Flashing light on front of my Mac Pro... bad RAM?

[James Steele]

Boy... what a scare. You know how it is when things are going good and you're on a roll? That's when things act up.

Tonight, I decided to restart my Mac when system seemed a little sluggish. It would not reboot. The white light on the front of my 2006 MacPro 1,1 just flashed and the machine did nothing. I was concerned it might be a logic board, who knows?

Luckily my other machine is working, I google and find that it points possibly to bad RAM. So I open her up, I have 2 original 512MB modules and two aftermarket 2GB modules for total of 5GB. Turns out I find that the preferred method of distributing the RAM on the riser boards is to put the first 1GB pair in the first two slots of top riser, then next pair in first two slots of bottom riser, 3rd pair in last two slots in top riser, then finally in bottom two slots of bottom riser. The person who had my machine just loaded everything on the top riser. I rearranged it... still nothing.

Tried another pair of slots with the pair of 2GB DIMMs... nothing. Took them out completely, she booted right up. Looks like the 4GB went bad. I tried them in the last two slots in the bottom riser and it booted, but it's not recognized. So I have a MacPro with 1GB RAM right now. Tried loading the project I was working on before this adventure... major redlining not to mention slow loading the project or doing anything else. I lowered work priority to "low" and I can actually play the project and continue, but the machine is sluggish. I'm going to mess with moving the two 2GB DIMMs around some more and see if I can't get it to work till Monday.

The bright side is that the DIMMs had a label on them from where they were purchased: The Chip Merchant. It's a local vendor in San Diego that's popular among computer users for good RAM prices and I'm pretty sure they have a lifetime warranty. I don't know if I have to be the original purchaser to get the warranty. It shouldn't make a difference. Don't know if I should go in there and just say I bought them years ago and don't have a receipt, etc. Hopefully they'll take mercy on me... bad RAM is bad RAM. Whether I originally bought it or not is beside the point-- they should stand behind what they sell.

Bad news, is if I can't somehow get these other DIMMs working before Monday, I'm LIMPING along here. 1GB in a Mac Pro running SL and DP 7.21 is NOT a good thing. Heck, 5GB like I had was far from ideal, but this is bad!

[James Steele]

Hmmm... more fiddling with the DIMM modules. It's hopeless. It had to pull this at the beginning of the weekend. Chip Merchant doesn't open till Monday morning. I'll be driving this 1GB "snail" till Monday.

[Killahurts]

Don't know if I should go in there and just say I bought them years ago and don't have a receipt, etc. Hopefully they'll take mercy on me... bad RAM is bad RAM. Whether I originally bought it or not is beside the point-- they should stand behind what they sell.

I bet they will. If their label is on it, and there is a lifetime warranty- why wouldn't they?

Man, I don't see how I could get anything done with 1 GB of RAM.

is right!

[Radiogal]

Donnow if it could help you out but have you tried to zap the PRAM?
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=250

[James Steele]

Thanks for the suggestion. Turned out I got the replacement DIMMs and installed them and it's showing 5GB again. Oh my gosh what a difference! Feels good to have my old Mac back!

[Dan Worley]

Thanks for the suggestion. Turned out I got the replacement DIMMs and installed them and it's showing 5GB again. Oh my gosh what a difference! Feels good to have my old Mac back!

They honored the lifetime warranty, yes?

c-ya,

Dan Worley

[James Steele]

They honored the lifetime warranty, yes?

They did indeed! Which was a good thing, because I didn't want to cough up $140 + tax for more DIMMs. I was tempted go buy another pair for $140 so I could have 9GB, but I feel weird about spending money on those 667MHz FB DIMMs. They're not really good for anything besides the first gen Mac Pros. Seems like a waste if I'm getting by without it and can afford a new machine some day.

[Frodo]

James--I went through this a week ago Thursday while in the middle of doing a couple dozen arrangements all due this week. Scary, isn't it? I actually went on and bought a backup set of RAM because the last time RAM went bad I was sent bad replacements and couldn't afford any more down time. At least they weren't 1333 DIMMs!!!

[James Steele]

Wow! Yeah... I hear you. I think if I was doing this at for other people's projects, I'd have a spare pair of DIMMs, or I'd have so much RAM that I could pull a pair out and still be able to get work done. I might need more in mine though. Honestly, when I'm using the Comp Tool and scroll horizontally when there are a lot of takes containing audio, it slows to molasses. I need to turn on the disc access menu meters and see if DP is accessing the audio every time it scrolls a little when dealing with the Comp Tool and takes.

[Frodo]

Wasn't there something mentioned earlier about 1,1 Macs not being able to take full advantage of SL's graphical improvements? If DP7.x has been optimized to make full use of graphics processing on later machines, our 1,1s might be working harder than intended. Then again, I have no idea whether DP is coded to take advantage of what it is with 3,1 graphics either.

In any case SL has always felt a little sluggish--- not *unstable*-- just a tab deliberate even on my 3,1 laptop with Spotlight scaled way back and with Secure Empty Trash disabled. I also had an issue with my graphics card on my laptop and had to have the whole circuit board replaced. This happened a week before my MacPro RAM went bad. It's been a fun month so far in computer world.

[James Steele]

Dunno, but this only happens with TAKES versus tracks.

For example, if I have the Sequence Editor full screen and then it's filled top to bottom with "lanes" for takes, I can scroll quickly left or right IF the take "lanes" don't have audio. Once soundbites appear it turns to molasses and gets sluggish.

On the other hand, if I were to hide the takes and had a similar situation but there were TRACKS visible and not TAKES... scrolling is fine. I think it's gotta be something to do with DP... but not sure.

[James Steele]

I take that back... seems the speed of horizontal scroll in DP's Sequence Editor is effected by how many soundbites are present. If you're scrolling through a section with not much music present, it's quick. As things start getting dense it slows and gets jerky and falls way behind. I notice DP is doing a lot of disc reads as you scroll. I thought that's why there were track overviews built? Shouldn't it be faster?

I really can't afford a brand spanking Mac Pro right now! What can help with this? More RAM. Says I have 3GB free. Do I need to be using an SSD for my project drive??? Arghhhhh....

[mess]

I take that back... seems the speed of horizontal scroll in DP's Sequence Editor is effected by how many soundbites are present. If you're scrolling through a section with not much music present, it's quick. As things start getting dense it slows and gets jerky and falls way behind. I notice DP is doing a lot of disc reads as you scroll. I thought that's why there were track overviews built? Shouldn't it be faster?

I really can't afford a brand spanking Mac Pro right now! What can help with this? More RAM. Says I have 3GB free. Do I need to be using an SSD for my project drive??? Arghhhhh....

This slow down isn't just on your system. Got a new, larger display and I started seeing this. I did notice that I'm now showing a lot more data onscreen than I was with my two smaller displays.

[James Steele]

Yeah I have a 30 inch display, but it's NOT the graphics card. I can't remember the exact model number but I bought an older but relatively higher end graphics card capable of driving two 30 inch monitors at full resolution. I can see disc reads going on when scrolling.