Bizarre display issue
Today my MacPro has started acting very strangely. Periodically my dual monitors will flash blue an come back. It's just as if I was sitting here changing display settings every few minutes, but of course I'm not.
After a restart there is another symptom. In addition to the periodic blue flash, my desktop image no longer displays correctly. No matter what picture I set, the desktop is made of giant pixels. It's about 4 huge square pictures tall and 5 wide. I can tell from the colors of the pixels that they are from the image that is supposed to be the desktop. It's as if the desktop image is zoomed incredibly close.
I just tried to open the "about this Mac" window to give you all the details, but it is doing the same thing as the desktop.
Other windows and icons are not effected (when the whole screen isn't flashing blue anyway)
Any clue? I'm running X.5.2 (I think) on a Quad-Core 2.6Ghz Mac Pro with the stock NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT video card.
After a restart there is another symptom. In addition to the periodic blue flash, my desktop image no longer displays correctly. No matter what picture I set, the desktop is made of giant pixels. It's about 4 huge square pictures tall and 5 wide. I can tell from the colors of the pixels that they are from the image that is supposed to be the desktop. It's as if the desktop image is zoomed incredibly close.
I just tried to open the "about this Mac" window to give you all the details, but it is doing the same thing as the desktop.
Other windows and icons are not effected (when the whole screen isn't flashing blue anyway)
Any clue? I'm running X.5.2 (I think) on a Quad-Core 2.6Ghz Mac Pro with the stock NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT video card.
Comments
Ok, I'm officially desperate. The big-pixel problem extends to Final Cut Pro.
A video card that's failing would be my guess.
You could run through the typical ... check permissions, archive & install, etc.
A video card that's failing would be my guess.
I was afraid of that. After a hard reset I've not seen the big-pixel issue again, but the BSOR (Blue Screen of Reset) is still popping up.
While I was still having big-pixel problems I did a screen grab. The screen grab shows big pixels. Would a video card issue show up in a screen grab?
I was afraid of that. After a hard reset I've not seen the big-pixel issue again, but the BSOR (Blue Screen of Reset) is still popping up.
While I was still having big-pixel problems I did a screen grab. The screen grab shows big pixels. Would a video card issue show up in a screen grab?
Hmm. That's odd.
Do you have a spare external hd that you could do a new install on ... see if you get the same issues with a clean system?
I'm going back to my original diagnosis. Bad video card.
Ok, assuming it's bad, another GeForce 7300GT and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT are about the same cost and both are about $100 less than Applecare. Which would you choose?
What's the price on those cards?
Both are fairly equal in performance.
What about trying to find an x1900xt on ebay?