Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

VTJustinB · Oct 27, 2007, 09:06 AM

Hello all,

I have a dual-core Mac Pro with an ATI x1900 and ever since installing Leopard I am getting single strips of pixel artifacts at different presenational layers (desktop, on top of windows) seemingly at random.

You can see what I'm talking about here:

http://just-in.org/etc/artifacts.png

It was a clean install, so I don't think that it's a conflict with any update, and I put the latest x1900 firmware on (the effect persisted both before and after the firmware), so I'm pretty stumped.

Sounds like a driver issue but surely they would have figured this out before the release? Any ideas similar experiences?

damiensmunki · Oct 27, 2007, 02:16 PM

I have the 2.66GHz Mac Pro with the ATI x1900 and a 23" ACD, and I haven't seen anything like that. Sorry...not much help.

EricTheRed · Oct 27, 2007, 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by VTJustinB

Hello all,

I have a dual-core Mac Pro with an ATI x1900 and ever since installing Leopard I am getting single strips of pixel artifacts at different presenational layers (desktop, on top of windows) seemingly at random.

You can see what I'm talking about here:

http://just-in.org/etc/artifacts.png

It was a clean install, so I don't think that it's a conflict with any update, and I put the latest x1900 firmware on (the effect persisted both before and after the firmware), so I'm pretty stumped.

Sounds like a driver issue but surely they would have figured this out before the release? Any ideas similar experiences?

Hit your X1900XT with the new firmware that came out on the 16th of this month. If the problem persists, then your X1900XT video card starting to fry out. I had the same type of problem with my new replacement card but as soon as I updated its firmware the replacement card was all good. Call up Apple and get a replacement if the firmware doesn't sort out the problem.

Here is the link to the firmware download:

Apple - Support - Downloads - ATI Radeon X1900 XT Firmware Update

shinji · Oct 27, 2007, 04:20 PM

I had the same exact problem and just now installed the firmware update Eric mentions. Will see if it help...for me it only happened sporadically in dialog boxes and iTunes.

shinji · Oct 27, 2007, 05:12 PM

Hmm...just happened in VMware. How could I, in Leopard, check the temperature the X1900 XT is running at? May open this up later and spray some canned air to dust a bit.

VTJustinB · 05:36 PM

Yeah the problem persisted both before and after the firmware patch unfortunately.

I spent about 2 hours on the phone with Apple today, trying literally everything you could possibly think of. Eventually it needed to be escalated to a specialist but the hour+ wait was a little much for me and I'll call back later.

Sadly I think you're right, it sounds to me like the gpu ram is railing or something similar. The computer was purchsed in 06 without applecare and i'll likely have to eat the cost of the card, but I want to make sure that's what it is before I do.

EDIT: Yeah the Mac Pro was purchased in August of 06 ><. There have been similar people citing that after a year their ATI x1900s are failing in a similar way.

EricTheRed · Oct 27, 2007, 06:37 PM

Originally Posted by VTJustinB

Yeah the problem persisted both before and after the firmware patch unfortunately.

I spent about 2 hours on the phone with Apple today, trying literally everything you could possibly think of. Eventually it needed to be escalated to a specialist but the hour+ wait was a little much for me and I'll call back later.

Sadly I think you're right, it sounds to me like the gpu ram is railing or something similar. The computer was purchsed in 06 without applecare and i'll likely have to eat the cost of the card, but I want to make sure that's what it is before I do.

EDIT: Yeah the Mac Pro was purchased in August of 06 ><. There have been similar people citing that after a year their ATI x1900s are failing in a similar way.

Ouch. For what it is worth my original X1900XT card began goofing up with artifacts and then eventually blacked out. My box was also built in '06. Since misery loves company: I ended up purchasing a new laser printer today because Minolta's print drivers for their color laser printers aren't compatible with 10.5. My Minolta printer worked fine with 10.4.10.

G4_Kessel · Oct 27, 2007, 06:58 PM

This is actually software related. It is a known bug in the Leopard OS with ATI X1900 video cards. I had the problem and reverted back to Tiger until Apple fixes it. Check out the discussion on the Apple site here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....readID=1195969

While my X1900 is going bad and will be replaced at the Apple store tomorrow, the glitches in Leopard are totally different than the artifacts caused by the bad card. Check out the thread above to see what I mean.

TheoCryst · Oct 27, 2007, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by G4_Kessel

This is actually software related.

Agreed. If it were a hardware issue, you wouldn't have been able to take a screenshot like that - the capture would have shown what the image should have looked at, not what was pushed to the screen by the faulty card.

VTJustinB · Oct 28, 2007, 08:35 AM

Originally Posted by TheoCryst

Agreed. If it were a hardware issue, you wouldn't have been able to take a screenshot like that - the capture would have shown what the image should have looked at, not what was pushed to the screen by the faulty card.

Even in the case of corrupted gpu ram? I don't think that's the issue, but with the horizontal nature of the artifacts to me that would seem a logical option given the contiguous nature of ram.

Grrr · Oct 28, 2007, 10:03 AM

More evidence that Apple & ATI really shouldn't have teamed up..

shinji · Oct 28, 2007, 02:25 PM

This is pretty annoying...happened to me a few times in safari and finder just this morning. How could Apple not have seen this in their testing?

no-success · Oct 29, 2007, 04:57 AM

Yeah well at least its not as bad as this:

It seems like I'm the only person in the world with that problem

UnixMac · Oct 30, 2007, 10:26 AM

I too have had this problem and think it's more ATI X1900 related as I've also had intermittent display problems before going to 10.5

Now I'm getting intermittent freezing of my whole computer as well as odd display behaviors like those discussed here. I did the firmware and no help!

I'm hoping Apple or ATI can make good on this!

EricTheRed · Oct 30, 2007, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by UnixMac

I too have had this problem and think it's more ATI X1900 related as I've also had intermittent display problems before going to 10.5

Now I'm getting intermittent freezing of my whole computer as well as odd display behaviors like those discussed here. I did the firmware and no help!

I'm hoping Apple or ATI can make good on this!

When I replaced my X1900XT card I called Apple explaining that my computer had dropped video (displayed black or nothing) in both Windows XP running off os separate HDD and in Mac OSX. My call took less than ten minutes as Apple had my contact information in their files. Less than 24 hours later DHL was marching up my driveway with the replacement card in hand and a prepaid return for the old card. I did need to hit the replacement card with the latest firmware to get to to work correctly with Windows XP.

Dakarʒ · Oct 30, 2007, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by no-success

Yeah well at least its not as bad as this:

It seems like I'm the only person in the world with that problem

I feel like I should be listening to The Wall while looking at this.

shinji · Oct 30, 2007, 12:03 PM

Activating the screensaver makes it go away for me...strange thing is the horizontal line is not across the whole screen, it usually starts at the left side of the active window and then goes across any other window.

Mithras · Oct 30, 2007, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by no-success

Yeah well at least its not as bad as this:

It seems like I'm the only person in the world with that problem

Lucky duck! You were accidently given a preview edition of the next-generation three-dimensional interface.

UnixMac · Oct 30, 2007, 10:36 PM

Originally Posted by EricTheRed

When I replaced my X1900XT card I called Apple explaining that my computer had dropped video (displayed black or nothing) in both Windows XP running off os separate HDD and in Mac OSX. My call took less than ten minutes as Apple had my contact information in their files. Less than 24 hours later DHL was marching up my driveway with the replacement card in hand and a prepaid return for the old card. I did need to hit the replacement card with the latest firmware to get to to work correctly with Windows XP.

Thanks, I got thru finally as I also had another problem with"Admin" user permissions.. I cut and pasted this thread and some screen shots of the lines and oddities and emailed it to one of their product specialists and they agreed to do the same. When I get the new card, I'll report back if all is well.

In the mean time, I've had two system freeze ups today.. I've not had this much problem with a computer since I had my last dedicated PC in 2001!

- - e r i k - - · Oct 30, 2007, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by no-success

Yeah well at least its not as bad as this:

It seems like I'm the only person in the world with that problem

QuartzGL tripping up?

Tomchu · Oct 31, 2007, 03:58 AM

Originally Posted by TheoCryst

Agreed. If it were a hardware issue, you wouldn't have been able to take a screenshot like that - the capture would have shown what the image should have looked at, not what was pushed to the screen by the faulty card.

If it's VRAM (which it most likely is), then the screenshot will exactly show the problem -- because the screen buffer will be grabbed out of VRAM. That's the very nature of OS X's display system.

shinji · Oct 31, 2007, 04:06 AM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

If it's VRAM (which it most likely is), then the screenshot will exactly show the problem -- because the screen buffer will be grabbed out of VRAM. That's the very nature of OS X's display system.

But how are we all coincidentally only seeing this after upgrading to Leopard if it's a hardware issue?

Chuckit · Oct 31, 2007, 04:11 AM

Originally Posted by shinji

But how are we all coincidentally only seeing this after upgrading to Leopard if it's a hardware issue?

Because the defect in the hardware wasn't being exposed until Leopard started using the GPU differently? (Not saying that's necessarily the case, but I've seen hardware defects that were only exposed in certain software.)

shinji · Oct 31, 2007, 04:14 AM

That would really suck...I was hoping it was just a driver issue because as far as I can tell, it has only happened to people with ATI GPU's.

Tomchu · Oct 31, 2007, 04:22 AM

Chuckit: Indeed. It could also be Quartz GL, which is now enabled on a per-application basis for applications that request it.

kmkkid · Oct 31, 2007, 06:56 AM

To the OP: I had the same problem with my Core duo iMac with x1600 graphics card. After seeing this at random times my mac then started freezing minutes after the artifacts appeared. Happened in both leopard and tiger.

I reset my PRAM and everything has been fine since.

shinji · Oct 31, 2007, 05:39 PM

Someone said they fixed it by disabling Quartz Extreme Apple - Support - Discussions - Pixel artifacts and other graphical ...

What exactly would be I losing by doing that? Wikipedia article isn't too helpful Quartz Compositor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Am I not losing anything?

- - e r i k - - · Oct 31, 2007, 06:44 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

Chuckit: Indeed. It could also be Quartz GL, which is now enabled on a per-application basis for applications that request it.

Was that directed to me?

DeStella · Nov 5, 2007, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by VTJustinB

Hello all,

I have a dual-core Mac Pro with an ATI x1900 and ever since installing Leopard I am getting single strips of pixel artifacts at different presenational layers (desktop, on top of windows) seemingly at random.

You can see what I'm talking about here:

http://just-in.org/etc/artifacts.png

It was a clean install, so I don't think that it's a conflict with any update, and I put the latest x1900 firmware on (the effect persisted both before and after the firmware), so I'm pretty stumped.

Sounds like a driver issue but surely they would have figured this out before the release? Any ideas similar experiences?

I have the same problem with both: NVIDIA and ATI cards on my MacPro. I also get screen freezes. I run Two 21 inch monitors rotated 90 degrees.
Following is the best solution I found for these display problems with Leopard upgrade. It makes things better although not perfect.

1) Reset the PRAM - Disconnect both CPU and Monitors from everything. Hold Power buttons 20 sec. (both CPU and monitors) - then connect CPU restart while holding Option-Apple-P-R wait for second chime. Then reconnect all peripherals and monitors.

2) Download and SMCfancontrol and cool your CPU to under 30 degrees celsius.

This should work until there is a firmware update that will hopefully solve the issues.

Good Luck!