[Frankeinstein]

Alright so heres the deal, i'll try to lay it out without getting passed the point.
My system is a MacPro 2.66 ATI X1900XT (no firmware updates), 3gb of ram, 500gb hdd, bluetooth, wifi, etc...display is a 30" Applecinema Display.
I purchased my MacPro in Feb 2007 so its barely one year old. uggh!!!

I was using my mac pro as usual...i was working on some photoshop stuff and browsing in safari.
I put my system into sleep mode, like i always do before i goto bed. but i was going to play my ipod however noticed it was not fully charged and was basically dead itself...so i went to plug in the ipod cable (ipod wasnt connected) then i press a button to wake my macpro from sleep, then when i heard the fans boot up i noticed my monitor didnt go on, (as i usually turn it off when its alseep,,) i press the button a few times, and nothing.
so i was concerned i tried a vga monitor and nothing showed up either, Hard power down.
so i reseat the apple display connector to the graphics card.

so i unplug everything for a few minutes, restart and nothing. so i unplug and replug in everything once its full booted, nothing, so i plug in both monitors the 30" and spare vga 15" ...now it flashes and shows something, however the ACD30 displays color that is completely not it the blues are purples, well atleast the tiger background is(HOWEVER i plug it into my MBP it displays everything fine, so im assuming something corrupted the graphics card or its reading the lower quality 15" display calibration modes?)...so i thought bizarre id restart....sure enough restart NOTHING On the screens, hard shutdown....again!

unplug one monitor keep the other in...nothing, restart again...try the other monitor, ive mixed and matched so many different ways itsnuts!!

so im baffled as to what just happened here?!?!? never had ANY issues with my MacPro, and not with the ATI gfx card.

the grey screen doesnt show up during boot, nothing whatsoever.
Ive done all the PRAM NVRAM resets, so i tried bootcamp/XP
i blindly held down the option key and pressed enter and BOOM i got signal.

From a cold boot i can get into XP, from a cold boot I CANNOT get into OSX.
so i restarted from XP (good ol XP! lol) into OSX and there we go, now were getting somewhere.


did me plugging in my ipod before it fully came out of sleep break my gfx card?
if so, WOW is all i can say!!

im running 10.4.10 as its been stable for my needs and no need to upgrade to leopard
Basically at this point no VIDEO on any monitor i connect to either port of my macpro regardless if i start up or after startup.


another thing im trying to figure out is how i can sometimes randomly use it.
say with OSX and XP if its bad? seems like a really peculiar situation in all honesty, with alot of experience doing PC Tech work and not alot of Mac work, it seems really bizarre that it would just not recognize the display upon bootup or would randomly detect it. displays are fine i can connect them right away to my other machines plug-n-play an dthey show up.

hm...im really doubting thing video card will solve my issue. to be perfectly honest.


but then again ive heard so many issues with X1900XT within the past year....im not sure if its a corrupted OSX drive?



sorry for the long winded first post, but i wanted to get some opinions on what others may think about this particular issue.


thanks for your time!!!!

[Big Mac]

I don't know what the problem is but you should have just restarted after the video didn't come back when you woke from sleep. It was probably just a sleep related freeze (which happens ocassionally).

[Frankeinstein]

thats what i did, i couldnt get any video signal so i just did a hard restart and nothing. at all.

so im not sure what the deal was, i could boot into OSX i can use the Eject keys and volme keys to kno for usre im booting into it but no video signal at all.


i guess im waiting for my 500GB drive and reinstall OSX 10.4.10 and see if that might not be the issue.

if so ill just replace the drive and make a clone of it or something. if thats notit, hopefully the graphic card replacement will do the trick.
i dont see how this could be that big of an issue and why its even happening, seems lke its a domino effect with OSX/Macs

thanks for the input though

[Big Mac]

Sounds like a hardware problem then, unfortunately.

[Frankeinstein]

hm im just curious how of the blue the card would just stop functioning? or how anything would affect it like that?

so a possible OS corruption probably isnt the culprit or?

thanks for the input, im just trying to figure out solutions and ideas from others before i chunk some change done on what to do.

[Big Mac]

No AppleCare?

[Frankeinstein]

Yes, definitely i do have AppleCare, its just i wasnt sure if i would get an replaced graphics card - but also purchase either the 2600x or the nvidia 7300GT in case the x1900 isnt going to work out.

I was hoping to kind of get a idea from those who had to replace their graphics cards, specifically the x1900; and if how it actually died on them or stopped working properly and if the replacements were any better.

(never experienced anything like it duringall my years of handling tehc work on pcs but obviously its alittle bit different...and the card is completely dust and dirt free...which really enver got much dust around or in it at all)

thanks again!

[Frankeinstein]

so im still awaiting to receive my replacement X1900 card.

basically i wanted to troubleshoot my machine a little further, i inserted my Restore disks, hooked up an external FW drive, sshut down, took out all internal drives and booted from disk.

no video signal...so i suppose that can rule out OS corruption.

so i power down remove the disk and unplug the FW400 drive.

replace the drives back in, hold option boot into windows (just in case so video signal i can just do a keyboard shut down) low and behold signal shows up ONLY when i boot into windows drive.


which continues to confuse me even more? is there a reason why i can still obtain signal when booting into XP as opposed to OSX or booting from Optical Drive/FW400?


thanks!

[Big Mac]

Bad OS X firmware perhaps.

[Frankeinstein]

hm...well with and without the drives nothing shows.

i have not even updated my firmware for my MacPro i didnt update the EFI or the SMC nor the ATI card firmware.

i can get into OSX if i start up in XP and restart into 10.4.10



im getting a Version2 replacement card....im wondering if that will have the newest ATI Firmware?


Im not sure how the firmwire (when not even touched since i got the machine last year Feb 07) would cause this?


thanks again BigMac for your feedback and information. its a learning process thanks!

[glideslope]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Bad OS X firmware perhaps.

New Firmware coming for the early 08 MP's. That's all I know.

[Frankeinstein]

Looks like the new video card did the trick.
i took a look at the old card and im assuming one of the ram chips overheated and died or something.

is there anything is hould look for when using the replacement card just in case to notice if its good/bad? ( i mean if it works it works, it does or doesnt essentially)
though i never had a bad/faulty graphics card before. so im sort of new to that aspect.

so far its a tad quieter than my old one =)