ATI Radeon HD 5770 in MacPro 1,1

Are you sure the snow is not generated by your adapters, cables, or display itself?

The only valid "anomaly" I have heard reported is that the speed of re-draw in older Mac Pro models does not benchmark quite as fast as in Mac Pro 2008 and later due to slower PCIe slots.

As long as you have not added graphics-related third-party software to your Mac, snow in image displayed should be completely reproducible in a newer model, so the genius Bar should be able to see that snow as well.

Your appointment at the genius Bar for an evaluation is free, in warranty or out. But try to deal with an Apple store that actually has Mac Pro available for test.

Howdy. Running a Mac Pro 3.1 10GB RAM, with a ATI Radeon 5770 (replaced my failed OEM video card a year ago). It shows up in System Profiler as:

Card:

(First Line) ATI Radeon 5770 / Display Controller / Yes (driver installed) / Slot-1

(Second Line) ATI Radeon 5770 / ATY,HoolockParent / No (driver installed) / Slot-1

I've been running two Dell 24" 1920/1080 monitors since I bought the machine. Since my video edit has moved from DV/HDV-based acquisition (Sony Z1s and HD M15 FireWire deck) to file-based 1080p ProRes422 via AtomOs recorders on Nikon D800 (Ninja2 via clean HDMI out) and Sony Z1 (Samauri via AJA HD Component-to-HDSDI converter), my venerable Sony PVM-1351Q monitor (component/Y/C and composite SD input only) is no longer workable. I have a Sony 32"/16x9 Trinitron with a DVI input. When I tried feeding it via the third output of the ATI card (via a miniDisplay Port-to-DVI cable) it displayed, at 1920x1080, but one of the Dells (second miniDisplay-to-DVI and DVI outputs) shut down. When I disconnected the Sony and restarted, both Dells came back.

Is this a firmware or driver problem, or am I doomed to having only two 1080 outputs from the ATI card?

Thanks!

HB

Is this a firmware or driver problem,

or am I doomed to having only two 1080 outputs from the ATI card?

No,

and No.

This is a problem based on AMD/ATI decisions based on the POWER available to converter/adapters. There isn't enough for three displays immediately, but there are solutions.

The first connector is a Dual-Link capable DVI-I, which has direct Dual-Link DVI _OR_ direct VGA (in the bar and the four pins around it at one end of the connector. It also picks up the top last pin off the grid array to complete the set of five signals for VGA: Red, Green, Blue, H-Sync, and V-Sync, (with the bar as the common return for all).

Those two little connectors are Mini DisplayPort, which are plug or cable adaptable to DisplayPort without conversion. They can also be coaxed to produce a signal that is DVI-compatible in timing, but not always powerful enough. To run three displays, each adapter needs the Re-Driver circuitry found only in Adapter/Converters sold as ACTIVE (read: POWERED) Adapters. There is a power lead in the interface that suffices for Single-Link DVI. For Dual-Link DVI Apple has chosen to use an additional USB lead to pick up more power still. If present, it MUST be plugged in!

ATI/AMD has an article on this subject, and has tested several adapters. Read the accompanying table Very carefully, as ACTIVE and not-active adapters are listed, as well as Displayport and Mini DisplayPort. The most common Accell ACTIVE adapters are available on Amazon, but Amazon search is imprecise by design to include more items than you would get from an exact search. So Again, Read Carefully!

http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-dongles.aspx

Dual-Link DVI is so-called because the data signals in the connectors and cables are doubled, to accommodate displays wider than 1920 wide.

To get HDMI, a DVI -> HDMI cable that swaps the wires around is all that is needed.

Thanks, Grant, for your most excellent response.

I've been to the reference, and see the active vs passive adapters. So... last questions... Do I need ONE or TWO active adapters to enable a third DVI monitor to be used in this configuration? Is the DVI port on the card already "powered" or do I need something additional to the (already DVI) monitor cable in that connection? Will running three monitors degrade the life of the 5770?

TIA...

HB

Do I need ONE or TWO active adapters to enable a third DVI monitor to be used in this configuration?

The item in short supply is the power behind the signals, especially when converted from Mini DisplayPort to DVI.

Except when you are using the graphics card output directly, you need two ACTIVE Adapters present, or the last display will drop out.

Running 3 displays will not tax the 5770 in any other way.

The Mac does not use special drivers for individual displays -- it customizes its driver with the data provided by the display when connected.

There is no known way to light up a ThunderBolt display except with a computer manufactured with a ThunderBolt port, of which the 65lb Mac Pro tower is not a member.

The Kanex adapters I can find do not say ACTIVE prominently in their advertising. To light up three displays, you will need all adapters to be ACTIVE. Debug it with just two to see whether it would work if you had ALL the right adapters.

Same MacPro, same card, same anomaly on my 30' display.

I found a solution to this.

When the coloured snow lines appear after the startup, I press the power button on the MacPro to sent it to sleep mode.

So when i goes to sleep, I wait for a few seconds for the drives to stop spinning and the wake from sleep and everything is ok.

Some times I can see dark lines at the display that goes away after a while.

/ Vangelis.

Okay this was your first post into forum and thread and have to ask you DarrenHsu,

Was or is this an Apple version of the card or not? a PC version? flashed?

And you have 10.6.5 or later (drivers were messy in 10.6.5 so later).

An SMC Reset - power on with it unplugged and all cables pulled for 10 seconds only, then reconnect.

With a "clean" 10.6.8 so avoid all problems.

iStatPro or Temperature Monitor - what are you seeing for fans and thermal sensors incl. FBDIMMs, RAM can cause odd problems. Amazon has excellent kit of 2x2GB $28.95 - unbelievable.

And of course good 6-pin aux power connection.

take the card back. take the mac in. no the system should not need to be but updating to lion over 10.6.8 which accumulated old stuff... clean lean and the less is more to a good solid system

as I said I would not even trust fbdimms. they age and die from heat releated stress. those new ones on amazon run cold while earlier fbdimms ran 10-15*C hotter and too hot really.

If the card's fan does not spin automatically, the card is defective. If still under warranty, have the seller repair or replace it. There is no point in debugging a broken part -- the repaired one may work fine.

Update

I've been operating for 3 months now without any issues. I followed all reset suggestions and what not and thankfully have not had the problem in some time. I can't say that one specific thing cured the problem but for now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping this problem is a thing of the past.

The Apple-frimware 5770 (about US$250) works in every model Mac Pro, and Drivers are in 10.6.5 and later. A genuine Apple card will include the one required 6-pin aux power cable in the box.

A PC-only card does not contain the firmware needed to show a picture under Mac OS X. Some PC cards flashed to Apple firmware do not show the Startup screens, which makes Alternate booting and debugging difficult.

Have a Mac Pro 1.1 with the original GeForce 7300 GT and am considering upgradding to the Radeon 5770. What performance gains could I expect? I have looked all over and can't seem to find what the benefits of upgrading are.

Running OSX 10.7.5

I have the same tower you do. At the same time I put the 5770 in, I also upgraded from the 4g of ram to 12g. The main reason I put the card in is because I wanted to run 2- 1080p displays, and also use the latest Final Cut Pro X, which uses OpenCL rendering in the effects and transitions.

Overall, the machine runs a bit faster from the 12ram I put in, but in general, there really isn't anything that will make the machine go any faster. You can't install 10.8, and it will only run a 32bit kernel.

If you're in the market for a new machine, I'd wait until the new MacPro is launched later this year - should be a game changer. Other than that, I'd look into the current MacMini's, which for speed, blows away your 1,1. True it only uses integreated graphics, but it will be faster than what you're using now.

My 3GHz quad core 1.1 with 8GB of ram works great with the 5770 and Final Cut. I too had the 7300 and when I made the jump to FCP I had to upgrade. Anyway, my 1.1 is doing just fine. A bit slow on renders, but even with my new 12 core machine, I've found the best thing you can do is work with proxy media. That more than anything will speed things up on any machine especially if you are working with codecs that aren't FCP friendly.