Trouble with Radeon 5770 in Mac Pro 3,1

Yep. Done a long time ago. All software updates available have been made.

As I said in my first post, I have run AHT several times and it hasn't turned up anything. I have also been looking at the logs and haven't found anything definitive, though I did see some data that made me suspicious of a Core Graphics function. Have also run Tech Tool Pro (as I stated) and it found no problems. Not going to buy Diskwarrior since I'm not convinced this is a disk problem (I'd swap the disk out instead), although the hangs do tend to cause (but not always) some invalid directory errors that Disk Utility fixes. The visual flash I've seen when this occurs (and it is getting less frequent as I run the card longer) makes me think this is some kind of memory access or GPU glitch. I'm hoping, if it is associated with Core Graphics calls, that maybe 10.6.5 will help me with that, though I haven't looked at what's fixed in that package.

As I also said, I've run AHT and TTPro to see what they would turn up. No hits on either. I'm not knocking Diskwarrior; I used to have a copy around here. I simply haven't shown a need for it; good discipline and Disk Utility has worked great for me for years running on a multitude of Macs. If you want to suggest a good video card diagnostics utility for Radeon 5000 series card under OS X, I'm all ears.

I'm not running CS 4 or 5 (and never said I was). I do have CS3 here but it has never been involved in any of this. I am aware of the delta you're talking about, but don't see what that has to do with helping me troubleshoot my problem.

Lastly, I spent a lot of time searching the web for other 2008 Mac Pro owners running the 5770 and complaining about hangs under SL. I really couldn't find anything, which is why I posted here. That fact also makes me lean toward my particular card or config as the root cause of the problem. I'm looking for another tool or technique I can use that will prove helpful, and so far, no one has suggested anything I haven't done . If this problem was disk related, it would probably tend to show up no matter what video card I had in here. That has not been the case.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure how Apple would react if I tried to return the card but did think they would be hesitant to allow me to return it. Now I know.

Still working on mine. The problem seems to happen less as I run the card. Also, I found some calls in my logs to some vmware fusion components that were loading at start. They were left over from a demo I tried and later removed. I also pulled out some PowerMate "helpers" that were loading at start since I'm not using my PowerMate right now. I'm chugging along trying to see if removing those make the difference. So far so good, but the problem is sporadic and it sometimes takes a day or two before it pops up.

Thanks for the help. I wanted to wait until 10.6.5 was released to see if it might make a difference before going down the return/refund route. It looks like it has. I ran my 3870 for 2 days, did the update, and put the 5770 back in. I've been running the machine since the update came out yesterday and haven't experienced any hangs. At least for now, the update seem to have cured it. If that turns out not to be the case, I'll come back in here and comment.

Unfortunately, the 5770 hung again while looking at some e-mail using Mail. At this point, I'm going to declare the card "bad" and remove it. I will talk to Customer Support but in the hopes that I'm not SOL but I'm not expecting anything. We'll see what happens.