Full Lock Up Crash Help???

[John Pale]

Very unusual. That type of freeze is extremely rare on OSX…probably indicates the problem is in hardware.

Offhand, I would say this is drive related..but its hard to say. Can you try different FW cables? Could also be your internal boot drive freezing…A physical problem, not a directory issue, that DW wont fix. When virtual memory accesses the bad sector, you freeze.

Bad RAM is also a possibility, but you have apparently been working for a while without problems, so that is probably not it.

[Walter Biscardi]

[pSquared] “I’ve tried re-install of everything, 5.0.4, OS 10.4.7 combo up daTE, (w/nothing connected except mouse
& key board). Disc Utility & Disc Warrior don’t turn up anything. As well as Repair Permissions”

This may be a case of updating the machine too far for your version of FCP. I believe I was running OS 10.4.3 with FCP 5.0.4 and I honestly can’t remember the version of Quicktime. You have to be careful when you’re running an older version of FCP that you don’t just keep blindly updating the computer because there are cases where the latest OS and latest Quicktime will actually cause problems for FCP. FCP 5.0.4 is definitely along those line, especially if you’re running the latest quicktime.

Another area to look at is how were the drives initialized? Did you simply hook them up and start editing or did you perform an “Erase Disk” when you attached them. Especially in the case of Firewire drives, they will simply mount on the desktop the first time you connect them. They should be erased anyway and initialized with your machine and your OS.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
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[Rj Miles]

I had very similar issues on my G5 2.oghz DP powermac.

I was getting the gray/black restart screen of death, freezes where a hard boot was required, failures to start up at all.

After much time changing ram, video cards, various external HD connections, I had no success.

Finally I bought the Apple tech Training course and it came with a special hardware test. This test showed CPU processor related issues with thermal calibration.

Apple sent a guy to my shop and swapped out the reported bad processor. The problem persisted. The apple tech made a second visit and replaced BOTH processor and the logic board. I have been trouble free ever since.

If you rig is still under warranty, I suggest calling tech support and requesting a service visit. If you have a local Apple store with a good service desk, this is also a good way to go if they are not overloaded with repairs.

If there is anything processor related, I sussget you humbly request they come back prepared to replace both processors and the logic board so you won’t need to schedule a 2nd tech visit.

Good luck.

[Eric Peterson]

Do you have any heat issues? Fans not working, dust bunnies in the grate, room temp to high? Just a thought.

[Phillip Powell]

…on the heat issue. I’m pretty anal about that & dust. I run a simple little remote thermometer w/an alarm on my G5 w/extra cooling fans around it and my drive arrays. Nothing ever gets above 25C/75F or so.

What’s the real stumper, it only happens when in FCP. Seems if it was bad board, or processor, or RAM or something like that, it’d happen at other times as well which it hasn’t so far.

Thanks for the input, I’ll keep working on it.

p2