Screen flickering and computer freeze

I am having a similar problem. Weird artifacts are showing on the screen, as well as occasional flickering. Prone to freezing up after waking - keyboard and mouse unresponsive. Hard Restart is needed. The problem started a week ago when the computer would wake from sleep in a frozen state. Yesterday and today the screen went completely fuzzy (like old tv static).

Yesterday I wided my drive and reinstalled Snow Leopard. Problem appeared immediately. Tried a second drive today and but the problem is still present. I tested the RAM using Rember, but no errors were found. I ran the Apple Hardware Test several times and no errors were found. Any thoughts or feedback from the Apple community would be greatly welcomed.

I'm suffering from the same problem. Odd screen artefacts started a couple of months back but I ignored them as I thought I just had cheap monitors...

But then for the past week I've had a system freeze just like what you're both describing. Looking into it I think it might be a problem with the graphics card... I'm still on the ATI Radeon X1900 XT... Does anyone out there know if getting a new card could sort out the problem? If so what card would you recommend?

best wishes.

Hi there is a HUGE thread on this here:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13287676#13287676

Has a fix on page 28 for those with ATI cards. I have tried to do similar with NVIDIA card but with mixed results. If I work it out i will post my solution but its not perfect.

remember to post to Apple support so they are aware of the problem. 🙂

There is a recall for some serial number series of X1900s.

Dust and heat has always been an issue with that card needing to be pulled and cleaned every 3 months or so. Real dust magnet.

There is only ONE card sold, ATI 5770 $249 requirement is any Mac Pro with 10.6.5 or later.

Hatter,

I installed the 5770 in my late model Mac Pro, and it definitely has some benefits and drawbacks. The benefits include the 1GB of VRAM, which really shines in Photoshop. Also, I see less stutter and lag on flash-heavy websites.

The con, however, are pretty disappointing. My mouse jumps around the screen when I plug in two displays using the DVI port and the mini-DisplayPort with a DVI connection. The mouse is simply unusable. I can remedy the problem by using a VGA connection with the mini-DisplayPort, but it seems off that I would need to go analog.

Has a fix on page 28 for those with ATI cards.

I think that would be the procedure to replace the ATI drivers with the ones from 10.6.2, using the Terminal procedure specified at this link:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13089239#13089239