Thanks everyone for answering.
@gp-se: I think it is an issue with the Mac Pro as well. I will try and post on Mac Rumors to see if someone there has an idea.
And yes, I did try the card in the second PCI-E slot, same deal. But thanks for the suggestion.
@EVGA_WShelley (& @rjohnson11): Yes I did try another card that was working in one machine on the system with issues. It didn't work either. So I am not really suspecting that anything is wrong with the card itself, more a combo of that particular machine and the cards. So I am more after if anyone has had these issues, or know what could cause them.
I know that the machine in question has been used to demo Davinci Resolve some 18 months ago, so at some point it must have had a working nVidia card in it. But what would cause a machine to reject an nVidia GTX680 card but accept a Radeon HD5870?
Another note is that if I leave the machine for a period of time at the grey boot screen with the apple logo, it will go into sleep mode. When I try to wake it again, it stalls at the bright blue screen that I see briefly on the other 3 working systems, when waking them from sleep. Before they return to the desktop. (does that make sense?)
post edited by peterrongsted - Friday, June 14, 2013 7:50 AM