New Mac Pro Freezes, they want me to reinstall OS?

[cydspal]

I got my new Mac Pro 9 days ago and yesterday it crashed for the second time (which is 2 more times than my pc has crashed in the past year). I have not installed anything new on it yet (software, ram) that could be causing this. The crash or freeze is happening when I wake it, it will boot up to a frozen screen, I can see my dashboard, wallpaper, etc., but nothing works, mouse is frozen, etc. Could the patch cable attached to my APC battery backup play any role?

Apple Care has me power down, unplug everything (monitor, APC, power cord), wait a minute and then power back up while holding command / Alt / R / P. They just sent me instructions on how to erase and install the operation system and if that does not work they say I will have to take it into a store and leave it. I don't want to erase yet, but this is really frustrating considering the investment (and that I believed the commercials that macs don't crash).

 

[Sun Baked]

Yes, any 3rd party USB devices can cause problems -- uplug all the other devices (USB/FW) and see if that works.

Sometimes, they don't wake up properly.

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However, the machine does consume a bit on wake from sleep -- so if the UPS is beeping unbalanced load on wake, that can also be an issue.

 

[tyr2]

I have a similar problem with my old Mac Pro. Sometimes the keyboard and mouse don't work when it's woken from sleep. Usually unplugging them and reinserting them does the trick. I think it's the USB hub in my DELL monitor that's actually causing the problem, at some point I'll get around to recabling everything.

 

[cydspal]

I forgot to mention that my keyboard and mouse are both bluetooth. Man, if its the damn $200 APC 1500 I bought, whats a guy to do?

 

[rds]

If resetting the SMC (unplugging everything and wait 15 seconds) and 'zapping' the PRAM (ctrl+opt+P+R at startup) didn't fix it, I'd get a replacement or at least try waking it from sleep without the UPS.

 

[Sun Baked]

I forgot to mention that my keyboard and mouse are both bluetooth. Man, if its the damn $200 APC 1500 I bought, whats a guy to do?

Just don't plug in the USB auto shutdown thingie.

As long as the power goes out and the thing is sleeping, the UPS will stay on a long time -- probably long enough to ride out the power problem.

If the machine is on, you likely will shut down when you want anyway.

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At 8-25W -- the machine will likely be good for a day or more.

 

[musicforme]

You aren't using Firefox 3 beta are you?

My machine locked up multiple times after installing Firefox 3 beta and leaving it running for long periods of times. I removed it and installed FF2 and my box hasn't froze since.

 

[cydspal]

I am using ffox 2.0.

 

[Reach]

My new Mac Pro froze like that today too, but it had nothing to do with sleep, as I have turned that off (The wake-from-sleep-restart issue happens a lot, so can't sleep).

Machine had been on for a while, then suddenly when I came to do some stuff it was frozen. So maybe it's not a sleep-issue.

 

[Sun Baked]

Look at the crash logs and the system logs to see what is happening.

Those should point you to it, I've been looking at these when tired -- so sorry I didn't say that before.

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Logs, logs, logs, before you start in on other stuff.

 

[geon]

I am using ffox 2.0.

I thought you said you didn't install any new software? I was starting to get some strange sleep issues and have been thinking about doing a clean install, but I unplugged some usbs, eyetv, webcam and deleted one of those temperature software things and so far it's been running normal. If it runs good for another day or two, I'll start to plug some back in and see what happens.