Mac Pro screen goes black

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Level 1

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Mac Pro screen goes black

My 20inch cinema display randomly goes black. Connected to a G5 3GHz Duel Core Intel xeon quad core. Computer is still running fine - music continues to play, digitizing with FCP continues, but screen is dead and will not "come back" until I force shutdown and reboot. Bought the computer and display new in oct. 2007. Firewire connections on cinema display crapped out 2 days after I received the monitor. I thought this phenom was heat related when it began. Now screen will go black with no notice and computer, monitor, etc. not hot at all. I've disconnected every peripheral including USB on cinema display- problem persists. any help appreciated.

G5 Dual 2 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on May 26, 2011 2:28 PM

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Answer 1

lollee

Level 1

0 points

Jun 15, 2011 10:46 PM in response to bayouav

My Mac Pro, MacPro1,1 Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz just started to do the same this evening 6/13.

Wondering if it could be a virus.

Lee

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Answer 2

Jul 18, 2011 1:01 AM in response to bayouav

I have a Mac pro (2008). With 2 x 20 inch cinema displays, on an nvidia 8800. Today some garbage appeared on screen and the puter froze. I hard rebooted, and it ran for about 5 minutes then froze.. Took it to apple store, they reset the pram and it ran, they ran diagnostics and verified disk permissions. Nothing showed.

Took it home, it worked for about 10 minutes, flickered then garbage on screen, and froze. Hard reset, and now only boots to black screen, even zapping the pram doesn't work. Tomorrow i will make a genius appointment and plan to see about getting a new vid card.

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Answer 3

Aug 19, 2011 8:16 AM in response to scratch the dog

The genius was stumped. But I replaced the graphics card (had to get a used one from a local mac service center...not to be confused with the Apple Store). Haven't had any problems. The tech at the mac service center suggested it is probably the Nvidia 8800 fan is not spinning fast enough and overheating.

It has been running strong for a month now.

FTW i stepped the graphics card down to an ATI from th NVidia 8800. The ati doesn't draw as much power, and doesn't need a heat sink. I also went ahead and installed SMC fan control a bumped up the fan speeds, and increased the ventialtion around the mac.

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Answer 4

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Aug 19, 2011 8:25 AM in response to scratch the dog

8800's can sometimes be brought to life by literally baking in oven @ 350* briefly to improve weak solder joints. Opening up you can get at the dust hidden inside, too.

I like cooper coolers on any graphic card. HIS makes some really nice Radeons (PC) and broke me of buying Nvidia after a bum GTX 460 experience.

ATI w/o power sounds like those PITA 2600s.

The GT120 is an option and works well in 2D.

Otherwise, $249 ATI 5770, or even 6870 now.

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