Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Ozmodiar · Feb 26, 2005, 01:56 AM

Hey everyone,

I work in an office at school that does publicity for various student organizations. Among our computers is a ~1-year-old G5 that freezes on a consistent basis. By freeze I mean it just stops: the fan keeps running at whatever speed it was running at, but drives spin down and you can't even move the mouse. This is obviously frustrating for the art staff (its their G5) because they could be in the middle of a project and have to start over if they haven't been saving regularly.

Basically, I'm wondering if you guys think this is a software issue or a bad Mac. I'm hoping it's software. I'm going to reinstall 10.3 on it next week (it was recently reinstalled but the admin didn't do a clean install) and see if that does anything. I don't know the specs on the machine right now, I can post those tomorrow if that will help diagnose the problem.

On a side note, we had a new tricked out G5 delivered today to replace the old Quicksilver I'd been using. I'd never seen anything so beautiful when I opened the box

.

Detrius · Feb 26, 2005, 03:23 AM

OS X really should never freeze. If the mouse stops moving, you most likely have a hardware problem. The obvious thing to check is the mouse.

Next though, I would run the Apple Hardware Test that came with the machine--a bunch. Statistically, you likely have bad RAM. However, it's possible the RAM needs to be reseated. You may have a bad logic board or processor as well.

Run the AHT BEFORE reseating the RAM. You want to be able to verify results.

http://www.memtestosx.org is another one. I haven't had a chance to use it enough yet to see how reliable it is.

Ozmodiar · Feb 26, 2005, 04:07 AM

Well it's not just the mouse. Keyboard controls also stop and if iTunes is playing it just keeps stuttering.

I'll try the hardware test tomorrow.

Thanks.

zerostar · Feb 26, 2005, 07:12 PM

By chance is it a single 1.8? I have seen several that had this exact problem, sounds like a bad logic board.

Check out hardware test, but even that didn't find it in my experience.

osxisfun · Feb 26, 2005, 07:22 PM

also, if possible go back to the standard ram to see to see if the ram is bad.

Big Mac · Feb 26, 2005, 08:56 PM

Yeah, you should essentially never see a freeze (in which even the pointer stops moving) in OS X. You'll occasionally encounter a can't-wake-from-sleep crash, and rarely you'll get a kernel panic. Certainly not a freeze, though. (OS X used to have nearly-fatally flawed PPP software that could make the pointer appear to freeze, but after a few minutes everything would return to normal. Since that was not an actual freeze the rule still applies.)

goMac · Feb 26, 2005, 09:40 PM

Originally posted by Ozmodiar:
Well it's not just the mouse. Keyboard controls also stop and if iTunes is playing it just keeps stuttering.

I'll try the hardware test tomorrow.

Thanks.

Thats a kernal panic. Try reinstalling OS X. If that doesn't fix it, you have a hardware problem.

+ spiral + · Feb 27, 2005, 10:59 AM

It isn't always a hardware problem. I had my powerbook for two years and it would freeze quite often when doing heavy tasks. Since one of the RAM ports was bad (known problem) i just lived with it until i could send it in. Recently i reinstalled OS X by zeroing the hard drive and i have had no crashes or freezes. I would try to erase and install from the most recent copy of OS X you have (ie. doing a bunch of upgrades may cause the same issues: installing 10.2 and then 10.3 update, then 1 point update vs. just installing 10.3.7 and 1 point update)

I had similar problems with my G5 but a software update fixed it along the way. Either way, good luck!

Detrius · Feb 27, 2005, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by + spiral +:
It isn't always a hardware problem. I had my powerbook for two years and it would freeze quite often when doing heavy tasks. Since one of the RAM ports was bad (known problem) i just lived with it until i could send it in. Recently i reinstalled OS X by zeroing the hard drive and i have had no crashes or freezes. I would try to erase and install from the most recent copy of OS X you have (ie. doing a bunch of upgrades may cause the same issues: installing 10.2 and then 10.3 update, then 1 point update vs. just installing 10.3.7 and 1 point update)

I had similar problems with my G5 but a software update fixed it along the way. Either way, good luck!

I would like to point out the fact that zeroing the hard drive made a difference proves that it WAS a hardware problem. In fact, this points that you have a hard drive that is on its way out, as new bad blocks have showed up. Your hard drive is unreliable, and you should consider replacing it (or at the very least keeping a consistent backup).

+ spiral + · Feb 27, 2005, 03:52 PM

Originally posted by Detrius:
I would like to point out the fact that zeroing the hard drive made a difference proves that it WAS a hardware problem. In fact, this points that you have a hard drive that is on its way out, as new bad blocks have showed up. Your hard drive is unreliable, and you should consider replacing it (or at the very least keeping a consistent backup).

That's good to know, although i had never installed a fresh copy of OS X, this was the first time. Does that matter? It was the original version taht shipped with the PowerBook. Thanks for the tip. I will probably replace it anyhow to be safe. Thanks.

Detrius · Mar 1, 2005, 12:12 AM

Originally posted by + spiral +:
That's good to know, although i had never installed a fresh copy of OS X, this was the first time. Does that matter? It was the original version taht shipped with the PowerBook. Thanks for the tip. I will probably replace it anyhow to be safe. Thanks.

Well... it's possible that the bad RAM socket had corrupted your OS install at some point, but the only way that zeroing the data makes a difference is if it successfully maps out bad blocks--which implies a hardware problem. The key details is that there isn't really a form of software crash on OS X that could cause a mouse freeze. The mouse freezes when the kernel stops in its tracks and doesn't even have a chance to panic (or when the mouse cable gets disconnected).

+ spiral + · Mar 1, 2005, 12:21 AM

Originally posted by Detrius:
Well... it's possible that the bad RAM socket had corrupted your OS install at some point, but the only way that zeroing the data makes a difference is if it successfully maps out bad blocks--which implies a hardware problem. The key details is that there isn't really a form of software crash on OS X that could cause a mouse freeze. The mouse freezes when the kernel stops in its tracks and doesn't even have a chance to panic (or when the mouse cable gets disconnected).

Okay. That is scary but good information. Thank you!

Detrius · Mar 1, 2005, 12:31 AM

Originally posted by + spiral +:
Okay. That is scary but good information. Thank you!

I wondered about this for a while because my iBook was hard freezing every once in a blue moon... but then the logic board completely failed on me, and supposedly a third party RAM module as well. It hasn't frozen since. There hasn't been a software reinstall.