8800GT overheating. Mac Pro early 08, Snow Leopard

Question

After two weeks of troubleshooting I have finally narrowed down what is wrong with my Mac. My 8800GT is overheating and locking up. Under normal use just surfing the web, etc it is fine; however, if I load up iTunes Visualizer full screen or WoW the card has to start working and freezes up in about a minute. This freeze can be postponed some if I crank up my IO and Exhaust fans to around 2k rpm. This only buys the card another minute or so. I can turn the machine off, let it cool for a minute, turn it back on and use it normally unless I start something that really works the 3D side of the GPU then it freezes again. What I did first was take out the card, remove the heatsink, clean the gpu and all memory chips, apply new thermal grease, reinstall the heatsink, and reinsert the card. This allowed the card to run maybe 15-20 seconds longer, not what I was hoping for. I found several VGA coolers that would fit the card, but I fear that if the card is getting that hot, there is a problem with it that just adding a cooler is not going to fix. This card ran WoW more hours a day than I want to admit for over a year, and now it can't get past the loading screen. I have left the case open and run the iTunes visualizer just so I could monitor how fast the card's housing was heating up. In the process I've noticed that the fan on the 8800GT never really seems to speed up despite the card getting noticeably hot. Could this be a firmware problem? a SMC problem? I have no way of getting the gpu fan to crank up its rpm to see if this would fix the problem. At this point I wonder if my only solution is to buy a Radeon 4870 and an adapter so I can continue running two monitors. Anyone have any other ideas??

Answer 1

I had similar problems here in Australia, the local Apple Mac centres are not very helpful I tend to call America direct, and let me tell you those guys do not fool around they will help you no matter what it takes.
I suggest you find the number to Apple in the USA, better service by far, I even challenge them and they take me head on so they are confident about what they say and know.
as for your fault, I suggest that you go back to the Apple store and request them to do systematic diagnosis of the problem starting with the power supply, then your main board, graphics card etc.. the process is technically termed process of elimination in which each part is replaced until cause is found.
If they refuse the I would send a letter of complaint to Apple explaining your circumstance. when you call the apple store they should put you through to the apple customer care centre, that is what they did for me, but again if no help is offered there then try America Apple Centre
Apple does use a lot of 3rd party service centres but from my experience they are not reliable or efficient, most probably because they don't just service Apple but are a general service centre for all types of electronics or computers.
here is a site with a list of numbers for apple support, Italy is about the 24th on the list:
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/phone_contacts.html
Message was edited by: Theo77