Trouble using the MacPro

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Hi all,

I have a MacPro 3.1 of which I already read quite a bit on this forum :) I use a Philips 19" CRT monitor on the system (yes, I know...). Strange things are happening.. Oh, my previous harddisk is gone, so I replaced it, but it should have nothing to do with what's going on.

I start up the system, nice bong, but white screen. Nothing else. No flashing lights and everything responds. I stuffed in an Ubuntu Alternate AMD64 CD and it installed like a charm. Textmodes are fine. Weirdly, after it boots X, lots of artifacts appear. But it's not always like that! Some boots, everything is fine. Even though I can't work out what I'm actually booting, because of that white screen.

Booting a MacOSX DVD is the same. It takes some time, booting the DVD with the C pressed down, and the Apple logo appears and so does the star like thing... Unfortunately, my present DVD seems to be damaged, so the install process doesn't continue, but the Mac was given to me by a friend who DOES have a proper DVD, but same problems there. White screen, nice looking graphics and suddenly, everything crooked.

It seemed to me, if the videocard is broken, why do some videomodes, most of the time, work properly, also the high resolution ones? And where does that starting white screen come from?

Hope anyone can shed some light on all of this.... It's frustrating not to be able to use this great machine..

Cheers, Bas.
 
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2019 iMac 27"; 2020 M1 MacBook Air; macOS up-to-date... always.
How exactly do you have the CRT connected to the Mac? Since the Mac Pro would only support digital signals (i.e. via DVI), and since CRT monitors are analog (I suppose there are exceptions), I'm betting that the Mac is trying to use a display resolution unsupported by the monitor.
 
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How exactly do you have the CRT connected to the Mac? Since the Mac Pro would only support digital signals (i.e. via DVI), and since CRT monitors are analog (I suppose there are exceptions), I'm betting that the Mac is trying to use a display resolution unsupported by the monitor.

I'm using a DVI to VGA block. Problem is that the previous monitor used IS a real 23" Apple monitor, LCD. But every other resolution tried by the Mac or OS could be displayed by the monitor, even if it shouldn't be supported. So I don't think that's the problem.

I just removed the CMOS battery to replace it. INterestingly enough the clip holding it in place broke off (it feld like it was soldered in place on the battery), so that could be fun to fix..
 
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I'm using a DVI to VGA block. Problem is that the previous monitor used IS a real 23" Apple monitor, LCD. But every other resolution tried by the Mac or OS could be displayed by the monitor, even if it shouldn't be supported. So I don't think that's the problem.

Well did the previous Apple monitor have any issues??? And it still may well be the CRT. The Mac thinks it's connecting to an LCD and may be using a combination of display resolution and refresh rate that is unsupported by the CRT. And why would you install the AMD64 version of Ubuntu on a Mac? These use Intel CPUs.
 
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Well did the previous Apple monitor have any issues??? And it still may well be the CRT. The Mac thinks it's connecting to an LCD and may be using a combination of display resolution and refresh rate that is unsupported by the CRT. And why would you install the AMD64 version of Ubuntu on a Mac? These use Intel CPUs.

Okay, I'll try it on a LCD display first and see what it will do.. First make sure that's not the problem, you're right..

The AMD64 version just is a 64 bits version of Ubuntu. It has nothing to do whether it's Intel or AMD. It did run like a charm, as long as it doesn't do something in the software that will create those weird screen things. When kept as simple as possible, I can pretty much run it at any resolution in Ubuntu without any issues at all..
 

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