Power Mac G5 (11.2) glitchy video display issues

[bladerunner88]

Hi, So of late have been noticing glitches (strange lighting artifacts, lines across screen etc) during video playback in Games or Movies, am wondering if it's the Vid card is going bad (ATI Radeon 1900XT VRAM 256MB) or if its my Monitor? An old but still functioning Apple 22" Cinema Display. System: G5 (11.2) Dual 2Ghtz, 8.5 GB's Ram running OS 10.5.8. also sometimes during games the screen will lock up or freeze requiring forced restart. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.

Cheers!

 

[eyoungren]

Hi, So of late have been noticing glitches (strange lighting artifacts, lines across screen etc) during video playback in Games or Movies, am wondering if it's the Vid card is going bad (ATI Radeon 1900XT VRAM 256MB) or if its my Monitor? An old but still functioning Apple 22" Cinema Display. System: G5 (11.2) Dual 2Ghtz, 8.5 GB's Ram running OS 10.5.8. also sometimes during games the screen will lock up or freeze requiring forced restart. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.

Cheers!

I just went through something similar. Try booting in Safe Mode and then going here: System>Library>Extensions.

Remove all the Radeon kext files to a folder on your desktop. Restart.

My issue was that the Radeon kexts had gone corrupt somehow.

I have the Radeon X1900 XT, which is the same card as yours.

 

[1042686]

Hi, So of late have been noticing glitches (strange lighting artifacts, lines across screen etc) during video playback in Games or Movies, am wondering if it's the Vid card is going bad (ATI Radeon 1900XT VRAM 256MB) or if its my Monitor? An old but still functioning Apple 22" Cinema Display. System: G5 (11.2) Dual 2Ghtz, 8.5 GB's Ram running OS 10.5.8. also sometimes during games the screen will lock up or freeze requiring forced restart. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.

Cheers!

If the kext fix doesnt work, it sounds like the GPU may be overheating or beginning to fail. Before buying a new card, I'd take the GPU apart, clean it up and repaste it. Stick it back in and see how it goes. I was experiencing similar artifacts and freeze ups with my 24" white imac. Repasting w/ new thermal pads on the vram and it worked like a champ for another 3 years or so up to when I replaced it.

 

[bladerunner88]

I just went through something similar. Try booting in Single User Mode and then going here: System>Library>Extensions.

Remove all the Radeon kext files to a folder on your desktop. Restart.

My issue was that the Radeon kexts had gone corrupt somehow.

I have the Radeon X1900 XT, which is the same card as yours.

Cool Thanks Eyoungren I will give this a go!
[doublepost=1526790670][/doublepost]

If the kext fix doesnt work, it sounds like the GPU may be overheating or beginning to fail. Before buying a new card, I'd take the GPU apart, clean it up and repaste it. Stick it back in and see how it goes. I was experiencing similar artifacts and freeze ups with my 24" white imac. Repasting w/ new thermal pads on the vram and it worked like a champ for another 3 years or so up to when I replaced it.

Thank's RhianB !

 

[eyoungren]

Cool Thanks Eyoungren I will give this a go!

I should mention that I meant Safe Mode. That's holding down SHIFT while the Mac boots.

Sorry for the confusion!

 

[AphoticD]

I had this happen to a Radeon 9800 Mac Edition (256MB) AGP Card in my Dual G5 1.8. The crashing, overheating, failure to boot etc was resolved by replacing the card. I have since repasted the GPU. This card doesn’t have a very effective cooling system, so it really comes as no surprise; just a single small fan and smallish heatsink on the GPU with nothing assisting the VRAM.

It now works okay, as in no more crashes, but the damage is done and I now have yellow patchy areas on all OpenGL surfaces (Finder windows, video playback, games, etc). I can’t see what has physically failed to produce this so I’m not sure how to fix it. I figure it must be a VRAM issue, but there are many caps and resistors on the PCB which could have failed from years of running too hot.

 

[bladerunner88]

I should mention that I meant Safe Mode. That's holding down SHIFT while the Mac boots.

Sorry for the confusion!

An Update: So far I've re-installed the OS and trashed all the Radeon Kext files and there has been an immediate improvement! Games and Quicktime etc are a lot smoother with no artifacts and the OS has not locked up. Next up an inspection of the GPU.

Thanks for all the advice!

Cheers.

 

[eyoungren]

An Update: So far I've re-installed the OS and trashed all the Radeon Kext files and there has been an immediate improvement! Games and Quicktime etc are a lot smoother with no artifacts and the OS has not locked up. Next up an inspection of the GPU.

Thanks for all the advice!

Cheers.

Glad that helped.

The only thing I have noticed so far is that a third party screensaver which I have installed is no longer recognized by the system. I'm fine with that because it's just a personalization of the OS and nothing important. There's sure to be something else but so far I've seen nothing.

 

[LightBulbFun]

nuking all the Radeon Kexts removes the drivers/all hardware acceleration for the card in OS X

if you noticed, you probably no longer have Core image/QE for the card and anything OpenGL wont work or will run slowly on a software renderer

I would highly recommend you sort the card out, as nuking the Drivers is a pretty Janky fix, that could lead to more issues...

 

[1042686]

Out of curiosity, I thought the 1900xt was a 1,1 macpro card? I can’t find drivers for ppc 10.5.8.

I sold mine a while back but might’ve held onto it if I knew it worked on a PMG5.

 

[eyoungren]

Out of curiosity, I thought the 1900xt was a 1,1 macpro card? I can’t find drivers for ppc 10.5.8.

The 512MB cach X1900 XT is for the MP.

The ones for the G5 have 256mb of cache.

No drivers necessary to install. They are already there in the system.

 

[AphoticD]

nuking all the Radeon Kexts removes the drivers/all hardware acceleration for the card in OS X

This is what I thought. It will 'resolve' the quirks because rendering is going to fallback into software mode, so the CPUs will be doing all the work instead of the GPU.

Good to know we can bypass hardware acceleration by removing the kexts in the case of a crippled machine in need of recovery.

 

[weckart]

Out of curiosity, I thought the 1900xt was a 1,1 macpro card? I can’t find drivers for ppc 10.5.8.

I sold mine a while back but might’ve held onto it if I knew it worked on a PMG5.

Mine is a Sapphire X1950XT flashed to Mac. There were posts about that at the time on this forum.

 

[timweber]

I just went through something similar. Try booting in Safe Mode and then going here: System>Library>Extensions.

Remove all the Radeon kext files to a folder on your desktop. Restart.

My issue was that the Radeon kexts had gone corrupt somehow.

I have the Radeon X1900 XT, which is the same card as yours.

I have the same issue with my flashed 1950xt.
I'll try removing those files later. Wish me luck