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Mac Pro + X1900 XT crashing after boot (Leopard) - please read...

blakespot

blakespot

Administrator
Original poster
Jun 4, 2000
1,375
171
Alexandria, VA
I have a Mac Pro quad 3GHz w/ ATI X1900 XT videocard. It's one of the first models released.

For the past 4-5 months I've noticed a few pixels on in random places - looks like stuck pixels on an LCD, but they're not as they move around from time to time and sometimes aren't there at all. It progressed to horizontal lines across the screen in places - following window boundaries, etc.

A few weeks ago I de-dusted the X1900 (there was much), applied latest Mac Pro firmware update and applied that recent X1900 XT firmware update. All in the same hour. The dots went nearly totally away, but the lines did not.

In the past 4-5 days, my Mac Pro basically freezes up within five minutes of boot. Can be running different apps. UT2K4 or just activating Expose or doing nothing. Right now it's still up amazingly after 30 mins.

I've got some screenshots and I found some crash log entries that correspond. Please have a look:

http://www.blakespot.com/macpro_leopard_crash/

I also took a 10 min HD video of the crashing I will put on a DVD and take to the Genius Bar to show the problem, if I need to send in hardware to Apple for repair.

I would love to think it's the X1900 and it overheated or something and became damaged so that would be all I need to send in. Note that NONE of these problems were at all present in the first 6 months of life or so. And yes, the crashing is post-Leopard install.

Very troubling. Is anyone else having issues like this? Any input appreciated.

Thanks much.



blakespot
 
I ain´t on my sharpest hour now,but wasn´t the first batch of x1900´s quite faulty and apple has been replacing them no-questions-asked.
Check out some older threads and/or contact apple.

?
 
Macinposh said:
I ain´t on my sharpest hour now,but wasn´t the first batch of x1900´s quite faulty and apple has been replacing them no-questions-asked.
Check out some older threads and/or contact apple.

?
Click to expand...

Yeah. Apple should (and probably will) send you a revision 2 of the card along with a return box for the one in your machine, or they could send it to an Apple store for them to do the swap for you.
 
Interesting. Yea over at ArsTechnica forums I also heard this is a known issue. Do you think that I could get this taken care of on the phone w/ Apple or at least without dragging in my Mac Pro to the local Apple Store? I've got printed screenshots of the issues and 10 mins of video showing it repeatedly crashing and exhibiting artifacts - I was going to burn it to DVD to show whoever I needed to at Apple Store.

I am out of warranty, sadly. Will Apple still help me out here?

Any other sufferers? Thanks.




blakespot
 
I called Apple tonite.

They know of no X1900 replacement plan. :-\ The tell me to go to the local Apple Store and see what happens. I shall do this.



blakespot
 
Well... you could do some experimenting:
1.try a different monitor
2.try monitors on both video ports of the 1900xt and see if it continues across both desktops.
3.try a crt monitor with the crt adaptor that came with the macpro

or try installing 10.5 again.

otherwise, if you're out of warranty - i believe you're pretty much SOL because i've never heard of there being any major issues with the 1900xt.
 
Also, take some canned air and blow through the cooler cover on the video card (inside to out). It's quite restrictive at the opening where the heat sink is, and gets clogged with dust over time, which will cause the card to overheat.
 
Got Fixed

Apple sent me a new x1900 and I swapped it out and sent them the old one back VOILA problem solved. I had the exact same issues, not sure why but Leopard intensified the problem some how. New card solved prob entirely... Call apple care tell em send you a new card..


vic
macpro 2.66DP/ x1900xt / 3 Gig Ram/ 2 TB SATA Storage / 2 Super drives




blakespot said:
I have a Mac Pro quad 3GHz w/ ATI X1900 XT videocard. It's one of the first models released.

For the past 4-5 months I've noticed a few pixels on in random places - looks like stuck pixels on an LCD, but they're not as they move around from time to time and sometimes aren't there at all. It progressed to horizontal lines across the screen in places - following window boundaries, etc.

A few weeks ago I de-dusted the X1900 (there was much), applied latest Mac Pro firmware update and applied that recent X1900 XT firmware update. All in the same hour. The dots went nearly totally away, but the lines did not.

In the past 4-5 days, my Mac Pro basically freezes up within five minutes of boot. Can be running different apps. UT2K4 or just activating Expose or doing nothing. Right now it's still up amazingly after 30 mins.

I've got some screenshots and I found some crash log entries that correspond. Please have a look:

http://www.blakespot.com/macpro_leopard_crash/

I also took a 10 min HD video of the crashing I will put on a DVD and take to the Genius Bar to show the problem, if I need to send in hardware to Apple for repair.

I would love to think it's the X1900 and it overheated or something and became damaged so that would be all I need to send in. Note that NONE of these problems were at all present in the first 6 months of life or so. And yes, the crashing is post-Leopard install.

Very troubling. Is anyone else having issues like this? Any input appreciated.

Thanks much.



blakespot
Click to expand...
 
Went to the Apple Store.

My Mac Pro is out of warranty, and the X1900 XT had melted basically. After a long explanation on my part to try and get a free replacement, the manager agreed to give me a new card for 1/2 price - $198.

Better than $399, true.




blakespot
 
blakespot said:
Went to the Apple Store.

My Mac Pro is out of warranty, and the X1900 XT had melted basically. After a long explanation on my part to try and get a free replacement, the manager agreed to give me a new card for 1/2 price - $198.

Better than $399, true.

blakespot
Click to expand...

We are going to see more and more of this. I had a x1900XT card that was giving sparklies and then graphics distortion when playing battlefield for a period of time. If I paused then restarted (and allowed the card to cool down) they went away.

When I called Apple, told them the symptoms they sent me a new video card and it was there THE NEXT DAY (great job apple!).

However the new one has much louder fan (I think the revision included higher fan speeds) and now with leopard I hear it revving up frequently, even when just using finder, etc.

The leopard OS seems to REALLY stress the GPU, even more than most games do. These x1900 cards have poor cooling and I think a bunch are going to puke soon.

If you start seeing ANY graphical funkiness, I would immediately shut down and then clean off the air flow of the card - if it overheats to a point then it will be permanently damaged.

Personally I'll be buying the next gen card if it's quieter and runs less hot. The X1900 blows HOT air out the back constantly even when not being stressed, and it's louder than all the other fans on my computer combined.
 
Received my new card today. Attempted to do the ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card Update, received the message that my card did not require the update.

Everything is fine so far running 10.5.

I have not noticed any perceivable increase in fan noise as of yet.

blakespot - never heard back from you regarding the info I sent you, did you attempt to speak with Gary@Daystar Technology?
 
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