resolve computer: 2009 Mac Pro is hard crashing and SLOOOOW

[Paul Nordin]

This may not be the right place to post this question. if, so my apologies in advance...

Well, I’ve got a problem that I am scratching my head over with the 2009 Mac Pro I use with Resolve. 6 months ago I went through a bunch of upgrades to keep it humming, and avoid buying an entirely new trashcan based system. In this upgraded configuration, it was running beautifully for several months. Then a month ago, after a long client session in Davinci, I sat down to do some work and there was an audible POP and a hard crash of the system…like the power chord had been yanked. The system would only start up again if I unplugged it and waited for 20 seconds or so.

The first this I noticed when it started up is there was no CUDA capability. So I switched the GTX780 in the Cubix with the 780 in the MacPro (working as GUI/GPU). That card seemed to work. So I sent the “bad” 780 back to the vendor thinking I had found the problem. However, I discovered that Resolve performance was really bad. Almost like CUDA was throttled down to a tiny flow. And then I heard from the vendor that the 780 I sent back checked out as fine. So that left me with a MacPro performing poorly, and two GTX780s that are according to the vendor (MacVidCards) just fine.

Continuing troubleshooting, I ran Rember, and the RAM checked out fine.
But when I run GPU Test, within a few seconds of the graphic display the MacPro hard-crashes. Every time.

So I thought maybe the PSU. I replaced the PSU with a brand new apple part, and no change…still terrible performance and hard crashing out of GPU Test.

Any suggestions? Might it be my motherboard? PCI ports?

Upgraded 2009 MacPro firmware to MacPro 5.1
Replaced CPU tray with 2 x 12core 3.06 CPUs
Replaced older RAM with 48GB of 1333
In addition to that it has a Cubix expansion chassis
OSX 10.9.4
CUDA 6.5.36
NVidia web driver 334.01.02f02
in MacPro
Flashed GTX780 6gb card
Cubix PCIe Card
Blackmagic Declink 3g+
Atto ssa Raid card

in Cubix
Flashed GTX780 6gb card
4-port USB3 card
ATTO ssa host bus card
RedrocketX card

Any help or insights would be more than welcome!

 

[mikeburton]

A friend of mine had an issue similar to this recently. Try removing the Decklink card and see if that stops the crashing. I'd also re-install the software drivers and see if that helps.