Double chime on startup...?

I recently installed a flashed AMD Radeon R9 270 graphic card in my MacPro 2009 (2.93Ghz Nehalem, OSX 10.9.5) and now when I startup it double chimes. What is happening here? Plus when put to sleep overnight a restart is required to browse anything although email works indicating there is still an internet connection.
Thanks for any advice.

Kryten said:

I recently installed a flashed AMD Radeon R9 270 graphic card in my MacPro 2009 (2.93Ghz Nehalem, OSX 10.9.5) and now when I startup it double chimes. What is happening here? Plus when put to sleep overnight a restart is required to browse anything although email works indicating there is still an internet connection.
Thanks for any advice.

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The bolded part of your post would seem to be the problem here. I assume what you did is take a graphics card intended for a beige-box PC and flashed it with custom firmware to force it to run in a Mac. That is far from being a wholly reliable hack. Put the old one back in. If the problem resolves, you have your answer.

Yes, thank you for that Life. I didn't flash it myself, but bought it from a reputable UK dealer who I've used many times before, it's a new card. But your suggestion is logical. But what does the double chime tell us that the Mac is trying to do and will it do any lasting damage?
Thanks for your input.

Kryten said:

But what does the double chime tell us that the Mac is trying to do and will it do any lasting damage?

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What it tells us is…using a video card originally made for a Windows computer…and flashed to be used in a Mac Pro can do unpredictable things.

This most likely won't do any damage if the card seems to operate ok otherwise. But if you are uncomfortable with it…then return it (if possible).

FYI. It's common for flashed Windows video cards used in a Mac Pro to not show the Apple logo during the boot up process. This double chime on boot up is more unusual.

- Nick

Thank you Pigoo. I do get the Apple logo and so far the card has been extremely reliable with no issues other than loading Bootcamp and setting Call of Duty Modern Warfare to run at 2560 x 1440 - it ran well but sent the display crazy after Quit. Booting back into Mac caused the display to flicker in the centre. Zapping the PRAM fixed that and since then I have run Mod Warfare at a more sensible res of 1280 and everything is fine. There doesn't seem to be many options for an older Mac 2009 to upgrade the card. It may be different in the US, but here in the UK there isn't a lot of choice.

Kryten said:

There doesn't seem to be many options for an older Mac 2009 to upgrade the card. It may be different in the US, but here in the UK there isn't a lot of choice.

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When you say "upgrade the card"…this of course depends where you're starting from. If you already had a good video card installed…then yes it is difficult to find a better card.

But if your 2009 Mac Pro had the stock & kind of slow GT-120 card in it…then upgrading to a much better Radeon 5770 or Radeon 5870 is not that difficult…and I think should be available in the UK (either new or used on eBay). Of course the Mac versions of these cards can be expensive. But then that's the way it goes when we own Apple computers…especially Mac Pro's!

- Nick

Cheers Nick, much appreciated. I've just found a new Mac Pro nVidia GTX680 2GB for about $390 + shipping. Thanks for your help. I'm keeping the old Gt-120 just in case. Not sure how that will power my 2560 27" monitor though, InDesign will look like I'm doing it in Minecraft.

Kryten said:

I've just found a new Mac Pro nVidia GTX680 2GB for about $390 + shipping.

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Is this really a genuine "Mac Version" video card for a Mac Pro? The model number doesn't sound familiar to me. This could be just another "flashed" Windows video card.

Which is ok I guess if it works ok. But if your goal is to purchase a fast "Mac Version" video card…the video card model number doesn't sound familiar.

To the best of my knowledge. The best video cards Apple offered in the older style Mac Pro's was what I mentioned earlier. The Radeon 5770 and 5870. There may be better video cards out there that will work with the older style Mac Pro…but they will most likely be Windows cards.

- Nick

Kryten said:

Yes, thank you for that Life. I didn't flash it myself, but bought it from a reputable UK dealer who I've used many times before, it's a new card. But your suggestion is logical. But what does the double chime tell us that the Mac is trying to do and will it do any lasting damage?

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Well it's a generic sign that there is a hardware problem. We're assuming that it's the video card, but there's the chance that there's something else going on. Maybe a stick of RAM isn't seated properly (speaking of which... have you replaced the RAM also recently?). Run the Apple Hardware Test to see what it has to say.
The Apple Hardware Test

Thanks gents. Of the discs that came with my Mac, I don't seem to have a Hardware Test disc, I have a Mac OS X Install disc and an Applications Install disc. I have Disk Warrior btw. I think the Apple discs are Tiger and I'm now on Mavericks...?

Don't worry about the hardware test as it's hit and miss and sometimes difficult to interpret. BTW, the hardware test should be on your Tiger disk number 2.

Kryten said:

Thanks gents. Of the discs that came with my Mac, I don't seem to have a Hardware Test disc, I have a Mac OS X Install disc and an Applications Install disc. I have Disk Warrior btw. I think the Apple discs are Tiger and I'm now on Mavericks...?

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I'm pretty sure the double chime is due to the flashed video card. But just in case it isn't…and you wanted to check. Remove the new flashed card…and install the old original GT-120 card. If the double chime:

- Stops: Then the flashed video card is responsible.
- Continues: Then it's something else.

* Nick

Thanks Gentlemen. I think what I will do is carry on for now as things are, as I'm sure you are right about the flashed card being the issue, it never happened before in 6 years. The card seems to work well, but I will contact the Company just to flag this up.

Sincere thanks to all who replied, your experience is much appreciated.

Kryten said:

The card seems to work well, but I will contact the Company just to flag this up.

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I think that I mentioned earlier that if the card seems to be operating ok…then everything is probably ok.

It's not uncommon for certain anomalies to happen when using a flashed video card in a Mac Pro. This is the "price that is paid"…for using a non-Mac version video card…and getting that card for most likely a lot less money than Mac video cards.

- Nick

Just wanted to add. If flashed Windows video cards were always 100% anomaly free. Why would ANYONE purchase more expensive Mac video cards??

Because flashed Windows video cards are NOT 100% anomaly free! But they do work "mostly" well.

- Nick

I use two video cards the original Nvidia 120GT and a Windows Nvidia 780GTX (non-efi). I chose to not have the card flashed but to keep the older card available for those times I need to use the built in utilities.

Here is a link to a site that specializes in flashing Windows cards for Mac Pros. They have a FAQ section and a blog section that gives a lot of information.

Featured Products - MacVidCards.coM

Also Macrumors forum has a section on video cards in mac pros that could be helpful.

Lisa

The Accelerate Your Mac has always been a good source of Mac info if needed and graphics cards etc:
Mac Graphics Card and Video Related Articles

Cheers Nick, much appreciated. I bought this flashed card not to save money particularly, but because I wanted a better card than the GT 120, I knew that being an older Mac, my choice wasn't huge. I'm just upgrading my MacPro with SSD's and maxing out the RAM and now a new card and monitor, rather than buy a new MacPro or iMac.

Apologies gents (Iclev and pm-r), just read your posts. Sincere thanks for the info. I will certainly check these out.

Kryten said:

I bought this flashed card not to save money particularly, but because I wanted a better card than the GT 120...

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Perfect! I would have done the exact same thing. AND I would have done it for both reasons.

- To get a better/faster card than the GT-120.
- AND to save some money!!!



- Nick