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HELP!! mac pro suddenly is acting stupid

S

sebassttiann

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 1, 2008
24
0
OK. let me start with specs

mac pro 2.66 quad core. 1gb of ram.( i know i suck :-( )
i use it for video production and graphic work

in the past three months it continually freezes. when it does freeze it does not reboot right away i usually have to wait a good 15-20 minutes before it will reboot properly. This has come and gone in spurts occuring randomly for a few days then dissapears. It happens throughout a variety of programs and sometimes when not running any programs. When it does freeze up the cd rom drive makes a noticable ticking sound when you try to reboot the system immediately after the freeze versus waiting the regular 15-20 minutes. Main programs used are (final cut pro studio, adobe creative suite cs3 and itunes and firefox)

SO after two months i did a clean instal of leopord. Hoping it just needed a nice refreshment. After about 3 weeks of a fresh restart i had a freezing episode and now the computer runs incredibly slow!!! I have noticed that unplugging the 6 external harddrives does cure this problem however they are used for storage and i do not edit video from them but before this was never a problem AND the cd rom drive no longer responds from the eject key of my keyboard nore my office mates g5 keyboard. I have to use itunes to eject cds :-(

Ive had diagnostics ran on the main harddrive to see if it was failing and it passed and i deactivated adobe updater which was revealed to be running in the background slowing me down a bit. ANy insite or opinion would be greatly appreciated as i NEED this computer up and running well. If i missed any details please go easy on me and ill answer any questions that may come up :-(
 
I would like to know your CPU temps and fan speeds. It kind of sounds like your CPU might be overheating. That's just my initial gut reaction. It could be as simple as getting more RAM, but I'm not sure. Download iStat Menu and put the CPU temps and fan speeds in the menu bar. Next time it freezes make a note of the temps and speeds.
Then again, it could be something completely different. Just trying to help.
 
Upgrade the RAM, you want at least 1gb per core = 4gb,
OWC are doing some good deals on RAM for early MP's at the moment,
with the extra RAM that should stop it freezing and lead to a trouble free life for you ;)
I had 4gb in my old MP, never a freeze or slowdown using handbrake with cs3 open and a few other apps running, you will notice a HUGE difference :)
 
Is it under Apple care? If yes, call them, or make appointment with your local Apple Store Genius Bar.
 
Mr.Noisy said:
Upgrade the RAM, you want at least 1gb per core = 4gb,
OWC are doing some good deals on RAM for early MP's at the moment,
with the extra RAM that should stop it freezing and lead to a trouble free life for you ;)
I had 4gb in my old MP, never a freeze or slowdown using handbrake with cs3 open and a few other apps running, you will notice a HUGE difference :)
Click to expand...

Unless this is something specific to Mac Pros, upgrading RAM shouldn't halt freezes, unless the OS is so poorly designed that it can't contend with a shortage of RAM.

I'd initially thought it was an overheating issue, but it doesn't look like that.. or if it is, it's only partially so.

That wouldn't really explain the failure to boot; components cool down extremely quickly, especially CPUs which dissipate heat very fast after shutdown (or even a lowered voltage). Unless, perhaps, you've somehow managed to displace the heatsink so it's not making good contact... I doubt that though.

More RAM *would* be advisable, given the types of programs you're running, though... although you seem to know that given your "I suck" comment.

You can log your sessions, right? Why not try that and see if it shows you what went wrong when it shut down.

What'd you use to diagnose the system? Something like TechTool Pro? Or just system diagnostics? TTP might be a better bet. It also might not hurt to run Alsoft DiskWarrior... sometimes things get screwy because your drives' are too heavily fragmented/have damaged volume headers etc.

You say the issues stop when you remove the six external HDDs... have you tried maybe isolating them to see if it's only one or two that cause the problem? Perhaps you only have one misbehaving drive, and you can have the other five connected with no problem. Try plugging them in one at a time.

As for the slowness, you reinstalled your OS, and have six HDDs.. it might be spotlight. Either way, you should check the Activity Monitor to see what's hogging your resources... it'll show you the individual programs responsible.
 
A Quad Core Mac with just 1GB of Memory... YIKES! As soon as you bump that up to at least 3GB, preferably 5GB+ (pair of 2GB modules + the 512MB x 2 you've got now) - well, you're going to wonder how you used it the way it was for so long.

those processor cores never get to break a real sweat cause they're always waiting for paging.

For less than $150, you'll wonder if it's a brand new Mac Pro after bumping up to 5GB.
 
well, 8 gigs of ram was purchased. Back story was that when i bought computer immediately afterwards i was in a car accident so a new car and the camera that was in the trunk of the car needed a replacement so my computer took a serious downgrade in terms of importance(ram :-( ) try paying off camera, computer and finance a new car WOAH!! but all is paid for now as of two months ago.

sooo with that said i ordered ram and another internal hardrive. I definately know this will help but it just seems like all my problems i cant narrow it down where they come from and are just so random. one thing seems to lead in one direction then something else will throw it off. ill keep people posted....
 
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