Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
G5 Crash...
- Thread starter 3-22
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
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. 
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
G5 crashes
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!
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!
One word when it comes to Norton: Don't
(okay, maybe that's two words.
)Norton for OSX has never worked correctly for me and usually scatters stuff all over my hard drive and Library folder.
Chronic Problem
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.
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.
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.
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.
G5 crashes
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.
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.