have any relevance to what we've been discussing?

 

[prefuse07]

See, this is where mr. Macguru9999 comes in, in that if something is wrong I "need to troubleshoot properly." He is absolutely right but I'm not qualified to do so as I know too little of these hardware matters.

However, reading what you said about a faulty HDD, I decided to run Disk Utility on the Start-up SSD (with Mojave). I first ran it on the top level, so the SSD itself. That was all alright. But when I ran it on the Container disk it said there is something wrong that needs to be repaired. Here's the message. Of course I have no idea what "nchildren of inode object" means. It ends with some Dutch, saying the "endcode file system is 8". And the drive is again activated. Could whatever this is have any relevance to what we've been discussing?
View attachment 2181400

The audio issues you are having are related to your processors.

 

[macguru9999]

try a clean install on a new disk,

 

[Levina]

The audio issues you are having are related to your processors.

That has been pointed out to me, yes, thanks. But right now those audio issues I was having, seem to have disappeared. Audio is normal now. I don't know why. It's not something I did, that's for sure.

try a clean install on a new disk,

Thank you. I already did that, made no difference: stuttering in fast games and spinning balls in Photoshop.

 

[macguru9999]

That has been pointed out to me, yes, thanks. But right now those audio issues I was having, seem to have disappeared. Audio is normal now. I don't know why. It's not something I did, that's for sure.

Thank you. I already did that, made no difference: stuttering in fast games and spinning balls in Photoshop.

are the processors running at the correct speed ? there is a utility called intel power gadget you can use to test. If they are then really you need to try a different GPU. I used a radeon rx480 , a flashed one , and its excellent. you could always buy another gpu and then sell one of them later ....

 

[Levina]

are the processors running at the correct speed ? there is a utility called intel power gadget you can use to test. If they are then really you need to try a different GPU. I used a radeon rx480 , a flashed one , and its excellent. you could always buy another gpu and then sell one of them later ....

That's the plan now, buying another GPU and sell the Asus card that I'm using now. I'm looking for a new card. One that is affordable...

I downloaded Intel Power Gadget but it won't install. This is the message I get when double clicking the installer.

 

[Levina]

A funny thing happened. After typing the above I was away from the Mac for an hour or so. I come back and there is a message that the computer rebooted due to a problem. And there is a "Panic Report" so apparently there was a Kernel Panic. I had one of those in the first month after buying the Mac and never since. This is not good.

I'm rather done with this now. I'm going to erase the SSD, put High Sierra back on it, take out the Asus Radeon RX 560 4GB and put back the old GT120.

Thank you everybody for all the advice and thinking with. It is much appreciated.

For anyone interested in the Panic Report:

 

[tsialex]

For anyone interested in the Panic Report:

The first thing that I look when a KP have these extensions on the backtrace are the CPU tray northbridge heatsink push-pins, also the northbridge diode temperature:

• com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform
• com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement

Btw, did you knew that Samsung 870 EVO is not compatible with Mac Pros and known to cause several problems, like not working after a reboot or waking from sleep?

I'm afraid that going back to High Sierra will not make your Mac Pro to work as expected again, you need to diagnose it correctly.

 

[Levina]

The first thing that I look when a KP have these extensions on the backtrace are the CPU tray northbridge heatsink push-pins, also the northbridge diode temperature:

• com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform
• com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement

Btw, did you knew that Samsung 870 EVO is not compatible with Mac Pros and known to cause several problems, like not working after a reboot or waking from sleep?

I'm afraid that going back to High Sierra will not make your Mac Pro to work as expected again, you need to diagnose it correctly.

Yeah? I installed the SSD in one of the optical drive bays with an adapter from OWC and it has worked flawlessly without any of the problems you mention. I expect it to work fine again after removing the GPU and a clean install of HS. But we shall see.

I don’t know about those push-pins but I did check the Northbridge temps earlier today and it was at 65°C so nothing cooking. 😉

 

[tsialex]

The thing is, you have a problem somewhere or you wouldn't had this hardware related KP. You need to correctly diagnose your Mac Pro, running AHT should be your first step. Cross-flashed early-2009 should run MacPro5,1/mid-2010 AHT version and not the early-2009/MacPro4,1 one.

GitHub - upekkha/AppleHardwareTest: Apple Hardware Test Download Links

Apple Hardware Test Download Links. Contribute to upekkha/AppleHardwareTest development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Hardware_Test/022-4831-A.dmg

Btw, did you replaced the BR2032 RTC battery already?

 

[MrScratchHook]

Yeah? I installed the SSD in one of the optical drive bays with an adapter from OWC and it has worked flawlessly without any of the problems you mention. I expect it to work fine again after removing the GPU and a clean install of HS. But we shall see.

I don’t know about those push-pins but I did check the Northbridge temps earlier today and it was at 65°C so nothing cooking. 😉

that 870 is known for reboot issues with 5,1 in the regular sata bay, you did the right thing by installing it the cd drive and thats the workaround for it.

 

[RolfNoot]

I don’t know about those push-pins but I did check the Northbridge temps earlier today and it was at 65°C so nothing cooking. 😉

Was this the NB heatsink temperature? If so, what's the NB diode temperature reading?

 

[Levina]

The thing is, you have a problem somewhere or you wouldn't had this hardware related KP. You need to correctly diagnose your Mac Pro, running AHT should be your first step. Cross-flashed early-2009 should run MacPro5,1/mid-2010 AHT version and not the early-2009/MacPro4,1 one.

GitHub - upekkha/AppleHardwareTest: Apple Hardware Test Download Links

Apple Hardware Test Download Links. Contribute to upekkha/AppleHardwareTest development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Hardware_Test/022-4831-A.dmg

Btw, did you replaced the BR2032 RTC battery already?

Okay, I followed instructions, prepared a USB stick in Terminal, downloaded the AHT (for 5,1) from github, mounted it, copied it to the USB stick and am about to make it bootable in Terminal. But before I do that I want to check that the disk image contains a Read Me file that can't be opened and the folders are empty. Is this correct?

No, I did not replace that battery yet, but it's a good idea to do so, so I have purchased one and it should be here Monday.

Was this the NB heatsink temperature? If so, what's the NB diode temperature reading?

That was the NB heatsink. I don't know what the NB diode temperature was and I can't check it as I have taken out the RX 560 and installed the old GT120 again. I did download Macs Fan Control just now and at the moment the NB diode temp is 75ºC, which AFAIK is normal for these cMP's.

Anyhow...

After removing the Asus Radeon RX 560, and putting the GT120 back in, I erased the SSD, installed High Sierra and my Mac Pro is back to its usual self, working well, no hick-ups, no stuttering, no spinning balls in Photoshop. So all is well again. It really must have been the card. Still, the AHT is a good idea and I will perform that. But so far I'm happy. And with firmware at 144.0.0.0.0 I can now use NVMe blades, which is great.

 

[prefuse07]

@Levina , Have you ran Apple Diagnostics?

Reboot, and when you hear the chime hold down "D" -- if that doesn't work, try option + D

You may need to use a wired keyboard

 

[tsialex]

Okay, I followed instructions, prepared a USB stick in Terminal, downloaded the AHT (for 5,1) from github, mounted it, copied it to the USB stick and am about to make it bootable in Terminal. But before I do that I want to check that the disk image contains a Read Me file that can't be opened and the folders are empty. Is this correct? View attachment 2182595

Yes, just boot it now.

@Levina , Have you ran Apple Diagnostics?

Reboot, and when you hear the chime hold down "D" -- if that doesn't work, try option + D

You may need to use a wired keyboard

This only work for Macs that never had a clean install or Macs that download the Apple Diagnostics from the internet. she have to select it from the BootPicker or bless the AHT USB key.

 

[Levina]

I did try the D and option-D method first. Just to make sure the easy way didn't work. And it didn't. So I blessed the cursed USBstick, did a cold reboot whilst holding down the option key and the AHT wasn't there.
Here's Terminal after entering the command line (a copy and paste from github of course).

 

[tsialex]

I did try the D and option-D method first. Just to make sure the easy way didn't work. And it didn't. So I blessed the cursed USBstick, did a cold reboot whilst holding down the option key and the AHT wasn't there.
Here's Terminal after entering the command line (a copy and paste from github of course).

View attachment 2183163

You are mixing two separate lines in one, this is the first line:

cp -r /Volumes/AHT/System /Volumes/USBstick/

This is the second line:

sudo bless --folder /Volumes/USBstick/ --file /Volumes/USBstick/System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics/diags.efi --label AHT

You have to correct the path names, if you used anything else than USBstick.

 

[Levina]

I tried it in every way I could think of (one long line, two separate lines, using brackets) and it didn’t work. most of the time it said ”no such directory” and/or “ignoring.” Then I realised that the disk image was not labelled “AHT” but “AHTDOne”, so the command line needed adjusting. Changing the name made it work and the test is now running. Could take a while. Very handy to have the AHT tool now.

Proof 😛

 

[Levina]

Verdict of the (extended) AHT: no problems found.



Thank you all again for your help!

 

[Levina]

Well, the story goes on...

After the above, I purchased and installed the Aqua kryo M.2 adapter with a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB. Did a clean install of High Sierra. Put my stuff on it. All works wonderfully well and Blackmagic Speed test tells me the Mac is now 3 times faster in reading/writing speed. I'm very happy with this.

Then I thought, why not try that Asus Radeon RX 560 4GB again so I took out the GT120 and installed the Asus. And much to my surprise it now works flawlessly! I mean, no stuttering of any kind in games, no spinning balls in Photoshop and not even stuttering audio.

How is this possible?

 

[startergo]

These okay?

Kinda weird it is running at x8 rather than x16 Bandwidth in slot 1?