MacPro will not start

P

pashdej

Registered
My Mac Pro Dual 2.66Ghz 1.1 has developed a frustrating fault, twice now, it has refused to startup - it sounds as though it has booted, there is the "Hero" chime but then it carries on grinding away, struggling to start, the screen doesn't light.
I have to Power off. As it never actually starts I can't open a CD tray to insert DW or TTPro OR select to start from E-drive or another drive (I have a weekly clone at hand).
I found with repeated attempts, the first time this happened, two weeks ago, that when I unplugged the Wacom tablet it quite independently tried to start but didn't. But I thought I had a hint and unplugged all USB devices, again it tried without my pushing the start button, but again it failed.
I disconnected everything, checked the "seating" of the AJA Kona card and the XT1900 graphics card, as well as the RAM trays, and then tried - it started.
One cheap USB cable I chucked and then re-attached all the FW drives and USB devices. Again it started and for a week I was happy, but this last weekend, again it refused to start.
I pulled out the Wacom tablet! No change, then all the USB devices, no change - then everything. I attached my MacBookPro by FW and tried FW Start - but as it never starts the monitors I couldn't see anything BUT the Desktop of the MacBook showed both the MacHD and the VideoRAID - so the drives do mount.
I can't get the MacBook to do anything because the MacPro is grinding away trying to start.
But with everything disconnected, it started.
So now I'm facing a repeat cycle if I can't find an answer.
It has been suggested that MacPros suffer failing Power Supply, but it is very rare. This one has 12 GBs RAM and 4 x 1Tb Caviar Black drives
I have the last Report Log and All Messages log - the All has very odd entries, Digidesign and iLok as well as HAL plugs - I don't use this machine with ProTools, but might have installed iLok to update a Dongle a couple of years ago.
 
If you unplug a USB device, and your Mac attempts to 'do something', then it should be waking up (from sleep), and not starting up.
I have not ever heard of a method to turn on a Mac, simply by unplugging a USB device, but it's normal for the Mac to wake up from sleep when a USB device is either unplugged, or when connecting a USB device.
Is your Mac Pro actually sleeping? or, is it turned off when you try to use it?
 
Thank you for responses. As I said, I found that unplugging it, both times, allowed it to start (but only with everything unplugged - USB TM drive and 4 port USB hub, with Wacom tablet and keyboard, 3 FW800 and 2 FW400 drives) but that is completely impractical as a regular procedure, although this is the SMC reset.
Pressing the power switch for more than 4-5 secs would normally power down, not put to sleep, but it does seem that this is what happened at least 2 times. It was very surprising to me but also, I may have been in too much of a hurry as I was becoming very frustrated - I have much work to do!
Do you have any idea how to test a power supply, without pulling it from the machine?
pashdej
 
I had a similar problem earlier this year. I took it to a local AppleStore and the Genius did something to the power supply and it booted after that. I am not sure what he did because he had it on the back bench. Sorry not to be able to tell you what he did.
 
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