Crash, failing graphics card

[Jethryn Freyman]

I've got a mid 2007 Macbook Pro. 8600M GT graphics card. OS X 10.5.6.

I had the the graphics card fail last year, and got a new logic board. Today, I was listening to some music in Front Row, when parts of the image on the screen disappeared. Music kept playing.

I tried to exit with the Apple remote, it made sounds, but the screen was frozen. I tried a few force quit keyboard commands, eventually, it exited to the desktop. The time wasn't changing, so I assumed the computer had crashed. Then I got a bar appear across the top half of the menu bar, which alternated black and white.

I held down the power button to restart the computer, and ran the hardware test, which came up with no problems.

Crash log is below:

May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000000c
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 00200000 00008297 00000472 00000000
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000047e 000015e0 00000000 00000003
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 01bffc03
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000000c
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 00200000 00008297 00000472 00000000
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000047e 000015e0 00000000 00000003
May 31 13:21:17 My Computer kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 00000002
May 31 13:21:19 My Computer FrontRow[6596]: T:[0xa0404720] BRMusicNowPlayingMonitor got action = kBRMonitorDeactivatedAction
May 31 13:21:19 My Computer FrontRow[6596]: T:[0xa0404720] BRMusicNowPlayingMonitor moved from state = kBRNPSStateWaitingForPlayback to state = kBRNPSStateWaitingForActivate
May 31 13:21:19 My Computer FrontRow[6596]: T:[0xa0404720] BRMusicNowPlayingMonitor got action = kBRMonitorDeactivatedAction
May 31 13:21:29 My Computer kernel[0]: NVChannel(Display): Graphics channel timeout!
May 31 13:21:29 My Computer kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
May 31 13:21:29 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000000c
May 31 13:21:29 My Computer kernel[0]: 00200000 00008297 00000472 00000000
May 31 13:21:29 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000047e 00000ff8 09a50000 00000003
May 31 13:21:29 My Computer kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 00000002
May 31 13:21:41 My Computer kernel[0]: NVChannel(Display): Graphics channel timeout!
May 31 13:21:41 My Computer kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
May 31 13:21:41 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000000c
May 31 13:21:41 My Computer kernel[0]: 00200000 00008297 00000472 00000000
May 31 13:21:41 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000047e 00000ff8 03840000 00000003
May 31 13:21:41 My Computer kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 00000002
May 31 13:21:52 My Computer kernel[0]: NVChannel(Display): Graphics channel timeout!
May 31 13:21:52 My Computer FrontRow[6596]: T:[0xa0404720] Stop render thread
May 31 13:21:52 My Computer kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error
May 31 13:21:52 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000000c
May 31 13:21:52 My Computer kernel[0]: 00200000 00008297 00000472 00000000
May 31 13:21:53 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000047e 00000f08 00000000 00000003
May 31 13:21:53 My Computer kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 01fffc01
May 31 13:21:53 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000000c
May 31 13:21:53 My Computer kernel[0]: 00200000 00008297 00000472 00000000
May 31 13:21:53 My Computer kernel[0]: 0000047e 00000f00 00039c00 00000003
May 31 13:21:53 My Computer kernel[0]: 00000000 00000000 01ffdc01
May 31 13:22:05 My Computer kernel[0]: NVChannel(Display): Graphics channel timeout!

Looks like some kind of graphics issue.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Tech Tool Pro also showing no trouble.

I don't trust either TTP or the hardware test, though, they've both failed to find problems in the past.

The hardware test was able to see the logic board was failing last time, though.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Is there any program that I can use to test my GPU for damage?

Other than Tech Tool and the Apple test.

I've found tests for RAM, but not for graphics cards.