Problems with 30" ACD

[ildondeigiocchi]

Ok so here's the deal. In the past month I've been having a lot of issues with my 30" Apple Cinema Display which I bought last year in January with my new Mac Pro. The first time I got the problem I was quite shocked to be honest. I booted up the system and when I sat down on my chair in front of my desk the screen flickered and then turned off. When I got up it turned backed on. Then it started flickering. So I restarted my Mac Pro and everything went back to normal so I ignored the problem. Then a couple weeks later while playing under Windows XP during Far Cry 2, I got severe artifacting which is a sign of a graphics card failure and I also got the message saying NV4 Display Driver failed. Anyway I rebooted and everything went back to normal. Now after a couple of days, my screen issues with the flickering and turning on and off randomly started again. Called AppleCare and they fixed the problem by making me reset the Video manager by unplugging all cables. Problem is today the problem came back. I called Apple and they said its quite alarming and told me to bring in the display to the Apple Store. I reset the video manager again and everything works but I can't keep doing this each time. I really need my Mac Pro for school so do you think it is worth bringing in to the Apple Store? What do you think the problem might be?

 

[California]

Not sure but sounds more like a graphics card problem in the Mac Pro rather than a Cinema Display problem. Try hooking it up to another screen. Does the ACD have a driver itself?

The only problem I've heard of with the ACD is the powersupply brick sometimes fails but this should not, in my uninformed mind, create onscreen artifacts. Just failure.

Sounds like your graphics card to me, but I could be wrong.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Not sure but sounds more like a graphics card problem in the Mac Pro rather than a Cinema Display problem. Try hooking it up to another screen. Does the ACD have a driver itself?

The only problem I've heard of with the ACD is the powersupply brick sometimes fails but this should not, in my uninformed mind, create onscreen artifacts. Just failure.

Sounds like your graphics card to me, but I could be wrong.

That's what I would think also but I only get artifacts under Windows and only sometimes so Apple wouldn't care about this since OSX remains unaffected.

 

[noushy]

ACD 30 problem

I had a similar problem with my ACD 30. At first I thought it was the video card too, but let me explain. On my G5 quad, with Nvidia Quadro FX 4500, every so often on reboot the monitor would show what appears to be 8bit color depth. If you unplug the power to the monitor and reconnected it, it would display normal. I had the G5 serviced, and did not see that happen again until I purchased a Mac Pro 2.8 8core. Amazingly or not, I noticed the same thing again. I still is doing it occasionally with my Mac Pro 2.93 Nehalem machine, so I can tell you the ACD 30 has a problem. It went in for service twice, and the second time they replaced the LCD screen. Not sure why they did that and not the digital board or cable, but go figure, it is still doing it. My monitor is now out of its 3 year warranty, and I am not even sure if Apple will still fix it. It still works most of the time, and I am waiting for the new ACD displays to come out.

Peace,
Noushy