Do you have 4GB RAM? Are you crashing?

[Jerry Hofmann]

If you’re sure that the RAM chips are OK, then I’d suggest that you need to cleanly install your systems. Upgrading isn’t as reliable as a clean install.

In the lab I teach in, there are 23 quad intels with 4 gigs of RAM each. Haven’t seen a crash yet.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, Jerry,

Well, that pretty much answers that question. To answer yours, this problem has been consistent through SEVERAL complete reinstallations from the ground up. I mean, we have been fairly desperate here and have done everything that has been suggested over the year plus of this experience, including purchasing a whole new system. The fact that it appears to work almost perfectly with 2 GB of RAM but not with 4 GB would also seem to indicate that it’s not an installation problem.

The only other wildcard is the Kona 3. I can usually get my renders done fine by taking the Kona 3 card out of the machine, even with 4GB in there. AJA has been great to work with and has replaced the Kona 3 several times.

I have noticed that some other people do seem to have these kinds of problems, but others have absolutely solid systems. I have suspected some kind of preferences setting that is not intuitive is getting in the way through some leaky back channel or something, but I’ve been very careful to make sure with each of my installations, etc., to follow all directions.

The fact is that a properly-written program should not simply disappear regularly without some kind of error message that provides the user with a way to at least work around the problem, so it makes me irritated at FCP. But I also think it must be something I am doing that provokes some hidden piece of crummy code, since others with identical systems are fully functional.

Nevertheless, I’m stuck. Last night, for instance, I seriously needed a render to H.264. Left the Kona card in, asked for the render through QuickTime conversion, came back in the morning to a blank screen, Final Cut gone. No report menu, nothing. This happens all the time.

Sorry for the rant. It’s very frustrating. We need to be able to work with 4GB because with 2 we regularly get out of memory messages with the larger projects loaded.

Take care,

Mike

[Jeremy Garchow]

Do you use any 3rd party plug ins?

[Jason Porthouse]

Mike,

Must be really frustrating for you – made doubly bad by smart asses like me saying ‘I’ve never had a crash…’ – but it’s true. Worked on a G5 with 4 gigs for years and I can count crashes on one hand, and still have fingers left to type. So far, with about a week on my new MP, with 5 gigs in, nada.

Long shot but have you checked your mains? I’m trying to think of something constant that hasn’t altered (even though your system has). Are there any programs you have that you;ve ported from one mac to another? (specially if you used the migrate option when you got your new mac). I’d do a complete, clean install from scratch, load nothing but FCP, use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup and add any new software one bit at a time. Long process but it’s a bit like finding ut what food you’re allergic to…

Jason

[13]

[Mike Parfit] “Removing our Kona 3 helps a lot but I don’t want to do that.”

It could be a bad Kona card.

[Mike Parfit] “Then, to test the memory, I removed 2GB of the 4GB of RAM that I have. Worked much better. Ah, ha, must be bad memory. So I switched the stuff that worked with the memory I had removed and waited for the crashes. None. It simply worked much better with 2GB than with 4”

it could be the way that you paid them in the computer, or it could be the slots that you have put them in.

If the issue douse not happen with all the memory in (in the same slots as before) and with the Kona card removed then it is the Kona Card. If it happens without the Kona card then it is ether the pairing of the ram or the ran slots.

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, Jeremy,

Thanks for asking. We presently use Colorista. That’s all. However, we only started using it recently and the problem existed in exactly the present form throughout our use of FCP in these two machines. In addition, when we did the clean install recently I waited to install Colorista again until it was clear that we hadn’t solved the problem with the clean install.

We have gone through many, many procedures to try to fix this, including such things as making sure there are no 3rd party codecs in the QuickTime library, etc., etc. A thousand preference trashings with FCP Rescue. Regular system maintenance with Onyx. Making sure the PCI settings are correct for the Kona 3. Hardware tests. The problem never changes except when we take out the Kona 3 or half the memory.

Take care,

Mike

[Jeremy Garchow]

Uninstall/reinstall the Kona drivers.

[Mike Parfit]

Thanks,

We’ve had 3 Kona cards. No difference. The Kona seems to work fine if we just have 2 GB of RAM instead of 4. Only with 4 does it make a difference to take it out.

Mike

[Jerry Hofmann]

Under AppleCare? I’d have them look at it…might be a bad logic board, and when the chips are added, it’s problem comes to light?

I’d sure reinstall those Kona Drivers too.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Mike Parfit]

Hi, Jason,

No programs ported to the new Mac. Dedicated FCP machine. Even made sure Tiger didn’t load iLife. Installed iDVD only later. Did complete minimal reinstall of system and FCP on fresh hard drive.

Thanks for the ideas, though. I keep hoping it’s one of these really obvious things that everyone else does when they install or setup FCP and that I’m just missing. But I read all the instructions and do everything.

Mike