Problem with graphic card? -> games

Damrod

Damrod

Registered
Well, I have a PowerMac G4 MDD with the standard issue ATI Radeon 9000 Pro (64MB). For a while I expirience unrecoverable crashes in Warcraft III (with every version, since OS X 10.3) now. They are either:

a) The monitor goes black, but sound and the game seems going on normal. I can not quit the game to get to the desktop.

or

b) The picture freezes, the sound is chopped and the mac is frozen.

No matter what happens, I have to force shutdown the Mac everytime. I thought it might be an issue with Warcraft III, but today I also expirienced the same problem with the Jedi Knight II demo. Strange enough, I do not have such problems with games like Quake 3 Arena. I ran Apple Hardware Test, but it stated that there are no problems with the hardware.

Has anybody a hint or idea how I could pin the problem further down? I do not want to go out and just buy a new graphics card to test if it's with the AGP card. Only as last possibility I would like to take that step.

Thanks for any help in advance! :)
 
1. Make sure your ATI Radeon 9000 card has the lastest firmware/ROM.
(October 2004 ATI RADEON Universal ROM Update for ATI Retail Mac Cards)
2. Make sure you have the lastest version of ATI Displays software.
(ATI Displays 4.5.1)

(Both are downloadable from the ATI website).

If the problem still persists - check the temperature inside your Mac. Although the ATI Radeon is passively cooled and gernerally doesn't need a fan to cool itself, if there isn't adequate air flow inside your G4 MDD (or warm/hot air is just sitting in the top PCI bays) your card may simply be overheating. (Many MDD owners have resolved this problem by installing a cheap/quiet PCI blower fan in one of the available PCI slots - available at any computer store).

Another way to make sure the card isn't overheating is to install a program like "ATIccelerator" which allows you to change the processor and memory settings on the fly. You could use it to downclock your card...
<http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Drivers/ATIccelerator-II.shtml>

Trying these things may save you from purchasing a new graphics card - which lets face it... isn't cheap.

If none of these things fix the problem, it might be software related...
Or the card may be faulty...
 
Quite some things to tackle. Thanks, I'll try those out :)

EDIT: I installed the latest ATI Display and ROM Software, and tested Jedi Knight II. It ran much further and better than yesterday, but eventually froze again. As I just turned on my Mac and it took a while, I start to believe it really is a heat problem. Off to the city to buy a fan...
 
Have the same problem.
"a) The monitor goes black, but sound and the game seems going on normal. I can not quit the game to get to the desktop.

or

b) The picture freezes, the sound is chopped and the mac is frozen."

But I´m using G5 1.8Ghz with GF 5200 FX. Warcraft worked fine a few days ago, but yesterday this happened. Tried to reinstall it. Didn´t help. Did a hardware check. Nothing seems wrong. No changes has been made to the system, no new software installed. So I guess this is not a conflict.

I´ve looked around the web for GF driver updates, but there dont seem to be any. Could anyone plz help with this?

EDIT: Sometimes the graphics gets really messed up. Low res lines across the screen,and a total freeze. Tried starting World of Warcraft aswell, the title graphics ran for a few seconds and then it crashed.

I downloaded a temperature monitor but it wont display gpu temperature. CPU temperature seems fine tho' (50-58 Celsius. can handle 85).
 
Hey there!

My problem is kinda solved, as my Mac was in repair for about two weeks (they were just lazy bums, that could have been done in three days IMO...)

Apart from the problem with the RAM I had, I figured out that hot air got stuffed in the back, and the machine/graphics card got too hot and jumped out. After relocating my Mac to a place where it could get fresh cool air from all sides, and the hot air could get off the back easy, it dissapeared. Not completety, sometimes it still happens. I think I have to get a cooler for the GPU.

Maybe check air flow as well. Especially that the hot air from behind can get away good. Maybe check if the Graphics Card needs a cooler or an additional one. Hope that helps tackle the problem! :)
 
Dunno how there could suddenly be a problem with heat. Is it possible to check the temperature of the Nvidia GPU? After trying out some other games, it seems any game using gpu for 3d rendering will cause a freeze.
 
I don't know if the card has a readable sensor on it to check. Usually TemperatureMonitor gets all available sensors, so if it does not list it, I'm afraid it does not have a sensor. Only thing I could think of would be a smal thermometer with a cabled sensor that could be attatched to the GPU. You could try that if you have something like that by chance.
 
Heh, unfortunatly I don´t have a tiny thermometer to put in there.

The hardware check I did only goes through the video memory. Is there any software or part of OSX that can do a more advanced test of the hardware?
 
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