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Very unhappy with my 8800!

What I've read about the dancing green pixels (which I've never seen or had before and owning previously 2 30" and currently 1x 23" and the 2x 20") that I think its due to something else other than the monitor or the gpu.

I've read on numerous forums that people are saying they had their gpu replaced 2-3 times and its still showing or coming back. Also they have had the cinema display replaced as well and its still showing. So no one really knows why this happens, it could be software related or something to do with the logic board is what I really think is happening.
 
Look, I am no tech person...software maybe but not the hardware...especially on a Mac since I made the switch and now regretting it.

The only way I can get rid of the dancing green pixels is to unplug my monitors power supply. Plug it back in and they are mostly gone for a long while. Now once and a while I have to do it a second time and then they are gone. Now if this was a vid card issue or logic board...why the heck would unplugging the monitors power supply get rid of them. Just press the button at the side of the monitor does not do anything OR putting it in to sleep...at least at most times this does not work.

Its either the monitor or somehow connected to the power supply. Just my observations.

Has anyone tried to replace the power supply alone to see if the problem disappears. Maybe its having problems and possibly causing power fluxes to the monitor. Like I said I am not tech.

Anyone have an idea?
 
sooty1138 said:
The only way I can get rid of the dancing green pixels is to unplug my monitors power supply.
Click to expand...

Then you are not seeing the same problem as the rest of us.

Just because the symptoms are the same doesn't mean the underlying cause is the same. Consider a fever; cold or flu?

Are you on the 30" CinemaDisplay? My advice would be to get a replacement monitor.

Maury
 
I am using the 23" Cinema Display. The tech seems to think its the vid card or the logic board. I just had this monitor changed once with dead pixels.

Personally I think much of what people say is all related to a common cause. Some say they fixed it by doing something or another. BUT have they really fixed it or is it intermittent and more likely to return anytime. That is what I find. I have a days grace of nothing. The next day the dancing green pixel fairies come back with a vengeance to quiet down the next day and occasionally return.

Ah well. All I know is that this will inevitably be the last time I buy a Mac. First experience has sucked big time.
 
sooty1138 said:
Some say they fixed it by doing something or another. BUT have they really fixed it or is it intermittent and more likely to return anytime.
Click to expand...

Yes, it eventually returns. It returns about every 7 to 10 power cycles for me.

Sleeping the monitor --and you have to wait for the light on the monitor to show its sleeping and not just partially way though the process-- and the waking it clears it up every time. It seems that any sort of power cycling of this sort will do the trick.

Maury
 
Well if you were hoping your green pixel blues would go away... they are still here with me. :( Not that I expected an update to fix things since its more likely a hardware issue.

Have not seem much improvement in any areas but then again my only complaint is the green pixels. Ah well. Still waiting for the tech guy to call that he has all the parts in and is ready to operate.

Cheers!
 
sooty1138 said:
Well if you were hoping your green pixel blues would go away... they are still here with me. :( Not that I expected an update to fix things since its more likely a hardware issue.
Click to expand...

Yeah, same here. :-(
 
Why not see if the Problems happen with just 1 30" ACD, or 2 or 1 Other brand monitors? If, say there was no problems with 2 Dell 30", then you could say monitors, if there is no problem with 1 ACD or smaller screens, then you could say the 8800 has problems driving really high resolution displays.

Just an idea.

Also, SupCom fan here too! Will be getting the OS X version when i get my MBP!:apple:
 
My plan is in the mean time to take my 23" cinema display down to an associates office and hook it up to their Mac Pro and work on it. See if the green pixels occur. If they don't then I know its to do with the hardware on my Mac Pro and not the monitor. Of course if the opposite occurs then I know its the monitor and/or its components... the power supply and the cables. Too bad I cannot replace the cables since Apple in their wisdom decided to make them permanent attachment. I can at least replace the power supply and since if that could be a contributing cause.

Time will tell. And still waiting for the tech guy to call. Will give him a shout next week and see where things stand. But if this issue never gets resolved I am going to complain to Apple even if they refuse to acknowledge it.

I am a first time Mac user and it will be my last... until this machine dies on me in the next 5 years. Rats!!! Cannot wait that long.
 
Tech came by with new video card and power cable for it. He has a logic board on standby if he needs to come back in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Fingers crossed. Some hope but.....

Cheers all!
 
Has anyone else with the 8800GT had "tearing" in OSX? I thought this was something everyone was getting but I didn't see any mention of it in this thread, which is somewhat concerning.

Animated progress bars will have random chunks flicker white (Not like interlacing, but like someone went into paint and took the rectangle tool to a random spot, this changes in location every frame). It also happens on Flash objects a lot, and other misc animations both in the window manager and applications.

To keep with the current thread, I've not had the dancing pixel issue, but I'm only running a 20.1" 4:3 LCD (Samsung 204b). I had it once before, but it was a problem with the MONITOR, and was easily cured by lowering the pixel clock down to ~58hz; however samsung replaced it after I switched to vista and could no longer adjust this. I don't know if this can be adjusted in OSX.
 
I had some issues with my 8800GT. I was getting lockups on boot, sometimes nothing would come up on my 30" on boot with the 8800 fans blaring, when waking from sleep I would get the same thing as well.

My logs were dishing out IOGraphicsFamily errors. It was pretty clear this was graphics related. I call Apple, explain what I had done, explain what I think it is. The guy didn't really content. He wanted to schedule me at an AASP, but I declined asking for a DIY service. They sent me a new 8800GT overnight and I haven't had any issues yet.

No booting issues, or wake from sleep problems yet. Also, I have never had the dancing pixels thing. I will keep you posted.
 
In a quick glance across the thread one thing I have not seen anyone mention is environmental heat issues. If the card is borderline overheating, it can absolutely cause a number of different video glitches.

If you have the standard Forceware tools under Windows you should be able to check the GPU temperature when you're having texture problems from the extra tab it adds to your Display Properties panel.

Not saying this is your problem, but it's something to eliminate. If it does prove to be running hot, is it especially warm in the location where your Mac lives? Have you got adequate space for air to move near all the ventilation areas for the case? As a last resort I did once have to replace the stock blower on an NVIDIA card with a beefier aftermarket model.
 
Well, so far so good. Had an issue when bringing my Mac out of sleep but disappeared. I never use the sleep but did this one time. I figure if you are going to be away long enough just turn it off. It boots up fast.

I know no way to adjust the monitor settings like you said above a few comments. I am new to the Mac side of things and know Apple.... they do not want you to play with settings too much. I miss that from being on the Windows side of things, although I do have XP installed via bootcamp.

Anyway, tech guy said he had not heard of any green pixel issue regarding the cinema displays and said if it was a widespread prob APPLE would do a recall. BUT he said the "anomaly" was or is more likely a vid card issue or logic board. Which makes sense since people are having similar probs on the MacBook Pro.

Well if the green pixels do not come back in the next few days then I can say it was a faulty vid card (8800GT). Thats my hope anyway.

Cheers all!
 
UPDATE!!!!

Well, so much for that. The green pixels came back so its not the vid card. I am taking the monster in and the tech said he will replace the logic board and see if its that. Now if it comes back after that then it has to be the monitor/monitor cables/monitors power supply thats the problem.

APPLE you have made me regret buying a Mac now. Should have stuck with a Windows PC. Never had these problems with any of my machines. BUT I am stuck since I transferred ALL my graphic software to the Mac side. So I had better stop complaining before Apple agents take me down.

I will let all know what happens with the logic board.

Cheers!
 
sooty1138 said:
UPDATE!!!!

Well, so much for that. The green pixels came back so its not the vid card. I am taking the monster in and the tech said he will replace the logic board and see if its that. Now if it comes back after that then it has to be the monitor/monitor cables/monitors power supply thats the problem.

APPLE you have made me regret buying a Mac now. Should have stuck with a Windows PC. Never had these problems with any of my machines. BUT I am stuck since I transferred ALL my graphic software to the Mac side. So I had better stop complaining before Apple agents take me down.

I will let all know what happens with the logic board.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

I hope it works out for you. Perhaps you can return it and get the new ATi 3870 that they are about start shipping everywhere.
 
sooty1138 said:
UPDATE!!!!

Well, so much for that. The green pixels came back so its not the vid card. I am taking the monster in and the tech said he will replace the logic board and see if its that. Now if it comes back after that then it has to be the monitor/monitor cables/monitors power supply thats the problem.

APPLE you have made me regret buying a Mac now. Should have stuck with a Windows PC. Never had these problems with any of my machines. BUT I am stuck since I transferred ALL my graphic software to the Mac side. So I had better stop complaining before Apple agents take me down.

I will let all know what happens with the logic board.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

I sincerely doubt that it's the logic board. I think you're destined for further heartbreak.

My Mac Pro with 1900XT and two 30" ACDs worked flawlessly. Never a dancing pixel. After I upgraded to the 8800XT, I started getting the green pixels on one of the monitors. When I switched their video plugs on the card, the pixels showed up only on the other monitor. With 10.5.2, I only got the pixels very occasionally on start up. When I upgraded to 10.5.3, I now only get them very occasionally when the machine wakes from sleep, never on startup.

Somewhere in all of this is an element of commonality, but I can't see what it is, and neither can Apple engineers, apparently. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect you're barking up the wrong tree with the logic board.
 
I'm happy with my 8800. No problems yet. I only have 1 monitor hooked up to it, though. I have 2 more hooked up to a GT7300.

I hope these are just isolated events. The X1900 was a piece of crap, I can't believe they'd release another one.
 
Well they did not put the logic board in. They wanted to talk with the Apple techs before doing so and apparently it took all day. The tech told me that Apple started giving them the runaround deal... which I have experienced in the past. So since it was end of day they said they would do the logic on Monday and if that does not work they will look at the monitor. I might as well take everything to them and leave it there. They do not seem to be able replicate the green pixel issue. Go figure. Murphy's Law.

Apparently Apple has nothing to say about the green pixel issue. Another "Go figure". Try this, try that. Thats pretty much it.

I got the machine back so I can do some work on it over the weekend and will take it back on Monday. I am getting fed up with all this. Someone told me that if the problem is not resolved after 4 or 5 attempts Apple might replace the whole machine.... which I doubt. Maybe if I whined enough about being a new Mac user and having spent $ 5000 bucks on the damn thing.
 
Glad I am saving and waiting, I think unless the 8800 works out it's kinks then I will get the 3870.
 
I've got the latest (Early 2008 Octo) Mac Pro w/ 8800GT graphics. Ran flawlessly for the longest time, but about a month ago started freezing, crashing, and displaying other weird symptoms, such as weird bright colors and blocks upon wake from sleep as mentioned in this thread. I am certain the fault lies with my GFX card, but have been holding off on calling Apple because it's too intermittent (once a week she freezes or gives me the insta-epelipsy screen of death) and I fear I'll loose the machine for a week just to have them tell me it's totally fine. :(
 
This is a quote from an email I just sent the tech I am dealing with.

"Well I could not get a hold of a friend of mine with the Mac, but I did get a relatives PC monitor and hooked it up. They had a Samsung SyncMaster 206BW 20" widescreen. And the timing was PERFECT. The green pixel anomaly happened just when I hooked it up and and I played around moving windows and graphics from one to the other as well as activated the screensaver.

The Cinema Display was the only one with the green pixels on it. Also, I switched connections and the green pixels came back/remained on the Cinema Display and none appeared on the Samsung. I unplugged the power to the CDisplay and reconnected it, they were gone."

I got some pictures with both on when the anomaly came on.

So now I believe it is the Cinema Display/powerbrick/both having issues. Go figure.

I am no tech but thats what I have found on my own today.

This is my second Cinema Display in 4 months. First one was another "pixel anomaly".
 
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