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Just bought a new mac, tell me if you like the specs. (pg. 6)
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View this Thread in Original format
| Mel David |
I saw on another thread that Clooney has all these external hard drives, and made a tower out of them. I just want to point out another possibility for your Mac crashing. If just a single one of your externals has a faulty hard drive or faulty hard drive controller, then that could be the cause.
I've had instances where I was just trying to log in and I get nothing but a spinning beachball, the iMac appears frozen. I usually just do a cold reboot, to get it working again.
But then I began to suspect it could be an external device, so I started turning off one device at a time. Turned off the printer. No change. Then I turned off my Time Machine hard drive which was connected to a Firewire port. As soon as I turned that off, the iMac unfroze. Bingo!
Disk Utility finds nothing wrong with the Time Machine hard drive though.
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And my desktop PC, refuses to boot if the cheap Epson multifunction printer is connected to USB and turned on. This one gave me headaches for a long time until I found out it was the printer that was giving me boot issue. No wonder the printer was on clearance for $39. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
those are thunderbolt drives for my macbook.
I do weekly surface scans. No external hardrives for the mac pros.
And it will power off while still running the EFI. CPU temp is fine. It is eradit. Usually if i take everything apart and put it back together, it runs fine.
But this time, i'm having trouble. Ram has been tested for hours. SMC reset, and NVRAM PRAM as well.
Trust me, i have tried everything one could. I just don't have time to worry about this kind of . |
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| TranceLover007 |
Can you run check on your internal HD ???
Cheers |
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| Looney4Clooney |
yup
i've tried new psu
new video card
ram
New install
checked every single capacitor
looked for any hairline cracks on the board.
come on guys. Give me a little credit. It is a problem others have too.
I'm going to try a last ditch effort and remove the cpu and see if there is anything weird and replace the thermal bond. |
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| TranceLover007 |
Sorry man I meant HD as hardrive lol, we have not exactly the same problem like yours but very similar and right before we have to repair our mac it start to acting really weird and lock-up on us few good times before went south for good - problem was this hardrive.
Cheers |
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| Looney4Clooney |
doesn't lock up. It just powers off. And then sometimes when you press on before even loading the EFI loader , it shuts off. Not a hardrive issue. I mean it would be logical that this is somehow related to the cpu thinking it is too hot but it seems to work for a bit if i say swap the ram risers. Or just change the ram order. It has happened before, but this time, i'm having a heck of atime getting it working. THe last time it ran fine for 4 months.
i'm going to just take everything apart and clean the logic board. |
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| DJ RANN |
Ok, I've come across this a few times as well, when doing tech support.
I swear we can fix this (cue A team theme)
please answer each of these and I reckon we'll find the culprit....
1, Do you have any of the internal drives in any type of raid configuration?
2, List all the drives (be specific)
3, What EFI are you using?
4, Have you run the Apple Hardware Test?
5, I take it you properly reset the SMC?
6, What temp/sensor monitor are you running? (use istat pro or hardware monitor)
7, Have you replaced any parts inside?
8, Do you have any fan controller software installed? |
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| TranceLover007 |
Man, just ignore this if I don't make any sense at all - is there any way you can swap your battery, some of those mac had bad battery issues - just an idea
Cheers |
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| Looney4Clooney |
1. no
2. Just root. Still happens. Also with new install on fully formatted drive
3. EFI 1.3
4. Yes
5. Yup.
6. none , tried smc fan control to see if that helped and got the readings from this app i can't remember the name. but it doesn't load automatically and i installed it when i started getting these issues.
7. No. Bought a new power supply , but same issue. So i just kep the old one and tested all the connections with a meter. Oh and new CMOS battery.
8. No.
for some reason , things seem to work if i do things with the ram risers. Like say i just put 2 sticks. And if it shuts , i switch the riser and it will work for a few days. Long enough to test the ram for hours.
Man if have come across this and fixed it, i mean i think i fixed it before , just don't know what exact steps i did. But if you know the order , i would be so happy. I love my older mac pro more than my newer one. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
1, Do you have any of the internal drives in any type of raid configuration?
1. no
2, List all the drives (be specific)
2. Just root. Still happens. Also with new install on fully formatted drive
3, What EFI are you using?
3. EFI 1.3
4, Have you run the Apple Hardware Test?
4. Yes
5, I take it you properly reset the SMC?
5. Yup.
6, What temp/sensor monitor are you running? (use istat pro or hardware monitor)
6. none , tried smc fan control to see if that helped and got the readings from this app i can't remember the name. but it doesn't load automatically and i installed it when i started getting these issues.
7, Have you replaced any parts inside?
7. No. Bought a new power supply , but same issue. So i just kep the old one and tested all the connections with a meter. Oh and new CMOS battery.
8, Do you have any fan controller software installed?
8. No.
for some reason , things seem to work if i do things with the ram risers. Like say i just put 2 sticks. And if it shuts , i switch the riser and it will work for a few days. Long enough to test the ram for hours.
Man if have come across this and fixed it, i mean i think i fixed it before , just don't know what exact steps i did. But if you know the order , i would be so happy. I love my older mac pro more than my newer one.
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My money is on it being a sensor issue. The fact it shuts down before you can even boot up makes me think it's one of the first functions that the mac performs which is to check all the sensors.
Final question: What ram are you using? Is it a matched pair?
My money is on the sensor issue, and it may be related to the heat sink paste being cooked over time and causing the cpu to get too hot which registers a error with the sensor causing immediate shutdown.
Here's what to do:
1, install this
http://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html
This will tell you the temp, current and fan speed of everything in your system.
install this and report back here. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
ya that is what i had. All the values where acceptable. Not even close to something one would worry about. I installed it after i had these issues about a year ago. The ed up thing is that it leaves no log. THere is no system log when it shuts down. My theory is that the SMC board is poop.
ram is all matched. While trying to fix things. I'm using just 2 sticks. THen it ran for 3 days and in that time, i tested that ram for 2 days. Left it on another day and then out of nowhere, it shuts down. And when it shuts down, it doesn't restart. Almost like it feels it needs to wait. Which makes me thing it could also be some weird thing with the CPU. Dust and some contacts are not jiving ? |
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| Looney4Clooney |
here is one thing that might help
when i press the SMC reset switch , that white thing near the pcie slots, it does something like you hear it and then the LEDs near the risers show 2 red for the CPUs. Not sure if this is just what it does Haven't tried it on other systems. But when you press the led diagnostic button any other time, it is fine.
Not sure what exactly should happen when you press that white button. Like should it reboot ? I have to turn it off, then press the power button again. |
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