Mac Pro died?! Stripy blue lines, e.t.c.

[Genghis Khan]

Hey guys,

I've had a problem with my 3,1 Mac Pro (see sig).

I was on it and it froze and blue pixel stripes come across the screen. Upon restarting, it got back to the desktop (but not fully loaded), and the blue stripes came up again and it froze.

Now, on restarting it gets to this screen...

...and proceeds to restart over and over again.

Anyone have any idea what's wrong, or what hope I have to fix it?

Thanks,
- Michael

[justperry]

What happens if you safe boot, hold shift at startup.

You could run Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

[666sheep]

Originally Posted by justperry

What happens if you safe boot, hold shift at startup.

You could run Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

OP, don't bother. You need new graphics card... or bake this one -> google (it should work few weeks or months but it will fail again). 8800GTs are dying like that. It's common issue and symptoms are clear.

[Genghis Khan]

Originally Posted by justperry

What happens if you safe boot, hold shift at startup.

You could run Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

I did a safe boot, and it got me to the home screen. OS X said there was an error (foolishly didn't take note which), and I sent the report to Apple.

I tried restarting it as a safe boot again and it stalled on the white screen with the apple logo and the dashed circle of lines that's meant to rotate was stuck.

Unfortunately, I needed to get back to the desktop so i could eject the DVD drive to put the original install disk back in so that I could try the Apple hardware test, so I haven't managed to do that yet.

Originally Posted by 666sheep

OP, don't bother. You need new graphics card... or bake this one -> google (it should work few weeks or months but it will fail again). 8800GTs are dying like that. It's common issue and symptoms are clear.

I thought that could be it, so I switched the DVI cable to the ATI 2600XT. Would the 8800GT still crash the computer even if the screen's not connected to it?

[Genghis Khan]

Originally Posted by 666sheep

OP, don't bother. You need new graphics card... or bake this one -> google (it should work few weeks or months but it will fail again). 8800GTs are dying like that. It's common issue and symptoms are clear.

I would like to report that you are correct sir.

I took out the 800GT altogether and everything is back to normal.


Many thanks for your help guys

[spoonie1972]

give it a bake as suggested - i revived a HD5770 this way just last week!

make sure you remove all the plastics/heatsink etc.

[Mackilroy]

I third the baking suggestion, I did that with mine and it fixed the card. Died again a few months later but then I just baked it a second time.

[Genghis Khan]

I'm adverse to this baking technique for a couple of reasons.

1) I'm not a fan of temp fixes. Might as well move forward to the permenant fix if possible.

But mainly...

2) over the last few months, my Mac Pro has been not running as smoothly as it should (fans and hard drives spinning up randomly, prolonged startup, e.t.c.)' as soon as I took out the 8800GT, everything went back to normal.



Am currently thinking of putting an EVGA GTX 650Ti SSC 2GB in there.