[Faust]

For the longest time I've been having the occasional issue that, upon booting my computer, the screen would stay black though I could always hear the system booting up, hear the start music and so on, but the screen never turned black while the computer was on.

This week, I've had my screen turn black twice. On both occasions, while the screen stayed black, I could hear the sound of the video file playing for a while. After some moments the sound seemed to stop too. The first time, I was watching a YouTube video full screen (I'm sure that is entirely irrelevant). The second time, which is a few hours ago, I was playing an .avi file when the screen went black again, then a bit less than a minute later the sound was also gone.

I forced a reboot which only worked after the sixth attempt.

I have searched the forums and found this thread. This sounds like a graphics card issue but I'm unsure and since I am currently tied to staying at home (can't go to an Apple shop) due to an accident, I am hoping that some of you may know what could be the cause. Other threads I have read on here suggest that it might be a logic board problem but the symptoms I have described insinuates that in my case it could be the graphic card that is causing these issues.

My graphic card is an ATI Radeon X1900 XT.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

faust

[EricTheRed]

<whips out his "been there, done that" t-shirt> It sounds like your video card has shelled. Call Apple up tell them your problem. They will send out to you either at your cost or under warrantee (free) a new X1900XT Card.

While you're at it, download and have at the ready this X1900XT firmware update as my replacement card didn't have the update and needed it to display properly.

http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...areupdate.html

Eric

PS: other X1900XT threads:

http://forums.macnn.com/90/mac-os-x/...s/#post3519674

http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-pro-a...2/#post3732726

[Faust]

Thanks for your help, EricTheRed. This helps a lot.

Gracias!

[EricTheRed]

If you need to buy a card, ask UnixMac if he is still selling his X1900XT card (his was replaced under warrantee as well and is a version 2 card).

http://forums.macnn.com/59/marketpla...a/#post3725050

[Faust]

You are awesome, EricTheRed. I was lucky, the user still has it and I'm getting it.

[UnixMac]

Thanks Eric, I'd forgotten I had it for sale until Faust contacted me just now and bought it. Of course I sold it, but my only problem is now I have to get Apple to send me a new set of "Recovery" discs so that I can boot into them as the ones that came with my MacPro will not boot into the Nvidia 8800 card...