Graphics card faulty

[AfterglowMP]

My Mac Pro 6 core 2.66 started up this morning but the screen remained blank. Front light on, fans whirring, normal noises, just no picture. I plugged in another monitor but nothing. I've tried rebooting in safe mood, still nothing. Checked inside, ram in place, no loose cables - only a bit dusty. It's been at least a year since a clean out.

After waiting and rebooting more times, I restarted it in Target mode, connecting it to my MBP and phew, all the drives are working fine.

This is starting to look like graphics card (Radeon 5870) issue BUT when I reboot and try to network from other macs, the Mac Pro doesn't show up. Is this still in line with a faulty graphics card?

If I can confirm it is the graphics card, I'll go up to the nearby Apple store and buy a new one to instal and get back to work.

However, if one of you veterans think it may the processor, I'll hang off and send it in.

 

[AfterglowMP]

Bump. Anyone? MP back working but for no obvious reason.

Would a faulty graphics card stop the mac from showing up on other macs on the network?

My Mac Pro 6 core 3.33 started up this morning but the screen remained blank. Front light on, fans whirring, normal noises, just no picture. I plugged in another monitor but nothing. I've tried rebooting in safe mood, still nothing. Checked inside, ram (16gb) in place, no loose cables - only a bit dusty. It's been at least a year since a clean out.

After waiting and rebooting more times, I restarted it in Target mode, connecting it to my MBP and phew, all the drives are working fine.

This is starting to look like graphics card (Radeon 5870) issue BUT when I reboot and try to network from other macs, the Mac Pro doesn't show up. Is this still in line with a faulty graphics card?

If it is the graphics card, I'll buy a new one.

However, if one of you veterans think it may be the processoror other hardware, I'll send it for repair.

 

[Robert Davies]

Bump. Anyone? MP back working but for no obvious reason.

Would a faulty graphics card stop the mac from showing up on other macs on the network?

The reason no-one's answered could be:

1. We've collectively had a downer on you and we're deliberately ignoring you.

or,

2. It's impossible to tell, but here might be a good place to look:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14291?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

[lemonade-maker]

Logs in console should give a clue

 

[AfterglowMP]

I'll re-run the diagnostics test.

My question was more a broader one about the involvement of the graphics card in the functioning of the system, whether the system would still function without the graphics card working but not output vision to the monitor.

Thanks

 

[ActionableMango]

I'll re-run the diagnostics test.

My question was more a broader one about the involvement of the graphics card in the functioning of the system, whether the system would still function without the graphics card working but not output vision to the monitor.

A Mac Pro will still boot with no video card at all. You could remove it completely if you like, then try to connect to it on the network again. That would tell you whether or not it is a bad video card causing your network problem.

I admit it seems unlikely to me, but on the other hand bad hardware can definitely cause problems with seemingly unrelated features.

 

[Sikh]

Take it to the apple store and get a free proper in depth diag done. It's free and you'll feel better knowing what's wrong. Definitely sounds like a logic board not GPU. When gpus die they die.