[geeks] The Woes of Mac Pro

[Mark Benson]

On 18 Aug 2008, at 23:25, Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> Same here.  4 x 2.66, 8GB RAM, 4 drivers, 8800GT.
>
> The GUI would go away, redrawing started working only  
> intermittently, things got really slow, parts of the GUI would fail  
> to repaint while others did, etc.  Lot's of texture corruption or  
> incorrect textures copied, etc.
>
> Frequently I had to force power off, but sometimes after awhile it  
> would "come back".

Well I'm glad, in a way, you are getting/have gotten it too.

> Something I saw which you don't mention, was a series of app crashes  
> in nvidia drivers or opengl, always at or near the same places.

Stuff font ant text related, like Mail.app. Using Safari with Flash  
sites like YouTube. it seems to be the same things time over that set  
it off, as you say.

> As I said, a re-install to 10.5.4 appears to have fixed most of my  
> problem.

Re-install?? Oh lord. Did you re-import your user profiles, /Apps, / 
Library and crap like that from your old setup or start totally afresh?

> I've been busy with work though, so I've not been doing a lot of  
> OpenGL games or anything like that.

It doesn't help that the *whole UI* is OpenGL powered though, you have  
to admit :P

> Still, so far it seems much better.

Hmmm... I'll grit my teeth and see if 10.5.5 shifts it. If not I may  
have to bite the bullet and reinstall. I hate having to do that on a  
Mac, it's UNIX, you shouldn't have to do dumb Windows crap like this :(

> Apple almost always denies well-known problems, sometimes to the  
> point of Air Force level insanity.  No QC problems and no Groom Lake  
> base.

And certainly no major bugs in Leopard... no way siree bob. Nope.  
Nothing to see hee.er./w.r';3';244,2 [ Address Exception

:)

> Yeah, I'm really hoping for an nVidia update.  Need it bad.

Yes, for the second time in Leopard's life cycle, the graphics drivers  
are screwed. Again.

>> Second, recently I moved my desk around and had to take all my  
>> stuff off. I took the opportunity to get the canned air out and  
>> blow the dust out of the Mac Pro.
>
> I've started doing that more often, once I realized that more dust  
> collected in there than I thought.

I was a little bit worried by just HOW much was in there. I hadn't  
done it since new though.

> I find that the airflow shrouds really get in the way of a good dust  
> blow out.  It's particularly hard to get all the dust out of the CPU  
> cooler because you can't easily reach it.

> It helps to start by blowing from the front and work back.

It'd help a ton if you could get to anything. It's not like a Sun or  
an IBM where you undo catch A and undo captive screw B and the fans  
slide out. I hate Apple's nice designs sometimes.

> I'd like to see future Mac Pro machines allow removing the airflow  
> shrouds to make cleaning easier.

That would encourage user servicing. We couldn't possibly have that.  
<Sound of sucking through gritted teeth> Hell no. :P :P

> I discovered that too.
>
> The issue is that the memory boards make a sound just pushing into  
> the slot, which can make you think they are fully seated.
>
> You want to hear a nice thump as it bottoms out in the slot.  That  
> usually means a good connection that won't work loose.  It might be  
> nice if they had included a slot lock.

Apparently that one even caught out some of the assembly line staff.  
In the early days a number of Pros turned up DOA from Apple. Apple  
advised that the machine should be opened and the RAM boards reseated  
before any warranty claim was processed. 99.99% of cases it was just  
the RAM boards weren't fitted right, so I guess I don't feel SP bad  
about that one :)

A slot lock would have been great but I don't see how you could make  
it work at that length of board, unless it was some insane contraption  
like SGI used to hold boards in... or maybe just a couple of tabs with  
those cute 'Erm, Mr Jobs, I can't actually do those up with my  
fingers' captive thumb screws they used to such total non-effect on  
the PCI-e slots :P

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://markbenson.org/blog>
Visit my Homepage: <http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson>

"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."