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How to track down a hard crash cause
This is a new HD editing system on an Octocore running FCP 6, a Kona 3 card and a MaxxDigital array. I’m just beginning to use it and it has operated very smoothly until yesterday.
I’m getting hard, sudden computer crashes with no warning while using FCP. They happen when I am actively editing or when I am just playing from the timeline; they occur at no particular place in the timeline. I don’t have any graphics in the project yet so there are no corrupt graphics files to track down.
In other words, I have almost no firm place to start searching down the cause of these shutdown. (By the way, the computer restarts itself after the shutdown, in case that matters.)
Any advice here on how to start narrowing down my search? I’m in the middle of a project and I can’t afford too much time loss.
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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Well, the crashes have stopped. I just started doing as many things as I could think of and at one point I got behind the computer to make sure the connections were all secure. I think one of my monitor connectors had come a bit loose. Should that cause hard crashes? I dunno. But the crashes have stopped.
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[Ron Craig] “I think one of my monitor connectors had come a bit loose. Should that cause hard crashes?”
Sure, a bad connection is like a short curcuit, they can cause a voltage dip or spike that could crash your computer. It usually the little things, Macs really don’t crash very often and that’s not just marketing hype.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I was going to suggest checking your power connection. It sounds to me like your computer is losing power and then restarting (because you have the sys prefs set to “restart automatically after power failure.”
You should have your mac hooked to a UPS/line conditioner – or a surge protector at the very least.
FCP Studio 2
Dual 3Gg Quad Core
5Gg RAM
KONA 2
OS 10.4.11 -
Hi Fred,
It seems pretty clear that this was the monitor connection. Thanks for the suggestion, though. BTW, when I bought the Octocore I spent $500 for an APC UPS. So power spikes, etc. better not be the problem!Ron
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