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timmerk · May 5, 2005, 07:34 PM

Hello,

I am posting this on behalf of my roommate, as I convinced him to buy a Mac about 4-5 months ago, after he was fed up with his Windows PC.

Anyways, his computer ran fine until Mac OS 10.4. The same thing keeps happening (i will explain below), if we do an Upgrade, Archive and Install, or Clean install, the same thing happens, even with a few or no apps installed. Since it does it with a clean install and 0 apps installed, we think it's 10.4's fault.

Anyways, here's what happens:

About 1-2 times a day, his computer seems to freeze. However if hold down a menu or something, it'll do the action about 45 seconds later. The dock also seems to be frozen for good though. I waited patiently to open Activity Monitor (took about 4 min to open) and checked for any apps that might be taking 100% CPU. But, to my surprise, there was none, and that the Activity Monitor was taking up the most CPU, at around 8-10%.

Also, when this happens, trying to restart from the Apple menu or by pressing the power key, everything quits, menu's close, icons disappear from desktop, everything normal, EXCEPT, the Dock does not close, and so the computer never restarts. My roommate then has to do a hard reset (holding down the power button for 5 sec)

This never happened in 10.3, so I think it's a bug in Tiger that has something to do with his hardware. I have included most of the System Profiler results here:

http://thelounge.org/specs.rtf

Does anyone know how we could fix this problem, or if it has been reported anywhere else? (I searched, could not find on the net) Would going to the Apple Store's Genius Bar do any good?

I really want my roommate's computer to work, as I got him to get it in the first place, and I feel guilty it's failing him now.

Thanks for any help or recommendations!

CaptainHaddock · May 5, 2005, 07:56 PM

I think it sounds like a hardware problem, even if it did just pop up.

Definitely take it to the Genius Bar. It's a new Mac, so one way or another, Apple has to fix it for him.

Big Mac · 08:46 PM

It sounds a lot like bad RAM. I would bet you $5 that it is, if I were a betting man. It (extremely low processor utilization) sounds very similar to what happened to my iBook when its DIMM went bad after a couple of years of fine service. Also, if you take a look at Detrius' freezing/crashing thread, you'll see him write that RAM problems are sometimes revealed after system upgrades.

Xeo · May 5, 2005, 08:51 PM

4-5 month old computer + problems with new software = get Apple to fix it. He's under warranty. It must be a hardware thing, even if it is a conflict between the software and the hardware. One way or the other, it is there problem to make sure it works.

Take it in.

NeilCharter · May 5, 2005, 10:53 PM

I agree with Xeo - it is apple's problem not yours.

If you can take it to an apple store - they'll fix it in a few days.

timmerk · May 5, 2005, 11:41 PM

Well, my roommate took it to the Apple Store tonight.. they ran some type of RAM check and that was it. They said it was fine and gave it back to him. What should I/he do now?

Big Mac · May 6, 2005, 02:32 AM

Originally Posted by timmerk

Well, my roommate took it to the Apple Store tonight.. they ran some type of RAM check and that was it. They said it was fine and gave it back to him. What should I/he do now?

Well, who called it?

The next question is was this third party RAM or Apple RAM. Once you answer that question the next step is obvious. If it's Apple's BTO RAM Apple needs to replace it. If it's third party RAM installed by a service provider, the service provider should service it. And if it's third party RAM user installed, get the RAM replaced under warranty and install the new module.

timmerk · May 6, 2005, 03:04 AM

It's Apple's BTO RAM.

CharlesS · May 6, 2005, 03:05 AM

Originally Posted by timmerk

Well, my roommate took it to the Apple Store tonight.. they ran some type of RAM check and that was it. They said it was fine and gave it back to him. What should I/he do now?

Wait... are you saying that they said it was the RAM or that they said it wasn't?

Big Mac · May 6, 2005, 03:59 AM

Oh, Charles, you're right. Tim's saying they found nothing wrong. Damn. I guess the next step would be to either take it to a more competent service provider (that particular genius obviously was not) or ship it off to Apple.

CharlesS · May 6, 2005, 04:11 AM

You could do the old bring it in, say you don't know if it's the RAM or not but obviously something's wrong with the machine since OS X doesn't usually lock up like that all the time, and tell him to fix it...

At any rate, if they can't figure out what's going on, they should just give you a replacement. This is not normal behavior for a Mac.

Sydney Tsai · May 6, 2005, 05:12 AM

I think it's Tiger's problem... The post described the problem never occurred in panther.. I would think he did something wrong after he archive install the tiger...

can you tell us what you did after you get tiger setup?

Sharky K. · May 6, 2005, 12:00 PM

Not installed extra software like gestures? (had the same problem with gestures installed)

timmerk · May 6, 2005, 04:08 PM

Nope, clean install with nothing.

TheTraveller · May 6, 2005, 06:04 PM

I am experiencing something like this too. I've had Tiger running for what, 3-4 days now, and it has frozen on me twice, whereas Panther ran just fine for months on end, except for some wake-from-sleep issues. I think this guy's MacMini RAM is fine and that there's some gremlin in Tiger.

TheTraveller · May 6, 2005, 06:06 PM

I am experiencing something like this too. I've had Tiger running for what, 3-4 days now, and it has frozen on me twice, whereas Panther ran just fine for months on end, except for some wake-from-sleep issues. I think this guy's MacMini RAM is fine and that there's some gremlin in Tiger. Oh, and I did a complete reformat and re-install of everything on my hard drive when I upgraded.

CaptainHaddock · May 6, 2005, 10:49 PM

It's still Apple's responsibility to fix it! Make sure they do.