Mac Pro damaged being transported - what broke?

jonnyd said:

Hi folks.

I recently shipped my Mac Pro by air, and it has obviously taken a beating on the journey.

One of the handles on the top has been bent, and it is a bit scratched, so I assume it was thrown at some point. It was well bubble wrapped etc, but I guess it`s a matter of pride with baggage handlers . . .

Anyway . . . I carried the hard disks by hand, so it's not the end of the world - I was prepared to 'lose' the Mac, but before I throw it in the garbage, can anyone give me an idea what might have broken, based on the following info;

- I'm not sure which hard disk is which (I have 4), so I have slotted them one at a time into the first slot, and powered up. (That's the slot nearest the front). This makes no difference.

- When I power up, not much happens. There is no signal to the VGA screen I use. The ram risers blink, and the top one remains with 1 led lit - makes sense, as the bottom riser is empty.

- There is no fan activity. I'm not sure if there should be, but all I can hear os the hard disk spinning up.

The white power LED does one of two things (not sure what causes the difference)/ either it blinks regularly, about once ever half a second (definitely faster than once per second, the RAM failure signal). Other times it blinks twice, then pauses, then twice, etc.

Any ideas? I have reseated all the DIMMS and risers, checked the vid card, tried with the Superdrives disconnected, but so far zip.

I haven't tried the diagnostic disk, as it's buried somewhere . . . is it worth trying that?

Thanks

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cowasaki said:

This one is just impossible to answer without seeing it but if the impact has bent the top handles then the whole case sounds like it could be twisted this could have cracked the main curcuit board causing all manner of problems. Have you removed and replaced the graphics card, memory risers, memory within the risers? After that its a matter of swapping out parts. Checking the power supply is supplying the correct voltages then changing items till the computer works. It should still fetch some money on ebay as it is so I would stick it on there rather than slinging it out! I know I would probably give it a punt.

Anyway look at the hard drive carriers they actually have a number on them albeit faint! (its in white on light grey!).

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jonnyd said:

Thanks. Being an idiot, I took the hard disks out of the brackets!

I'm pretty sure it's a video problem though. The 'problem' is immediate when I switch on - the fans start up, the hard disks spin, the dvD drives seem to be ok. If I put the OSX disk in and start in diagnostic mode, I can hear it reading the disk, there's no video - the monitor just says no signal.

I have moved the video card to different slots, but it makes no difference.

Strange. I guess I should get another vid card, but i'd hate to do that and find it's something else. I guess I'll drag it into an Apple shop and see if they'll lend me one to try out.

Alternatively, does anyone know where I can get a comprehensive list of diagnostic codes, as the only one's I can find on Google seem to be for RAM, and none of them are what I'm seeing.

I have warmly congratulated British Airways by email. I was especially pleased with this as I paid $120 excess baggage to carry it.

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