Hello everyone. As the post title says, I think that my Apple ATI Radeon HD 5870 video card has gone bad. So I need some troubleshooting advice. I have a 2009 Mac Pro 4,1. It was flashed to 5,1 firmware and runs macOS Sierra 10.12.6. I have a ViewSonic VG2249 monitor connected to a Mini-DisplayPort on the 5870. Here is what happened: I installed some minor upgrades, which were two new hard drives, a Samsung SSD on an OWC Accelsior S PCIe card, and a Blu-Ray drive replacing the upper SuperDrive.
This might be a coincidence, but shortly after I installed the Blu-Ray drive, the monitor started frequently blacking out and refreshing. Then it started happening every few seconds. I tried to reset the PRAM, could only hear one chime, and then the screen turned pink with vertical lines in it. I tried restarting, and then the computer seemed dead with no video. When pressing the power button, there was no startup chime, I could hear some hard drive activity, and the fans would run, getting steadily louder. I tried disconnecting the optical drives, which made no difference.
I then tried an SMC reset, and after restarting, the screen turned red with vertical lines, like before with the pink lines. After restarting once more, again no startup chime, and no video. I had read that the computer can boot with no video card installed, so I removed the 5870, and restarted. Now, I did hear the startup chime, and normal startup noises. The tray on the new Blu-Ray drive opened when pressing eject on the keyboard, so things seemed normal, except of course having no video. I tried resetting the PRAM to see what would happen, and I heard two chimes only each time I tried that.
This might be a coincidence, but shortly after I installed the Blu-Ray drive, the monitor started frequently blacking out and refreshing. Then it started happening every few seconds. I tried to reset the PRAM, could only hear one chime, and then the screen turned pink with vertical lines in it. I tried restarting, and then the computer seemed dead with no video. When pressing the power button, there was no startup chime, I could hear some hard drive activity, and the fans would run, getting steadily louder. I tried disconnecting the optical drives, which made no difference.
I then tried an SMC reset, and after restarting, the screen turned red with vertical lines, like before with the pink lines. After restarting once more, again no startup chime, and no video. I had read that the computer can boot with no video card installed, so I removed the 5870, and restarted. Now, I did hear the startup chime, and normal startup noises. The tray on the new Blu-Ray drive opened when pressing eject on the keyboard, so things seemed normal, except of course having no video. I tried resetting the PRAM to see what would happen, and I heard two chimes only each time I tried that.
After installing the 5870 again, there was still no video, but now the startup chime repeats continuously, every few seconds. So this is where the machine is at right Now. I have read many forum posts on the internet about Macs being stuck repeating the boot chime, and most of them resolved to being caused by a faulty graphics card. I am convinced that the video card needs to be replaced, but I wanted to get some other opinions. What do you think?
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