Mac Pro Screen Glitches

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Mac Pro Screen Glitches

I have a recent problem with my workhorse Mac Pro. It has strange glitches on my screen and doesn't boot to the desktop. I am unfortunately not able to see my desktop since it started this afternoon. I upgraded to OSX Lion and have a magick trackpad. I don't know what to do, it is pretty frustrating. Any help or solution would be much appreciated.

Tech specs:

Mac Pro 8 Core Xeon 5400

2nd Generation Early 2008

10 GB Ram

1 TB HD

21" Eizo Screen

Magic Trackpad

Wacom Intuos3

You can see the photos and the video I recorded from the incident in my flickr set below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kongur/sets/72157627217421601/

Kind regards,

Ayse Kongur

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 2, 2011 12:44 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Aug 2, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Kongur

you don't mention one important item: does it still have the 2600XT? I'd suspect and look there.

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Answer 2

Kongur Author

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Aug 2, 2011 1:10 PM in response to The hatter

Hi The Hatter,

I've opened it again to check – it is Nvidia GeForce. I suspect as you do too. The Graphic Card must be failed or something?

Also from my invoice I found this info "Graphics CardNVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB"

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Aug 2, 2011 1:33 PM in response to Kongur

Bake it in the over (seriously), or DVWarehouse still sells one ($250 ish), or something else.

EVGA had GTX 285s last week for $129, which would have been a nice beast, in their "b stock" refurbished product list.

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Answer 4

Kongur Author

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Aug 3, 2011 10:43 AM in response to The hatter

Well I would never ever guessed that it could be the solution. But The hatter, your suggestion seemed to work. Wonders of baking :-) I am a keen baker so it wasn't hard for me to bake my graphics card at Gas Mark 5 for about 9 mins. After it cooled and settled down I dolloped a little bit of cream and raspberry jam over it. Voila, perfect for my 5 O'clock tea :-D

Seriously thank you for your suggestion! I am now able to run my computer again.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Aug 3, 2011 10:53 AM in response to Kongur

I was probably more shocked than you the first time I read such a thing!

Apparently the type of solder going bad?

Another cool trick: putting a failed drive in a sealed bag (moisture proof) in the freezer for 15 min will allow it to spin up and mount briefly, long enough to recover some files.

So your card lives to see another day. Hopeful long enough to get to the next destination (GTX 600s? ATI 7000? )

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Answer 6

Kongur Author

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Aug 3, 2011 11:05 AM in response to The hatter

Wish I'd known the tip for the HD when it conked out. Luckily I received a new one under the warranty. But my Apple Care ended this May.

When I was baking I also looked at possible upgrading options. I was wondering what you might suggest? I looked at ATI Radeon 5770 at Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Radeon-5770-Graphics-Upgrade-MC742ZM/dp/B00464P0AG/ref=s r_1_15?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1312394625&sr=1-15

I see you recommend ATI 7000 and GTX 600 I will check them now.

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