Okay, I'm at the end of my rope with computer problems and I'm calling out to all of my intertweeps to help me out. Here's the story . . .
Ever since the first week in December, just after moving into my new house, my Mac Pro began having problems. Prior to that, I'd never really had anything major go wrong with my computer (it is a Mac, after all). There's a first time for everything, I guess.
Anyway, this particular problem came in the form of a frozen computer & screen (although the mouse pointer could still be moved around), and a strange green gridded pattern. Here is a photo of one of the freeze-ups:
I am running a dual monitor set-up on a 2.8GHz Mac Pro with 10 GB of RAM, using a ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics card. I have the most current version of Snow Leopard installed. The Mac monitor is on the left and a Wacom Cintiq is on the right (serving as the primary monitor). What you see above is the frozen screen saver, but the freeze up has also happened when I am running Adobe Photoshop CS4, Adobe Bridge and also when I am streaming my desktop to Ustream.
My wife and I have been doing research and troubleshooting this problem since it started happening. We think it is a failing graphics card, but we're still not 100% positive. We have opened up the computer, reseated the graphics card and RAM, cleaned it out and the problem continues to plague my beautiful machine.
So . . .
Has anyone out there had a similar problem and if so, what did you do to fix the problem? Is this a failing graphics card, a problem with the Snow Leopard OS, or is it something different (and more expensive) that will make me wish I'd never asked?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
-Otis