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MacGallant · Sep 1, 2005, 01:36 PM

I've got a MDD dual 867Mhz w/ Mac OSX Tiger 10.4.2 and I can only have an uptime of no more than 5 days (in which I put my Mac to sleep overnight every night I go to bed)
My Mac would act "funny" and programs like mail, safari, and system profiler wouldn't launch and would bounce for a freakin' long time on the dock when my uptime goes beyond 5 days, and my Mac can't shutdown or restart through software, forcing me to power down the Mac by pressing the power button and manually restarting it.

I just curious, for other MDD owners w/ Tiger who puts their Mac to sleep overnight, what is your uptime?

I could have an uptime of over 2 weeks without problems when I was on Mac OSX Panther.

mindwaves · Sep 1, 2005, 09:29 PM

I have the exact same Mac but with 768 MB RAM, and Radeon 8500 card and I'm experiencing none of the issues which you have had. The only issues I currently face is a long wake time, sometimes a long shutdown time, and the spinning cursor of death when waking up to the password promt going for a long while (but it eventually appears), and Spotlight always claiming the command-space key when I always put it back for Chinese input. Annoying bugs, but I think that they will resolve themselves when I get some time to do a re-install.

Rand · Sep 1, 2005, 09:54 PM

I've got a MDD dual 1.25ghz

With Tiger I now have extremely fast bootups, and slow shutdowns with month-long uptimes.
All of that is more based on software/settings etc. than hardware (unless you've got bad logic/memory).

If you really want to fix it all, a clean install of the OS will fix all that. Memory leaks in programs will hamper your uptime.

MacGallant · 12:42 AM

I experienced my "No 5 day uptime" problem during my Archive and Install of Tiger, but I still experienced it after I did a Erase & Install.

My guess was that it is a software problem (mainly a buggy Mac OSX Tiger), but now that you brought up the logic board going bad, how could I tell? I ran the Apple Hardware test cd and it didn't find anything wrong. My MDD is still under warranty so how could I get the AppleCare people to see if there is a hardware problem?

Let me explain myself more clearly:
I use and put my MDD to sleep multiple times a day, with a long sleep for the MDD at bedtime. I continue to do this without problems up until the 5th day with me waking my MDD from sleep and programs like Safari, Mail and System Profiler not lauching but bouncing on the dock for a long time and eventually stop bouncing, trying to reboot or shutdown through the menubar results in the spinning spiral of death, which forces me to press the power button to turn off the MDD as the only alternative option I could choose.

I Archive & Install over Panther and later did an Erase & Install but the problem persists, I'm just praying that it's a software issue that'll be fixed by Tiger 10.4.3.

Normally my MDD starts up and shuts down pretty fast so I'm not experiencing the problems you guys have, I just wish I could use and sleep my MDD for a week or more uptime. I booted into safe mode to flush out problems as a safety measure recently and also to see if it'll resolve to my "uptime" problem. I post back on my progress if all goes well or not. Currently, right now my uptime is 1 day 9 hours and 34 minutes.

thanks for your input, mindwaves & Rand!

SSharon · Sep 2, 2005, 02:22 AM

I never put my MDD to sleep and it runs fine for a month at a time. This most recent month though I have an odd problem where the screen saver doesn't turn on (even via hotcorner) and expose doesn't work (f-keys or corners), on top of that command tab doesn't work at all.

Rand · Sep 2, 2005, 02:54 PM

It might be possible the Harddrive is not waking from sleep. Sometimes when waking from sleep the OS is immediately responsive, but opening apps takes a while as the HD has to spool up. Usually not more than 10 seconds or so. And then once spun up, it works fine. That could also (not) be triggered by software (glitch in the OS).

The apple CHUD tools (check versiontracker) have diagnostics for the motherboard and memory (though if it was the mobo you'd have other symptoms.)

I'd check for a memory leak. Check your memory allotment every 12 hours without (dock) apps running and see if it constantly increases. If so, try and find the (background) app that's leaking, shut it off, and check again. That's generally the most common problem for stuff like this.

hope you find a solution. 10.4.3 should be out here soon.

MacGallant · 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by Rand

It might be possible the Harddrive is not waking from sleep. Sometimes when waking from sleep the OS is immediately responsive, but opening apps takes a while as the HD has to spool up. Usually not more than 10 seconds or so. And then once spun up, it works fine. That could also (not) be triggered by software (glitch in the OS).

The apple CHUD tools (check versiontracker) have diagnostics for the motherboard and memory (though if it was the mobo you'd have other symptoms.)

I'd check for a memory leak. Check your memory allotment every 12 hours without (dock) apps running and see if it constantly increases. If so, try and find the (background) app that's leaking, shut it off, and check again. That's generally the most common problem for stuff like this.

hope you find a solution. 10.4.3 should be out here soon.

Thanks for the info, Rand!

About my HD, it's a Apple OEM 80GB HD-- the infamous IBM "DeathStar".

And about memory,
My free ram seems to shrink a little gradually overtime, while my virtual memory flucuates up and down.
Today when I woke it up for use, my free ram drop about 200 mb and my virtual memory was at 4.04 GB with just the SysStat widget and the Weather widget running after running Safari, iTunes, and Mail, and quitting those apps after use, the virtual memory dropped to 3.79 GB. . . hm. . strange. . .

Edit: I wonder if Disk Warrior could have something to do with this, because when I was on Panther when OSX 10.3.9 update came out, I ran DW after a 2nd reboot and it messed up Panther, forcing me to Archive & Install Panther. With Tiger, I ran the updated Disk Warrrior 3.03 two reboots after Tiger installation.

Another wierd thing I forget to mention: usually a Mac under OSX has the name for example: "John Doe's Computer," but I renamed it something like "John Doe's PowerMac G4." When I did an Erase & Install, some how the name was retained.

EDIT#2: Hey, Rand, when you mentioned of logic mobo problems and other symptoms, could you elaborate more on the other symptoms, so I could see and know if my MDD has them. I'll like to thank you in advance for your help, Rand

MacGallant · Sep 4, 2005, 02:03 AM

I've notice a gradual moderate memory leak, with my used ram going up and my free ram going down and also my virtual memory behaving sporadically and growing larger and larger.

After a session with Toast 6 Titianium my free ram became 134 MB and my Virtual memory becoming about 4 GB with all apps closed except for the SysStat widget and the weather widget. I have 257 pageouts. My uptime was 3 Days and 12 hours and 2 minutes.

I've decided to use Cocktail and delete my Virtual Memory Swap file to see if that helps. Unfortunately I'm going to restart my system and start my test of going 5+days of uptime (w/ sleeping the Mac and average usage) alll over again. wish me luck guys

MacGallant · Sep 4, 2005, 02:37 PM

I don't know if this means anything, but I ran Apple Hardware Test CD and nothing wrong came up, my MDD passed all the tests. I'm not having any instability problems.

If I were having mobo problems, what are some of the symptoms Rand, that you briefly spoke of? I'm asking out because I'm curious and for peace of mind. Thanks in advance.

Currently my uptime is about 12 hours, with me sleeping the MDD overnight yesterday when I went to bed at around 12 AM Pacific Time.