Problems with Radeon 5870 on my Mac Pro using Boot Camp

[uelef]

Hi,
last year I bought a new Mac Pro (6 core) with a ATI Radeon 5870 graphics card. Mostly I'm using Snow Leopard on it - only to play games I installed Boot Camp with Windows 7.

From the beginning until now Win 7 often freezes playing graphic intensive games like Dirt 2 or Battlefield Bad Company 2. After playing 10 minutes or more I often can see small vertical lines (or stripes) at the whole display - sometimes in dark and bright grey, sometimes in brown. When you see the lines the system hangs, there's nothing you can do. After hard rebooting everything works fine again. I always installed the newest Windows driver for the graphics card …

In many Windows forums you can read about this problem with Radeon 5870 (and some other Radeon) cards, there are some solutions for the problem, but the only one that really seems to help is to replace the graphics card.

Using Mac OS X I never had the problem. But in Snow Leopard I never play graphic intensive games …

My question is: Made someone else the same experiences with his Radeon 5870 on his Mac Pro? Did someone contact Apple, and what did they do? Did they replace the video card?

Regards, Ulf

 

[Cindori]

vertical lines = graphics tearing = card is bad

 

[gullySn0wCat]

Yep sounds like you have a bad card. RMA it

 

[uelef]

I finally made a screenshot of the vertical stripes. They were shown on my Cinema Display after playing half an hour Battlefield 3 on Windows 7 with BootCamp.

Does anyone know the problem? Has anyone tried to contact the Apple Support - and did Apple exchange the video card?

 

[ActionableMango]

I finally made a screenshot of the vertical stripes. They were shown on my Cinema Display after playing half an hour Battlefield 3 on Windows 7 with BootCamp.

Does anyone know the problem? Has anyone tried to contact the Apple Support - and did Apple exchange the video card?

It appears you have a bad card. I don't understand why you haven't contacted Apple Support yourself in all this time.

 

[Cindori]

as stated already those are simply common graphical tearings, which appears when card is not handling heat or volt properly (both of which spike during gaming). It's a no brainer, and apple will replace your card if under warranty.

 

[thekev]

He mentioned "since last year" so I'm guessing he may no longer be under warranty unless he has applecare. Bleh I would have taken that thing in the first time I saw artifacts.

 

[ActionableMango]

OP is in Germany. I thought German law for warranty on consumer goods is minimum two years.

 

[MacVidCards]

Try using catalyst control center to turn up the fan on 5870

 

[mattvs]

I had problem with my Radeon 5870 too. I got one used on eBay, less than a year old and put in my 2008 Mac Pro. My problem however was that the fan was too loud or would speed up loud after a couple of minutes and wouldn't return to normal until I rebooted. However I had a better option than returning it to Apple. I purchase an Arctic Cooling HD 5870 cooling unit with three fans on top of Aluminum fins and 4 or 5 copper heat pipes along with Antec Level 7 Cooling ceramic thermal paste and installed all of it, now my games like Resident Evil 5 fly even with the Overclock settings with ATI Catalyst Center set to Max, and maintaining insane cool temperatures at the same time. Just my two cents on the matter.