G5 Crash...

[3-22]

I'm a recent "switcher" from the PC world to Mac. I ordered a new G5, but have yet to receive it.

I was at the Apple store in Towson, MD messing with the 1.8 G5 they have on display. I was screwing around with iDVD when the system completly crashed. Complete freeze, no mouse movement, keyboard response, etc. The store clerk had to reset the box with the power button.

Anyway, this was a bit shocking to me. I'm switching to Mac in the hopes of improved stability, ease of use, etc. I guess my concerns are... Do crashes like this occur often? Is this the old Rev A crap? Is this just some isolated incident due to an abused demo model?

Any ideas from the mac-experts out there?

[Schiffi]

Odd... iDVD isn't the most stabliest of apps, but there was probably lots of Apps open and stuff. Floor models are terrible with stablity. Trust me, once you use it yourself and customize it to your liking, then it will be stable.

[Powerbook G5]

Don't base initial impression with the in-store demo. The demo at the store here has a good 15 programs actively running most of the time due to people messing with it and not quiting them, demo programs running, usually 4 or 5 hardware units attached, and none of the updates, maintainence, etc done to them usually. People mess with them *all* the time. Just wait untill you get your G5 and see how you like it. I have had my PowerBook for years and it just works and when you literally have to think hard about the last time it froze, you know it's pretty darn reliable.

[Marble]

My Dual G4 never froze up after almost 4 years of rigorous use, and I never used any maintenance.

I never abused it, either.

[scem0]

My guess is someone ****ed around with the computers or something.

Macs barely EVER completely crash like that.

scem0

[3-22]

Thanks for the responses...

I'll sleep better tonight, except for the fact I want to wake up every couple hours to check my order status... :D

[macphoria]

iDVD is buggy as Schiffi mentioned. Also, since G5 is a new machine, some elements of Mac OS might need to go through a revisions to work out the kinks.

[lpb2h]

From what I've gathered, buying the first of a new Apple product is risky. I'm waiting for the second G5 release, which I will order as soon as it's available.

I've heard a few informal comments on the stability of the box, in both directions. Haven't found a reliable source of information on G5 problems if any.

Having said that, I can't wait to get my hands on a G5!

Luc (kfglq*)

[sproggy]

This isn't G5 news but wanted to add my two "scents." I have a G4 733 mghz 1500meg ram and still run mostly OS 9 because X is really slow for me (10.2.8). I've been told it's due to running two monitors off a 32 mb ram video card. But even with just one monitor it is slower than 9 and all sorts of weird problems abound -non printing, my keyboard numbers on the right don't work, spinning beachball, etc etc.... Speaking of crashes, 9 freezes on me at least once a day, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day and I have had OS X freeze on me, complete system crash, maybe 8 times or so -and I don't use it much. Maybe I just have a special knack. Personally, i'm going to wait until Panther gets ironed out and install it with a new video card and cross my fingers.

[Tim Flynn]

I have "crashed" OS X, but the computer was still running almost fine. The application had taken over the screen, keyboard and mouse. It then locked up. So the machine appeared crashed. I used the power button and restarted. This time I turned on the ability to remote log in. Ran the program again and "crashed" the computer. I remote logged in, and using "ps" I saw the application was the problem. The old Unix "kill" corrected the situation and I had the machine back again without the restart.
Perhaps a key sequence that an application can't prevent the OS from getting at might be a solution.

[Zeke]

Originally posted by sproggy
This isn't G5 news but wanted to add my two "scents." I have a G4 733 mghz 1500meg ram and still run mostly OS 9 because X is really slow for me (10.2.8). I've been told it's due to running two monitors off a 32 mb ram video card. But even with just one monitor it is slower than 9 and all sorts of weird problems abound -non printing, my keyboard numbers on the right don't work, spinning beachball, etc etc.... Speaking of crashes, 9 freezes on me at least once a day, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day and I have had OS X freeze on me, complete system crash, maybe 8 times or so -and I don't use it much. Maybe I just have a special knack. Personally, i'm going to wait until Panther gets ironed out and install it with a new video card and cross my fingers.

This sounds like a hardware problem. Granted 9 may crash occasionally but the fact that you routinely crash both systems sounds like bad ram (at the least) or a bad logic board. X has never crashed on me (applications have frozen but usually I can force quit).

[aphexist]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Don't base initial impression with the in-store demo.

What do you propose prospective buyers should base their initial impression on? Most people don't have the luxury of buying an expensive product and discovering that they don't like it later.

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
I have had my PowerBook for years and it just works and when you literally have to think hard about the last time it froze, you know it's pretty darn reliable.

I thought you just got your Powerbook? Well, as long as you thought about it REALLY hard...

[jamesatzones]

I've done lots of iDVD stuff on my G5 and never experienced a crash or any problems with anything else but SETI@Home (Since I installed Panther.)

Demo units are never reliable because you have so many users doing this and that, changing preferences, trying to delete stuff, and so on. I wish store front Apple resellers and Apple stores would lock down the systems some so that the first impression of a PC user isn't that of disarray and crash prone. My G5 has not crashed once, haven't had to force quite anything, and has been by far the best computer I have ever used...

[sproggy]

A reply to Zeke, or really a question. Interesting idea the bad ram or logic board. I just recently changed two of my ram cards and nothing changed (except i went from 850 megs of ram to 1500). So it's possible that it is the remaining card that hasn't been swapped as of recent. I can pull it out and give it a whirl if i can figure out which one it is. How else could I check the ram and/or logic board? Geez, if it's the logic board, screw it, i'm getting a G5.


And thankss Tim for the idea. But don't i need to be on a network (I'm not) to remote log in or am I missing something? I don't know what a "ps" is, what the old Unix kill would be, etc... Is this complicated stuff for an intermediate level mac user (knowledge wise)?

[Tim Flynn]

Originally posted by sproggy
And thankss Tim for the idea. But don't i need to be on a network (I'm not) to remote log in or am I missing something? I don't know what a "ps" is, what the old Unix kill would be, etc... Is this complicated stuff for an intermediate level mac user (knowledge wise)?

You need to be on a network. It maybe possible to go through a serial port. Normally the access to the computer is keyboard & screen, but when thats locked up, you have access other than network.
"ps" I believe stands for Process Status. It lists the current processes on the computer and their status. So .. 'ps -aux | grep "Safari" will display info on the Safari task if it is running. The second column is the PID or Process ID. "kill" with the pid will kill that process or application.
For a test, look for the "Dock" app and kill it. It will restart by itself. The Dock will disappear then reappear.

I forgot to mention that you do this through the terminal. Be careful what you kill :)

[rcs]

My new G5, running 10.2.8, crashes every time I run a particular program that requires X11. Screen and cursor freeze; the crash can only be recovered from by pressing the power button and restarting.

The same program (something called pdp++, if anyone's interested) works fine on my Imac at home, running 10.2.8 too.

I've done virtually nothing else on the G5, and I've clean-installed all the software, but the problem persists.

(Incidentally, the website and the installation process for the public beta 3 version of X11 seems to say conflicting things about what the system requirement is. Is it 10.2.x or 10.3?)

Any advice would be welcome.

rcs

[Tim Flynn]

I thought the 10.3 includes X11.

[fsbilly]

I admin MANY Macs. 32 and counting. I now have seven G5s. Two of them freeze TWICE A DAY! The others run fine.


Don't tell someone that "Oh, macs hardly EVER crash!" That's crap. I'm a Mac fan, as well. I would be very worried if the display machine froze before my eyes! "It probably had a bunch of stuff running on it"? WTF!? Like what? Earth Simulator Lite? Nice try.


My advice to a new mac user is 1) Don't ever buy Rev A/V x.0 of ANYTHING from apple... and 2) Never buy anything less than a month before Macworld.

Wait for the 64bit OS and the G5 apps to start rolling out. THEN get your G5

good luck

[Frohickey]

I've seen an OS X machine apparently crash, but when you connect via telnet to it, you can see that its still working, but the only thing that crashed was the window manager. Killing that process brings it back up.

[JesseJames]

Hmmm. I guess this 64-bit transition is going to be more painful than we realized.
Don't you just love computing?
I can only imagine how things are going to be on the PC side.

[gwuMACaddict]

Originally posted by JesseJames
Hmmm. I guess this 64-bit transition is going to be more painful than we realized.
Don't you just love computing?
I can only imagine how things are going to be on the PC side.

HAHAHAHA!

couldn't have said it any better. i agree that it is a bad idea to buy the first one of anything. i got the first ipod the day it came out and had to send it back twice cause it kept acting up.

[Powerbook G5]

Originally posted by aphexist
What do you propose prospective buyers should base their initial impression on? Most people don't have the luxury of buying an expensive product and discovering that they don't like it later.



I thought you just got your Powerbook? Well, as long as you thought about it REALLY hard...

Before criticizing me, when I wrote that post two months ago I did not have my 15" PowerBook, I was still using my PowerBook G3 that I've had since 1999, so yes, I did have to think really hard about the last time it had crashed.

As far as the demo model goes, it's just a simple fact that they are abused both intentionally and unintentionally, so if it seems likely to crash at an alarming rate, keep in mind it is being messed with by dozens of people day in and day out who don't have any regard for the machine.

[Makosuke]

This thread seems to have come back from the dead.

Originally posted by fsbilly
Don't tell someone that "Oh, macs hardly EVER crash!" That's crap. I'm a Mac fan, as well. I would be very worried if the display machine froze before my eyes!I'd be worried about a display machine funking up, too, and it's not true that Macs never crash, but depending on how you take care of your hardware and what you do, I think it's safe to say that it's an exceedingly rare occurance. Revision A hardware does tend to be flaky, but that's NOT always the case.

My experience: I also administer a lab full of scientists with about a dozen Macs and a half dozen PCs. The Macs running OSX 10.2 rarely crash, to say the least. I've never heard of a single crash from anyone but me, and I abuse my machine seriously--even then, perhaps one crash a month. This isn't with kiddy-glove treatment, either--CAD, scientific, and data processing apps all around.

I used to have an older G4 tower at home, which I take good care of . Since upgrading to Jaguar, I saw four crashes in the space of about a year.

I now have a new dual G5 that, although not one of the first machines off the assembly line, is still what you'd call a rev. A, running 10.3.0, which depending on how you cut it qualifies as a .0 version. I have been pushing it VERY hard to see what it can handle--iDVD, iMovie, massive data processing, running for days on end, Folding@Home, lots of video, two Firewire hard drives and plenty of moving files around--and to make sure the hardware is ok I have had one crash so far, which was without question the fault of a very flaky, very old, no-longer-supported, Sony analog-to-Firewire video converter. And even it worked after the one crash.

There are a disproportionate number of lemons in the first batch of anything, but they're not always a bum deal, and I have no qualms about saying that Macs crash very, very rarely these days.

[lpb2h]

Originally posted by rcs
My new G5, running 10.2.8, crashes every time I run a particular program that requires X11. Screen and cursor freeze; the crash can only be recovered from by pressing the power button and restarting.
<...>
(Incidentally, the website and the installation process for the public beta 3 version of X11 seems to say conflicting things about what the system requirement is. Is it 10.2.x or 10.3?)

Any advice would be welcome.

rcs

I had a problem with the first 2-3 versions of X11 which would crash reliably in very specific circumstances. But eventually Apple fixed the problem. Actually, the problem also affected XDarwin. It had something to do with underlying xfree86. Don't ask me what. I'd check my version of X11. I would also search through the X11 forum on the Apple developer site. If it is a X11 problem, you're very unlikely to be the first one to have come across it so there should be a solution. Otherwise, post.
Good luck. Luc (kfglq)

[lpb2h]

Originally posted by gwuMACaddict
i agree that it is a bad idea to buy the first one of anything. i got the first ipod the day it came out and had to send it back twice cause it kept acting up.
Apple on Nov 18 '03 released a new dual g5 powermac: 1.8GHz powermac g5. My question is: does it include any hardware modifications (read: fixes) compared with the 2Ghz model? Or are the only changes related to clock speed (the specs don't lead me to think there is any change). Then we would need to wait till 2004 for the second generation G5's.

There aren't a lot of specific reports about G5 issues :(. The htpp://www.macfixit.com site has some, but the coverage isn't very systematic.
Luc (kfglq*)

[Sunrunner]

As far as I can tell, the Dualie 1.8 G5 is a 2.0 G5 with 1.8s in their place...or maybe I missed something.

[Coca-Cola]

I find it incredible that a G5 with Jaguar can crash. I am running a iMac 400 dv se, and it never ever crashes. Ever. I honestly believe I could go on forever without a crash. What is up with all this G5 panther crash hysteria? Probably the same as the Nvidia not being good hysteria, which is total crap. I am considering no longer reading this garbage and finding a new site or thread. :(

[Macmaniac]

Well if you have problems with one app crashing a lot or other problems in 9 or X, I recommend Norton System works, boot off the CD and run their program, it works very well, 9 out of 10 system works can fix it. Its usually a bad file or something with the wrong date. System works does a really good job try it!

[i_wolf]

two apps crashed on me since i got g5's and panther. they didn't crash the OS though it kept on ticking. I don't mind an app that will crash, it does happen, can often be programming logic missing in the app or something. i don't like it when it takes the os with it though. Up till today everything was so far so good.
A minute ago i booted in OS X and loaded iTunes, nothing happened but the little black arrow under the icon in the dock. Clicked on file new, nada. iTunes didn't open. Then clicked on mail. It seamed to open up fine. It seamed to be checking the mail for a long time. I went to move the mouse and got the dreaded beach ball of death. Activity monitor showed no cpu usage. Terminal opened fine and running 'top' showed that iTunes and mail were running but consuming no cpu usage and that their respective threads were asleep. I opened safari to see if anything else was affected. it opened fine. I closed safari and it quit regularly.
The beach ball thing kept going in background. Tried to click on force quit but nothing happened. No menu even appeared to allow me what to force quit.
Tried to move into terminal and do a kill -9 %1. But i couldn't move to terminal.
I could move back and forth over the dock bar with the beach ball of death. it did its magnification thingy. But same old same old.
Had to hold in power and reset.
I gotta admit i was a little disappointed, since i wouldn't have thought that an iApp like iTunes or mail could crash the system. If they are gonna crash fine. But its unix. it should not take the graphics system with it! Is there a way to kill the graphics server in OS X and restart it like you can in Linux?? However c'est la vie.
I would imagine there is a small bug or something in panther that will probably be fixed with another dot release.
I have seen the same thing happen once to another G4 running jaguar. As for rev A ... to be honest i think thats silly. If there was significant errata with the G5 we would all be crashing all the time and all complaining about it. We would all be having similar symptoms. It screams of software more than hardware because the terminal still worked! So far touch would, bar this unique incident everything has worked fine.

[Powerbook G5]

Wouldn't Command+Option+Escape be easier than forcing your system to power down? I'm not sure if it's like quiting X Windows in Linux, but quiting Finder might work in the case of the beachball.

[lpb2h]

Originally posted by i_wolf
two apps crashed on me since i got g5's and panther.
<....>
Had to hold in power and reset.
I gotta admit i was a little disappointed, since i wouldn't have thought that an iApp like iTunes or mail could crash the system. If they are gonna crash fine. But its unix. it should not take the graphics system with it! Is there a way to kill the graphics server in OS X and restart it like you can in Linux??

I've also had beech balls that I haven't been able to get around, in Jaguar on PowerMacs (dual 1.42 and dual 1.0). My recent problems may be due to hard drive issues as I've been forced to reformat (Jag couldn't mount the hard disk); fortunately, it's just a back-up drive.

Sometimes, one can't even get to the terminal. In this case, it's handy to have a second box from which to ssh.

If there's a particular application to which you need access, it sometimes works to renice its process in the terminal. (See man renice). Particularly useful when the Terminal itself is not getting its fair slice.

I don't know how to restart WindowServer, nor have I ever seen it as something that is recommended.
Luc

[johne]

I've had a 1.8 G5 running 10.3 for a couple of months and get crashes most days, in two flavours: kernel panic when switching between printers (HP laserjet and 1220 deskjet); and program quits (from whatever I'm running - Excel, Word and Quark Xpress mostly).

I did a clean install of the software as suggested by Apple Support, but this didn't sort out the problems (neither did taking out the additional RAM that was installed).

Apart from these problems, the system is fine!

[job]

Originally posted by Macmaniac
Well if you have problems with one app crashing a lot or other problems in 9 or X, I recommend Norton System works, boot off the CD and run their program, it works very well, 9 out of 10 system works can fix it. Its usually a bad file or something with the wrong date. System works does a really good job try it!

One word when it comes to Norton: Don't

(okay, maybe that's two words. :p)

Norton for OSX has never worked correctly for me and usually scatters stuff all over my hard drive and Library folder.

[jimsowden]

I had a G5 1.6 that spiratically freezed up, perhaps like what you experienced. The problem was some wierd USB controller file or something from what I gather in the forums. Anyway Apple figured it out and now all the new G5s don't have this problem. They replaced mine citing DOA. No crashes or freezes since.

[Cadaver]

I've had a dual 2.0GHz G5 since October (stock except for 1.5GB of RAM and an Adaptec 4-port USB 2.0 PCI card), and I've yet to experience a kernel panic, system lock or any other serious crash.

Some programs have quit, sure, but the computer keeps right on motoring.

This machine is used heavily and daily by both myself and my wife (inc. fast user switching), and its been the most rock-stable computer I've ever used. The only time I reboot this machine is when required by software/OS installs.

[johne]

Originally posted by Cadaver
I've had a dual 2.0GHz G5 since October (stock except for 1.5GB of RAM and an Adaptec 4-port USB 2.0 PCI card), and I've yet to experience a kernel panic, system lock or any other serious crash.

Some programs have quit, sure, but the computer keeps right on motoring.


Well, that doesn't sound so bad - it's the kernel panic that's tedious because of the re-booting. I'm becoming convinced that I have either a USB controller problem, mentioned by jimsowden, or a hardware problem. I spent an hour or so on the phone today to Apple Support (now based in Bangalore, India), and as usual they got no closer to sorting out the problem, except for finally suggesting that I take it in to an authorised repair centre.