01-21-2008, 02:40 AM

First off, hello everyone. Wish my first post could be under better circumstances...

I bought my first mac about 7 months ago now. Everything has been absolutely great until about...Yesterday... Every now and then (right now it's doing it a lot) I get crazy artifacts all over the screen, starting to upset me. Most likely the video card I assume, but I was wondering if anyone has had this problem? Hopefully it's something else I hear having your mac repaired cost lots of money which is fantastic considering their so expensive to begin with.

Here's what it's doing...

01-21-2008, 03:43 AM

Outch! What mac are you running? If it's been 7 months it should still be under the year warranty. You should take it to the Apple store if you can.

If this is a Desktop system, you might try to re-seat the video card. The problem does look like it is a video issue. I remember the iBook G4's used to have a problem like this. The cause was from the GPU coming disconnected because of bad solder joints.

01-21-2008, 04:19 AM

Funky!

I'd second Ghostshadow's suggestions, but also consider faulty RAM as a possibility. The Macbook & Mac mini use the main RAM for their graphics processing, so I suppose if you've recently added buggy RAM that could also be a cause. If you have, try your old RAM and see if the problem persists.

Btw - I assume these are screencaptures right? So that would rule out monitor, cable issues.

Edit: It's a Mac Pro? Then it's probably not the RAM...

01-21-2008, 09:13 AM

We need to know a lot more about your configuration to help you out.

01-21-2008, 09:52 AM

I would guess video card first, RAM second, as potential sources. As mentioned above, since this is a Mac Pro, I would open it up and make sure that both your video card and your RAM are securely seated. I doubt you will find an issue here, but it is worth trying. Next, make sure you fans are all clear and running freely - it is *possible* you are running into a heat related artifact as well. BTW, you can check for this by loading the free (and excellent) iStat Pro widget. You can monitor your temperatures, fan speeds and lots of other good stuff this way.

My guess is that repair will be indicated, I'm afraid.

01-21-2008, 02:04 PM

Yeah it's a mac pro. 2.6, 4gb ram, 500gb hd, 1900xt 512 video. I have istat already installed temps are fine. I'm going to see if it does it anymore today, it only has done it a few times last night and the night before. I totally forgot it's still under a year warranty so I'll take it in if it persists.

Also just guessing, but this does not have to be hardware related right? Couldn't it be freshly installed software or something? I first noticed it when I was trying to watch an episode of The Office online and the video player that was embedded to the website first did it.

01-21-2008, 02:29 PM

If it was my computer doing this, I would try and get this to happen again. This is unless your doing something like frying hardware intentionally. I don't think you are, I just don't want to sound like I am suggesting that sort of thing.
Either the problem is hardware based or software based. If you can repeat the steps, repeat the steps in front of an Apple genius. That way they can diagnose the problem. I'd hate for you just wait for it to happen again. If it happens again outside of your warranty, the fix could be expensive. This is why I say you need to find the problem and get it fixed now.
I would suggest taking some canned air to the fan on the video card atleast once a month, even if it doesn't look like it needs it. A dusty card will lead to a dead card.
Good luck.

01-22-2008, 01:05 AM

Well it didn't again...

At 12:45, seems it's only doing it at night which is weird, probably 'cause it's been on all day which would point to over heating. Guess I'll take it in. Do I just call local apple store and make an appointment or something?

edit: Found this thread which describes what's happening to me (though not with parallels although I do have that installed and used it yesterday)

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....8295&tstart=45

reading through it now (he said he had video card replaced and didn't fix it so I'm going to keep reading)