I think my Mac Pro has just died. Help/advice needed please

[Horsa]

Hello all. In need of some emergency advice here.

System as detailed in my side-panel (2008 Mac Pro with 24G Ram, running El Cap)

Today I was in the middle of browsing a website when I noticed the GUI had become unresponsive: screen frozen, cursor stuck. I tried unplugging and re-connecting the mouse+keyboard. No change.

Then, after a few minutes the case fans went into "jet plane taking off" full-pelt roar, so I held down the power button for an emergency power-down. Unplugged all peripherals, unplugged from the mains LX. Opened the machine and had a feel around. The CPU cooling fins did not seem over-warm. The memory boards were warmish but not excessively so. I took the opportunity to blow out some dust while I had the machine open.

Reconnected the mains and pressed the power button. It powered up as normal (no crazy fans) and I heard the boot chime. I held down cmd+R hoping to get into recovery mode...

Nothing. Just a plain pale grey screen. No Apple logo or progress bar; no recovery mode console. Eventually, after about 15mins, I gave up: held down the power button to switch it off.

I have all my vital stuff backed up by TM on an external HDD, but that's not much use without a working Mac from which to access it. I have no other Mac machines in the house.

What do I do now, folks? I do ALL my important work on this machine. I'm stumped...

 

[Horsa]

UPDATE. Have just tried to boot machine again. After several minutes of grey screen, it's now showing the flashing question mark folder. Oh s**t...

 

[IWT]

Well, sadly, you know what it means. Sorry.

This is what Apple says about it:

If your Mac starts up to a question mark - Apple Support

A folder with a flashing question mark means that your computer's startup disk is no longer available or doesn't contain a working Mac operating system.

support.apple.com

Ian

 

[Horsa]

FURTHER UPDATE:
My next door neighbour has lent me his mac laptop for the afternoon so I can retrieve files and do drive diagnostics. The news is encouraging.

Took my main storage HDD out of the machine, put it in an external caddy and hooked it up to the laptop. Drive is healthy and contents all intact. Rescued a bunch of essential data (banking logins etc.)

Then I took the SSD System drive out of the Mac Pro and hooked it up to the laptop. It mounted fine and all contents are intact and readable. Just for good measure, I ran the Disk Utility First Aid routine on it and it came up healthy. Phew!

So what I've got is intact data on healthy drives, but a Mac Pro machine that's lost the ability to boot into the OS. Still pretty disastrous, but not as bad as I'd feared.

I'm tempted to buy a 2nd-hand/refurb of the last iteration of the old Intel Mac Pro and just plug my drives in and go. I know, they're dinosaurs now, but I do love 'em!

If anyone has any better ideas, feel free to show me the error of my ways.

 

[Horsa]

Gave the case a good clean-out, temporarily disconnected the PRAM battery, re-installed the System Drive, hooked everything up, and - with no great hopes at all - hit the "ON" button...

IT'S ALIVE!!!

Don't ask me how - it just is. Took it a little while to assemble the desktop, but it's working normally. For now.

I think this is a wake-up call, though. This experience has me recognizing that this venerable old beast is getting a bit flaky now, and is not to be totally relied on. Thinking I should try to find myself a recent Intel mac refurb (even though I HATE iMacs and their lack of upgradeability) and just transfer my apps and data to that.

Any opinions on the way forward?

 

[chscag]

The way your Mac Pro is acting or has acted sounds like it could be a flaky power supply or maybe a failing graphics card. Do you have spares?

As far as buying a used Intel iMac, keep in mind that the later models still sell for quite a bit of £££ and you can only upgrade memory in them. (That is the 27" models not the 21.5")

 

[Horsa]

Thanks, @chscag
Alas no, I don't have any spares to hand. Funnily enough, I did wonder whether it might be a graphics issue. It had a new PSU in 2011 (a mere decade ago!).

Since my last post, it has shown some other behaviours that are cause for concern. Booting from cold is veeeeery slow every time, and earlier this evening it did a random re-boot while I was reading an email. Flaky is definitely its middle name now. Such a shame...

 

[Rod]

Thank the lucky stars your data is safe. Obviously you've done all the right things there.
Sadly it does sound like death is immanent so yes, a new device. What to get?
If you have lots of peripherals then probably a desktop is best but I love the portability of a Mac Book, especially if they need repair.
Refurbs aren't that cheap either even though the Intel models are superseded now with the silicon drive.
Considering your obvious experience and skills with the Mac might it be worth considering Amazon.

Mid-2014 Apple MacBook Pro with 2.5GHz Intel Core i7 (15-inch, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Storage) (Renewed)​

4.3 out of 5 stars 1,501
$625.00$625.00 $699.00$699.00

I'm planning on getting an M1 when I return to Australia in a few weeks but thats only because i need the Apple Care coverage and reliability afforded by a new device or i would seriously consider the above myself.

 

[badshoehabit]

After 18 years I reckon you're on borrowed time.

 

[Horsa]

18 years? Steady on there... a mere thirteen and a half!

 

[NSMacGuru]

What is the performance comparison with your 2008 Mac Pro 24gb RAM with a new MacMini M1 and 16gb RAM? Since you already have an external monitor, etc., that may be the quickest plug-and-play way to go, and certainly not an enormous expense. If you can hold out a bit, the 2nd-generation M1 Mac Mini should be released in the not too distant future...

This Reddit thread on that very question may be helpful:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macpro/comments/jz2uvg
One comment I particularly liked: You'll save on electricity costs, but lose the home-heating benefit of the Mac Pro

 

[Horsa]

NEW DEVELOPMENT:

My machine is supposed to have 24Gigs of RAM in it, populating all the slots of the two risers (4-4-2-2 in each riser). I've just taken a look at System Information, and under "Memory" it now thinks that all of the slots on riser B (the bottom one) are EMPTY. Interesting.

So either 4 of my memory sticks have gone kaput at once (not terribly likely), or the riser board itself is defunct. Whether this is the cause of the recent shenanigens or an effect of them, I can't say. Next thing for me to do is to switch off the machine and...

a) check that my memory risers are seated properly.

b) swap the memory sticks over between the risers to see if the problem stays with the riser or moves with the sticks. Hmmm...

@NSMacGuru - I've just seen your post. Oh yes, I'm sure that an M1-powered Mac Mini would out-perform my old darling. I have a question, though: I run a dual-monitor setup (don't laugh: they're VGA!) - the ones I'm using currently are perfectly sufficient for my needs and I don't fancy the expense of replacing them. Do you know if it would be possible to run them off an M1 Mac Mini? Would it even talk to a VGA monitor?

 

[Horsa]

RAM-SWAP TEST:

I labelled each riser to ensure no mistakes.
Swapped the sticks around between the two risers.
Fitted each riser back in its original location.

Result: Originally, riser B was showing 4 "empty" slots. Now it's riser A that's coming up empty.

Conclusion: there's nothing wrong with the riser boards themselves. Somehow, 4 sticks of RAM - all on the same riser - have died/been killed by an event of some kind. Not exactly good news.

As it's not good practice to have all of your working RAM on one riser, I guess my next task should be to take out the dead RAM and spread the remaining sticks across both risers in the approved pattern.

 

[NSMacGuru]

I have a question, though: I run a dual-monitor setup (don't laugh: they're VGA!) - the ones I'm using currently are perfectly sufficient for my needs and I don't fancy the expense of replacing them. Do you know if it would be possible to run them off an M1 Mac Mini? Would it even talk to a VGA monitor?

You can indeed, with a dongle!

 

[badshoehabit]

18 years? Steady on there... a mere thirteen and a half!

Oops - never was any good at maths. It's still a bit long in the tooth!

 

[krs]

UPDATE. Have just tried to boot machine again. After several minutes of grey screen, it's now showing the flashing question mark folder. Oh s**t...

If your Mac doesn't boot up, I always thought a flashing ? is relatively good news.
It means the Mac can't find a macOS to boot up from.
That could be a corrupt OS or a problem with the drive the OS is on.
But it also means the Mac itself is fine, ie motherboard and CPU is still OK.
The macOS and drive can be easily replaced at zero and low cost.

 

[krs]

What is the performance comparison with your 2008 Mac Pro 24gb RAM with a new MacMini M1 and 16gb RAM? Since you already have an external monitor, etc., that may be the quickest plug-and-play way to go, and certainly not an enormous expense. If you can hold out a bit, the 2nd-generation M1 Mac Mini should be released in the not too distant future...

I was going to suggest a MacMini as well as a possible replacement.
Not necessarily an M1 Mini but also look at the 2018 MacMini which will still support 32-bit applications and with an SSD and upgradable to tons of RAM will be very snappy.

 

[Rod]

Did I miss something? In post #5 it seems the "grey screen with question mark" issue is fixed but now you have 4 dead RAM modules, is that correct?
It's starting to sound like an old car I once had, replaced the water pump only to have the radiator hose blow, replaced the hose only to have the radiator spring a leak, fixed the radiator only to have the head gasket blow. It's usually the time to consider a new car, a new Mac Mini sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[Horsa]

Did I miss something? In post #5 it seems the "grey screen with question mark" issue is fixed but now you have 4 dead RAM modules, is that correct?

Yes, that's right. Funny thing is, since I took out the dead RAM sticks and bunged in a set of spare 1Gig ones (so there's now a total of 16Gig in there), the old gal's been running sweet as a nut: quiet, snappy, responsive, the lot. Touch wood...

 

[Rod]

So disaster averted at least for now. Phew!