display issue with dual cinema/cintiq on startup

Check that you don't have other equipment that overloads the outlets and circuit. A Mac Pro may need to be on its own circuit.

Replace power strip with 1500VA UPS (1000VA if SMART UPS from APC).

Reset the SMC Reset button inside.

I think two 23" displays may be much for 7300GT. Do you have X1900? (add and update your profile).

Try changing the two cables to video ports.

Pulling power is "not nice" and can result in a corrupt file system and directory and lead to more problems. Be sure run Apple Disk Utility and Disk Warrior 4 if/when you get a copy.

Run Apple Hardware Test (hold down 'd' when booting from Install DVD #1) to give a full check of your system.

A Mac Pro puts a LARGE draw on circuits when coming out of sleep. Enough so that it has been discussed (
"UPS + circuit") extensively in the past.

I've got a very similar set up to yours and I'm having a similar problem. I've got a new Mac Pro (June), with an ATI Radeon 1900 XT, with 20" cinema and a Cintiq 21 UX. The 20" is my primary monitor.

At first start up (after being off for several hours, overnight usually) I'm getting a pyschedelic checkerboard of pixels instead of a grey screen on my cinema display. I can still see that the computer is booting up. After finishing the start-up, the cinema goes blue and the Cintiq finally turns on blue. After force shut down and restart everything starts up fine (at least so far it's always worked the second time.) I've also seen the screens with checkerboard pixels after waking up from sleep after a few hours.

The only hint of a solution I've gotten so far is what I have eliminated: it's not a loose video card, nor the power management or PRAM or anything solved by "repairing permissions" on my harddrive, or the Cintiq driver. But here's what did work: I unplugged the Cintiq (and an old Intuos 2 drawing pad) and start up proceeded just fine.

So I've been assuming the problem was with either the Intuos or the Cintiq, so:

I reattached the Cintiq (but not the Intuos) and I had good start-ups for about a week, then the problem started again, (now with just the Cintiq attached, no Intuos): but this time the distorted screens last through an other wise good start-up: that is, instead of empty blue screens at the end, I get a distorted version of my desktop (though all I can do is move the pixelated cursor around.)

I was on tech support with Wacom yesterday, and they helped me clean out some old versions of the Cintiq driver that persisted after I updated to the current driver. (Have you tried updating your driver?) The fellow thought that some how it might have been an issue with the old and new drivers interacting with each other after a period of time (???) As of this morning, this failed to resolve the issue, however. Anyway, he did seem doubtful that the external device (by which I guess he means the USB powering the tablet function of the Cintiq) would effect the start-up.

He did give me one fact that I'm thinking might be a hint at what's happening: He said that the cinema displays are so well designed to work with the macs, that they respond to a video signal much much faster than the Cintiq can, and this can mess things up: specifically the Cintiq will often have trouble waking from sleep.

There is a "mac sleep" mode you can set on the Cintiq (using the onscreen menus controlled on the upper right edge of the Cintiq), and this is supposed to resolve these issues (have you tried this?). It didn't do anything for me, but it may for you.

Anyway, I'm not sure if your seeing anything exactly like is happening with me, but you might definitely try setting your Cintiq to the "mac sleep mode" if you haven't done that yet.

I'm curious about the software fix they gave you--hope it's still working.

I just tried something that seems to have worked, though I'm extremely perplexed as to why: I tried leaving the Cintiq monitor plugged in but unplugging the USB for the touch-pad function. So far I've had perfect start-ups. (Two and counting) This is very perplexing, but so far for me the only thing that's worked (both times) was unplugging the USB.

The first time I tried it, I unplugged both the Intuos and the Cintiq, and it started-up just fine. However I had fine start-ups with the Cintiq USB (and monitor) attached for about a week after that--then the distored start-ups began happening again.

But here's a curious thing I found in the system log (opening Console in the Utilities folder): two lines of recorded activity that happen right at start-up that refer to the wacom (I assume this is the driver):

Sep 30 07:30:51 localhost launchd[76]: com.wacom.wacomtablet: exited with exit code: 253
Sep 30 07:30:51 localhost launchd[76]: com.wacom.wacomtablet: 9 more failures without living at least 60 seconds will cause job removal

This is curious to me, because nine good start-ups is probably close to the number I had before it started to go wonky again. But maybe that's just a coincidence and this is nothing. Or maybe resetting the USB resets something in the driver which is then waiting 9 more times before the "job is removed"?

I mentioned these lines to the folks at wacom, and they said keep a record of it, it may be important if the problem persists.

Have you looked at the Console log at all when your problem happened?

Anyway, at this point for me, it's looking like it's something centered on the USB, but whether it's Mac, Wacom, hardware or software is still an open question. Nobody I've talked to seems to think that a USB should have any impact at all on start-up or monitors, though I did see some talk out there of people who resolved frozen start-ups by unplugging their keyboards.

Any thoughts on how a USB could be a culprit?

Hi dmcumbo:

Curious. Has switching the displays continued to work? I considered this but I haven't tried it.

I've had an interesting develment with my machine: I discovered that if I started the computer with the Cintiq display plugged in, but with the Cintiq USB unplugged that (so far) I have a perfect start up everytime.

Also, since I unplugged the USB and reattached it I've had okay start-ups, even with both Cintiq monitor and USB plugged in. This is what happened before, when I detached both Intuos and Cintiq, but then the problem reoccured in about a week. So I'm just waiting for it to happen again. We'll see then if reseating the USB has the same effect again.

I'm curious whether you've experimented at all with whether the Cintiq USB has any impact on your problem.

Erik