Oh look. Apple has released (another firmware update) to resolve flickering screens from their precious Imac line. No love for pro owners. I'm going to go throw up now.
It is more that we've have people pile in with righteous indignation, taking a stance designed to defend holy Apple, rather than look at what their machine is actually doing. They tend to be loud and combative, but when the penny drops and they see what is going on they slink away quietly and without setting the record straight.
I wasn't defending Apple, hell, I even offered up the new .kext's to people to check out.
The point is:
1) This thread is way too f'cking big and to expect anyone to read through 1000+ posts to figure out what the hell is going on, myself included, is unrealistic.
2) How can we actually be sure these temperature monitoring apps, by third parties, are even accurate? From Apple's standpoint they wouldn't be, so we would need other, measurable proof, like performance hits
3) When I did try to replicate something with undeniable proof, like the supposed 25% performance drop with audio playing, I had ZERO performance drop (on the quad-3.33)
If this is a problem, and again, I have an octo-2.26 at home where according to iStat my CPU is at 60C most of the time, I would love to get it fixed, if for no other reason to lower my electric bill.
BUT, Apple is not going to trust third party app data like temperature details, and I can't replicate the performance hit. Even at home on my octo-2.26, there was only a 3% change playing audio while Handbrake was encoding in the background.
I also have the ear of a senior level Apple tech who genuinely seemed interested in looking into this (I had to call in this past weekend for a work issue and after that was fixed I casually mentioned this) and he sent me the CaptureData.app without me even pushing for it, but now I can't seem to replicate the issue. So how about you help me. How the hell can we prove this to Apple without speculative temperature data? Because to Apple, third party temp. data = they have no idea how to reliably read the temp. sensors, even if that isn't true.
I wasn't defending Apple[...]
1) This thread is way too f'cking big and to expect anyone to read through 1000+ posts to figure out what the hell is going on, myself included, is unrealistic.
2) How can we actually be sure these temperature monitoring apps, by third parties, are even accurate? From Apple's standpoint they wouldn't be, so we would need other, measurable proof, like performance hits
3) When I did try to replicate something with undeniable proof, like the supposed 25% performance drop with audio playing, I had ZERO performance drop (on the quad-3.33)
Oh look. Apple has released (another firmware update) to resolve flickering screens from their precious Imac line. No love for pro owners. I'm going to go throw up now.
Perhaps we need to cook up a template for everyone to use every time test results are reported, one which details everything.
>Summary (Title):
>Description of the Problem:
>Software Version & Build of OSX?:
>Does it happen on a previous OSX?:
>Is it seen on any other OS (Windows/Linux)?
>Which Mac computer is produced on?: Make Model & Revision Version
process of reproducing
>How long after a reboot does it take to reproduce the problem using the processes above?
>Actual Behavior of the computer?:
>Expected Behavior of the Computer?:
>Other Information: (logs/Screenshots/error messages/benchmarks etc)
>How often is the problem seen (out of 10 attempts of trying)?:
>how long after a reboot does it take to reproduce the problem using the processes above?
>Is the problem specific to a certain time of day/month/year?
>Are there any Applications running whilst the issue is produced?:
>What are the symptoms of the problem?
>Does a reboot of the Mac fix the problem?:
>Does Repair permissions fix the issue?
>Does Resetting SMC Controller fix the issue?
>Does a PRAM fix the issue?
>Does a Clean install fix the problem?:
As I said several pages back. If this was a f*cking iMac, iPod issue it would be fixed by now. Apple just doesn't seem to care anymore.
Just make sure AppleCare is paid for, and when the machine dies prematurely from "normal" use have Apple give you a new Mac Pro.
I'm hesitant to even tell you this as I don't won't to spoil your seemingly positive experience with Applecare today
Nice work continuing the push against Apple. I'm hesitant to even tell you this as I don't won't to spoil your seemingly positive experience with Applecare today, but the Capture Data step is a dead end. They sent me down that path over a month ago as well, and after a lengthy period of silence, I was advised that somebody at Apple product engineering analyzed my data, and was happy to report that it is all "within limits". You can imagine how overjoyed I was to hear that. The fact that they are even making you run this app on your machine when they could just as easily reproduce the entire fault on one of their own machines pretty much sums up their total failure to listen to you / us.
Ok so i took my lunch time to do the following:
Rebooted my mac pro and left it idle for 5 minutes so the temps would stabilize. After 5 minutes idling temps were 36C for CPUA Heat Sensor Diode 32C for CPUB heat sensor diode and 27C ambient
Cinebench without iTunes
OpenGL Standard Test: 4673 CB-GFX
Single CPU Render Test: 3126 CB-CPU
Multiple CPU Render Test: 20921 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 6.69x
Temps remained between 36C and 41C
Right after that I fired up iTunes and played some mp3's for 15 minutes with the following results:
After 3 minutes of music there was an increase of over 10C (51C)
After 7 minutes the increase was almost 15C (55C)
Voltages for both CPUS were 1.16V while only playing music through iTunes.
Current for CPUA was 28.75A and for CPUB 28.56A on average
Power usage was for CPUA 33.38W and for CPUB 32.56W on average
After 15 minutes of music the temps sat at 62C - 65C for both CPUs
CPU Load never went above 1%
Fired up Cinebench again while still playing music with the following results.
OpenGL standard test: 3713 CB-GFX
Single CPU Render Test: 2280 CB-CPU
Multiple CPU Render Test: 18424 CB-CPU
multiprocessor speedup: 8.08x
Max temp reached during test: 68C
Total temp increase: 32C for CPUA and 36C for CPUB
Average performance loss: 20%
Come on!!! I didnt pay $3300 + tax for a machine that will take 20% performance loss over an mp3.... This means when I'm on a rendering job no music!!!.. bah.
Happens with a USB Audio device as well. Can't replicate the issue on Windows 7 Pro x64 under bootcamp.
try my fix and report how performance is doing
http://groths.se/ABF.zip
beta test, you should have another OS to boot and remove the fix if something screwy happens
Forgive me for a somewhat simplistic post to what is obviously a very complicated issue, but I am not seeing any significant performance loss in Cinebench multi CPU render. With iTunes playing music in the background the score is 17,330, without iTunes the score is 18,069. This represents a 3.1% performance hit. A small performance hit would be expected while running another application while rendering.
Forgive me for a somewhat simplistic post to what is obviously a very complicated issue, but I am not seeing any significant performance loss in Cinebench multi CPU render. With iTunes playing music in the background the score is 17,330, without iTunes the score is 18,069. This represents a 3.1% performance hit. A small performance hit would be expected while running another application while rendering.
There are obviously some people experiencing kernel panics due to heat issues, but as I posted some time ago I'm not seeing the high temps other people are seeing and my performance hit seems to be in line with iTunes CPU usage. I have a 3.33 GHz W3580 Xeon which I installed myself. My temps rise to around 55C and hold there as long as I'm playing music. That's nowhere close to what a few people here are reporting.
I'm seeing temps rise, but not to a point at which I'd be concerned. I'm also not seeing any noticeable performance drop except in benchmarks, and even then it's very small. I'm not at all minimizing what others are obviously experiencing, but this is a non-issue for my 2009 Mac Pro.
Forgive me for a somewhat simplistic post to what is obviously a very complicated issue, but I am not seeing any significant performance loss in Cinebench multi CPU render. With iTunes playing music in the background the score is 17,330, without iTunes the score is 18,069. This represents a 3.1% performance hit. A small performance hit would be expected while running another application while rendering.
There are obviously some people experiencing kernel panics due to heat issues, but as I posted some time ago I'm not seeing the high temps other people are seeing and my performance hit seems to be in line with iTunes CPU usage. I have a 3.33 GHz W3580 Xeon which I installed myself. My temps rise to around 55C and hold there as long as I'm playing music. That's nowhere close to what a few people here are reporting.
I'm seeing temps rise, but not to a point at which I'd be concerned. I'm also not seeing any noticeable performance drop except in benchmarks, and even then it's very small. I'm not at all minimizing what others are obviously experiencing, but this is a non-issue for my 2009 Mac Pro.
I brought a Killowatt meter to work today to test the quad 3.33.
As soon as I play audio (or even select "line-in" in QuickTime X's screen capture mode) the wattage draw jumps from 190W to 240-250W.
This isn't the first time they've used this excuse. Granted, the actual value may not be accurate, but the rise is, as the variances subtract out. So if it says there's say a 25 - 30C rise, it's accurate to the temp sensor (say +/- 3C if it's a diode in the chip).After seeing this thread I too downloaded a 3rd party app "Temperature Monitor v4.8) and was getting 45 deg c average on cpu cores and up to 95 deg c after running almost any app (itunes, dvd player even safari) within about 3-5 minutes.
I contacted apple tech support who basically said, "you can't trust these 3rd party apps".
A simple "litmus test" per se, is stick your hand at the exhaust vent, and get an idea of what idle feels like. Then run the test, and put your hand back there again. If the numbers are so far off, your hand won't get much hotter. However, so far, those that have done this noticed a significant change.He also said "if there is not excessive heat coming from the machine or it's working as it should, then all is ok..."
By the way... why isn't this story on our very own Macrumors website? They are certainly talking about the 27inch iMac's screen problems and every burp of the iPad or iPhone... why no mention of this clearly universal 2009 Mac Pro flaw??? Has anyone tried talking to Arn or the other higher-ups?