Display - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT problem

Hatter: question for you in the lounge from me.

Start a thread, there are others interested in the 8800GT I'm sure.

Ok, I am having real trouble finding a graphics card to replace my faulty NVIDIA 7300.

I have a Mac Pro 2,1 Quad-Core 3GHz (1.33GHz bus) - a refurbished model that I purchased in June 2008.

1. Which generation Mac Pro would this be described as? (1st, 2nd, 3rd / pre 2008 / early 2008 / etc)

2. Which graphics cards are definitely compatible with this model? I have already tried the upgrade kits for the 8800GT and 120GT, to no avail. 😟

Many thanks!

Why didn't you start your own thread? And what was missing from the other thread you asked about graphic cards.

As stated many many times on these forums, ANY Mac Pro can use the ATI 4870 sold by Apple $449 or the retail ATI 3870.

8800GT is EOL and only ebay - and some of those are 'mislabeled.'
Nvidia cards have EFI64 firmware on their cards and only work in 2008 (Mac Pro 3,1 and 4,1 known as "Early 2008" and "Early 2009"). Yours is 1st generation which covers 1,1 and 2,1 (2,1 was mostly the dual quad 3-GHz, still all 1st generation have 1333MHz front side bus).

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30

Many thanks hatter - and apologies for any duplication.

🙂

My 7300 had similar problems. Funky colors, freezing desktop, etc. I replaced it with a 4870 and all was fine - except for my wallet!

I took a look at the old 7300 card, and it had two buldging capacitors (do a Google search on that). This is very common on some older hardware. Fortunately I'm handy with a soldering iron, and I replaced both caps. Put the card back in, and it works fine.

Went back to the Apple store today and returned the 4870.

I know not everyone is capable of making this repair, but those who do can save themselves a lot of money. I don't play any games on my Mac, so the faster 4870 didn't do anything new for me.

Hi everyone hope one of you is a real man of genius. My mac pro started freezing then wouldn't restart, it would hang on the blue screen @ start up with just a cursor. I tried all remedies I know (flashing everything,resetting everything,hardware check,tech tools,disk warrior,ram and battery removal) and same problem. I then did a clean install of snow leopard and then it hung on the grey screen. After many clean installs got it to work in normal mode once but then froze a week later. I also did a clean install of leo and it hangs on the blue screen still. It will start in safe mode no problem. I installed a new hard drive and new install with same results. It is a hardware problem for sure after new hard drives and clean installs and its not the memory, I installed them one at a time and got same results.
I feel it has to be the nvidia 7300 but I have no artifacts or lines or distortion before it occurred.
Please Please help me ! Been on Macs for 10 years and never had a problem. I use my mac for work and am losing $ daily!!! I live in NYC and taking it to apple will be expensive and very painful.
I just want to be fairly sure if its the video before I spend $350 on the ATI 4870.
Thanks in advance and Happy New Year fellow Mac freaks!

anyone care to refurbish their faulty GeForce 7300 GT cards? I have 5 of these Macs. Just replaced a pair of caps in it and its working for a month now. Sorry for the late update but it just occured to me last Feb that 'might as well fool with the graphic cards since I have backup units in place.

I have an old card I'd like to try and repair myself. What can you share about how to repair them?