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What is WRONG with my MAC G5?
Hi all,
I’ve posted several times about a number of problems I’ve been having that remain unresolved and would like to appeal once more for any possible solutions. I have a 6 year old 2GHz PowerPC G5 with 4GB of RAM, running FCS 6.0.6 and OS 10.5.8. I must reiterate that, despite the computer’s age, it was working just fine until a kernel panic in December that has since left the computer feeling sluggish, to say the least. I’ve performed a clean install (twice) of both the OS and FCS. I’ve bought new RAM and reseated in every possible way. I bought a new external harddrive (used to store my media) in case that was the culprit. I even took the computer and display into an Apple Store where they tested it for 2 days finding “nothing wrong with it”. Yet even they couldn’t get the “High” quality setting back in FCP. It defaults to medium now (unlike before). The computer’s internal drive has 30% free space. The external more than 15%. And naturally, I’ve repaired permissions and trashed pref files, etc., with no results. Oh! And I’ve run the Hardware Diagnostics disk, twice, and everything passes.
In addition to loss of high quality playback for HDV 30p, FCP is dropping frames left and right during capture — things it never did before. And I am now noticing performance problems outside of FCP. It takes the Finder forever to calculate file sizes, for instance. Then there’s the sleep issue. If I put the computer to sleep, it crashes every single time with the fans coming on doing the jet engine thing…
I think I’ve found some suspicious items in the console logs. But I don’t have a clue how to accurately read them or fix the problem. Can someone please help me?
The windowserver_last.log is full of the following:
May 21 10:57:47 [52] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowWorkspace: invalid window id: a2
May 21 10:58:33 [52] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application “Final Cut Pro” for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
May 21 10:59:42 [52] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application “Final Cut Pro” for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.
May 21 11:03:52 [52] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application “Final Cut Pro” for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled them.Then there’s these ones that keep popping up in the console or system logs:
24/05/10 1:47:43 PM /Applications/Final Cut Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Final Cut Pro[115] _RemoveTimeTask(), the current time manager task 0x416c943c being removed is also currently executing its tmAddr routine, so unexpected things may result ( Radar #4555679 ).
24/05/10 1:48:39 PM Final Cut Pro[115] startDelayedNoDataDetection(the startdelayed… is probably due to dropped frames during capture with stop/start detection on)
These ones are less frequent, but still showing up:
22/05/10 6:30:17 PM Dock[104] [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 17 16:22:07 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[100]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 18 08:56:18 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[96]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 18 13:03:07 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[101]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 19 11:47:56 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[112]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 19 14:31:15 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder[118]: StatusMonitor::volumesChangedCallBack returned -47
May 19 15:23:14 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[102]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 21 09:54:32 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[102]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have
May 21 14:28:45 macdaddys-power-mac-g5 Finder[111]: [QL ERROR] Generator database update takes too long… we will use what we currently have22/05/10 6:30:31 PM quicklookd[123] [QL ERROR] ‘Creating thumbnail’ timed out for ”
23/05/10 2:27:25 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.aslmanager) Throttling respawn: Will start in 3 seconds
23/05/10 2:27:28 PM com.apple.quicklook[109] invalid #-escape sequence.
23/05/10 2:27:28 PM com.apple.quicklook[109] encountered unexpected object type: 7.
23/05/10 2:27:29 PM com.apple.launchd[78] ([0x0-0xd00d].com.apple.AddressBook.abd[112]) Check-in of Mach service failed. PID 112 is not privileged: com.apple.AddressBook.abd
23/05/10 2:27:29 PM com.apple.quicklook[109] xref table size mismatch: calculated 462; /Size = 463.===============
If I had the money, of course I’d buy another computer. But I don’t. And deep inside, I still believe there’s a fix…Chris
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24 Replies
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When you re-installed the OS had you refomatted the drive or has it been touched through all this?
Jim McNally
The Commercial Factory
http://www.commercialfactory.com -
In the past I had a Power Mac G5 (June 2004) that exhibited these symptoms.
I can’t remember the specific console info I got at the time, but I did have the other symptoms namely, sluggish performance, sleep issues, jet engine fans, resulting in having to do hard shut downs everytime. It started with one big kernel panic and slowly went downhill from there.
Like you I ran hardware test and everything was okay. Took it in to Apple and they repalced the video card, but it didn’t help.
Then I noticed that the symptoms would only manifest themselves after a period of use (as opposed to say within the first 30 minutes of use).
I took my machine back to Apple and told them that they needed to leave the machine on for a while (I think I told them to leave it on for an hour before testing it). It was only then that they were able to replicate the issues you describe.
As a result of this, they replaced the logic board and a multiptrocessor in my machine and it was flawless after that. Not sure if your issue is the same as what mine was, but I just wanted to let you know that I tried EVERYTHING (I think I ran a few terminal commnads too), but nothing.
I can’t say whether your issue was exactly the same as mine, but just wanted to let you know that I tried for an extended period of time (days) and was never able to figure it out, but the logic board and multiprocessor fixed the issues I was having. If it is the logic board on your machine, it cold be expensive to fix through Apple so be careful.
You may want to put the iStat Pro widget on your machine to see if one of the multiprocessors is running considerably hotter than the other.
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Thanks Eddie. I do get better performance out of FCP in the first half hour or so, and have actually been restarting quite frequently to improve capture. Hmm. I can pay for another diagnostics ($110), or try replacing the video card myself and see what happens (if I can find one cheap enough, but logic board… probably too pricey and not worth it. Must give this some thought.
Jim: I didn’t do any kind of re-formatting. I just ran the erase and install OS Leopard, I think, from the startup disk, then did the updates…
Also, it might be worth noting that I experienced a weird glitch with the display last week. When I turned the computer on, the display stayed black. The display light flashed several times, in series of 3’s, I think, fast ones. I restarted and everything went been back to usual.
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I went back and dug up my Work Authorization Agreement from 2005.
Initially they did the following repairs which didn’t work.
1 x HARDWARE REPAIR-LEVEL 2
1 x Card, Video, NV40On the second visit they did the following which fixed it.
1 x Board, Logic, H
1 x Multiprocessor, Dual 2.5In the notes it says “top processor fan running a bit hotter then bottom” I’m not sure if that was my note to them or their observation.
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Your hard drives are close to full. That would explain the dropped frames.
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I’ve had success with strange, non explainable problems doing what is described here; https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417
Booting into Safe mode and running FSCK twice /sbin/fsck -fy from the command line. Works for software problems. Would maybe help determine if it is hardware problem.
Jim McNally
The Commercial Factory
http://www.commercialfactory.com -
I agree it does sound like it is most likely a bad processor or logic board.
Where your machine is 6 years old unfortunately Apple won’t be able to repair it. They only get parts for computers for 5 years I think. You could try a non apple owned repair place if you want but really putting money into a machine that old is not a good idea. Put the money into a NEW machine.
Hindsight is always 1080p
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“Also, it might be worth noting that I experienced a weird glitch with the display last week. When I turned the computer on, the display stayed black.”
Yes that is definitely worth noting. On my work authorization, that was one of the notes as well “Unit boots to no video intermittently”. That would manifest itself after using the G5 for about 1/2 hour or so too.
I’d have the issues described in the original post, then I would need to reboot and it would intermittently boot to black. The key word being “intermittent” because it wouldn’t happen every time. That’s why they had a hard time replicating it. I think that was what lead them to first replace the video card which was unsuccessful.
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