Mac Pro random Lock up

[Nitro1]

I am not sure if this is a known issue and i am out of ideas as what to search for answers. I have a 3,1 Mac Pro that is running El Capitan for about 6 months now the computer will randomly lock up when i try to move files or delete something from the desktop. Most recently i tried to unmount a DMG file and the computer will just spin the beach ball. I will have to force turn off the computer. I can still launch apps and mess around on Safari but if i have to do anything on the file system it will not work. What could be causing this. I have recently replaced the HD that has my OS is on and upgraded ram. The HD is a SSD and the RAM is out of old servers which unfortunately are the 667 MHz speed.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you

 

[h9826790]

If I understand correctly, you mean that only Finder is locked, but not the Mac (e.g. you can still use Safari)

And in my own experience, El Capitan Finder is a bit problematic. My Finder occasionally hang after I download something. A simply re-launch can fix the issue temporarily. However, it may happen again anytime.

I reported that to Apple, but they can't find out what's wrong and never fix it.

Since I upgrade to Sierra, there is no more Finder issue.

Of course, it can be something else cause the issue, e.g. the new HDD. However, it's possible that you simply suffer from a Finder's bug. And no way to fix it in El Capitan.

 

[Nitro1]

If I understand correctly, you mean that only Finder is locked, but not the Mac (e.g. you can still use Safari)

And in my own experience, El Capitan Finder is a bit problematic. My Finder occasionally hang after I download something. A simply re-launch can fix the issue temporarily. However, it may happen again anytime.

I reported that to Apple, but they can't find out what's wrong and never fix it.

Since I upgrade to Sierra, there is no more Finder issue.

Of course, it can be something else cause the issue, e.g. the new HDD. However, it's possible that you simply suffer from a Finder's bug. And no way to fix it in El Capitan.

Thanks for the info. I did not know about the finder hang bug. It did it with my old HDD and now with this one as well. When I do try a relaunch of finder it never comes back. I lose all the menu bars and the dock and I have to hard reset to get it back. I wish I could upgrade but 3,1 can not do sierra. Ah well. Time to debate upgrading or live with it.

 

[ksz]

What follows may or may not be directly relevant to your issue, but my otherwise perfectly normal Mac Pro 3,1 was randomly crashing for several months. There was no way to pinpoint the cause because it would truly crash at random times regardless of application or operation. Through some luck I found that the problem was due to the nVidia Web Driver for my flashed GTX 970 video card. I replaced the card with an AMD R9 model that uses built-in graphics drivers, and now the Mac is running absolutely perfectly. This card does not have an EFI BIOS, but at this point I really don't care. My Dell 4K monitor is running beautifully over DisplayPort, and if I need EFI, I will swap in the original nVidia 880 (DVI-D).

 

[Nitro1]

What follows may or may not be directly relevant to your issue, but my otherwise perfectly normal Mac Pro 3,1 was randomly crashing for several months. There was no way to pinpoint the cause because it would truly crash at random times regardless of application or operation. Through some luck I found that the problem was due to the nVidia Web Driver for my flashed GTX 970 video card. I replaced the card with an AMD R9 model that uses built-in graphics drivers, and now the Mac is running absolutely perfectly. This card does not have an EFI BIOS, but at this point I really don't care. My Dell 4K monitor is running beautifully over DisplayPort, and if I need EFI, I will swap in the original nVidia 880 (DVI-D).

I appreciate the info. I am still using the stock ATI HD 2600 card and maybe it is failing and that is the cause. I just returned GTX 960 card due to the horrible issues i had just trying to get Audio to work out of my Mac after installing it. I will be buying a ATI 5770 or 5870 here soon and hopefully it will resolve this issue. I am still trying to confirm if the 5770 or 5870 will run audio out the MDP port or if i have to use the DVI port. But either way an upgraded card will help with all kinds of things when watching movies, since i mainly use my 3,1 as a media center now a days.

Thank again.

 

[orph]

it may be bad blocks on your HD

 

[b.lam]

I am not sure if this is a known issue and i am out of ideas as what to search for answers. I have a 3,1 Mac Pro that is running El Capitan for about 6 months now the computer will randomly lock up when i try to move files or delete something from the desktop. Most recently i tried to unmount a DMG file and the computer will just spin the beach ball. I will have to force turn off the computer. I can still launch apps and mess around on Safari but if i have to do anything on the file system it will not work. What could be causing this. I have recently replaced the HD that has my OS is on and upgraded ram. The HD is a SSD and the RAM is out of old servers which unfortunately are the 667 MHz speed.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you

How old is your SSD? I have a 5,1, bought in August 2010. At that time I also bought a 128 GB Crucial SSD as system drive. It died last year with similar symptoms.

At first there were only lockups in finder with the spinning wheel. Then one day, my MP was unable to boot. It took about 4-6 weeks (I don't remember) between the first symptoms and the death of the SSD. Luckily, I had a working TimeMachine backup, so nothing was lost. But I suggest, if your SSD is from the same time frame, then you should replace it.

BTW: you do not see any SMART errors on the drive and hard disk utility also did not see any problems.

 

[orph]

well if it's the SSD did you turn trim on and how much free room is there on it.
also may be an app in the background that's doing it, in the past google drive/chrome and blackbary app have given me hard crashes and lockups.
also you can run ram test like this app http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/

 

[pastrychef]

And in my own experience, El Capitan Finder is a bit problematic. My Finder occasionally hang after I download something. A simply re-launch can fix the issue temporarily. However, it may happen again anytime.

I've downloaded lots of stuff and it has never caused El Capitan's Finder to hang on any of my Macs or hackintosh. I think something else is wrong.

 

[h9826790]

I've downloaded lots of stuff and it has never caused El Capitan's Finder to hang on any of my Macs or hackintosh. I think something else is wrong.

I am sure not everyone hit the same bug, otherwise Apple should fix it even before release to public.

 

[Nitro1]

well if it's the SSD did you turn trim on and how much free room is there on it.
also may be an app in the background that's doing it, in the past google drive/chrome and blackbary app have given me hard crashes and lockups.
also you can run ram test like this app http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/

It has over half of the 128 free and i am not sure if i turn on trim. I will check tonight. Also it is only about 8-10 months old.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[orph]

in system info under sata/sata express it will tell you if you have trim on or off

 

[ActionableMango]

It wouldn't hurt to do a clean install, especially if you haven't done so in years.

 

[Nitro1]

It wouldn't hurt to do a clean install, especially if you haven't done so in years.

I recently did a clean install when i got the new drive and like i previously stated the problem still is there. But i can do a clean install again without much issue. Good idea,
thank you

Also the computer does not have TRIM on. Should it?

I had another crash/lockup today and i went in and did first aid on all my HDD. I had one that is not my OS drive but random files that initially indicated it could be failing. I restarted the computer and retest and no issue. Either way i have extra HDD on hand so i will remove it and put in a spare. But my question is could a HDD on the system but with no parts of the OS on it cause a lock up? I keep video files and my downloads folder on it. So when i close downloaded DMG files it would affect this drive. Hope that all makes sense.

Thank you all again for the help.

 

[orph]

one thing to mention is my sister had random gray screens on her laptop, after a long long time we found the problem the blackberry app (or it's background activity). the problem we had was id troubleshoot it, do a clean install & test to see no problems then gave it back to her ...
She then restored from her time machine (bringing back the bad app) which gave her random gray screens.
I did not realise what was going on (ie that she was reinstalling the problem after i handed back the laptop) as once a month id get the laptop from her and clean install see no problems hand it back and then like magic she has problems.

so simply if you do clean install then restore from a backup like time machine if the problem is in software it will bring the problem with it.
so far google drive,chrome,blackberry app have given me random hard crashes

or it may just be a bad GPU

 

[pastrychef]

Also the computer does not have TRIM on. Should it?

Trim is good. Years ago, when I got my first SSD, I was having trouble booting in to my system because Trim was not enabled. Tech support had me leave the system on the boot options menu (accessed by holding the Option key during power up) overnight so that the built in garbage collection could clean things up. Afterwards, I was able to boot again. Since then, I've always had Trim enabled and never encountered this problem again.

Additionally, I was told to uncheck the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in the Energy Saver system preference because that can prevent Trim from doing its job.

 

[ITguy2016]

I had another crash/lockup today and i went in and did first aid on all my HDD. I had one that is not my OS drive but random files that initially indicated it could be failing. I restarted the computer and retest and no issue. Either way i have extra HDD on hand so i will remove it and put in a spare. But my question is could a HDD on the system but with no parts of the OS on it cause a lock up? I keep video files and my downloads folder on it. So when i close downloaded DMG files it would affect this drive. Hope that all makes sense.

There's the possibility it could. When it comes to hardware issues anything is a possibility. It is for this reason the first step in troubleshooting a potential hardware issue is to remove all unnecessary hardware. If after doing so you're unable to replicate the problem then it lies in one of the items removed.

On the other hand if the system crashed there's the possibility the crash caused the file problems and the problem files are the casualty, and not a symptom of, the problem.

 

[Nitro1]

OK i am replacing the HDD in question right now and i will activate TRIM. If it still happens i will try a clean install.

Thanks all