Mac Pro graphics card dying?

Nexus

Nexus

Nexus

Soldato
Joined
13 Feb 2003
Posts
10,631
Location
London
The past couple of days I've been having issues with my early-2008 Mac Pro.

It started with the Nvidia Geforce 8800GT graphics card fan suddenly spinning up to speed for no reason. A little while later, the monitors reported that there was no signal and I had to do a hard reset. The only time I ever hear the fan spin up is during boot and when I've very rarely played a game on the machine.

This continued to happen, so I took the graphics card out and made sure there was no dust, incase that was the issue. However it's again suffering from the same behaviour. Sometimes when I boot the machine now, I can't even get it to display anything.

This is what the kernel panics have been reporting:

panic(cpu 7 caller 0xffffff7f8098b04f): NVRM[0/2:0:0]: Read Error 0x00000100: CFG 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0xffffffff, BAR0 0x92000000 0xffffff8164f8d000 0x092880a2, D0, P1/2
Backtrace (CPU 7), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81645bb5a0 : 0xffffff8000220702
0xffffff81645bb620 : 0xffffff7f8098b04f
0xffffff81645bb6b0 : 0xffffff7f80cf6caa
0xffffff81645bb6f0 : 0xffffff7f80a7b1fc
0xffffff81645bb750 : 0xffffff7f80d1c6a8
0xffffff81645bb870 : 0xffffff7f80a9a259
0xffffff81645bb8a0 : 0xffffff7f8099498a
0xffffff81645bb950 : 0xffffff7f8099028c
0xffffff81645bbb40 : 0xffffff7f80991d41
0xffffff81645bbc20 : 0xffffff7f8092cbcc
0xffffff81645bbc70 : 0xffffff7f81d0f3a2
0xffffff81645bbcb0 : 0xffffff7f81d0dd7c
0xffffff81645bbcd0 : 0xffffff7f81d0dfc0
0xffffff81645bbd00 : 0xffffff7f812239ca
0xffffff81645bbd30 : 0xffffff7f812237f8
0xffffff81645bbd50 : 0xffffff7f81242505
0xffffff81645bbd80 : 0xffffff7f812437cb
0xffffff81645bbdc0 : 0xffffff7f81243a62
0xffffff81645bbdd0 : 0xffffff7f812426ee
0xffffff81645bbdf0 : 0xffffff7f81220180
0xffffff81645bbe30 : 0xffffff7f81221b57
0xffffff81645bbe60 : 0xffffff7f8123f67f
0xffffff81645bbec0 : 0xffffff7f812218f0
0xffffff81645bbf30 : 0xffffff7f8122086c
0xffffff81645bbf70 : 0xffffff800023db2c
0xffffff81645bbfb0 : 0xffffff8000820057
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily(4.7.5d4)[1AF25DFD-97C9-318E-9CD7-F3B296BCABBD]@0xffffff7f8121d000->0xffffff7f8122ffff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[4A5A4624-7A52-3EA0-BB8D-5B265B086727]@0xffffff7f81216000
com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin(4.7.5d4)[696CBE67-0122-3D0C-BE1E-77DA79F11034]@0xffffff7f8123c000->0xffffff7f8124cfff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[4A5A4624-7A52-3EA0-BB8D-5B265B086727]@0xffffff7f81216000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.7)[6D54F06A-46B7-37FC-AF22-DE68DC18A1A3]@0xffffff7f80835000
dependency: com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily(4.7.5d4)[1AF25DFD-97C9-318E-9CD7-F3B296BCABBD]@0xffffff7f8121d000
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.1d8)[CCC6039B-FF50-39D6-853F-CB7764CEA09F]@0xffffff7f81230000
com.apple.NVDAResman(7.1.2)[3B24E838-5E73-362B-97FA-239F5AEE7D81]@0xffffff7f8092a000->0xffffff7f80c03fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6.7)[6D54F06A-46B7-37FC-AF22-DE68DC18A1A3]@0xffffff7f80835000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.3.2)[6517D9A6-58F5-3CFC-B021-C882306150D5]@0xffffff7f80918000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.3.2)[55FF26D3-292D-3B4B-8AB7-1D25C8B4313B]@0xffffff7f808e0000
com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal(7.1.2)[2E84958C-1EEC-316B-9F7A-68C368F83476]@0xffffff7f80c04000->0xffffff7f80f25fff
dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(7.1.2)[3B24E838-5E73-362B-97FA-239F5AEE7D81]@0xffffff7f8092a000
com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor(1.9.4d0)[8275097E-C519-31DF-9980-19AA842527E6]@0xffffff7f81d0d000->0xffffff7f81d11fff



There seems to be a good few references to Nvidia in there, so I can only assume it's the graphics card, unless anyone knows the wiser. I can still login to the machine remotely when it's running, I also managed a full RAM test and found no issue with it or any of my hard drives.

The biggest problem I've got is that my Applecare expired in February. I know that Apple have a little leeway, but I'd think that 10 months is pushing it, so I don't know whether it's actually worth me bothering to lug it to the Apple Store.

Has anyone dealt with them for out of warranty repairs like this before?
Or would I be better off just buying a new graphics card, as no doubt it's cheaper and doesn't have labour costs? In which case, what would my options be now for a Mac compatible card?

Finally I've read a bit about baking graphics cards, which might fix it. But presumably that's only a temp fix, so it would make sense to get another?
 
There's temperature apps that will see if the graphics card is overheating, if it is then you can try to re-paste the fan, or swap the fan.

I pretty sure the apple hardware test will test the graphics card too, so that's worth a try.

But if the card does need replacing, just buy one and put it in yourself, it's cheaper.
 
I'm actually struggling to find an app that actually reads graphics card temps. None of the free ones I've tried do, it seems it's not the same as PCs.
 
Tried the clean it, bake it in the oven, reapply thermal paste trick and it seems to have fixed it! *touchwood*
 
congarts.. now sell it quickly... :)

there's companies out there that will reflow the chips on the card for you if needed, but long term a replacement card would be better than a reflow of one.
 
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