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If anyone could shed a little light on this, I'd be extremely grateful. I have a 2006 mac pro 1.1 (intel cpu) that consistently stops responding after 4-5 minutes.

The mouse still moves but nothing else responds, this applies for both the hard disk and the installer disk. The diagnostic LEDs aren't indicating anything out of the ordinary and while it works, the audio and network functions correctly.

So far I have tried:

  1. Booting off original drive
  2. Reinstalling on original drive (snow leopard disk, clean install)
  3. Installing on new ssd drive (purchased for this machine)
  4. Running boot with D and Option/Alt + D held for diagnostic mode (ignores command for diagnostics but accepts f12 to eject and C to boot from disc)
  5. Checking each pair of ram cards on their own.
  6. Testing each ram riser/riser slot combination with ram that I know works (tested in another server)

Contacting Apple with this data, I was told that the Mac and Snow Leopard OS are too old for Apple stores to deal with and only an apple certified repair centre would take them.

If anyone has any idea what might be wrong and how I can better narrow down the cause of this, then I'm all ears and will update with whatever subsequent tests are suggested.

*For background: this machine will primaily be used for pulling cross platform libgdx code and compiling it for iOS. I had a hackintosh VM set up for it originally but wanted to have my compiled apps be 100% T&C compliant.

Also, this has been cross posted in Super User here: superuser.com/questions/1049421/

I've been struggling with this machine each weekend for about 7 months now.*

Update:

After running Apple Hardware Test thanks to JMY1000's link and assistance, I'm now furnished with the error code: 4SNS/1/40000001:VMBS which a quick search narrows down to a sensor issue with:

  • The RAM/Risers (which I can reasonably discount from the above tests)
  • The Graphics Card (Tested with another card, same error code)
  • Logic Board (Looks like this is the problem unfortunately.)

Update 2: Tested a different graphics card (same model) and the error code is the same. Looks like this is a logic board issue unfortunately.

Community
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Minothor
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  • Have you run Apple Hardware Test from a bootable volume? AHT probably didn't work when you tried it initially because it was missing the files after you reinstalled, and your mac doesn't support internet-based AHT. I've experienced this same issue in one very, very specific scenario: one specific model of GPU in a PowerMac G5 when launching Blender. – JMY1000 Mar 06 '16 at 22:58
  • Thanks for that info and url, I'll run a complete system test when I get home and update. – Minothor Mar 07 '16 at 10:20
  • Great! Let me know when the results are complete. – JMY1000 Mar 07 '16 at 17:37
  • Interestingly, it wasn't enjoying the idea of booting off a usb stick (written to disk with TransMac's restore image). I'll try again tonight with the files on a CD instead. – Minothor Mar 08 '16 at 09:26
  • It should boot off a USB stick; did you follow the directions on the Github page for creating a bootable AHT volume? – JMY1000 Mar 08 '16 at 17:12
  • As best I could, I'm unable to use bless or any apple-only tools (this is the only mac I have physical access to) so I'm limited to the installer disc (which should have AHT on it according to the github page), windows 7, 10 and my linux dev machine. – Minothor Mar 08 '16 at 19:49
  • Ah. Yeah, try the install disk, that should work. – JMY1000 Mar 08 '16 at 19:57
  • Unfortunately it's not though. It's OSX snow leopard purchased direct from Apple's online store rather than a reseller and even holding down d or command-d, it just boots straight to the installer. – Minothor Mar 08 '16 at 20:13
  • I'll try contacting Apple again tomorrow and link them to this, maybe having it in writing will help clearly tick all the boxes as to what's been tried already. – Minothor Mar 08 '16 at 20:22
  • You could try reinstalling and booting in safe mode and seeing if you can get it up just long enough to bless an AHT volume. – JMY1000 Mar 08 '16 at 20:26
  • If I could, I would. That's what I was referring to when I mentioned that even the installer disk OS freezes after 5 minutes. It will start installing, hit a third and will then remain unchanged for as long as I leave it (tried up to 1 hour 20 mins). I'm unable to reinstall the OS again but I'll keep trying (yes, I know that's the definition of insanity). – Minothor Mar 08 '16 at 20:37
  • You could try making a bootable OS X volume either on Windows (this, this) or on your Linux box (this, or this). – JMY1000 Mar 08 '16 at 20:57
  • Cheers again JMY, I'm also going to borrow my collegue's macbook tomorrow to restore and bless the usb stick.

    In other news, I got off the phone to Apple support with the following information: Both Mac Pro 1.1 computers and Snow Leopard are too old for even in-store support to consider, only authorised repair technicians can apparently advise or help me with my queries (one being, why I can't even boot into AHT on the installer disk)

    The other interesting thing was that after asking me about my day-job and learning that I'm in digital forensics, they became rather cold.

    Not impressed TBH.

     – Minothor Mar 10 '16 at 11:25
  • Just checking: is the install disk the one that came with the machine (and specific to it) or is it a general install disk? If it's the latter, it won't work for AHT, since that's machine-specific, and thus isn't included. – JMY1000 Mar 10 '16 at 16:56
  • Ah, it's an aftermarket Snowleopard disc, that at least clears that up, thanks! I've just "blessed" the usb key with AHT for this platform, so hopefully that will shed more light on this (especially since spare recovery disks seem to be non-existent on ebay) I'll update again later tonight and cheers for bearing with me on this. – Minothor Mar 11 '16 at 09:33
  • @JMY1000 Updated, and cheers for all your help. I'll update this again with more details once I have them for the benefit of anyone that may also have this issue, but thanks to you I was able to get the hardware test running. If you move it out of comments to an answer, I'm more than happy to accept it. – Minothor Mar 11 '16 at 20:19
  • Done and done :) – JMY1000 Mar 11 '16 at 21:39
  • Final Update: I tested another graphics card (apple branded, same model, confirmed working) and the error code is identical, it's pretty safe to say that this is a logicboard issue rather than anything else. – Minothor Mar 18 '16 at 09:21

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Run Apple Hardware Test either from a bootable volume or from the install CD that came with your Mac (You're using a generic Snow Leopard disk, which doesn't have AHT on it, since AHT is machine-specific). This should narrow down whatever issue you're having. You should be able to work from there.

JMY1000
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