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Is this Video Card Failure?

R

rogo43

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 5, 2012
71
0
New York
Hye
I have a mid 2011 27" iMac with Core i5, 24 Gbs of ram and 1 TB Solid State Drive. I noticed that my monitor does this flashing thing all the time. It will happen at various places around the monitor and if i move screens around or over it, it will usually stop for some time. It changes speed and also changes size on a random basis. Is this my video card going bad?

I do have a second monitor (LG) plugged into it via lightning cable to HDMI, but i have unplugged it and rebooted multiple times to see if that fix the problem and it has not.

Video is posted below on the link.

Please Help!
 
Last edited:
I can't get that video to load.

Did you install the 1TB SSD? If so, it sounds like one of the video cables may not be seated correctly. If you had it installed by someone else after your purchase that could also be the case. So, checking the cables and making sure their connections to their plugs would be the first thing to do.

Does this also occur on the external monitor when it's connected? If not then it would also point to a loose or improperly installed video cable inside the iMac.
 
Does this work?



the SSD was put in by a authorized mac place back in 2011 when i bought the machine. I haven't done anything else to the machine. It has been working fine until about a month or so ago. The other monitor does not do this flashing thing.
 
SaSaSushi said:
Oh darn... well that does look like a symptom of a failing video card. Is that the extent of it, just the flashing artifacts? Has it ever locked up on you?
Click to expand...

It has locked once or twice now that you mention it and it seemed kind of odd considering I have so much ram. I would just hold down the power button and reboot. So basically yes, it will once in a while lock up and the flashing is constant.
 
Now I'm almost completely convinced you're looking at a bad GPU. :(

Have a look at this thread over at Apple's discussion forums.

Also, per that thread, check your logs for entries like:

Code: 
GPU hang: 
kernel[0]: Trying restart GPU

particularly after a lockup.
 
SaSaSushi said:
Well, the part itself seems to be available for about $215 on eBay. Unless you were going to tackle the job yourself I'd say you'd probably pay at least that much in labor. Figure around $500 for a ballpark with both parts and labor.
Click to expand...

Damn. that sucks. I can work on PC's, but when it comes to macs, im not comfortable at all taking it apart. Ill contact my Mac Guy and see what he says. For the time being, it seems like the NVRAM Reset worked alright. no boxes.

Thanks
 
No problem. See what your guy is suggesting for the part price and if its really expensive see if he'll just charge you labor to install a card you get off eBay.

Good luck.
 
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