Dead.. or salvagable?

I had a similar issue with my 2011 27" a while back...it turned out to be interference form a wifi hub nearby. Can you run the Apple Hardware Test from your original installation media? That may give a clue as to whether or not your GOU is about to fail:


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

Does it do it straight from startup or does it get progressively worse the longer it's been on?

If it gets worse as it stays on it's probably over heating. Clear out any crap in the fan and if that doesn't help it might help to remove the heat sink assembly and replace the thermal paste (or get a 3rd party after market fan replacement, if any are available for your card)

If it's doing it all the time it's worth trying a different cable or screen to rule out those components.

same thing happened with my 3870 and it died a week or so after that. I've tried taking off the heatsink, re applying thermal paste etc.. Seems the damage is already done.

spoonie1972 said:

My HD5770 seems to be in the process of taking a dump on my 2010 at work.

Is there anything I can do, or is whatever damage done permanent? I haven't tried a can of air or anything yet.

the pixel patterns are actually dancing on the screen in some cases.

Click to expand...

I would say that your card is dead. Apple did have a recall for your card (Radeon HD2600XT) in the US that expired last year:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3630

My advice, get a new card. You should be able to get a PC Radeon 6870 and flash it pretty easily to Show the boot screen.

Lou

^^^^Sorry, I didn't misunderstand, I posted in the wrong thread. My face is red. I meant to post here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16418938#post16418938

Lou

^^^Many people on here baked their 8800 (including me) and in most cases it's resurrecting these cards for some time.
But your case looks like failed memory on card. Baking won't help IMO, but if card is trash already, you can always try.

Congrats.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1495160/

Check there for bench or you could stress test it.

spoonie1972 said:

holy moly, so far ...SUCCESS!

baked @ 385°F for about 10 mins. let it cool.

put it all back together, and no artifacts or weirdness.

what's a good GPU stress tester?

I can't believe this worked - even this far.

Click to expand...

Sweet! I baked my 8800GT when I was getting this problem and it worked fairly well. I passed down the card to someone else and got the ATI 5770 (your card).

It has to do with the PCB connections not allowing electrons to flow properly. Baking it reheats the PCB and remelts the connections on the PCB.

Wow, I've never heard of baking success with a 5770. Wild stuff.

Pics of the baking or it didn't happen

Cool, j/k, glad it worked out!

Baking

I just have to ask this.. when its baking, does it give off a nice "sweet" smell in the kitchen as if it resembles baking cookies?

spoonie1972 said:

Happy to oblige! sorry it's a crappy iphone pic.

Image

Click to expand...

Happy Thanksgiving!

no way, ha ha

PowerPCMacMan said:

I just have to ask this.. when its baking, does it give off a nice "sweet" smell in the kitchen as if it resembles baking cookies?

Click to expand...

To be honest, I think you'd get a similar smell to burnt PCB, which is a really gross smell - it's kinda like burnt plastic but it seems to stick around a while.