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Any trouble free 09 Mac Pro's out there?

B

bohdanz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 27, 2006
12
0
I was about to trigger 'buy' for a new 2.93 quad or 2.26 octo (still very torn on this issue.)

But I keep reading about what seems like first generation quality problems like:

1. noisy fans, PSU, humming sounds

2. shutdowns

3. bluetooth problems

Too many posts of folks having to replace their units.

So now I wonder if there are those who have 2009 Mac Pro towers and have NOT had any problems.

Thanks for your comments.
 
I have a new 09 MP 2.26 octo. The only issue I had was one time when the machine awoke from sleep mode, the second monitor had "snow" on it. Other than that, everything is fine. Mine is very quiet, has never shutdown by itself, and I use bluetooth to sync my cell phone address book.

Overall, I am a very happy customer :D
 
No problems on mine so far (2.26 octo). Quiet as a mouse and solid as a rock. :) In fact, I can hear my hubby's external FW Fantom drive from the other side of the room over my MP, which is about 2 feet away from me. I hear the fans at startup and waking from sleep. That's it.

I have heard that the WD drives that Apple is using in the MPs are somewhat prone to noise, particularly the 1TB drives. I'd imagine this could be a problem if you load up all 4 bays with them. However, this seems to have been the best way for Apple to go, seeing as how the Seagate 1TB drives were being plagued with both firmware and hardware issues during the time Apple would have most likely been making this decision. The WD 1TB drives seem to have the best record, at least through my own research. Still, I put a Samsung 1TB in mine, and it is VERY quiet. I also have the ATI 4870. No noise or problems there, either.

If I shut down all ambient noise and put my ear right next to it, I can hear a very soft purr...which means it's happy. :D
 
bohdanz said:
So now I wonder if there are those who have 2009 Mac Pro towers and have NOT had any problems.

Thanks for your comments.
Click to expand...

I hope you understand that members that own one are not going to post threads that say their 2009 Mac Pro is problem free,

I agree I have read multiple problems that people have been having, but everyone has warranty to cover them :D
Don't forget Apple Care ;)
 
bohdanz said:
So now I wonder if there are those who have 2009 Mac Pro towers and have NOT had any problems.

Thanks for your comments.
Click to expand...

I can see you wanting to check if there are problems. You don't want a Mac that has problems.

But, like one person above sort of said, that's like saying "I went to the hospital and found everyone was sick". Everyone at a hospital is going to be sick. People tend to come to the forums when they are having problems and to get help.
 
granted ive only had it since monday but no major problems yet :D
I did notice an oscillating fan noise but only when i was watching a netflix movie (streaming) and i had to stop it because i couldnt sleep through it. I need a movie playing before i goto sleep so this has thrown a bit of a kink in the works. Other than that though im loving it.. coming from an old core duo macbook pro so obv I'm in heaven.
 
drnen said:
granted ive only had it since monday but no major problems yet :D
I did notice an oscillating fan noise but only when i was watching a netflix movie (streaming) and i had to stop it because i couldnt sleep through it. I need a movie playing before i goto sleep so this has thrown a bit of a kink in the works. Other than that though im loving it.. coming from an old core duo macbook pro so obv I'm in heaven.
Click to expand...

So in other words, your answer is no to this thread.

You have the oscillating sound problem.
 
bohdanz said:
I was about to trigger 'buy' for a new 2.93 quad or 2.26 octo (still very torn on this issue.)

But I keep reading about what seems like first generation quality problems like:

1. noisy fans, PSU, humming sounds

2. shutdowns

3. bluetooth problems

Too many posts of folks having to replace their units.

So now I wonder if there are those who have 2009 Mac Pro towers and have NOT had any problems.

Thanks for your comments.
Click to expand...

I have a quad 2.93.

1) Nope, plenty quiet for me. Much quieter than my PMG5. No humming or anything. And trust me I notice little things. The chirping that the dual G5s made was pretty annoying. The solution was to disable NAP as it was causing fluctuations in the power supply which led to it chirping under certain power loads.

2) No problem with shutdowns. I have no idea what that problem is. It take about 5 seconds to shut down and I haven't seen any indication of a problem.

3) I don't use bluetooth so I can't say for sure. My understanding is there might be a problem with bluetooth mice. I don't have any problems with my wired mouse except in 1 program, but many others are now reporting it and they are on older core2duo iMacs and macbook pros.

The only problems I have are:

1) When the computer sleeps the display and I wake it, 90% of the time I am welcomed with a snow screen. I can fix it by cycling through the video sources (takes a couple seconds to do that) or just turn the display on and off. I will also get the snow if I cycle the display through the video sources and them go back to the computer source. It never ever ever ever does that when I start up, only when it sleeps the display or when waking the computer its self from sleep. It really seems like a driver or maybe firmware problem not a hardware problem.

2) If I look very very closely at the screen, in dark gray or grey/green areas I can see little diagonal lines moving across the screen, like a wave. It is certainly not the display as I still have my PMG5 hooked up to the same display via VGA and it does not show the same phenomenon with the exact same image (I tend to notice it easiest at the bottom left corner of the default desktop with the lines moving out from that corner). I'll contact apple if the problem persists after the next update. It really isn't noticeable unless you are about 3 inches from the screen so I can live with it.

So overall I don't really have any serious issues. I am very happy with my purchase so far. Considering I can run 4 QT movies, 4 WMV movies, play itunes with the visualizer, play 2 HD movie trailers in safari, have a game running in windowed mode, launch activity monitor and then use expose and still have 70% CPU idle... I am quite sure I did not need the 8 core model.


Edit: The snow of which I am talking about.
img2600.jpg
 
Considering I can run 4 QT movies, 4 WMV movies, play itunes with the visualizer, play 2 HD movie trailers in safari, have a game running in windowed mode, launch activity monitor and then use expose and still have 70% CPU idle... I am quite sure I did not need the 8 core model.
Click to expand...
:eek: :cool: :D
 
Abidubi said:
I have a quad 2.93.

1) Nope, plenty quiet for me. Much quieter than my PMG5. No humming or anything. And trust me I notice little things. The chirping that the dual G5s made was pretty annoying. The solution was to disable NAP as it was causing fluctuations in the power supply which led to it chirping under certain power loads.

2) No problem with shutdowns. I have no idea what that problem is. It take about 5 seconds to shut down and I haven't seen any indication of a problem.

3) I don't use bluetooth so I can't say for sure. My understanding is there might be a problem with bluetooth mice. I don't have any problems with my wired mouse except in 1 program, but many others are now reporting it and they are on older core2duo iMacs and macbook pros.

The only problems I have are:

1) When the computer sleeps the display and I wake it, 90% of the time I am welcomed with a snow screen. I can fix it by cycling through the video sources (takes a couple seconds to do that) or just turn the display on and off. I will also get the snow if I cycle the display through the video sources and them go back to the computer source. It never ever ever ever does that when I start up, only when it sleeps the display or when waking the computer its self from sleep. It really seems like a driver or maybe firmware problem not a hardware problem.

2) If I look very very closely at the screen, in dark gray or grey/green areas I can see little diagonal lines moving across the screen, like a wave. It is certainly not the display as I still have my PMG5 hooked up to the same display via VGA and it does not show the same phenomenon with the exact same image (I tend to notice it easiest at the bottom left corner of the default desktop with the lines moving out from that corner). I'll contact apple if the problem persists after the next update. It really isn't noticeable unless you are about 3 inches from the screen so I can live with it.

So overall I don't really have any serious issues. I am very happy with my purchase so far. Considering I can run 4 QT movies, 4 WMV movies, play itunes with the visualizer, play 2 HD movie trailers in safari, have a game running in windowed mode, launch activity monitor and then use expose and still have 70% CPU idle... I am quite sure I did not need the 8 core model.


Edit: The snow of which I am talking about.
img2600.jpg
Click to expand...

Maybe its a problem with the 4870 GPU. Probably will fix it when 10.5.7 comes out.
 
The snow is most definitely 4870 related.

Granted, I have a flashed card, but my flashed card is using the official firmware from the 4870 from Apple. I did not mix my own ROM as lots of others are doing.

I never got snow on my monitor before, but every now and then when I come home and turn on the monitor, I have snow for a second or two and then it sync's. I don't sleep my MP, I just turn my 30" Dell monitor off.

This monitor never had snow before. Granted, I also upgraded my MP from the 2x2.66 Quad model to the 2x2.8 Octo model, but I don't think it's related to upgrading the MP. I ran my 8800GT in it for a day or so before I got a flashed 4870 and never saw the snow.

I'm pretty positive the snow is a 4870 issue.

Oh and I also sometimes don't get snow, but very corrupt video when turning my monitor on. Turning it off and on again fixes it.
 
jjahshik32 said:
Maybe its a problem with the 4870 GPU. Probably will fix it when 10.5.7 comes out.
Click to expand...

I mentioned the oscillating fan earlier but i didnt consider it a major issue because it only happened once that i noticed. For the most part it is whisper quiet. But now that you've brought up the snow-on-wake issue i had that happen to me now as well. I'm using a dell monitor.. so its not isolated at least. Hopefully they are working on it.. i just flick the on/off button and its fine, for now.
 
tobyg said:
Oh and I also sometimes don't get snow, but very corrupt video when turning my monitor on. Turning it off and on again fixes it.
Click to expand...

The fact that you get the snow sometimes (not quite the same way I do, but then again my monitor acts a little different due to multiple inputs and auto sourcing) with a flash 4870 tells me this is not a hardware issue for sure... unless it's with all 4870s in production, mac and PC. So it is either the firmware (since you are flashing the PC card) or it is the driver in OSX. Since the 4870 driver is present in all versions of 10.5.6 (you can run a 4870 in the 2008 MP) I think it is simply that the driver was released while the 4870 was still in testing on the 09 MPs. They are probably working on, or have fixed the issue. I hope I am right.
 
To see if the "snow problem" is a firmware or driver issue, someone with bootcamp should test that to see if snow appears as well putting the computer into sleep...

Just my 2cts

Alex
 
Abidubi said:
I have a quad 2.93.


The only problems I have are:

1) When the computer sleeps the display and I wake it, 90% of the time I am welcomed with a snow screen. I can fix it by cycling through the video sources (takes a couple seconds to do that) or just turn the display on and off. I will also get the snow if I cycle the display through the video sources and them go back to the computer source. It never ever ever ever does that when I start up, only when it sleeps the display or when waking the computer its self from sleep. It really seems like a driver or maybe firmware problem not a hardware problem.



Edit: The snow of which I am talking about.
img2600.jpg
Click to expand...
Just talked to applecare about his (Mine does this as well and I was already talking to them about my macbook pro, its nvidia died this morning:mad:) 'Tony' (applecare guy) said that apple knows about this and is preparing a fix in the next firmware or os update.... so just hold on and see if the issue gets resolved
 
galstaph said:
Just talked to applecare about his (Mine does this as well and I was already talking to them about my macbook pro, its nvidia died this morning:mad:) 'Tony' (applecare guy) said that apple knows about this and is preparing a fix in the next firmware or os update.... so just hold on and see if the issue gets resolved
Click to expand...

i have same bug on my 4850 osx86, thx apple for promising to fix it.

and it 9J39 its not fixed yet
 
Snow

tobyg said:
The snow is most definitely 4870 related.

Granted, I have a flashed card, but my flashed card is using the official firmware from the 4870 from Apple. I did not mix my own ROM as lots of others are doing.

I never got snow on my monitor before, but every now and then when I come home and turn on the monitor, I have snow for a second or two and then it sync's. I don't sleep my MP, I just turn my 30" Dell monitor off.

This monitor never had snow before. Granted, I also upgraded my MP from the 2x2.66 Quad model to the 2x2.8 Octo model, but I don't think it's related to upgrading the MP. I ran my 8800GT in it for a day or so before I got a flashed 4870 and never saw the snow.

I'm pretty positive the snow is a 4870 issue.

Oh and I also sometimes don't get snow, but very corrupt video when turning my monitor on. Turning it off and on again fixes it.
Click to expand...

I sometimes get snow when waking from sleep. I have the GT120 so it's not a video card-specific issue. It's probably just a new "wake from sleep I'm tired gimme a sec" thing Apple put in.
 
buckthorn said:
I also have a new '09 2.26 octo, and am very happy with it. No problems at all.
Click to expand...

Ditto. Had some humming problem before but it's gone now. Rock solid. Best machine I've ever used, and I've been building PC for years.
This is by far the most powerful machine I've used. Sure it's got its own quirks, but which machine doesn't?
 
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