MP 1,1-5,1 MP4,1 -> 5,1 has the spins. Need help!

[SolidCake]

Hi All,

Over the past year, my cMP4,1 -> 5,1 has been getting the spinning beachball more and more. The most notable example of this is when I'm saving files. Where saving (text!)files used to be instant, now it can take up to 5 minutes of beachball to indefinite beachball resulting in me having to force shut down the computer. After the last Mojave security update, my Mac randomly won't let me log in, giving me an infinite spinner when I try to login to my account. I can fix this by taking out my boot drive and running first aid on it through my MacBook. After that, I get ONE login. And If I want to log in again, I have to repeat the process of taking the drive out and running first aid on it through my MacBook. What's also odd is that I don't have access anymore to the startup key commands. I can't get my mac back into recovery mode or single user/safe mode. When I hold down the required keys my mac just boots into user select, regardless.

I've searched online but haven't found a similar case yet and was hoping you guys could please help me out?

My Mac Pro's specs:

• macOs Mojave
• 2x Xeon X5690's
• 2x AMD RX480 OC (8gb singe 6pin power input)
• Allegro USB-C 4-Port PCIe
• 32GB DDR3 1333MHz
• Boot drive: EVO 850 500GB (100GB free space and trim enabled)

 

[Macschrauber]

I vote for a dying SSD, give it a check with DriveDX (Demo mode is enough for a test run)

 

[mikas]

Without digging any deeper, I would go and buy a new SSD. It might be failing, and the cost is not that much. But that's jsut me. You might want to try DriveDX or some other diagnostics first. See if there are alarming numbers with wear leveling or SMART warnings.

 

[rpmurray]

I've also seen this with RAM so you may want to run the System Report in About This Mac and check if all the DIMMs have a status of OK.

 

[SolidCake]

Thanks for the replies!

My RAM is OK, and using DriveDX revealed the problem! Thanks for recommending it! I downloaded the trial, and luckily, it was not my boot SSD that had issues. It was my WD Red NAS drive that had 'hardware read and write failures,' I don't have the exact error quote. I removed the drive, and now my mac loads fine!

I use that drive for archiving projects and I find it strange that it messed with the system so much, I'm glad that it's sorted now!

Thanks, @mikas for the tip, that did it!