Mac OS X Stability

[merlin_1102]

Hey

I have a 1.83 Ghz MacBook Pro. Everyone is always talking about these super fast speeds. I have not really encountered them. Especially with Firefox (and yes I have the universal build). I have found it to be farily slow and I often get that little colourful wait symbol. I get that with a few other applications as well for no real reason.

The other issue I have is does the Mac have an issue with external drivers or Fat32 drives and prolonged use? I have an external 250GB drive with a few resierfs drives and a few FAT32 (Fat32 because it is the only truly cross compatible partition at the moment for all three big OSes). I have noticed that though it does work for a bit. After prolonged use (I never shut mine off), I will open a folder only to find it has no files (even when I know it has know files). Thats when the problems begin. Eventually the external hard drive begins thinking quite frantically and the Mac gets slower and slower. Eventually that pretty little spinny thing comes up. Sometimes the system locks up so all I can do is use the mouse. Alt-Apple-Esc does not work. I have to simply hold down the power button. Other times I can try to relaunch finder. All the icons on my desktop then disappear. Sometimes they reappear sometimes they dont. When they don't, I need to restart. I find this extremly frustrating as I have now had to cut power to my new computer twice. I should not have to do that.

AND NO it is not a problem with the Hard Drive. I checked it with S.M.A.R.T and I have tried extensivly using it with Linux for a full week and did not once encouter the same issue. On the Mac I seem to encounter it once a day. (PS the hard drive is connected through firewire).

Thanks for any help

 

[apunkrockmonk]

To me, it sounds like you need more ram. In your post you did not specify how much you had. If you have the stock 512MB, definitely upgrade. If not, I don't know what to tell you.

Also, you do not need to force a hard restart to get it to stop hanging when you disconnect from a network without ejecting the mounted volumes first. If you wait long enough (Some times up to 5-10 minutes) the system will come back.

I hope they improve this with the next release of OSX.

 

[iBunny]

Ram is essental. I was running 512MB in early 2001. So I dont know why anyone would be running it now.

2GB is good. I am just p/o that the new Macbook Pros and iMacs cant support up to 4GB.

 

[miniConvert]

A few people claim Firefox to be rather slow on the Mac. If it meets your needs, try Camino - I find it lightening fast.

 

[merlin_1102]

Hey

I am running with a 1gb of RAM. At the time coming from Windows 512 was more then enough usually cause Windows does not use the ram as well as it should. To save money I got two 512 chips. That will probably be my biggest regret in the future. Still, I should NEVER have to wait that long, something is definatly wrong. I just wish I knew what part was wrong, the firewire, or the FAT32 partition. If its firewire that will make me more upset as I cant really fix that, unless USB for some wierd reason is any better.

Thanks

 

[4God]

<snip>......2GB is good. I am just p/o that the new Macbook Pros and iMacs cant support up to 4GB.

Well, not yet or that we know of. I may try to stuff my iMac when it arrives with a 2gig SODIMM from Crucial.
I'll probably order with 2gigs from Apple and remove one of the sticks when I get enough nerve to try out a 2gig.
That would give me 3gigs of RAM and if it works I'll go ahead and shell out the extra dough for another 2gig stick to bring it up to 4gigs.

EDIT: Whoa, maybe not yet, I just saw this on Crucial's site: http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=CT25664AC667

A bit pricey.

 

[apunkrockmonk]

Hey

I am running with a 1gb of RAM. At the time coming from Windows 512 was more then enough usually cause Windows does not use the ram as well as it should. To save money I got two 512 chips. That will probably be my biggest regret in the future. Still, I should NEVER have to wait that long, something is definatly wrong. I just wish I knew what part was wrong, the firewire, or the FAT32 partition. If its firewire that will make me more upset as I cant really fix that, unless USB for some wierd reason is any better.

Thanks

Just a word to the wise, SMART isn't always correct. Many people have had drives on their death bed that were still "SMART status verified."

I personally think you should back up the data on that drive and reformat it. Sounds like it could be some file system errors. Or if there are problems with the drive it will map out the bad sectors and no longer use them.

If you're stuck catering to windows still stay with the FAT32 obviously. Otherwise I reccomend going with an HFS+ format. Of course you could always do HFS+ and go with one of those programs on windows that lets you read and write to mac volumes. They work well.

 

[merlin_1102]

Hey

I have run many tests on the Harddisk. SMART is simply the one everyone seems to bring up . I have been through 6 bad hard drives on my machine and I do part time work diagnosing hardware issues. I am usually fairly good at determining if its bad or not.

As for HFS... I had not considered that. I had considered NTFS, FAT32, and Resierfs. In the past I used Reiserfs with a driver for windows (Had to fix it up and tweak it a little but it still worked). I planned on building my own from scratch on mac soon, but I have to admit HFS never crossed my mind. Can you recommened a good windows driver? Also how is linux support for HFS+?

Thanks

 

[apunkrockmonk]

The program I used was Mac Drive. Here is a link to the site. http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/

I have no idea how the linux compatibility is, you're going to have to wait for someone else to respond for that info.