Fed up with my Mac Pro!

paulrbeers said:

I think the point is, the OP is mixing memory between the Apple and the OWC RAM. The OP hasn't narrowed it down to the Apple or the OWC memory so removing one or the other should give the OP a pretty good idea of what is causing the issue. My guess is that at least one of the OWC RAM is bad and removing the Apple RAM will show whether s/he is still getting panics. Yes the two sets should be able to live in Harmony, but to ignore that one or the other might be bad is terrible troubleshooting. This is the same reason why I always state to power up the computer with it's stock configuration before doing any mods just to make sure the computer at stock is running okay. Believe it or not, even Apple can put together a lemon....

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Then shouldn't he run an extensive 12-24 hour memtest instead?

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SnowLeopard2008 said:

Take out ALL the components you added yourself (aka not factory).
Go through initial setup and see if anything is amiss. Then slowing add back your RAM one stick at a time. Turn off Mac Pro, add one (1) stick of RAM, turn on, use and see if it anything is different. Repeat with the rest of your RAM.

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Again... why are we not telling him to run a memtest?
I'm no expert, so i am legitimately asking why this hasn't been recommended
http://guides.macrumors.com/Testing_RAM

Seems like pulling the suspect RAM is a lot quicker.

From what I can tell, I've been told I can't mixed 8GB DIMMs with other sizes; since the OP has 8GB DIMMs mixed with 2GB DIMMs, that could be the culprit.

Then again, the last time my computer had these symptom, I found out one of my processors had gone back and thankfully that was right before my AppleCare ran out!

I'd run a memtest first if it hasn't already been done, however....


Couple of things:

- Some models of OCZ SSDs have up to 30% failure rate vs sub 5% for almost every other brand on the market. I believe the Agility of some description was listed in a survey I read recently as being up above 29% failure rate.
- I personally know of several people who have had huge problems with blue screens and other stability issues with OCZ SSDs

("failure" rate above is considered as in-warranty return to vendor)

You'll need to verify what hardware is faulty vs process of elimination.

I'd suspect the OCZ drive as the likely culprit - try and remove that first. It could be RAM too, but the OCZ drives have a well deserved reputation for appalling failure rate.

Mixed RAM, so long as it is in spec and not faulty should not cause those issues, so long as group within a channel is matched. I'm not aware of how the channels in the Mac Pro are set up.

Quickest way to diagnose may be to go back to factory apple spec and add the aftermarket bits one by one until the problems re-occur.

I don't know where you got the 30% statistic from, but I've used a dozen or so OCZ SSDs (installed on a few computers for myself and friends). I've never had an issue. Firmware updates are easy and support is good.

alphaod said:

I don't know where you got the 30% statistic from, but I've used a dozen or so OCZ SSDs (installed on a few computers for myself and friends). I've never had an issue. Firmware updates are easy and support is good.

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I'll dig out the link...

http://www.behardware.com/articles/881-7/components-returns-rates-7.html


edit:
My bad, the agility isn't one of the worst on there, but up to 40% failure rate for some OCZ models. Buyer beware, etc.

All i'm saying is SSD certainly can cause stability issues - and OCZ are the most commonly faulty on the market - with Intel and Samsung being the most reliable - by a factor of 10x vs. OCZ overall and up to 80x some of the OCZ models.

If you've got a good OCZ you're happy with, awesome. But if i had to point my finger at a likely culprit for hardware fault diagnosis, i'd look long and hard at any OCZ device in the picture - as those stats seem to indicate an inherent problem with OCZ reliability.

alphaod said:

I don't know where you got the 30% statistic from, but I've used a dozen or so OCZ SSDs (installed on a few computers for myself and friends). I've never had an issue. Firmware updates are easy and support is good.

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yea i hear mixed things about OCZ.

Frankly, with Samsung, crucial and intel all producing solid, reliable and nearly equally priced products, I just figure stay away from OCZ given some of the poor reports on the quality.

Phrygian said:

Then shouldn't he run an extensive 12-24 hour memtest instead?

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Again... why are we not telling him to run a memtest?
I'm no expert, so i am legitimately asking why this hasn't been recommended
http://guides.macrumors.com/Testing_RAM

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Memtest isn't going to help him determine WHAT ram is failing will it or if they are playing well together will it? All it will prove is that there is an error with the RAM.

paulrbeers said:

Memtest isn't going to help him determine WHAT ram is failing will it or if they are playing well together will it? All it will prove is that there is an error with the RAM.

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This is why you run a memory test - if it fails, you remove all your RAM and install sticks in pairs, running memory test each time you install a new pair until it fails.

You have then located the dodgy pair of sticks (the last pair you installed).

Rip all the ram out again, install one stick of the faulty pair, and run memtest. If it passes, it is the remaining stick.

Dodgy memory will generally fail pretty quickly - no need to run the test for days or anything, so long as it has passed all tests you can be reasonably confident it is good.

JesterJJZ said:

Yeah...mixed RAM is never a good idea.

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I've got 3 or 4 different RAM brands in my Mac Pro 3,1 without having any issue for years...

DenBeke said:

I've got 3 or 4 different RAM brands in my Mac Pro 3,1 without having any issue for years...

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So do I in all my Mac's it's not the best solution, but they don't have problems. When your computer has issues you eliminate variables mixed ram is one of them.

paulrbeers said:

Memtest isn't going to help him determine WHAT ram is failing will it or if they are playing well together will it? All it will prove is that there is an error with the RAM.

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what ThroAu said

Try a clean install of the OS.

There's no way a C2D iMac should be outperforming a 12Core Mac Pro. It may boot faster because there's less ram to verify, but that's about it.






Original Poster, how did you migrate the data from your iMac to the Mac Pro?

macguy93 said:

Yes i greatly agree, my iMac was a 3.06GHz core 2 duo. yes it did have a higher clock speed but only 2 core versus 12 cores at 2.4ghz. I know that the 12 core has a much slower clock speed, but i still feel that the 12 core should be much snappier in all applications..

I used migration assistant and transferred over literally everything to the mac pro. however, im getting a geekbench score of 20,000 so it seems like the computer is running at its fastest? if my computer was not running right would that number be that high? or is that totally irrelevant?

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have you tried anything we have suggested? Clean install, memtesting? returning your HDD and purchasing a different model? if so what were the results?