MDD upgrade conflict with ATI Radeon 9800

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Level 2

275 points

MDD upgrade conflict with ATI Radeon 9800

does anyone out there have my specs; Sonnettech MDX Dual 1.6gh processor with ATI Radeon 9800 Pro VGA card? After installing the processor, i now get weird lines all over the screen at bootup and then i get a bunch of green speckles all over my desktop after the computer boots. i can work on my computer, but the screen images, speckles and other artifacts are annoying. i have dropped the hz to 66 and the screen resolution to 800x600 because higher resolutions would cause the computer to freeze. does anyone have any catalyst settings or ATI display panel suggestions ? i wish i could attach the pictures i took of the display.

Dual Power Mac G4 867 & Macbook Pro 2gig Mac OS X (10.4.9) FCP Studio 5.1.2

Posted on May 25, 2007 12:57 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Thomas Bryant

Level 6

13,881 points

May 25, 2007 1:30 PM in response to Ted Irving

Hello! I'll not be much help with your problem but you can use http://www.imageshack.com to upload the picts you need to share about your problem. Tom

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Answer 2

May 25, 2007 1:50 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

It's about heat, too much of it. The artifacts are caused by the 9800 running too hot.

The stock fan/heatsink on the 9800 is borderline in an MDD to start with, asking it to be enough when you put a CPU upgrade in is too much. I suggest replacing the 9800 sink with an IceBerq5 runs much cooler.

I have two MDD's with 9800's that I have the Iceberq5 on, works a charm.

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Answer 3

Ted Irving Author

Level 2

275 points

May 25, 2007 2:07 PM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

Ahh. That is new to me. Where can i get the iceberg5 ?
Here is the link for the images of what is happening to my display.
http://www.geocities.com/tedirving/mdxatierror.html

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Answer 4

May 25, 2007 2:21 PM in response to Ted Irving

Hello! Forrest always has good ideas. Try looking at THESE links to the cooler. Tom

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Answer 5

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

May 25, 2007 4:33 PM in response to Ted Irving

Hi Ted-

The new cooler is an excellent idea. If you have an open PCI slot the ATI Silencer by Arctic Cooling not only silently cools the graphics card, but also exhausts hot air to the exterior, thus helping remove heat from inside the tower.

G4AGP(450)Sawtooth, 2ghz PowerLogix, 2gbRAM, 300gbSATA+160gbATA, ATI Radeon 9800 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Pioneer DVR-109, ExtHD 160gb x2, 23"Cinema Display, Ratoc USB2.0, Nikon Coolscan

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Answer 6

Ted Irving Author

Level 2

275 points

May 30, 2007 7:52 PM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

Well, i tried your idea, bought the iceberq5, installed it with ease and things just got worse. 1st, my MDD Dual 867 mac's AGP slot is right next to my fourth RAM slot. So with the Iceberq5 installed, i had to lose 512mb of RAM. it just wont fit. the new cooler cover the RAM slot. so instead of 2gigs of RAM, i'm down to 1.5. 2nd, with the icebeq5 on the ATI card, the door will not close. the iceberq runs into the case holding my DVD drives. After booting the computer up with the case open, the screen still loaded with the screen defects. I'm thinking I have a bad card, yet it worked when the Sonnettech dual processor upgrade was not installed. these weird color lines only occur with the sonnettech md/1.6 dual upgrade and the ATI 9800 Pro installed. I then used TechTool pro to scan and check my AGP card VRAM and it gave me an error. So here is my question, is there another powerful AGP card out there for my mac dual 867 that has a powerful fan on it that is also small enough to allow my case to close and for me to have all my RAM installed ? Thanks 🙂

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Answer 7

May 30, 2007 8:10 PM in response to Ted Irving

You could try the nVidia geForce 4 Ti 4600 ( 128 MB ), but it does not support core image.

Second my apologies, what I am using is the discontinued Iceberq4 not the Ice berq5, though from what you say your card could already be permenantly heat damaged from before.

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Answer 8

Ted Irving Author

Level 2

275 points

May 30, 2007 8:22 PM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

i am going to take the card to my school and test it on some other G4 macs with agp slots. if it does the same thing then i'll just put the older ATI card back in. if the older card works, then my upgraded processor is ok. do you think the upgraded processor somehow fried the ati 9800? again, the 9800 worked great before i installed the processor upgrade. if i get those lines again with an older agp card then i'll have to assume the upgraded processor is the villian and i might even have to go with an older pci vga card. i'm not trying to do any motion, just edit HDV footage converted to DCVProHD. I wanted the ATI 9800 just in case i needed to do some motion work while editing other material on my macbook pro. thanks for the help. i'll let you know what happend.

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Answer 9

Douggo

Level 4

2,740 points

May 31, 2007 11:27 PM in response to Ted Irving

Sadly, the 9800's are very succeptible to memory damage if the fan fails or the card gets too hot for an extended period. There are some aftermarket kits with RAM heat sinks for the chips specifically for this problem. I doubt it has much to do with the CPU upgrade, as many people run the 9800's in upgraded/over-clocked G4's.

FWIW, one of the first 9800's I bought to flash for my G4 had relatively the same symptoms (screen artifiacts) when I hooked it to my PC to test it. The fan was dead and the card had cooked.

-Douggo

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Answer 10

Ted Irving Author

Level 2

275 points

Jun 1, 2007 9:37 PM in response to Douggo

just wanted to thank everyone that responded and gave me tips. i took the 9800 and tested it in three apple G4's with agp slots. the card would power up, but the monitors would not come on. when i put the original vga cards in the monitors would kick on. i took my original 32mb nvidia card and put it back in my dual 867 with the upgraded processor. everything came on perfectly. so i'm giving up on a super powered agp card for my dual 867. i'll probably keep working with this computer for another year and then go for a MacPro.

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Answer 11

Jun 2, 2007 6:34 PM in response to Douggo

Yup. I had 2 9800's die on my because of heat issues. The second one, I had ordered the replacement fan (I already replaced the fan inside my MDD/FW800), but it was too late. The card was already shot.

So... move quickly and don't use the computer until you replace the fan on the 9800.

This taught me a lesson... I will never buy an ATI card ever again.

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Answer 12

Jun 2, 2007 7:10 PM in response to j.b. birdsong

Well if that suits you..

I have used nvida GF 2's, 3's and 4's and once I went to ATI I have never looked back. Apple's track record of support for ATI is WAY-WAY better than for nVidia. The final straw for me was no Core Image for nV GF4TI 4600.

Currently...

GE 450MHz Rage 128pro
DA 1.33 GHz Radeon 7500
(2) MDD 1.25 GHz Radeon 9800Pro
G5 1.8 GHz Radeon 9600
G5 2.0 GHz X 2 Radeon 9800XT

Some time soon...

G5 2.3GHz DC Radeon X1900
Mac Pro 2.66GHz Radeon X1900XT

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Answer 13

Jun 8, 2007 4:46 PM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

I suggest you go over to the Warcraft Mac forum and take a look at the threads regarding the X1900XT and its heating problems. Not many happy campers.

And did you notice the new MBP's have nVidia cards? I guess it DOES suit Apple, eh?

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Answer 14

Jun 11, 2007 6:59 AM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

Hello Everyone

I have 2 questions relating tho this post;
In regard to my G5 Single 1.8, I also have an ATI 9800 Mac Pro Special Edition Graphics card (with fan). This card was naturally an improvement over the stock 64MB card. Now in regard to these heating issues, and these cards occasioanally failing and loosing memory, my 9800 card is a little noisy upon boot up. After a few seconds, it quiets down. The card is not that old, and I don't think it's actually defective. I've heard that a little fan noise is common upon boot. One response here was that this card is actually quite good. So I guess all is well here too. But should I install that Iceberg Fan unit to add additional cooling?

And in regard to my G4 800 MHZ Quicksilver; I have a 9200 ATI card. And in this system, I have 2 separate internal HD's running 2 separate OS platforms; OSX, and OS9.2
All is well here - and I am about to install OWC's Mercury Extreme 1.2 processor upgrade. Hopefully this upgrade will go well, with no problems in regard to overheating and graphics card issues?

Thanx
Mike

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Answer 15

Jun 11, 2007 11:43 AM in response to ENIGMACODE

In regard to my G5 Single 1.8, I also have an ATI
9800 Mac Pro Special Edition Graphics card (with
fan). This card was naturally an improvement over
the stock 64MB card. Now in regard to these heating
issues, and these cards occasioanally failing and
loosing memory, my 9800 card is a little noisy upon
boot up. After a few seconds, it quiets down. The
card is not that old, and I don't think it's actually
defective. I've heard that a little fan noise is
common upon boot. One response here was that this
card is actually quite good. So I guess all is well
here too. But should I install that Iceberg Fan unit
to add additional cooling?

The initial fan noise is normal, then it quiets down. The problem is that it eventually (less than a year in my case) gets too quiet. If you don't catch it in time, the card will suffer permanent damage. The Vantec Iceberq 6 is quiet, and the computer is cooler because all the heat from the graphics card is exhausted from the case before it can heat the rest of the computer.

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