Intel MacPro problems: Any ideas

[LaloGS]

We recently purchased a top of the line Intel MacPro Quad, running OS X Tiger 10.4.10.

It has 9 GB of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, and 3-750 GB hard drives RAIDed together to form one large storage device. The reason for all this was so my partner can write his musical scores for the full symphony orchestra and have play back speeds that are real time, and enough storage space to hold large scores. The only non OS X Tiger software on the machine presently, is the music notation program Finale, and a conversion program to convert AIFF files to MP3. From the day we got it home, there were aspects of the OS X that didn't work. For example, we could not get it to load a personal photo on the desktop. We were restricted to the available Mac provided desktop looks.

A few days ago, there was a kind of crash, but my partner doesn't know how to describe what happened. He just restarted the computer, and it came back up and he continued to work in Finale.

We've noticed since then, there seems to be a gradual degradation taking place within the OS X itself, for instance, various smart key functions have stopped working. Various items in Finale have stopped working, and the repositioned dialog boxes in Finale, don't hold their place, but seem to jump unexpectedly to new locations on the screen.

So. . . I cleaned the hard drive today, and reloaded Tiger. This action actually removed all the resident software, including Finale, and the printer driver (Epson Stylus CX5600).

When the OS X came back up it seemed to be OK. But, when I tried to reinstall the Epson driver from the provided Epson disk, the install program for the Epson does not act as it should with the OS X. In fact, the Epson can not be installed now.

Additionally we've not been able to get the keyboard smart keys to function at all, even though, we checked the same international symbols for the keyboard we are using (Spanish). For instance, to type the @ on a Spanish keyboard you hold down the alt key, and type the number 2. Now, all we get when we do that even with Spanish ISO selected and showing in the menu bar, all we get is a number 2.

We plan on taking the machine to the Mac shop we bought it from, to have diagnostics run on it, but any ideas any of you Mac gurus out there, will be appreciated.

BTW, I've owned Macs since there was a Lisa, but I've never worked on an Intel Mac. I use Tiger on my eMac without problems.

 

[davy]

hold down shift as you're booting to get a verbose printout of the startup and look for any error warnings.

the next time something happens: look at your machine logs for some indication of what it might be. click on the apple menu > click on about this mac > click on more info on the window that pops up > look into your logs. post the results here.

i suspect what your hubby ran into was a kernel panic; which was common in the macbook pro's a couple of months ago; but since yours is a mac pro, i'm not entirely certain.

also: if you have diskwarrior, run a scan and see if it gives your permissions craziness.

 

[justgofaster]

We recently purchased a top of the line Intel MacPro Quad, running OS X Tiger 10.4.10.

It has 9 GB of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, and 3-750 GB hard drives RAIDed together to form one large storage device.

You really need a more powerful system. This one is for babies. 9 GB RAM? What were you thinking?

So. . . I cleaned the hard drive today...

You should NEVER clean your hard drive. The soap suds damage the platters.

 

[LaloGS]

hold down shift as you're booting to get a verbose printout of the startup and look for any error warnings.

the next time something happens: look at your machine logs for some indication of what it might be. click on the apple menu > click on about this mac > click on more info on the window that pops up > look into your logs. post the results here.

i suspect what your hubby ran into was a kernel panic; which was common in the macbook pro's a couple of months ago; but since yours is a mac pro, i'm not entirely certain.

also: if you have diskwarrior, run a scan and see if it gives your permissions craziness.

Thanks Davy. I'll give that a try and get back to you.

You really need a more powerful system. This one is for babies. 9 GB RAM? What were you thinking?

We followed the reccomendations of the pros using Finale, so the finished orchestral pieces would play in realtime.



You should NEVER clean your hard drive. The soap suds damage the platters.

I know, but I didn't use soap, I used vinegar. It still works, but the Mac smells lake salad dressing has been poured into it.

 

[LaloGS]

hold down shift as you're booting to get a verbose printout of the startup and look for any error warnings.

the next time something happens: look at your machine logs for some indication of what it might be. click on the apple menu > click on about this mac > click on more info on the window that pops up > look into your logs. post the results here.

i suspect what your hubby ran into was a kernel panic; which was common in the macbook pro's a couple of months ago; but since yours is a mac pro, i'm not entirely certain.

also: if you have diskwarrior, run a scan and see if it gives your permissions craziness.

Hey Davy, tried your ideas, but the Mac Pro comes up clean. not a single error message, and diagnostics show nothing amiss. But there are still serious problems. I'm beginning to think we might have a faulty Intel processor. Some things are beginning to come up one time, and then vanish. For instance, iTunes, will pull in the radio streams one time, but not the next time. Finale the music notation program installed, sometimes recognizes the player, and works fine, the next time it says the player plugin is missing. Finale's preference folder comes and goes without any logic, and we can't get the keyboard to type the @ on the Mac Pro no matter what we do.

The scan of permissions also shows nothing out of order.

Any other ideas?

 

[davy]

what diagnostics?

are you seeing any kind of pattern?

 

[LaloGS]

what diagnostics?

are you seeing any kind of pattern?

The Mac Pro Intel version of Tiger has a built in diagnostic program, available under the About this Mac. It ran several kinds of diagnostic passes on both hardware and software, but all came up clean.

And no, there seems to be no logic or pattern as yet as to what is happening. Sometimes things are there, and then a moment later they are gone. Sometimes things work and then the next time you need it it doesn't.

The worrysome fact that I installed the Epson printer driver without problems the first time, and it was easy and did most of the work to install itself. Now, even though the software for the Epson says the software was installed successfully, the printer can't be mounted in the printer list, and the computer doesn't recognize the printer. All of this equipment is less than 3 months old.

The plan is to take the CPU back to the store to see if they can find the problem, and failing that, to call Apple's service to see if they can work through the problem or at least figure out what is causing this to happen. I'm really thinking it is a processor problem now. Maybe a good Mac tech, will have some experience with this problem and know what to do to fix it.

 

[andysayshi]

Hey Lalo, taking your gear to the service guy is the best step at this point. Be sure to take along all the required software so he can see all the issues for himself if necessary.

If you get no reliable result, ask the dealer if you can spend a couple of hours with an equivalent machine in-store, and run through the entire install routine on that machine.

If the same problems occur, you can presume this is a software issue, and perhaps do a clean install and trial each software component individually to narrow down the fault.

If the store machine works perfectly, time to ask the service guy for a refurb or replacement unit for your own hardware.

After our PMs relating to Finale, I'm concerned that perhaps the Finale software could be the problem. Please keep us posted.

 

[tornZorak]

Taking a guess, this sounds like a memory problem. I don't believe the Mac pro has ECC memory which means if one of your memory DIMMS has a bad bit (or three) it would not be detected nor corrected (that's what ECC memory does).

Typically memory problems can cause all kinds of odd behavior because the OS and applications don't use exactly the same memory each time the computer is started. As such sometimes applications will just fail or the data for an application will be all screwed up (but fine when restarted and the app is in different memory).

If your up for it I would suggest removing all but the first 1 or 2 GB of memory (i.e. DIMM 0/1). Why this DIMM slot? The OS does not appear unstable (i.e., you haven't reported much in the way of kernel panic, etc). This implies that if it's a memory problem it in the upper banks of memory. If you restart and all looks fine then one of your DIMM's has gone bad.

BTW - historically the diagnostic programs have not been reliable in testing memory for some odd reason that I don't understand.

Just a suggestion.

 

[LaloGS]

I just got off the phone with tech support in Cupertino and after hearing all the problems with the Intel machine, the tech guy agreed it had to be hardware related. Since he couldn't get the computer to do even the simple task of recognizing the printer. We'll be hauling it to the local service tech tomorrow (it's a national holiday in Colombia today) to see what can be done for it. I'll keep you posted as to the outcome.

Thanks everybody!!!

 

[jb63]

Glad to hear you took it to Apple especially since the machine is a few months old. Did you get AppleCare? If you did make them give you a new machine. I've been to the Apple Store on Long Island and have seen and heard people make just enough noise that they are happy to replace your bad machine. Afterall, they want happy customers to tell others to get a Mac.

Nice configuration of the machine. Check for software updates (sys 10.4.11 and or Leopard are both out) and for firmware updates at Apple.com and also for Epson.

 

[sheep]

If you are thinking of Leopard, hold off until the new disk warrior is released as V4 will break Leopard. It might be out by now. I got side tracked after removing Techtool Pro eDrive per Micromat's procedure. Thats the last I saw of that drive. Nothing could bring it back. Even Warrior thru up its hands and said this disk directory is too severely damaged.

That drive got screwed up when i plugged my f%^$#&g Sony Erikkson phone in and it wouldn't mount so I unplugged it. Had to use Warrior to get it going again.

Thats history now. I have a new pair of 320 gig Hitachi's and an old IBM 40 gig. My old 60 is waiting to join the 40. Not that I need it.

Just a reminder guys. Backup everything every night. Every week doesnt cut it.

 

[LaloGS]

Well, the Mac Pro is being serviced by a Mac tech—they've had it for 3 business days, and we haven't heard a word yet. The irony is, it's nothing but little things going wrong, like keyboard commands, and we discovered when the Tech was looking it over, that they are just moving around, for instance, the @ isn't working (alt, 2 ) is supposed to produce the @ on the Spanish ISO keyboard, but it moved to (shift 2). No explanation from the tech.

Also, since the machine was purchased specifically to write classical music scores using the Finale program, we need Finale to work. It doesn't want to even allow a note to be written, nor will it recognize the Kontact2 player that comes with Finale, although we can physically see it where it is supposed to be located. A real puzzle.

Thanks for all your ideas and suggestions, I'll let you know as this drama progresses. BTW, after having owned and used extensively 15 different Macs, this is the first one that has ever given me problems.

 

[nuttsy1la]

Sorry to hear that you had issue with the MacPro. My first intel tower had issues as well. I eventually narrowed it down to of all things memory! (I had 8GB), one single memory chip was bad but never showed up in any error messages. Once I found it the machine ran flawlessly! To be honest my tower runs amazing with 10.5, if you have no upgraded I would do it, but do a fresh install not an upgrade (erase the drive after backing up the files). I don't know why the towers seem to have issues --- the only mac I have owned to ever give me one too, the G5 was a beast. *sigh*

I hope they get it fixed for you. Beautiful machine by the way, I'm jealous!

 

[LaloGS]

Sorry to hear that you had issue with the MacPro. My first intel tower had issues as well. I eventually narrowed it down to of all things memory! (I had 8GB), one single memory chip was bad but never showed up in any error messages. Once I found it the machine ran flawlessly! To be honest my tower runs amazing with 10.5, if you have no upgraded I would do it, but do a fresh install not an upgrade (erase the drive after backing up the files). I don't know why the towers seem to have issues --- the only mac I have owned to ever give me one too, the G5 was a beast. *sigh*

I hope they get it fixed for you. Beautiful machine by the way, I'm jealous!

Yeah, that is what the Mac tech at Cupertino thought it probably was. We told the tech where we bought it here in Bogotá, but, we are still waiting to hear. They've had it a week.

We are delaying upgrading to Leopard, because of issues with Finale, which lags behind somewhat. They only caught up with Tiger a few months ago. I'll probably upgrade my eMac to Leopard when we can get it here in Colombia. They tell us it will be available early in December.

 

[sheep]

I'll probably upgrade my eMac to Leopard when we can get it here in Colombia. They tell us it will be available early in December.

Make sure the eMac is 867 GHz or faster. Any models introduced after Oct. '03 are fast enough. Although you can fool Leopard install disk in order to install on a slower computer, you will have to go thru the same procedure with every system update etc. Now that Leopard has released 10.5.1 many issues have gone away. You may want to wait for Disk Warrior for Leopard as the current V4. will break your hard drive.

I will switch when I move my contacts from Now contact into Apple's Address Book.app which is a job I don't look forward to, but not before I get my hot little hands on D.W.

 

[andysayshi]

We are delaying upgrading to Leopard, because of issues with Finale, which lags behind somewhat. They only caught up with Tiger a few months ago. I'll probably upgrade my eMac to Leopard when we can get it here in Colombia. They tell us it will be available early in December.

Very wise, Lalo. Keep away from Leopard until all your other issues are resolved - no point in adding extra hay to the haystack at this point!

Having said that, I've put Leopard on my old G4 laptop and it works a treat.

 

[LaloGS]

Very wise, Lalo. Keep away from Leopard until all your other issues are resolved - no point in adding extra hay to the haystack at this point!

Having said that, I've put Leopard on my old G4 laptop and it works a treat.

Hey Andy. Glad to hear you like Leopard. I guess it's good it is delayed here in Colombia. Give it some time to settle in and give the Mac programmers time to clear any bugs that may turn up.

BTW, I talked with the Mac Tech who is working on our Mac Pro yesterday, and they have replaced two memory chips that were not reading clean, and have ordered a replacement keyboard, (being cautious). We don't think the keyboard was faulty, but the tech was stumped by why it was doing what it was doing. (transposing hot keys). We have at least another 8 or 10 days for he new keyboard to clear customs so we still don't have the Mac Pro in hand. I just hope the replaced chips will correct the problems with Finale. Although at this point in time, and due to our interaction with Finale support, we think they may not be as forthcoming about their problems with Intel macs as they could be. They seem to be clueless about Mac computers in general.

We still haven't resolved with Finale support why there are both Mac screens, and the occasional Windows screens resident in the program. Their support insists that is not possible, and short of taking the Mac Pro to Minnesota to show them, it doesn't look like it will be resolved. My theory is that since they are obviously not Mac oriented programmers, and seem to be pretty sloppy in their programing techniques, the Intel Mac can sometimes read both Mac and Windows as the program is installing thereby creating a highbred version of Finale after installation. Any thoughts on this?

 

[sheep]

My theory is that since they are obviously not Mac oriented programmers, and seem to be pretty sloppy in their programing techniques, the Intel Mac can sometimes read both Mac and Windows as the program is installing thereby creating a highbred version of Finale after installation. Any thoughts on this?

Do you have Parallels installed?

Would it be possible for you to erase and clean install your OS and Finale when you get it back if it is still doing weird things?

 

[LaloGS]

Do you have Parallels installed?

Would it be possible for you to erase and clean install your OS and Finale when you get it back if it is still doing weird things?

Yeah Sheep, all that has been done several times, once even following step by step telephone instructions by a MAC tech in Cupertino. It didn't work.

As I've said in other posts, I've been on Macs since they were first available, I'm not afraid of the machine or the OS. I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure this out.

We got a call this morning from the Mac Tech here in Bogotá who is working on the machine, and he now says its ready after telling me yesterday it would be a week more. We'll pick it up tomorrow morning and see how it works. I'll post what we find.