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USB 2 becoming 1.1, and lazy processors!

B

big_malk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Recently, when I open EyeTV, I get an alert saying that my Cinergy Hybrid XS is connected to a USB 1 port and can't operate, and that I should connect it to a USB 2 port. It is, and always has been, plugged into one of the built in USB 2 port on the back of my Mac Pro. A restart solves this problem, but it regularly happens, and I have no idea why.

Also, I've previously discussed on here that every now and then my processor activity would drop to very low levels for a second or two, then jump up again. I always have folding@home running, and recently I've noticed that instead of being around 75% active, and dropping now and then, it's is almost always about 80-90% idle, and now and then jumps up to a reasonable level, then immediately drops again. Restarting makes no difference to this.

I don't know if there's any connections between these two issues, other than their appearing at around the same time. Any advice on these issues would be greatly appreciated 🙂
 
my MBP seems to have a similar problem with any USB2.0 devices on the left hand USB slot... they only seem to run at 1.1 speeds!!!
how odd!!


your F@H would be a setting.... your processor usage is probably set down for the program
 
Does your system.log point to any issues? If you open the Console app (Applications/Utilities/Console). Do you see any warnings when you plug in the device? Around the time it reported as dropping to USB1, do you see any activity in the log?

I've seen this under Windows / Linux, but not OS X. Usually it can point to a faulty cable, USB port or device. Sometimes fried USB ports exhibit this behavior - it happened in Windows on my old iPod.

This might have no relevance to your problem, hopefully the logs will be more explicit 🙂
 
Hmm actually there are things about the folding@home in the console... a selection of console log entries...

27/08/2008 10:43:47 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:47] Completed 0 out of 500000 steps (0 percent)
27/08/2008 10:43:50 /usr/sbin/ocspd[90014] starting
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [cli_1]: aborting job:
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] Fatal e
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] rror in MPI_Sendrecv: Error message texts are not
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] available
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]0:Return code = 0, signaled with Segmentation fault
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]1:Return code = 1
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]2:Return code = 0, signaled with Segmentation fault
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]3:Return code = 0, signaled with Segmentation fault
27/08/2008 10:43:52 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:52] CoreStatus = 1 (1)
27/08/2008 10:43:52 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:52] Client-core communications error: ERROR 0x1
27/08/2008 10:43:52 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:52] This is a sign of more serious problems, shutting down.
27/08/2008 10:43:52 com.apple.launchd[1] (edu.stanford.folding.client[90004]) Exited with exit code: 255

This has being going on for a few jobs, so it doesn't seem to be a problem with a dodgy work packet. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling everything.

I can't see anything in the console that might relate to a USB problem, but I don't really know what I'm looking for?
 
big_malk said:
Hmm actually there are things about the folding@home in the console... a selection of console log entries...

27/08/2008 10:43:47 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:47] Completed 0 out of 500000 steps (0 percent)
27/08/2008 10:43:50 /usr/sbin/ocspd[90014] starting
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [cli_1]: aborting job:
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] Fatal e
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] rror in MPI_Sendrecv: Error message texts are not
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] available
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]0:Return code = 0, signaled with Segmentation fault
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]1:Return code = 1
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]2:Return code = 0, signaled with Segmentation fault
27/08/2008 10:43:51 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [0]3:Return code = 0, signaled with Segmentation fault
27/08/2008 10:43:52 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:52] CoreStatus = 1 (1)
27/08/2008 10:43:52 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:52] Client-core communications error: ERROR 0x1
27/08/2008 10:43:52 edu.stanford.folding.client[90004] [09:43:52] This is a sign of more serious problems, shutting down.
27/08/2008 10:43:52 com.apple.launchd[1] (edu.stanford.folding.client[90004]) Exited with exit code: 255

This has being going on for a few jobs, so it doesn't seem to be a problem with a dodgy work packet. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling everything.

I can't see anything in the console that might relate to a USB problem, but I don't really know what I'm looking for?
Click to expand...


Interesting....
You buy a decent computer, so other can use it and you pay for electricity and it's maintenance.
I'm assuming "edu.stanford" is stanford university....

🙄
 
UltraNEO* said:
Interesting....
You buy a decent computer, so other can use it and you pay for electricity and it's maintenance.
I'm assuming "edu.stanford" is stanford university....

🙄
Click to expand...

Yip yip 🙂

I couldn't find anything about uninstalling it in any of the apps or preference panes or instructions on their website, just instructions for windows 🙁
I used AppZapper and deleted everything I could find, then reinstalled it... it constantly crashes just as before 🙁
 
big_malk said:
Yip yip 🙂

I couldn't find anything about uninstalling it in any of the apps or preference panes or instructions on their website, just instructions for windows 🙁
I used AppZapper and deleted everything I could find, then reinstalled it... it constantly crashes just as before 🙁
Click to expand...

Yeah it's a pain:

To completely uninstall, you want to delete these 4 things...

1. /Applications/Folding@home.app/
2. /Library/LaunchDaemons/Folding@home.plist
3. /Library/PreferencePanes/Folding@home.prefPane/
4. ~/Library/Folding@home/


I've had a look through various forums, and by and large this error seems to be a slew of bad WU's or the beta client is hosed...

Can you try the above, and let us know what happens. Plus the version of folding@home you're running...
 
^ i just tried out the SMP method using Terminal and its pretty easy to set up. then the only files on your Mac are in ~/Library/Folding@home. it also makes you appreciate the FreeBSD underpinnings of OS X watching all the crazy text scrolling thru Terminal and seeing 4 .exe processes fill up your CPU.
 
northerngit said:
Yeah it's a pain:

To completely uninstall, you want to delete these 4 things...

1. /Applications/Folding@home.app/
2. /Library/LaunchDaemons/Folding@home.plist
3. /Library/PreferencePanes/Folding@home.prefPane/
4. ~/Library/Folding@home/


I've had a look through various forums, and by and large this error seems to be a slew of bad WU's or the beta client is hosed...

Can you try the above, and let us know what happens. Plus the version of folding@home you're running...
Click to expand...

Thanks, that seems to have cured it. Well, the activity is still going up and down needlessly, but it's always done that now n then and that seems to be another problem, there are no console entries about it, so I'll see how it goes.

northerngit said:
Does your system.log point to any issues? If you open the Console app (Applications/Utilities/Console). Do you see any warnings when you plug in the device? Around the time it reported as dropping to USB1, do you see any activity in the log?

I've seen this under Windows / Linux, but not OS X. Usually it can point to a faulty cable, USB port or device. Sometimes fried USB ports exhibit this behavior - it happened in Windows on my old iPod.

This might have no relevance to your problem, hopefully the logs will be more explicit 🙂
Click to expand...

I don't think it is, and hope it's not, a fried USB port or faulty device/cable. I'm using it now with no problems, in the same USB port as always. But just earlier today it gave the USB 1.1 error before I restarted. So is this sounding like a software problem to you lot?
 
Dude... can i write you a application, so you'll share your CPU's, memory and possibly scratch disc via xgrid or something, while i try crunch come million of triangles? You can pay for the machine's power and maintenance to...

JK

Seriously.. why would someone wanna share their beloved machines with some institute whom will probably give you nothing in return and can afford mainframes and supercomputers from the student fees they charge?? at least they should help you pay for the electricity bill, that would be fair!! IMO. 🙂
 
UltraNEO* said:
Dude... can i write you a application, so you'll share your CPU's, memory and possibly scratch disc via xgrid or something, while i try crunch come million of triangles? You can pay for the machine's power and maintenance to...

JK

Seriously.. why would someone wanna share their beloved machines with some institute whom will probably give you nothing in return and can afford mainframes and supercomputers from the student fees they charge?? at least they should help you pay for the electricity bill, that would be fair!! IMO. 🙂
Click to expand...

Well right now, I'm just watching some TV, downloading stuff in the background, general web browsing and making a website... hardly taxing my Mac Pro at the moment, so why not share some of my wasted CPU time for a good cause?
If you read their website you'll see their equivalent computing power is far greater than they could have for the cost of using distributing computing.
My computers running anyway + they need computing power for a good cause = ... donating some of my computing power? 😛

Edit :

In return they may give me some advances in medical expertise, which may or may not benefit me directly, but if it saves the life of someone you know in the future... you won't need to thank me 😉
 
big_malk said:
Well right now, I'm just watching some TV, downloading stuff in the background, general web browsing and making a website... hardly taxing my Mac Pro at the moment, so why not share some of my wasted CPU time for a good cause?
If you read their website you'll see their equivalent computing power is far greater than they could have for the cost of using distributing computing.
My computers running anyway + they need computing power for a good cause = ... donating some of my computing power? 😛
Click to expand...

ok.. point taken. but I'm in Japan!! I'm not about to share my processing power with an institute outside my country. besides... having them use my connection might slow down my torrents. 😀
 
UltraNEO* said:
ok.. point taken. but I'm in Japan!! I'm not about to share my processing power with an institute outside my country. besides... having them use my connection might slow down my torrents. 😀
Click to expand...

I'm in the UK, their outside my country 😛 Well, my torrents are going about 10K/s on my 20MB connection 🙁 I never seem to get fast torrents 🙁 Anyway, it only uses your bandwidth once a day or so when it uploads results and downloads a new word unit. You do it 😀
 
I bought my mac pro July 4th and have bad problems with getting USB2 connectivity out of the front ports from day 1. I'm going to run a hardware test but I don't think it test this sort of thing.
Makes connecting the iPhone a real hassle. This is my first new computer ever and I'm less than thrilled about this. Love mac but man...
 
prograham said:
I bought my mac pro July 4th and have bad problems with getting USB2 connectivity out of the front ports from day 1. I'm going to run a hardware test but I don't think it test this sort of thing.
Makes connecting the iPhone a real hassle. This is my first new computer ever and I'm less than thrilled about this. Love mac but man...
Click to expand...

Oh thats not good. Do they just work intermittently and randomly, or is there any trick you've found to getting them to work when you need them?
 
nope. They are USB 1 for all purposes. I don't bother with them for my video editing because it's not worth the time and bother.
 
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