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teh tenk · Jul 19, 2003, 11:56 AM

I love music. Being a poor college student, I love not paying for music. So I have a large collection of mp3s. Now, I bought an iMac with the money I made from working this summer...it was a new 17'', really nice. However, the audio would skip or burp when the processor would get bogged down. This really annoyed me.

So I sold the iMac, and having a surplus of money (save it? pbbt.) from my job, I ordered a 1.8 G5. My toys are expensive I guess.

I really doubt that a SATA drive with an 8mb cache would skip audio...but I'm still worried.

To those with Powermac G4s: Does your audio ever burp in iTunes due to activity?

Thanks guys, it's just that when I drop 2,250 dollars on something...

Kenneth · Jul 19, 2003, 12:21 PM

My primary Mac is the DP 1.25Ghz PowerMac G4 (FW800), iTunes never skips while playing MP3, CD, or AAC. I dropped/ripped all my music to a separated hard drive.

iTunes 3 (Mac OS X) rarely skipped on my iMac 333 either, I assumed there was some problem with your 17" iMac.

Since iTunes is optimized for velocity engine (aka G4 and G5) and multiple processors, so a dual processors Mac can benefit iTunes such as ripping CD.. (oops.. you didn't buy any CD)

Link · Jul 19, 2003, 01:03 PM

Yeah, I actually find this one VERY weird because I love my music too and use itunes all the time, here the window manager has frozen, crashed, whatever, you name it.. the music doesn't stop until the mp3 player process is killed....

or the window manager.

DeathToWindows · Jul 19, 2003, 05:00 PM

can't make mine skip...

BrunoBruin · Jul 19, 2003, 05:26 PM

How much RAM did you have in your iMac? If it was the stock 256, you might get bogged down.

awcopus · Jul 21, 2003, 12:04 AM

If a G5 can't handle smooth playback from iTunes....short AAPL now.

Stock tip: don't short AAPL now.

Cory Bauer · Jul 22, 2003, 07:44 PM

teh tenk, I've got the original 800Mhz 15" G4 iMac, and I've never had my iTunes skip (512MB RAM). My mom has a Graphite 400Mhz G3 iMac with 256MB of RAM, and her iTunes doesn't skip. I think your iMac probably needed it's OS reloaded or gone in for repairs, or your had some 3rd party software messing up your iMac. I've simultaneously played iTunes, worked in Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, and DVD Studio Pro, all while Adobe After Effects was rendering in the background, on my iMac without any hiccups in my music. There was something wrong with your iMac.

Having said that, any computer Apple currently sells should be able to run without iTunes skipping under intense processor use. Sticking with Apple's stock amount of RAM could cause stuttering though, I suppose. I say 512MB minimum. Order some extra from Crucial and install it yourself when your G5 arrives.

tafticus · Jul 24, 2003, 04:41 PM

I had a similar problem. Actually, on my 17" iMac, iTunes would randomly crash, and sometimes it would simply quit all applications and log me out entirely. (Usually about once every 8 hours or so...the audio would always stop playing a few seconds before the crash, and if I stopped the music in iTunes really quickly, it would prevent the crash.)

I think there was something wrong with my iMac, as other applications liked to crash, and I got a kernel panic every few days. I got rid of the bugger and I have a 1.6 G5 on order. Nice display on the iMac, but good riddance to crashes.

Arkham_c · Jul 25, 2003, 08:59 AM

Originally posted by teh tenk:
However, the audio would skip or burp when the processor would get bogged down. This really annoyed me.

I think you had a hardware or software problem. My machines are all slower (B&W G3/350, iBook/600, now-sold G4/450), and none of them ever skip on audio, even when running other things.

I would have recommended some tests before sending back the first machine, but oh well.