GPU freezes playing Doom 3
Doom 3 will freeze on my rev a G5 2Ghz after playing the game for some period of time. Sometimes its after only a few minutes, sometimes its after 15 minutes or so. The higher I have the graphics settings the faster it will freeze up. I have an ATI 9800 OEM graphics card and 20" ACD Cinema Display.
The background sound will keep looping, but no new action will happen. Background processes still run, including the ability to use the keyboard volume keys or SSH in. However, there's no way to kill Doom 3 aside from rebooting the computer. I can't force quit it or kill it from an SSH connection. If I try then things really lock up, and I can't use the volume keys anymore.
This happened in 10.3.8+ as well as 10.4. I have all the latest graphic drivers and have a fairly clean system. The only thing I haven't done is completely disconnect all my hardware or tried a completely virgin system install with new user accounts. I did perform a clean install of Tiger however, and that didn't resolve it much to my dismay.
No weird background apps are running and this happens after cold reboots.
I personally think the culprit is my ATI 9800 Graphics card. Nothing pushes it like this game and I think it is overheating and freezing up. I scoured a few PC sites and all accounts that match my problems indicate ATI driver upgrades or the need for improved cooling.
Does anyone else have these experiences? Is there anyway to monitor my GPU so I can confirm that this is the problem?
I'm not going to upgrade to a new $400 graphics card just to play Doom. My Mac is still under Applecare and if the card really has issues I'd expect Apple to replace it.
Please help!
I have been talking with Aspyr support, and if anyone's interested I'm happy to post those emails.
The background sound will keep looping, but no new action will happen. Background processes still run, including the ability to use the keyboard volume keys or SSH in. However, there's no way to kill Doom 3 aside from rebooting the computer. I can't force quit it or kill it from an SSH connection. If I try then things really lock up, and I can't use the volume keys anymore.
This happened in 10.3.8+ as well as 10.4. I have all the latest graphic drivers and have a fairly clean system. The only thing I haven't done is completely disconnect all my hardware or tried a completely virgin system install with new user accounts. I did perform a clean install of Tiger however, and that didn't resolve it much to my dismay.
No weird background apps are running and this happens after cold reboots.
I personally think the culprit is my ATI 9800 Graphics card. Nothing pushes it like this game and I think it is overheating and freezing up. I scoured a few PC sites and all accounts that match my problems indicate ATI driver upgrades or the need for improved cooling.
Does anyone else have these experiences? Is there anyway to monitor my GPU so I can confirm that this is the problem?
I'm not going to upgrade to a new $400 graphics card just to play Doom. My Mac is still under Applecare and if the card really has issues I'd expect Apple to replace it.
Please help!
I have been talking with Aspyr support, and if anyone's interested I'm happy to post those emails.
Comments
I had exactly the same problem on 2 cards and both times one or more caps were leaking.
Good luck.
What cards did you have problems with? ATI 9800 Pro's like me?
Its weird to say, but I hope there is physical damage so getting it replaced will be easier.
Anyone know if there's some sort of software app that can run in the background and check the card's temps? We have stuff like this for CPU temperature and monitoring GPU temps may also help me determine if it's really the problem.
I'll report what I find.
Anyone else have ideas for me?
I guess I'm gonna shut my machine down and check my card. Quick backup first though, in case I have to shift to my PowerBook for some reason...
I saw more dust than I expect, but that's about it. The ATI card looked OK. I didn't take the time to pull it out, but the only way something could be hiding would be if its on the far side of the board.
In the process I did inspect the fans and found which of them annoys me the most: the center fan that blows over the PCI cards.
So, back to square one. I suppose I could unplug everything, reinstall a fresh OS and game, and test at various resolutions and settings. But that is a dreadful task. At most I'd do it with my current setup. I'd expect some crappy settings will be playable, but this is one of the reasons I purchased the better graphics card!
Any more ideas?
I guess its time to double check some other OpenGL games I haven't played in a while, UT2k4, Homeworld 2, and SimCity 4 to see if they freeze now too.
I still think there's something bad going on with my GPU, but if I can get it to freeze on most OpenGL-related games, it'll be far easier to get the card replaced.
Opinions?
Originally posted by Xool
Ok. I opened up the case and peered in with a flashlight.
You're probably pretty good at that with all the Doom 3 you've been playing.
Originally posted by Placebo
You're probably pretty good at that with all the Doom 3 you've been playing.
ROFLMAO
xool did you have 'duct tape mod' when opening up your computer and looking in (flashlight taped to screwdriver)
xool you're using a flashed OEM ATI meant for PCs right?
Originally posted by sunilraman
ROFLMAO
xool did you have 'duct tape mod' when opening up your computer and looking in (flashlight taped to screwdriver)
xool you're using a flashed OEM ATI meant for PCs right?
My 9800 Pro is an Apple OEM card that I BTOed in my G5 at time of purchase. The whole shebang is covered under AppleCare and I should be able to get it replaced with some amount of annoyance and effort.
Here's a few more interesting things...
I mentioned that when Doom freezes I can still use the volume keys on the keyboard. If I try to force quit the app, the volume keys will stop responding and the looping background audio will stop. I can still SSH in however. But get this... if I wait for a bit, my cinema display will eventually fade to aqua blue. If I wait more, the power light on my cinema display will flicker for a second and the bluescreen will stutter. Then the power light will come back on in full and the bluescreen will remain steady. The keyboard still doesn't respond.
Weird huh. This may also be the first Blue Screen of Death for a Mac that I know of.
My 20" cinema display is the old ADC kind and my keyboard is routed through the screen's USB ports. If the card has problems it could easily explain the above behavior as well as why my keyboard would stop responding, since the GPU routes power and USB signals to the display.
I still haven't tried my older games. Something to do this weekend. Maybe I should try an old VGA monitor too.
Either way, perhaps its time I call Apple.
Until I get my act together, here's some links to other reports of the same problem:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=770963
At that time I also had a USB mouse plugged in and I noticed that after force quitting I was able to move the standard Mac mouse cursor. Unreal still had taken over the screen so I sshed in and issued a reboot command. I waited and eventually saw a distorted spinner graphic overlayed in the frozen Unreal screen. Funny. I hit the power button and restarted.
At this point I decided it was time to open the case and go crazy with my can of compressed air. When blowing the fan on the GPU I noticed lots of dustballs -- dustworms really. So I took out the ATI card and really cleaned it out with some direct air blasts. After fighting with the damn screw for a while (necessitating a quick but annoying HD adventure) I got it all bundled back up and up and running.
Long story short, in the brief time I've tested things after the cleanout, everything is running smoothly. I even tried Doom 3 at 1680x1050 resolution and it didn't freeze.
Finally this thing looks like its resolved.
Damn me for not cleaning the card earlier. If only I actually took the card out when I checked for damage... this would all be resolved weeks ago. Doh!
At least its working. I guess I'll just shut up and be happy.
Originally posted by skatman
The card was probably not inserted all the way and the heat expansion popped the card out just enough to cause intermittent connection.
gawd this was such a bugbear with my old PC for years and years until i got a Dell... then i got a Mac laptop(s)
Originally posted by skatman
The card was probably not inserted all the way and the heat expansion popped the card out just enough to cause intermittent connection.
The card was well seated from the factory... in fact there's a small plastic lock that snaps in place on the far end of the card to ensure that its properly seated. I couldn't figure out why my card wasn't coming out until I noticed it.
Basically there was too much dust clogging up the GPU's fan and heatsink and it couldn't dissipate the heat fast enough. There must be some internal temperature gauge or something as the card basically shut itself off. One more reason I wish its temperature sensor was available to the OS or other apps. If Thermograph could monitor that it was overheating I would have known this was the problem a while ago!
I played some more last night and things are working smoothly again.
Berkeley is somewhat dirty/dusty and the front of the G5 just sucks dirt in.