Mac Pro ATI 2600 Freezing Issue

I have the ATY,RadeonX1900 and have the same issue- today it did something new, the mouse disappeared and jumped around the screen ...sometimes at twice the normal size- then I have to hit the silver power button to get out.... I am now freezing up to 3 times a day....

When you hit the silver button, you can leave the disk drive scrambled, in need of repairs and corrupt files and the directory. So, that does tend to exasperate the problem you started with.

Repair your drive, ideally with Disk Warrior (booted from Tiger) and make sure to backup your files.

FWIW, I have been using a new Mac Pro for about 10 days with no problems. It is a base 2.8 dual quad model with the ATI card. I also have 8GB of Trans Intl RAM installed as well as 3 hds (stock HD plus 2 Seagate 7200.11 500GB).

Before using the machine I formatted all HDs with zero all data option. When I reinstalled Leopard, I left out the extra languages and printer drivers.

I also removed the two card slot covers nearest the video card. With the way the front fan blows, removing those slots gives a nice exit to air blowing over the video card. With the machine running you can feel a steady stream of air coming out of those slots with the covers off. I am hoping this helps the cooling a bit.

This machine has been perfectly stable, knock on wood, and has not crashed once. Hopefully Apple will figure out what is causing this. It seems like a very random issue.

Couple of questions for you folks seeing the freeze problem.
1. When it freezes, note the time and on the next restart, go into the system log to see if you see any interesting messages there around the time it froze. To get the system log from the Finder, press CMD-SHIFT-G and a small window will open. Type

/var/log

and press return. It will take you to where the logs are stored. Find the system.log and double-click on it to open a console window. Scroll back to around the time of the freeze to see if any interesting error messages or debug messages are logged. See if there are any interesting messages every time you have a freeze.

2. Some folks are also reporting a restart upon wake-from-sleep. Does this affect those of you with this freezing issue? Or do you have separate problems?

Thanks I agree ...BUT what do you do when 5 times a day my screen freezes for no reason and the mouse works but nothing clicks and I cannot get to force quite and the ball spins and spins and spins.... and sometimes the whole screen just goes black. Is it better to unplug the power cord? Also, every 4th time it happens I tend to repair disk permissions and run OnyX to delete caches files etc..... I don't think its ram but maybe the video card?

Does this mean anything?


Feb 5 18:13:26 Macintosh kernel[0]: 0xe2b80223
Feb 5 18:13:26 Macintosh kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log End **
Feb 5 18:13:38 Macintosh kernel[0]: ATIRadeon::wait for_rbspace: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 2, need 5. RBBM_STATUS 0xb8036100
Feb 5 18:13:48 Macintosh kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log Start **
Feb 5 18:13:48 Macintosh kernel[0]: 0x01017249 00040100 00000000 20080188
Feb 5 18:13:48 Macintosh kernel[0]: 0x1921404b c0003e0c 00000002 00000008

Yeah, like that. Anyone else seeing that?
Also, zbartz, are you seeing a sleep/wake/restart issue??

Also, zbartz, what symptoms do you see when it has a problem?

I have the same problem. I get a very long message in my system.log each time it happens Here is an example of the first few lines...

Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: ** Device in slot: SLOT-1 **
Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: ** GPU Debug Info Start **
Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: 0x01019588 000090a2 00009588 00000000
Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: 0x00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: 0x0011a010 00000000 00000000 00a6106b
Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: 0x00f8fc00 00000000 00000001 00008a12
Feb 4 23:27:16 macpro-xp kernel[0]: 0x80838645 00028482 01000000 00001002

AFter two years of saving my money I have my Mac Pro less than 6 hours and I am having the same problem. I don't want a new one I want a refund - a full refund.

Denny

Any time I let it sit without activity for 5 minutes or more...I will start working then within 10 minutes or less, I get the spinning disk of death...and it spins and spins... then I unplug and start over. If I have a complete restart after crash and even soft restart (using the correct methods) I can work for up to an hour... then out of nowhere I will open firefox and a one pixel horizontal line will appear only in the browser... so I quit and try photo shop... then the line may appear there so I quit everything and the line may appear on finder .... that's when I know now to restart because I am seconds away from the screen going black with no warning.... My system was stable as a rock until I upgraded. It all started when spaces started freaking out on me and has never recovered even after a clean reinstall, and shutting off that feature. If I had 20 hours to completely wipe out my drives and reinstall everything, I would but I can't afford to stop for that long... I wish apple had a swap program instead of bringing it in to the genius bar and try to replicate the issue....

Ok... I think I am closing in on the problem..... The lines ARE my symptom of an upcoming freeze... and I think it's the heat build up on my video card. I opened the case and started to run with it open to get more airflow.... card is still very very hot. As a LAST DITCH effort to work today and not crash every five minutes... I TOOK DRASTIC MEASURES... ready for this? I put a water tight bag of ice on the card and it is now stable... no crashes and no lines..... as soon as I take it off (within 5 minutes) the lines show up. I am convinced that I have a heat problem. I am looking at a liquid cooled solution.....

for now see if your card is too hot....and don't blame me if you try the ice thing and it leaks....

Interesting. If you think it is getting too hot, check if the on-card fan is revving up? Or does it stay at a constant speed (low).
Try opening the side door and add a small fan to blow on it. If that is all it is, then it should be a lot happier. Plus, you can get AppleCare to send a replacement.
Don't happen to have a digital meat thermometer to measure the heatsink temperature do you??

I've had my Mac Pro/Quad/ 2.66/ 4 GB Mem, since Late 07 and really love it. It has generally been excellent, (in contrast to an imperfect world). Just yesterday it had a very weird wake up from sleep, similar in that the mouse would hardly remain visible and everything was frozen, dock was pixelated. I just pulled the plug to restart and all through start up the screen flashed on and off but let me restart with mouse even while the screen flashed on and off. With PRAM reset it started well and worked until today when it would not wake from sleep. Held power button this time and then restarted, all seems fine at the moment. This might be the wake up time message, not sure, wit additional similar messages to this one--

2/7/08 1:54:24 PM Mail[126] Cannot find function pointer GraphicConverterCMIFactory for factory E3F3BEA1-3194-11D9-87A7-000A95874F98 in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x1af0c5b0 </Users/boatkinson/Library/Contextual Menu Items/GraphicConverterCMI.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)

I too am experiencing problems with the video card.. from the instant I turned it on dark blacks and the 18% grey and dark had dancing pixels... this evening as my computer is processing a large batch job my screen is turning off and on with occassional glitch/snow in between the feed is completely dieing out of the DVI port.. I haven't tried switching over to the other DVI port yet but from what I am reading it won't help any...

Christopher