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3870 problems

S

seasterling

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Just installed 3870 in 2008 MacPro. It ran about a minute and the display went out, keyboard was non-responsive. A restart clears up the keyboard but still no display. If I let the smc reset I'll get the display again for about a minute but it dies again.

Should I be seeing any type of ATI control panel after the driver install?

Any ideas? TIA.
 
Did you install the drivers before installing the card? I heard you have to do that with the old card still in.
 
There's not an ATI control panel in OS X (that I have found anyway) but it should work fine after you install the drivers -

Sounds like you might have got a bad card -

I installed the drivers even after on mine as doing a fresh install theres no other choice with it and you get some graphical corruption on boot until you install drivers but after that is should run fine without issues
 
If I reset the SMC the card will run for about a minute and then the machine locks up again and the display goes out. I'm starting to wonder if it might be the Mac Pro and not the video card. Anybody know if there is a way to tell?
 
Yes, the power cord is attached. I spoke with an Apple rep today and we couldn't resolve anything. I need to either try this card in another box, or try another card in this machine I guess.
 
I doubt Apple will be able to do anything because the 3870 isn't a BTO card. Best they could do is give you an 8800GT, but the stock 2600XT is actually faster.

Did you make sure to do the following steps

1. Install drivers with OLD card still seated
2. Fully reboot back to desktop after driver installation, with OLD card still seated
3. THEN shut down and swap cards before powering on again

If you miss that reboot in between I heard it might screw things up. Also check to make sure the fan is spinning. It could be faulty.
 
Yeah, I did all of that. I spoke with ATI this morning and they think the card has a problem. I have a new card on the way. Thanks.
 
Fan noises

Whenever I move the cursor on screen or open/close an application, anything that boosts the CPU a little bit even makes the fan on the 3870 spin faster (louder).

Has anyone else witnessed this? Is it typical? I can hear it because the Mac Pro is on the desk and not under. Just wondering if this is typical for the fan to get louder with just normal even minimal CPU usage?

UPDATE: I went further in the Forum and found a posting about the Fan Noises... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/541289/
 
I had a bad card. New card seems to be running fine so far.

The fan is pretty quiet. I had to stress it modo to get the fan to speed up.
 
I bought it from OWC, they did a switch and went ahead and sent me a card allowing me 15 days to return the other one. They had very good customer service.
 
seasterling said:
I had a bad card. New card seems to be running fine so far.

The fan is pretty quiet. I had to stress it modo to get the fan to speed up.
Click to expand...

Good to know that others have the same problem. My fan runs at top speed all the time .... so this is really a hardware problem? I was hoping that this could be helped in future driver/EFI versions. 🙄
I will go ahead and see if the card behaves different when I boot into Vista.
 
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