Need Some New Mac Pro Advice

[Carl Lie]

Hi All:

I have an old 6 core tower that I had running constantly for the past 4 years in my studio. I moved locations and it's not booting well (takes 2hours). Like a fool I shut it down over the weekend and its now been booting for 2 plus with nothing on the desktop yet.

I'm considering a new purchase but would need an external chassis for my HDx and UAD cards (3 in all).

Has any of you had success with a new mac pro (trashcan)and an expansion chassis? In addition, how well does thunderbolt work with getting data from the chassis while recording to external drives?

Thanks in advance.

Carl

[albee1952]

First thing I would try; the next time you get it booted, clone the hard drive to a fresh drive. Then shut down and swap for the newly cloned drive and see if it helps. If it DOES, then you can figure the old drive is bad. If it DOESN'T help, then you are probably due for a new computer. The new TB chassis seem to work well, but its not going to be a cheap update New Mac Pro's are expensive enough(and I would discourage buying as they are getting replaced with a new version fairly soon), plus the chassis adds another $grand or more on top. So, you might consider either a used tower(5,1) or a hackintosh(assuming you want to stay on Mac) Just one opinion

BTW, when was the last time the motherboard battery was changed??? While they are SUPPOSED to last 5 years, sometimes they don't.....

[Carl Lie]

Thanks Albee. I have a second boot drive. I waited 3o mins and never got to that screen. Not looking good.

I'm not against the investment if it works. I got a lot of years out of this system. Have you tried a TB chassis? Can you share how well those systems work?

Thanks

Carl

[Carl Lie]

Never changed that battery. I'll look into that. Makes sense.

Thanks.

Carl

EDIT - battery coming this week. I'll let you know. Thanks again.

[SigFriedChicken]

Have you tried resetting PRAM/NVRAM during bootup?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

You can also run Diagnostics:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

[Carl Lie]

Thanks SigFriedC. Your name makes me laugh.

I never get to the point to do any of that. I think the battery test is next. Although I did get up and running over the weekend, I left my windows open last night and the room was freezing today. Metal was cold to the touch and I think that made something weaker.

I'll know in a few days if that is it. I think there is a good chance it is the battery. This is a 2010 machine so I'm close to 7 years without the battery change.

Of course if Albee is correct I'll have to send all the money I was going to put to a new machine to him.

C

[syMPh]

Hold down the option key as it's booting, it should take a while but after the grey screen it will list all your boootable drives. use your arrow key to put an arrow under the second drive and press return. it should boot from that drive for you. .. hope you can get it that far... once in, you will need to set startup disk as that disk while you try to fix the other drive or replace it (if that's the fault) ... good luck!

[climber]

I've had one of the 6 core "trashcan" MacPro's since they came out. it's a fantastic machine. I have a couple of external TB hard drives, one a RAID, 2 USB drives and an external Sonnett chassis for a UAD Octo. the machine is absolutely killer. it's way faster than my previous 5.1.

[albee1952]

My only real gripe with the newer Mac Pro "trashcan" is that they cut many corners(according to the experts) and as such, I have read that a new version is in the works(making it a questionable investment in buying the current version). From my very limited experience, the TB chassis are fairly "seamless"(IOW, the tend to just work without much fuss), but they are certainly not cheap. For the price of a well-loaded trashcan and a chassis, you could build a hackintosh that is totally top-of-the-line(more cores, more RAM and slots for your cards without the added expense of the chassis). pro-tools-pc.com builds systems and I am pretty sure they also offer a build(or several) that will run OSX(and yes, they also offer builds with Thunderbolt).

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Carl Lie

Never changed that battery. I'll look into that. Makes sense.

Thanks.

Carl

EDIT - battery coming this week. I'll let you know. Thanks again.

What kind of battery is in there? Most PC's use a CR2032 that is available at any Walmart or Home Depot for $4(I buy the 4-pack as the same battery is popular in most clip-on guitar tuners) If the battery fixes it, send the check to:
"Hey, I need the money"
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Anytown, USA